front suspension

hey guys

has any body else encountered clearence problems like this before? its a 68 beetle with adjustable front beam with drop spindles.

when compressing the suspension the lower ball joint will hit the rim.


i have also added a few more photos to show you what im up to.

thanks gordon

Ouch, that'll hurt on our terrible roads that is for sure.

What size wheels are they anyway?

Oh, and a very nice looking engine bay you have there kind sir!

If they are a 15" rim you could have problem's, you have to remember that the ball joint is now 2.5" closer to the rim, i run dropped spindles on my convertable but have 16" wheels, the only issue i had was with the wheel touching the gbug screw nut on the lower trailing arm on lock.

Yes the rims are 15 x 5.5. Have not tried lock to lock yet.

Common problem, depends on rims. You can clearance with a grinder to a degree, but hard to tell from a pic exactly how much is required.

needs a bit too much for an angle grinder. its not bottomed out at that.

The drop spindles are the culprit here, in case you didn't already realise that. The lower ball-joint shouldn't move very far with suspension movement.

So it looks like different rims will be the best way to fix my problem . Are 16 x 6 steel wheels available ? . What other options do i have . Looks like i will need another set of disc rotors .

Hi Gordon,

Car is looking very sweet.

Other option is to get rid of the drop spindles. I only have the adjustable beam on mine.

Merry Christmas, Kev

Excuse me mate, touch off topic but would you share what dizzy / dizzy cap you are running there ? I like the looks and the clearance it gives, never seen one like that before ....

I run the porsche boxter wheels on mine, correct et front and back, 6" x 16" front and 7" x 16" rear.

Gotta agree with Kev, just ditch the dropped spindles and go back to stock ones, You will easily get that same ride height with your adjustable beam and those Fuchs really suit it.

Assuming you have Porsche pattern brakes the sucky thing about that is you're stuck with Porsche wheels which don't exactly have a huge range so swapping rims is often easier said than done.

Doug, that's not a distributor cap, car has a coil pack ignition setup.

I paid $ 300 for the 16" boxter wheels.

Joel - thought it might have been something like that but hadnt ever seen one witht he pickup in the dizzy body (which I presume is whats going on here ?) - always thought they needed chopper wheel type setup on the crank pulley.

Doug its a compufire system. Brought it off Rod Penrose.
Joel / Kev the beam is as low as it will go. Its one of vollks ones
Kev if you lived a bit closer i would get you up here to help me finish rewiring it.Then i would get motivated again to finish it off.

do you have the correct shocks on the front??
can you put a better picture of the front end .

Shocks are bilstein from Richard Holtz. so they should be all good. will throw a few more photos up tomorrow night. Thanks for the help.

A vw front end is so lite that a gas shock may hold the front up.

Cheers, ta for that

Are you sure that balljoint is fully seated? the upper BJ appears to have more thread showing than the lower BJ and as I thought the spindle taper holes are the same thickness then I woulda thought the BJ would look the same installed.

Plus the boot doesn't look very compressed.

I've seen plenty of UK bugs running similar setup with no problems so bit odd.

Wonder if possible to take a few mm off the BJ taper so it sits higher inside the taper. That's if it's installed properly at present.

Other option is to check around for dimensions from seperate suppliers of the dropped spindles as a few USA places sell them along with Euro and UK places and pretty sure they aren't all from the same manufacturer.

Suppliers should also have a disclaimer about any special fitment requirements like the CSP wide 5 disc kit that won't fit 14inch steels etc.

gordysbeetle wrote:Joel / Kev the beam is as low as it will go. Its one of vollks ones.

So that's as low as you can go with the beam right down and dropped spindles??
something isn't right then.
With stock spindles back on that would almost be at stock height

What kind of adjusters do Vollks beams have? sway aways?

Joel wrote:

gordysbeetle wrote:Joel / Kev the beam is as low as it will go. Its one of vollks ones.

So that's as low as you can go with the beam right down and dropped spindles??
something isn't right then.
With stock spindles back on that would almost be at stock height

What kind of adjusters do Vollks beams have? sway aways?

