Got what I think might be a new question

[Ol'fogasaurus]

On K&L front beams there are kits for stronger lower leaves (~ 15% or 20% stronger) for the torsion tube (where most of the work is done) and through rods for the upper tube in the beam to lighten up the suspension for light weight toys like a rail or maybe even a buggy. Bouncy/stiff front beams are a problem with a glass buggy, especially a shorter wheel base buggy.

For BJ beams stronger springs are not available and I am not sure about the K&L through rods; length would probably be the main question. So, as a question/thought: will the through rods fit the BJ beam and....

Since a sway bar is not really more than a torsional spring tied to the two lower trailing arms to allow the two different sides of the beam to work somewhat together and share some loads... could a stock or beefed torsion bar be clamped onto the upper arms like or similar to the bottom arms and then used as a light weight spring?

Lee

[Ol'fogasaurus]

Hmmm! no opinions.

Since I am also in the middle of working on steering problems on my black buggy build so the front suspension is on my mind among other things. I was given two beams that I am tearing apart right now; I think I might build one of them, not the best one mind you but the other one which also seems to be OK, just a bit more work to inspect and fix the one place on one of the lower shock towers with the idea of putting either a stock sway bar on the top trailing arm or going to a stiffer (competition?) one if it seems to be wimpy for what I think I need.

Those of us that play with glass buggies, street rails or Bwahahas' where the fuel tank is moved to the rear. With all the weight removed; e.g., body and the fuel moved to the rear the front suspension can get a bit stiff and bouncy. The idea here was to allow the front suspension to work and follow the contour of the terrain besides having a better ride. I don't think this would be a great idea for those who like to jump their rigs or use the front suspension as a battering ram.

I went onto Dan's Performance (http://www.dansperformanceparts.com/) web site yesterday to see what it was like as he has posted here and it pretty knowledgeable on VW stuff. His site is well set up so I looked around at what he sells and maybe got some good or bad ideas:

As far as the through rods goes; he sells them singularly or in pairs (http://www.dansperformanceparts.com/san ... -each.html). What I don't know here is: will the K&L through rods fit through the center locking place on the BJ beam and is the end shaped to fit a K&L only or will it fit on/through the BJ trailing arms. If you zoom in on the picture the rod ends are threaded. The end pieces are priced separately (http://www.dansperformanceparts.com/off ... -each.html).

On the bottom tube the obligatory Sway-A-Way style of adjuster will be added with no adjuster added to the upper tube unless I need to remove the through rod and put a stock spring stack in if my radical idea doesn't work.

Looking at, but not measuring, the top trailing arm thickness seems to be close in size to the lower arms. I haven't looked at them this morning as I have some other stuff to do that is more important than toys but there could be a small boss on the lower arms but again I am not sure right now.(http://www.dansperformanceparts.com/str ... es-ea.html

As far as the front sway bar goes I don't think I have one as I think I cut the one I had up years ago so I might have to buy one (http://www.dansperformanceparts.com/str ... later.html). As far as performance sway bars I didn't see any.

I will also have to add the mandatory hook and pin stops, weld all the seams and stiffen up the shock towers (I now prefer to use angle iron as it give you a triangle rather than a single stiffening piece).

I'm not sure if I am going to pull the beam bearings and press in the sleeves but I am thinking about it.

For the first of the two beams I am going to stay with the stock trailing arms and spindles but the second beam will get the Thing arms and spindles I built a few years ago.

It looks like one could throw a bunch of $$$ at this but if it works out it might be worth it assuming you are stuck using a BJ beam and suspension. I have an existing BJ beam build going so if I do this I will probably use that build to continue this on.

Any opinions on this?

Lee

[Ian Godfrey]

bit late to answer but there is a swayaway 15% stiffer set available for ball joint front ends. i use a set in my road race KG. https://swayaway.com/product/torsion-le ... 5-stiffer/

[Marc]

bit late to answer but there is a swayaway 15% stiffer set available for ball joint front ends. i use a set in my road race KG. https://swayaway.com/product/torsion-le ... 5-stiffer/

Yep. Bought a set and used half of 'em in my daily driver and the rest in my son's baja.

[Ol'fogasaurus]

Thanks Ian. I was not aware of that. I think it makes things a bit easier.

Lee

[Ol'fogasaurus]

Ian, Marc, did you use the stronger torsion leaves alone, with through rods in the upper tube or in conjunction with the stock upper torsion leaves still in place?

I really appreciated the info on and where you can get the torsion leaves.

Lee

[Ol'fogasaurus]

I looked them up. Three leaves (if I understood it correctly) $198 (could not grab the URL).

[FJCamper]

Hi Fog,

Am I reading you right that your idea was to rig a transverse leaf spring across the top of the VW beam axle acting on the trailing arms?

And this would require a through-rod kit, to disable torsion bar springing in one tube.

Actually, aside from some space issues, you could probably do that. And it would probably work.

Of course, before you start welding, do consider that many years of dune buggy bouncing might have contributed to bruised neurons! For us road racers, it's accumulated carbon monoxide.

FJC

[Ol'fogasaurus]

Hi Fog,

Am I reading you right that your idea was to rig a transverse leaf spring across the top of the VW beam axle acting on the trailing arms?

And this would require a through-rod kit, to disable torsion bar springing in one tube.

Actually, aside from some space issues, you could probably do that. And it would probably work.

Of course, before you start welding, do consider that many years of dune buggy bouncing might have contributed to bruised neurons! For us road racers, it's accumulated carbon monoxide.

