I loaded the trunk of my 77 Bug with some stuff which had some weight to it. The car seemed to handle a bit better, though steering was a little tougher. Anybody do anything using something with weight that gave the Bug better handling. I'm sure it may seem obvious to some, but I never noticed this effect.
OHH YES you betcha.
The last thing I tried worked the best: 40kg (88lbs) of solid steel bar in the spare tire well. (With a hole through it for a massive bolt) Tracking and highway stability were greatly improved with that alone, and much better again with 185/65 tires on 5.5" rims.
What does NOT work well: Bags of sand. They suck up moisture and get heavier, rupture the bag, and wet sand spills everywhere.
Concrete tiles on top of the gas tank: Even when secured in place with metal straps, they move around, rubbing the tank and even potentially slip out sideways or break free fro the darn straps, when you really beat the car around. Plus the weight is too high up. It needs to go as far front as possible to be most beneficial, and as low as possible to improve handling.
A friend filled a discarded tire with concrete, including the center area where the rim would be. Put a meal handle in the middle too. That worked as well, it was really heavy but hard to secure in place.
Jan
So...a body wouldn't work too well? Oh well.
Stock suspension works best with two people on-board.
By using lead (melt down some old wheel-weights) and attaching it to the right-front bumper bracket, you can achieve better handling by adding as little as forty pounds at this location. Why? Because it has to do with 'moment' -- mass times distance.
Adding mass allows you to adjust your suspension without having to modify anything. The down-side is that the added mass effects both acceleration & braking.
The best way to do this kind of adjustment is to position the vehicle on four scales. Optimum handling generally results when the weight distribution is equal, left-to-right, and about 45/55, front to rear.
-Bob Hoover
Hi Jan,
Would it also work if the steel bar (was welded and) went across the fuel tank?
Did u have enough space for the spare wheel?
Then you couldn't remove the fuel tank? Also it's too high over the fuel tank. You should place the weight as low as possible, and as far to the front as possible. One great place that doesn't rob any space in the trunk, is between the front bumper mounting brackets. Need to have solid bumper mounts in the body. You could easily bolt on a really heavy metal bar inside the bumper, out of sight. Easy to remove when you don't need it, too. And it would be low, and as far forward as possible, requiring the least amount of weight. That's where I would put one today.
No.
Along the same idea, I've been thinking about mounting a 20mm ammo can I have in the middle of a custom front bumper I'm designing for my Baja Bug (Der Steurm Kafer.) In addition to a few tools, I could toss in some lead ingots to help tune the ride... Either way I think it would add a bad assed look to it.
Tony
Hey, now you are onto something! What about mounting two remote control machine guns on each of the front bumper mounts? You could lower the stalk so that it only sits high enough to clear the fenders. You might have to modify the trunk like a little to give you a clean sweep off to the sides, but THAT would be real bad assed! Bet you could cut your way through traffic more easily! If you didn't have friends in law enforcement, you could get fake ones with no holes in the barrel so that they could not arrest you.... still have a real impact on traffic!
Then maybe you could devise a lift kit for the bug and put tracks on instead of tires....... then you would not get stuck in snow at all!
KWW
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