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Was thinking about turning the Baja into a volksrod I’m not an off-road guy.

Though I haven’t seen many on here. Thoughts?


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Schweg wrote:Was thinking about turning the Baja into a volksrod I’m not an off-road guy.

Though I haven’t seen many on here. Thoughts?


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Hey Schweg what about a street baja? I've seen a couple turn out pretty sweet:) good work btw

I like the street Bajas for sure, I’m just looking at things to do. I’m slim on cash so body mods are higher on the list right now.

You could always cut and turn the beam or weld adjusters and re-index the rear torsions:)

V8Nate wrote:You could always cut and turn the beam or weld adjusters and re-index the rear torsions:)

I’m not 100% sure what your talking about but now I need to look it up.




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Cutting and turning each beam, then re-weld it. Just another way to raise or lower the front without having to put adjusters in.

buguy wrote: ↑Fri Mar 13, 2020 5:54 pm Cutting and turning each beam, then re-weld it. Just another way to raise or lower the front without having to put adjusters in.

If you look at Jeff Hibbards's book "Baja Bugs & Buggies" on page 52 Jeff talks a bit about rotating vs. adjusters. Some people, mostly races it seems, cut and turn both torsion tube doing one then after it is done then the other one. A couple of things is the racers find that the torsion leaves start to sag after 3 or 4 races (I know, you aren't racing but for info I included it). He talks about several other things that can be done at the same time; e.g., "... the more travel the suspension has, the lower the spring rate needed,"

The other thing is if you change the preload you also change the spring rate to be higher hence a stiffer front suspension. You could only do one of the torsion tubes which will change the spring rate a bit by taking some of the upper torsion bar's rate out of normal driving and having it apply only with more than normal suspension travel. This is the same as you could do with adjusters on both tubes or only the top tube of the beam only.

On a BJ beam in my beam build I talk about what I learned about changing over to Bus spindles. If you can find it the title is: "Basic Off-road Ball-Joint Beam rebuild PT 2 starts on p. 13". The page 13 thing is still on the weld table but still needs to be done. I still have the pix if you want me to add them.

If you have a BJ or K&L beam you should also add stops as stock design has the shocks as the limiting device on compression.

Lee

Update: I found the bj beam build but Photobucket has screwed up the pix.
This shows the stock bug spindle and the stock bus spindle.

Thanks Lee.

I’m not sure I am ready to pull her off the road for all that learning. And if I went through all that it would be on a spare beam.


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Schweg wrote: ↑Sat Mar 14, 2020 3:45 am Thanks Lee.

I’m not sure I am ready to pull her off the road for all that learning. And if I went through all that it would be on a spare beam.


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There is off-road and there is off-road look . Its funny: "no want to off-road" often turns to off-road as man's fight with inanimate objects can be a very "hooded" want sometimes (the nasty inanimate objects [grrrr]). I've seen glass street buggies that were at show perfection on the ocean beaches and the same with Baja's. Toys are sadistic SOBs sometimes and will fool you into doing something you don't want or plan for... kind of like...

The rest of the post, about the beam manipulation is pretty accurate I think and I have seen both ways in use along with the "crabbing" about the way they went. If you do go with adjusters download the how to off the web then go through it and, (if you are doing BJ) block out the K&L part and some other parts that don't affect what level you are working at as it is easy to slide into the wrong build if you aren't careful.

Lee

I’m firmly in the pavement only category for this build. Maybe I’ll build a dirt only car some day but not soon.




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Looking to aim for a style very similar to this!

Now to figure out what all the mods are.

Looks like a chop And a beam extension not 100% sure what else. Though I’m loving the look.

I guess it is a Baja but not the direction I was thinking you were heading. Looks like fun though.

Lee

Ol'fogasaurus wrote:I guess it is a Baja but not the direction I was thinking you were heading. Looks like fun though.

Lee

Lee I don’t have access to dunes or trails. If I did then it would be a different story.


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Not sure I would put that much power to an extended front end or reversed front end like one I’ve seen close up.
You need something that handles good..
I’m fortunate that my buggy drives like it’s on rails at up to 110 mph. It does wag its tail when doing full throttle hard shifts and it has a go where you point it attitude.
Putting down the hammer and shifting hard while in a corner is asking for trouble...I did it once when it was a little foggy and the road was damp. I haven’t done it since.....

Clonebug wrote:Not sure I would put that much power to an extended front end or reversed front end like one I’ve seen close up.
You need something that handles good..
I’m fortunate that my buggy drives like it’s on rails at up to 110 mph. It does wag its tail when doing full throttle hard shifts and it has a go where you point it attitude.
Putting down the hammer and shifting hard while in a corner is asking for trouble...I did it once when it was a little foggy and the road was damp. I haven’t done it since.....

Well.... maybe I’ll just lower mine a bit or just save the money I don’t have for modifications at the moment. I’m just trying to figure out what direction to go.

Mine wiggles around a bit but tracks straight during pulls. Though some new rims won’t hurt.




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