hi all,
well i want to have a go at narrowing a bay window beam to get a ball joint disc brake front end.also i want to put a set of adjusters into it, to transplant onto my 65 kombi .
i just dont know what year beam is the best to do this with.

can anyone help with the best way to do this and best year beam to use. i know that plenty of vw buisinesses are more than capable to do this. but the thing is id like to learn more about how and why and for me hands on is the way.

i would really appreciate any info thanks

Darren if you want a ball joint beam to bolt in you need a 68 or 69. But since you want to narrow it you will need to modify the shock towers you can use any year beam.
Nik

thanks nik,
does this mean that i can use my original beam narrow it and then fit on ball joints and disc brakes,or would it be better to just use the 68 or 69 beam and narrow it ,
i have been doing a bit of home work on the shock tower mods or fabrication work thats involved and think i have it under control.
so you did say that a 68 or 69 is a bolt on afair if you dont narrow it, because if it is so its a bit easier than i thought.

Darren,
you can't fit ball joint trailing arms to a link pin beam. 68/69 beams are hard to find but the mods to make a later one fit would be easy enough for you to do. When you change the shock towers you take care of these mods anyway. I am looking at all the options for my panel at the moment. If you still have my number call me maybe we could have a shot at it together i have a few other ideas as well.
Nik

hey nik if you could u2u your number to me that would be great .
i was thinking of buying some of those wide 5 discs from custom speed parts and keeping the link and king pin set up to try to avoid using adaptors to keep the original stud pattern, they cost around 600 pounds seems alot but probably a good quality product.

If you use a ball-joint set up with disks it will widen your track by about 40mm. Then if you want to use your original wheels you'll need adapters which will space your wheels out further. This will almost cancel out the narrowing. There are ways to get around this, all it takes is money!

Man I just crawled under the house (where my spare front ends are kept) and measured the track of a split front beam, drum to drum and a later disc brake beam, It is the same, or did I read it wrong in the bad light?

Oh well, the ones I measured were different.

i was told today that they are the same width until you add the adaptor plates

These are the measurements I took:
Split beam with drums: 146cm
Bay beam with disks: 150cm.
These are from buses when they were sitting on the ground, so might be out by a few mm as it was quiet awkward under there.
I was also told they slightly wider by Chief at Indian autos. But it was only a concern for me cause I'm running aftermarket wheels, if you're running stock wheels I don't think there will be a problem.