the scoop on widening a beam

[OrangeCrusher]

So I've been looking for information on widening the front end on my woodsbuggy. The front end is basic berrien front end attached to a stock ball-joint beam from a '69.
I put 7.0-15 powerkings on the front with wide-5 rims and eliminated the stupid chevy adapter plates but it has brought the tires close enough to rub badly on the rear when turned enough -so I'm losing some turning radius and it's gonna tear up the frame and tires.
Just looking for some options. I love these tall wheels but it is a drag, literally, trying to back up and turn at the same time.
If anyone has any suggestions or ideas on how I could get some clearance, I'm all ears.

[OrangeCrusher]

[OrangeCrusher]

[chuckput]

If you really want to go to a wider beam, you might consider something like this:
https://www.pacificcustoms.com/ac401006nt.html
You would use through rods and coil over shocks and create your own upper mounts.

If six inches wider than stock width is too much, here is another idea. Four inches wider than stock and it has shock towers. Again, you would use through rods and coil over shocks.
https://www.pacificcustoms.com/ac401050-04.html

Now that I have whetted your appetite. Here is the downside to your situation. Since you are running a ball joint front end, the beams I shared with you won't just bolt on. The distance between the torsion tubes is different between ball joint and king and link. So. . . you would have to modify how you would mount the front beam. Also, you would need king and link trailing arms and spindles.

You may be asking, where can I buy a wider ball joint front beam? There used to be a guy in Arizona who made them, but I believe he's gone out of business. Somebody may have another source.

You could widen your beam yourself. Find another ball joint beam and use both so that you only have one seam to weld. Build some type of a jig to hold everything square, make nice square cuts, bevel your cuts before welding in order to get penetration. Keep it square and straight.

[Ol'fogasaurus]

If you are planning on using BJ spindles then you have another problem and that is there are angle/travel limitations to the BJ especially the lower BJ.

setting up for hook and pin stops 008.JPG

It will pull out of the lower trailing arm if you get too much angle on it hence the need for suspension stops.

Bug spindle.JPG

This is the bug setup. The threaded part of the BJ faces up and the BJ itself is pressed into the trailing arm from the top of the trailing arm so if there is too much angle (BJ has less travel potential than K&L) the BJ can be pulled out fairly easily.

013.JPG

This is a bug spindle and a Thing spindle showing the difference in design.

Thing spindle.JPG

This is the Thing spindle in place. The BJ is still put in place from the top but the BJ is different and the threaded part points down.

The other thing is the adjuster ball on the upper spindle, and they are rare and expensive as is the Thing spindle. I don't remember for sure, but the upper Thing BJ is available I just don't remember if the stock bug upper BJ can be used.

To go a bit farther, the distance between the two torsion tubes on K&L and BJ is different but, if you were still using the stock pan head the two VW pan heads are interchangeable, some work involved but it might be worth it if it was available choice.

Stock travel on the BJ is something like 6" while the K&L can go to something like 9". There are/were some modified BJs out there that allowed more travel, but they wore out quickly from what I understand, and the BJ could pull apart under too much loading.

Then there is the shock tower problems .... Weld the seams an check for rot inside of the tower especially around the drain hole in the bottom of the tower and where the torsion tubes go through it.

For what it is worth

[OrangeCrusher]

If you really want to go to a wider beam, you might consider something like this:
https://www.pacificcustoms.com/ac401006nt.html
You would use through rods and coil over shocks and create your own upper mounts.

If six inches wider than stock width is too much, here is another idea. Four inches wider than stock and it has shock towers. Again, you would use through rods and coil over shocks.
https://www.pacificcustoms.com/ac401050-04.html

Now that I have whetted your appetite. Here is the downside to your situation. Since you are running a ball joint front end, the beams I shared with you won't just bolt on. The distance between the torsion tubes is different between ball joint and king and link. So. . . you would have to modify how you would mount the front beam. Also, you would need king and link trailing arms and spindles.

You may be asking, where can I buy a wider ball joint front beam? There used to be a guy in Arizona who made them, but I believe he's gone out of business. Somebody may have another source.

You could widen your beam yourself. Find another ball joint beam and use both so that you only have one seam to weld. Build some type of a jig to hold everything square, make nice square cuts, bevel your cuts before welding in order to get penetration. Keep it square and straight.

I hear what your sayin. If you look at my rig you will quickly notice I'm not afraid of fabrication. Granted this thing has been a work in progress for over ten years and reflects different stages in my understanding and ability with fabrication, welding, and engineering. Having said that and done some more research since my OP, while not afraid of fabbing my own beam which would not be complicated, I'm starting to contemplate the question of why stick with a VW beam at all? I've bastardized just about every stock VW system on this thing except the front end to try to improve or in some cases "be different" which backfired, why not just go full hard with IFS?

A beam mod would definitely require less brain cells. I'd just have to figure out what width would get me what I need and then how to lengthen my steering links. I'd have the exact same performance I had before and no gain except the ability to turn my wheels a little more. Definitely not worth buying a pre-made unit.

I've kept my eye open for years for K&L beams in my area and I've never seen one let alone a fair deal. They're all being used from what I can see and they are keeping value better than Charmin during a pandemic. This may not be a problem in other parts of the country; it is for me.

If I was going to do something that made sense I would fab up some IFS and just start from scratch on the front end like I did with the rear. This requires more brain cells but I do have some good resources saved in my bookmarks to get this done within a decent amount of certainty.