Even if they are sways it makes ya wonder where they welded them in respective to the original central grub screw. Mines that low at full height on my LP beam. 🙂

just got home and the photos are a bit average. will get better ones tomorrow. the gas shocks could be holding it up a bit , no fueltank in either. The beam has a toothed curved plate over a welded on toothed plate.

Thats Avis adjuster style.

As Psimitar says the position of the welded plate dictates how much travel you can get but that is more with the sway away style over Avis ones, They can be positioned more for raising rather than lowering.

With you saying that is as low as it goes and something Ian touched on, the shocks. I assume that Richard would have know it was lowered as they need to be a short shock, otherwise the shock will bottom out before the suspension.

This will not effect your lower ball joint issue, sorry. Look at my car, I have stock spindles and my guards are just above the tyres.

Kev

looks like i will try my stock spindles and add 40 kg on the front to make up for fuel, fuel tank, spare, Kev your beetle looks like it needs a run in the country . that would give my motivation a boost aswell 🙂

Joel wrote:Thats Avis adjuster style.

As Psimitar says the position of the welded plate dictates how much travel you can get but that is more with the sway away style over Avis ones, They can be positioned more for raising rather than lowering.

Avis/puma adjusters just need correct fitment like sways. To go low you cut the grub screw channel downwards in the tubes starting at the original grub screw hole and that'll easily give you 3-4 inches of torsion arm lowering. 🙂

As for that BJ issue try doing a search on Volkszone.com/VZi and the Samba for anyone else having issues with dropped spindles. You'll have much more chance of finding something compared to Oz just due to number of VW fanatics there.

Also, what brand of spindle is it? CB, CIP1, CSP?

heres a few pics of the front beam and a few different angles of the drop spindles

this is a couple of pics of the back end

take shock off bottom mount and sit / pust dowrn on front.

try a stock VW rIM.
.
are those wheels real porsche ?? or copy, maybe thick casting

are they the stocks with the bump stop under the black top sleeve.

they have the bump stop under the sleeve. just the empi copy wheels.

I will have a set of genuine 16" porsche fuch's for sale in the near future as i will be changing these out for a set of composite wheels. if you were close you could have tried them.

I still think those lower BJ's don't sit into the spindle taper far enough especially if you take a look at how the top BJ sits, The boot is properly compressed and the BJ thread is more exposed than the lower BJ.

Also that lower BJ taper boss on the spindle does look like it sits lower than I've seen on other lowered spindles. Others I've seen don't sit right at the bottom of the casting.

I also forgot to say that you should invert the ARB clamps so the bolts point upwards and hence no chance of being caught on any bumps in the road.

Update.
Replaced upper and lower balljoints ( third set now ) with a different brand. Problem solved. The balljoint shaft was shorter giving me 4mm clearance from the rim. Now to replace the new tie rod ends when the suppliers open again the new ones I purchased have perrished and I haven't used them yet. Some aftermarket gear is total crap. Have a good new year everyone.

Hi

Nice car, I couldn't see it the photo but do you have the notch on the camber adjuster pointing to the front?

This can affect the stub axle position.

Steve

gordysbeetle wrote:Update.
Replaced upper and lower balljoints ( third set now ) with a different brand. Problem solved. The balljoint shaft was shorter giving me 4mm clearance from the rim. Now to replace the new tie rod ends when the suppliers open again the new ones I purchased have perrished and I haven't used them yet. Some aftermarket gear is total crap. Have a good new year everyone.

glad I was on the right track for you and you got it sorted 🙂

gordysbeetle wrote:Update.
Replaced upper and lower balljoints ( third set now ) with a different brand. Problem solved. The balljoint shaft was shorter giving me 4mm clearance from the rim. Now to replace the new tie rod ends when the suppliers open again the new ones I purchased have perrished and I haven't used them yet. Some aftermarket gear is total crap. Have a good new year everyone.

wow! reminds me of the ball joints and tie rod ends I had on the the daily. same thing happen but worse as they filled with dirt and seized. I had locked front suspension 😂

not even 6 months they lasted.

I use road safe branded ball joints and tie rod ends if genuine isn't available.

they are good and last forever. haven't had one fail or wear out yet and the boots are still soft and supple.