Once again, I am baffled.. always need more help. If anyone could help me out, here is my new situation. I bought a 69 Bug, it's the one with the loose VIN tag problem. This Bug is so high off the ground, it's a beast. My 1960 has 2.5 drop spindles and the fender rides at the top of the tire. A 2.5 drop spindle wouldn't touch this bug. Can you tell from my picture below why it is so high. I thought it was the KYB Gas- adjust-shocks.. the first picture is without a shock at all. I removed it, it didn't lower an inch. The PO has huge sway bars on the front and rear, is this the problem? I'd be happy at this point to simply get it to stock height. It is not an adjustable beam from what I can tell eighter. I'm tempted to say maybe the beam is narrowed though? Any help appreciated, thanks. Is this a ball joint front end? (The sad part is that the rear is just as high, but no engine in it right now)
Yes thats a ball joint front end.. Does look a little high. But however you dont have any shocks on it. It doesnt look like a narrowed beam. Put some stock shocks on it and it may be back to normal. The front end is pretty "springy" meaning it moves up and down easily with out the shocks huh? I dont think the big sway bar has anything to do with it. and the rear will sit high with no engine in it.... like my 69 did with no engine...
No, unless the sway bars are hung up on something outside the pics they only make sure the two sides move up/down together. If you can bounce the front end, then then sway bars are not the cause.
maybe the beam is narrowed though? I can see the middle grub screw in the top torsion tube so it's unlikely your beam is adjustable. Unless your lower beam has a different center section than the top tube, you are probably okay. It doesn't look like the shock towers are that much closer to the body so it may not be narrowed either (hard to tell from the pics).
Can you bounce the front end? You could have frozen/rusted trailing arms or frozen ball joints.
What is in your trunk? If you've removed your gas tank that could account for some of your additional height. A full gas tank adds a good bit of weight to the front.
Yes, I can bounce on it. I stood on the t-bar bumper and jumped up and down. I tried that after taking the one shock off, and it was no different with or without the shock according to bounce. Would a stock shock force it to lower? I have both shocks removed. Does a Ball joint front end ride higher thank linkpin? On the 60 with a 2.5 drop spindle discs, I have 2 1/4 gap from the tire. This 69 has 6 inches right now.
The suspension height seems ok. The shocks won't make it sit lower. Could you send pictures of the whole car from the side?
Was this car store with the front wheels in the air for a long time? The spring leaves may have un-set and making the suspension sit a bit higher. If you drive it for a while it will set again a bit lower, but don't expect it to get lower than 1-1.5cm.
The wing curve looks like it doesn't match properly to the wheel.
Do you have the spare wheel and gas tank in the front? These will make the front sit lower.
I'd like to add an extra question.. Drop spindles. expensive. Removing a leaf, deadly. Adjustable beams costly, and alot of work.. what are these adjusters?? Will they work, and are they a fairly easy install?
Those adjusters are not easy to install. You have to remove the beam, cut it in the middle and weld the adjusters. Without proper jig and good welding experience I wouldn't attempt it. Replacing a beam is not that bad. You can remove spindles and trailing arms on the car and then remove the beam, it makes it a lot easier. You can always get a cb adjustable beam if not narrowed then you can keep your leafs and swap them in (if they are in good condition).
your best bet would be replace the spindles as well but that's going to be more. and you would have to get a narrowed beam to keep the track back at stock dimensions.
Also if you are going to lower it, make sure to get caster shims to correct the angle, otherwise you would have squarly steering at highway speeds.
Just from a quick look at the picture it looks to me like those tires might be the wrong size and making the whole car look like it's sitting up higher then normal. They almost look like a low profile type of tire.
OK, the front suspension definitively sits 1.5" - 2" higher than normal. The wheel centers should be at about the same height as the bottom of the doors - regardless of tire size. The rear is adjustable.
There are several reasons for this. If you can exclude the easy ones, such as some weight missing from the car, no adjusters installed and no welding done to the middle of the beam to rotate the setting screws of the torsion leaves,
then the only other reason is that the torsion leaves are either more heavy duty than normal, or installed upside-down, or replaced with aftermarket ones with the wrong springing rate.
What you can do without much cost and relatively easy is to find a donor bug (or front suspension) that has the normal height in the front, and get the torsion leaves from its suspension and install them in yours. Mark the exact position they came out from and install them in the exact same position: the upper set must be re-installed in the upper tube, the lower set in the lower tube, and left-right orientation must be retained.
Drop spindles are the best way to go, if you don't think you'll need to adjust ride height later. Drop spindles will allow the steering geometry to remain unchanged, maintaining comfortable and safe ride.
The adjusters you linked to require cutting the torsion tubes in half, both of them. A section is cut out and these adjusters are welded in. It makes the beams weaker, and in some places it's considered illegal. (Won't pass inspection). A better alternative would be Avis adjusters:
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Those don't require cutting the beam, you simply remove the old grub screw and make the screw hole wider with a file, then weld one of the shown grooved pieces over the elongated hole. Then you sandwich the loose grooved piece against it with a longer grub screw and stop nut, and depending on how you mate them, you adjust the ride height. The only non-factory VW parts are on the outside of the beam, and the only change to the beam is filing an existing bolt hole wider, plus weld a collar around it.
BUT as you adjust the beam from the center, it forces the trailing arms to operate in a new angle. It may not be a big issue, but if you go to extremes, the trailing arms start operating at angles beyond their designed 'window'. Ride safety and comfort may become unpredictable. With drop spindles, you don't have this problem, everything works the same as before and the only thing that changes is the position where the wheel mounts to the spindle. Whatever you do, you should have the geometry adjusted by a shop after you're done.
BTW with beam mounted adjusters, you need one for each beam. Can't have just one or you will make one set of torsion leaves fight against the other, or make only one carry the whole load of the car. You can play with the difference a little bit and experiment.
If you don't need to adjust the height, but just set it once and leave it there, I wonder if you could just drill another hole for the original grub screw to get an alternative height setting. The only change then would be an extra hole right next to the original. No welding, and zero cost. :)
With beam adjusters, you will need to replace the shocks with shorter ones, or with shocks that offer more travel than stock. (Compress more). Stock shocks bottom out when you lower the front a lot.
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