Beam Adjusters and Ghia Spindles the Answer?

[Shane Tuttle]

I'm restoring my '74 Standard Sun Bug Beetle. Going to install a 2110. Wanting to convert to disc brakes all around. I'm trying to eat my cake and eat it, too. I want to lower the front and rear just enough to close the gap a little bit between the tires/fenders. I really don't want to go with wider fenders to gain clearance and would hope to stay with stock width front beam. I'm setting up for mainly highway speeds (Montana has speed limits up to 80mph) and taking curves in the mountains with ease. I do not want to slam the ride. Just lower it an inch or 2. Do you think I can get away with using these variables?

Cip1 has these wheels: https://www2.cip1.com/ProductDetails.as ... 2DEIC%2DMB
Install adjusters on my stock beam.
Install Ghia spindles and use Ghia calipers/rotors/pads. (Use the stock master cylinder)

I was told if I used drop spindles it would be a set drop amount with no adjustment and my ride will be pretty bouncy on less than perfect roads. Using Ghia spindles minimizes the increase of overall width of the front end?

Am I on the right track? It's frustrating to figure out what will or will not work without wasting money on buying items that I later needed to do.

[Ol'fogasaurus]

Using both upper and lower adjusters allows the front lifted or dropped/lowered but I am not sure about how much at full adjustment. One other thing about adjusters is tuning the front end by adding or reducing the adjustment of either one or both spring loading.

Cutting and turning the both beams at the jam screws or just one is another option but this is not something you can return to stock height easily.

Dropped spindles is also an either or nor situation like cutting and turning the spline jam screws.

Lee

[chickensoup]

you need two beam adjusters if you go that route, the sway away style is nice. remember, the bottom spring is pre loaded 2 or so degrees. so when you have the adjusters mocked up and your ready to weld, turn the bottom adjuster a degree or two. this takes out the slop and prevents the car from suddenly "dropping" while going over bumps. you can verify this with an angle finder. sway away adjusters can give 2.5in drop i think. so plenty for what your doing. with adjusters, you need short shocks if your lowing 2 or more inches as the general rule of thumb. the KONI adjustables are supposed to be really good. pricey tho. the 356 konis would be a perfect length for what your wanting.

The other option, as youve said, is drop spindles. 2in drop spindles should just barely fill the wheel gap. look for a 0 offset kit, so you wont rub. drop spindles will handle better over adjusters in most cases, b/c with beam adjusters, you limit the amount of travel you have, by being forced to install a shorter shock.

HOWEVER, there is one better option. install both. but weld the in the adjusters "half way". so with out the drop spindles, you can raise or lower the car from stock weight. this allows you to adjust the height with drop spindles up from a 2in drop, or go even lower. for expample, the car sits 2 in lower from stock with JUST the drop spindles. BUT, with the adjusters added into the equation, you can adjust the height to roughly 0.75in drop from stock height, or all the way down to 3.25in drop from stock height.

With the above system, you can use stock length or slightly shorter than stock travel length shocks, and keep the good ride quality and great road handling characteristics you get with a correctly lowered car. IMO thats the direction i would take. I welded in adjusters for my car, but havent bought the drop spindles yet. my 0.02.

[Ol'fogasaurus]

I'm using only one adjuster and it will be on the top which should be better as my fuel tank will be in the rear not in front. That means with a full tank the moving reduces the load on the front beam by something like 60#s (figuring on using a 10 gallon tank) (https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/how ... weigh.html) FWIW: On average, 42 gallons of crude oil are refined to produce around 19 gallons of gasoline.

Nothing is easy and usually more information is thought to be needed to create a design (I double checked other's work [including engineers and techs] in engineering plus doing my own work which someone else was supposed to check).

Lee

[chickensoup]

one beam adjuster will work and lower the car, however, you put tremendous stress on the bottom torsion plates, and you ride quality becomes um... less preferable When people only weld in one adjuster, for some reason its always on the top tube. idk why tho. could just be everyone copied each other. for ride quality and better handling, you want two adjusters.

You can hunt through my "65 Beetle build thread on the samba to see how i welded in the adjusters for my car. My user name is the same.

although, i can see a few situations where one adjuster could be used in an offroad car.

[Ol'fogasaurus]

Since my FG black buggy will be an off-road buggy although the body doesn't look like something you would usually see on the dunes.

The pan has had a 1 1/2" by 3" body lift to support the pan and the front beam will have stops for both hang and compression problem even though most of the weight will be towards the rear (V-6) plus it will have Thing spindles and BJs which raises the body about 2"s plus it's design protects the lower BJ from being pulled out of the trailing arms.

I don't think that putting an adjuster on the lower beam... even for lowering the car is that great of an idea but... a lot of people do add adjusters to both tubes not just the lower tube.

Lee

[Ol'fogasaurus]

Chickensoup wrote: "... remember, the bottom spring is pre loaded 2 or so degrees. so when you have the adjusters mocked up and your ready to weld, turn the bottom adjuster a degree or two. this takes out the slop and prevents the car from suddenly "dropping" while going over bumps. you can verify this with an angle finder."

I had never heard of this before but it does make sense (engineering wise) as it would make the lower tube the predominate part of the 2-tube torsion loading to control the amount of suspension on the front suspension beam. I'll have to look into it but for what I am doing (not changing the lower tube) I wasn't planning on make any changes there but wanting to change the amount of upper spring (torsion bars) application.

There are other ways (good or bad ideas) like breaking/cutting/removing the upper torsion bars in a BJ beam to reduce the amount of suspension. Again, things that has been and can be done... good or bad over the years.

An interesting discussion.

Lee

[Shane Tuttle]

Thanks for all the input.