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narrowed trailing arms need help?????????

Posted: Mon Nov 24, 2008 2:15 pm
by bakersfieldvwparts
who does these anymore. i know you used to be able to buy them out of the mags but dont remember who used to sell them also what other mods need to be made. need aprox one inch per side to tuck a customers desired rims. any help???????????

Posted: Mon Nov 24, 2008 7:14 pm
by sideshow

Re: narrowed trailing arms need help?????????

Posted: Sat Jul 30, 2011 1:19 am
by Piledriver
bakersfieldvwparts wrote:who does these anymore. i know you used to be able to buy them out of the mags but dont remember who used to sell them also what other mods need to be made. need aprox one inch per side to tuck a customers desired rims. any help???????????

Reviving an old post, I recently checked and John only had his personal set available, and the actual MFR doesn't have stock/stock jigs anymore due to no demand.

Just to clarify--- There are two "narrowed" setups---
The arms aircooled.net sold used shorter axles and move the HUB in, not the spring plate like a narrow torsion setup.
(That may or may NOT be what you want. Edit---RLR sells some bits to aid in that potentially huge project...)

Unless you have undying love for some particular wheels only available in a funky offset that justifies dropping ~$1K in parts for 1 inch/side, it's a no-op.
When they were $250/pair no one wanted them, soooo...

For Really Huge Meats under stock fenders, tubbing and a narrowed rear torsion/TA setup is what's required to keep the rim off the spring plate.
Oddly, the std torsion bar will work fine--- just add some tubing to the spring plate bit it goes into to extend it the same amount.
The track width may or may not change, up to you as you get to make the trailing arms unless you go wider, IIRC +1" wider/std length is available, but the spring plate mount needs to move in and change shape etc)

At least a T3 rear torsion unbolts...
(Yes, I have looked into this recently)

Anyplace that sells tubular TA setups in STOCK length/widths can probably set you up for that, and with coil over mounts if desired.
(Wider/longer is easy to find... stock is hard-- might be best to make your own jigs and just make them)

Re: narrowed trailing arms need help?????????

Posted: Sat Nov 26, 2011 7:46 pm
by Bruce2
Piledriver wrote:
bakersfieldvwparts wrote:who does these anymore. i know you used to be able to buy them out of the mags but dont remember who used to sell them ....
Reviving an old post, I recently checked and John only had his personal set available, and the actual MFR doesn't have stock/stock jigs anymore due to no demand.

When they were $250/pair no one wanted them, soooo...
The demand was there. About 75 people bought them.

Re: narrowed trailing arms need help?????????

Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 6:50 pm
by Default2682
I just got some from a local guy for 65 beetle with IRS, I think they were 300 for the work and 200 for the axles. The guys name is Daryl and he goes by Bugzyla on the samba and az Baja.com..

Re: narrowed trailing arms need help?????????

Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 7:11 pm
by Steve Arndt
Bugzilla, the ball joint to link pin arm converZion guy on the samba, has narrow arms and wider trailing arms

Re: narrowed trailing arms need help?????????

Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 7:13 pm
by Steve Arndt
Bruce, how many sets did you sell when you were making them?

John was selling BCR arms if I'm correct. $500 a pair. A good price if you can't fabricate, don't own a welder, don't have a shop, or spare parts. A great price in fact.

The amount of work invested in them isn't worth it when cheap asZ vw owners want parts for free.

Re: narrowed trailing arms need help?????????

Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 7:24 pm
by Piledriver
Steve Arndt wrote: The amount of work invested in them isn't worth it when cheap asZ vw owners want parts for free.
True, but we'll spend $800 on a welder and spend 2 days welding in floor pan patches.
(before we are finally 100% certain our New TIG welder really is a fully borked POS and finish it in an hour with our $50 old HF MIG)

BTW, A 3-3.5" (total) narrowed T3 torsion is about all you can get w/o modifying the torsion <>body bolt setup.
If you go there, I don't know what the safe/sane limit would be.(I guess it would be ~where the valve covers start)
Tubbing it looks reasonably straightforward by comparison.

Re: narrowed trailing arms need help?????????

Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 7:30 pm
by Ol'fogasaurus
BCR once said he made an adjustable jig to make many different sized arms; as I remember, I think it was very adjustable. I wonder if it can be adjusted to go smaller than larger than stock? I wonder if it is worth contacting Marc @ mailto:[email protected]

Lee

Re: narrowed trailing arms need help?????????

Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 7:41 pm
by Piledriver
Ol'fogasaurus wrote:BCR once said he made an adjustable jig to make many different sized arms; as I remember, I think it was very adjustable. I wonder if it can be adjusted to go smaller than larger than stock? I wonder if it is worth contacting Marc @ mailto:[email protected]

Lee
IIRC I contacted him to no avail, (he made them for John, right?) he said he had scrapped or repurposed the narrowed arm jig.
(I can't find the email, had a drive start to die awhile back and didn't recover everything from backup)

I almost sprung for a set from John until I figured out all they gave you was the ability to run wheels with the wrong offset.

If I'm going to spend $$$ on something like this, it needs to allow $$$ more wheel//rubber, not the same as stock with some weird wheel offset.
I still can't see much value of this type of "narrowed arm"/axle setup, but I don't have much of a wheel fetish.
(no, I won't discuss the 18x11/18x8 996 TTs for the 914... :lol: )