FJC

Thanks FJ, that is what I was hoping to hear. The thru rod I wasn't too sure about as far as clearance through the center of the upper tube goes but since I found out for sure that it looks be a round rod it is looking better. Add to that the 15% stronger lower spring pack and I may not need to go with too much over a stock rating on the sway bar that you referred to as a transvers leaf spring.

One of the benefits of a buggy is that there is a lot of room up front especially if the fuel tank is moved to the rear.

I've been bouncing around on the sand for only a few years; maybe the early '90's. I know I almost killed myself out on the dunes in '91when I dropped/fell off a rope swing (somewhere between 10' and 15') less than 6 mos. after a triple bi-pass. I was surprised that not only my "zipper" (where they split my rib cage and wired it back together) stayed intact but the new blood vessels stayed sewn together.

[Ol'fogasaurus]

I was hoping for the "am I missing something" kind input. If you get deep enough into a subject you can get embroiled in internal arguments to the point where you often miss the obvious or miss things completely.

Again, this would not work if you are an aggressive off-roader or even an on-roader. I have seen people bring new to them rails and buggies out and by noon they were so badly trashed that they weren't worth fixing. I remember quite a few years ago a guy not getting past the first dune out of camp before he had to be towed back and had to sit in camp alone or be a rider for the trip (after talking to them I was told why no one would allow him to drive their toy as he was just too hard on things).

For some reason, I have problems getting into certain web sites. Yesterday, after many tries, I finally got into the VW part of Sway-a-way. I can't copy URLs there but I was able to manure around a bit and was able to see the 15% stronger front leaf package.

[buildabiggerboxer]

we also have cheapo brazilian uprated spring packs available here that ive run trouble free, back awhile i ran double ARBs on customer Beetle cup race cars in the '90s, the spare wheel well needs clearencing for the upper bar to go on, and on some tracks or for the rain the lower bar would be removed, we had bolted clamps just for the quick release job.

[Ol'fogasaurus]

Thanks BBB, I wasn’t aware of the Brazilian heavy duty BJ spring stacks either.

Since I went to Win 10 I have been having a lot of trouble visiting places. STF is getting harder and harder access and to post to and if I try to have STF and Photobucket up at the same time one or both of them won’t work or work correctly. Sometimes it takes many tries to post here now so now I have to do the whole thing in word then cut and paste that here. At the rate it is going I may not be able to post here much longer. Both my PC and laptop are having the same problems and even having them checked professionally doesn’t seem to solve the problem.



The first try at this type of beam build will go into this short wheel base buggy then if it works OK…



This will take the second beam if the first one works out OK.

The front suspension being stiff is a problem with these light weight cars especially when the fuel tank is moved to the rear.

Again, thanks for the information.

Lee

[Marc]

...Since I went to Win 10 I have been having a lot of trouble visiting places. STF is getting harder and harder access and to post to and if I try to have STF and Photobucket up at the same time one or both of them won’t work or work correctly. Sometimes it takes many tries to post here now...

Sounds less like an O/S problem than a browser issue. Are you using Microsoft's Edge now? I experienced no slowdowns when I upgraded, but I've (almost exclusively) used Mozilla Firefox all along.
Biggest problem I was having was pages failing to load properly due to script errors, which could make a page "hang" for several minutes - that drove me to install the NoScript extension for Firefox. It disables scripts by default, making an extra step necessary (most often I click "temporarily allow all on this page" - or "allow all on this page" for ones which I frequent and have no script errors") but IMO it's worth it.

[Ol'fogasaurus]

My tablet is Firefox... problems. PC and laptop Edge... worsing all the time. Photobucket has become horrible to work with. If Photobucket loaded before STF first then it might work but usually not the other way around and that is just a start.

I think there might be an age problem with the PC but the other 2 are less than a year old.

I've always had problems with computers; at work there was a question if I was going to be able to use them as I could walk by a PC and it would crash. A long time ago.

I will have to check into the script thing.

Thanks

[Marc]

Ian, Marc, did you use the stronger torsion leaves alone, with through rods in the upper tube or in conjunction with the stock upper torsion leaves still in place?...

The SAW BJ springs replace the middle two in each stack ("#4 & 5") with a single thicker one, and the "split" ones ("#2 & 7") with single, wider leafs. The 2 single narrow leaves (#1 & #7 positions) and the 3rd & 6th ones in the stack remain stock.
I assume the claimed "20% stiffer than stock" rating assumes you'll be doing both upper & lower stacks.

I wasn't present when my son installed ours (I was still recuperating from joint replacement surgery) but if I understood him correctly he used 3 of the 6 leaves he purchased in the lower stacks of both of our cars, leaving the top stacks all-stock. I could not find anywhere that published the count included in P/N 6002 (some sites confuse it with the K&L parts count in their description) - it could be 3 or it could be 6, you'll need to ask them. Judging by the price I think it's 3 since the K&L sets cost twice as much - my son bought ours and I never saw the receipt, so I don't know if he bought 1 or 2 sets. Shop around though, some places sell at below list price...for instance: http://www.ebuggies.com/VW-Leaf-Springs ... w-6002.htm

Here's the link to the instructions:
https://swayaway.com/wp-content/uploads ... 6/9906.pdf

edit 9/19/16: came across a photo that my son took of the SAW springs - he put them in the UPPER tube, no the lower...probably the better choice since those BJs are under compression when laden. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v212/ ... tiffer.jpg