What I can't do is the cost or the time. I have a whole baja rebuild to tackle which honestly is more important than this rig. I'm not even sure I want to hold onto this rig. Things are getting expensive and I really ought to pair down my fleet and focus on my love, the baja. Thing is I have so much of myself in this woodsbuggy I can't imagine not having it in my garage if even just too look at and think of ways to modify it while having a beer and ignoring the person talking at me. I've never been good at selling things at the appropriate time.

Perhaps I just add a limit somewhere to keep the tires off the frame? This could be done relatively easily although I'm not sure how yet. I need to get this thing out there on the trail already and get some use out of it before I get too old to care. Either that or sell it now while it's all in one piece...ugh

thanks for the suggestions

[Ol'fogasaurus]

Going to the longer travel IFS is very common now days.

DSCN0776 copy.jpg

DSCN0783.JPG

DSCN0784 copy.jpg

DSCN0787 copy.jpg

DSCN0789 copy.jpg

K&L.

Hmmmm!

Lee

I forgot to add that a lot of them are also going to electric power steering also.

[OrangeCrusher]

Yes I used to have a bookmark to an electric PS mod maybe out of an Audi??
I'd love welding up an IFS. It's the shocks I don't want to pay for. lol I need to just figure out a way to earn $3k and then irresponsibly blow it all on coil overs for the front and back and this buggy would be great. Throw a $10-15K Mendeola on it and it would be awesome. All that $$$ would make a sweet baja though. However, I am just a lowly tradesman trying to support a family and dream a little..

[OrangeCrusher]

Doing some pricing on emulsion coil overs. Looks like something I might be able to swing...

[dustymojave]

As I suggested in response to this elsewhere, The steering is lacking a stop. On a ball joint beam stock, the pitman arm has an arm sticking out the side of it. Then there's a bracket welded to the upper and lower beam tubes with bolts to contact the arm on the side of the pitman arm. This provides slightly adjustable stops for left and right steering travel. The bracket is missing from your beam. The pitman arm still has the arm sticking out its side. You may want to develop some other means of limiting the movement of the pitman arm.

[BAJA-IT]

Different wheels with less back spacing would move the tire out some, could be enough to help eliminate the rubbing.

[Ol'fogasaurus]

To add to what dusty said, if you notice in most of the pix I posted they went to rack and pinion. That way it could be centered and the alignment might be easier to do. You even might add power steering to the mix too some of which are shown in the pix. Just a thought.

Lee

[Ol'fogasaurus]

OC, your question had me thinking a lot about the conversion from BJ, which you now are running, to K&L. I would suspect that going A-arm style vs. K&L is going to be kind of a coin flip.

Looking at your pictures to see just what you were running and how it was attached. Since you have a tube (rail) type of buggy with a BJ beam, the BJ beam tubes, with the torsion leaves inside, are closer together by more than a little bit than the K&L beams are. You have the front of your rail attached to the front beam top and bottom. The bottom connection should be OK, but the upper connection will have to be raised some (probably the equivalents of the height difference between the beams. Also, from just looking at the pix the side bar goes up to the front beam with only a small drop in it for giving additional support to the beam twisting like a propeller.

I had another idea but seeing the pictures more slowly it would just cost too much to do especially w/o that much travel increase.

I think, if you want more travel and strength IFS would be a good way of looking at this. Unless you can live with what you have then $$$ are going to be involved.

To cut and shape the upper clams for the beam you will have to rebend it and add a slight change in length in the rear of the tube to cover the width difference between the two beams.

Lee

[OrangeCrusher]

As for the rims; I just switched to these. They're just stock VW rims which I had powdercoated. I didn't think I would have a problem with them. I was trying to get away from some rims I was using that put the spacing too far outward and messed with my steering geometry. I couldn't even push the rig backwards without the steering binding and acting like a brake on the tires. There is also an issue with the way the beam is leaned back. Originally, I had it leaned way back(5degrees I think) so I cut and modified that top clamp to get it more plumb, but I think it's still too much honestly.

Anyway, I had an opportunity to drive it yesterday. I know that sounds funny but this thing has had a laundry list of things to be done on it before it should be driven. I think I'm finally at the end of that. It's about time to get a license plate on it. Before taking it out I did a quick alignment of the front end. Just centered the wheel, then measured the front of the tire and the back of the tire and gave myself a little less at the front for a little toe-in. Then we took it in the woods by my house. The tires rubbed during tight turns of course. This is a narrower trail for dirtbikes and not a two track. I made it, but I could see being at a good rate of speed and going into a tight blind turn and not making it. I think it's useable with limitations.

Maybe I'll pickup some longer bolts and add a spacer behind the rim. The front end looks so narrow now with these stock rims it's funny. The suspension on the front does fine. There's really no weight except that bumper up there. My rear suspension survived this time even though I could hear the drivers side bottom out a few times. It's strange that a 1500# bag with 60lbs of air in it is bottoming out. Need coilovers. I don't think I'll do anything drastic with the front end. We have this black plastic sheeting at work they call starboard that I think is made of UHMW that I will make a couple spacers out of and see if I get some better turning radius.

[Ol'fogasaurus]

Whooooooh, that just opened up some doors.

Are you still running torsion bars in the rear? If so, what is the preload they are set at? Stock is something between 19° and 20° but after I learned how to reset the preload. I went has high as 30° but that is way too stiff. I ended up at 26° which is still a bit stiff but bouncing around on the sand often gets to use a lot of it.

If you are interested there are more than a few ways to safely soften the front end now that it isn't doing much work. Some are better than others so are you interested in a discussion?

Lee