Lowering the Bay!

[Happy Camper]

Time to start work on lowering the front of the bus. I started by removing the wheels and tires, clutch cable, brake shoe assemblies, steering link to steering box, park brake cables, and the shift linkage.



Next, I removed the 8 bolts that hold the side plates of the axle tubes and gently lowered the beam with the floor jack.



Next I rolled the whole assembly out into the driveway and pressure washed the grease and gunk off. Now I am sweating and I have decided it's time for a cold beverage and a little dip in the pool. I honestly thought it was going to take me a lot longer than 2 hours to get that out! I was expecting to have it out next weekend. All the tie rod ends look good, the ball joints are shot, however. Oh well, nows the time to fix those. The plan is to install a set of Avis adjusters in both the upper and lower beams. They are from a king pin Beetle. The tube diameter is a bit different, but it is close. I will have to heat the serrated beam portion and "adjust" it with a hammer so it matches the new diameter. More to come.

[bren]

Cool! I will definitely be following your progress on here. Want my bay lowered eventually also.
I am a fan of drop spindles since they maintain stock suspension. Did you consider those?

[teamafx]

This looks like a fun one. Call me when you want me to come over and supervise. Tinas is next.

[Happy Camper]

I finished dis-assembling the beam today. The parts came right loose!. Every nut and bolt backed out perfectly. I cant believe it. The shocks are off, the turning and tie rods are removed, the swing arms are off and the springs are pulled from the tubes. I did consider drop spindles, however, I already had the Avis adjusters and the drop spindles are coming up on $400. A bit steep for me. I really only need to lower it about 2" and I think the Avis adjusters will do the trick for that. If I wanted to go more, I would have done adjusters and drop spindles I guess.



After things were pretty much cleaned up, I cut off the bolt portion of the ball joints to make it easier to press out. I think I can do that at work this week. I also cut a bit of the ball joint flanges away to provide a "landing" to place the arms on when I am pressing out the old ball joints. Swing arms all cleaned up and ready to press out the ball joints.



Next I drilled out the dimples on the top tube that hold the center spring disk in place. I used a 1/2" drill to be sure I got most of the attachment. I inserted a thick wall 1" square tube and beat the center disk back and forth until it was loose. This only took about 35 cycles! I inserted a lug bolt into the center disks threaded hole and moved the disk through it's full travel about 100 times (using a hammer to pound on the lug bolt). It took a lot of cycling to get the center disks to move freely in the tube. I was so sick and tired and sweaty after that, I cut the slot and packed it up for the day.



Before quitting, I heated the serrated portion of the adjusters, the part that welds to the tube, and placed it on the tube, While it was red hot, I smacked it with a hammer. This changed the curvature of the serrated part from the Beetle tube diameter to the bus tube diameter. I was a bit worried about this, but it went very well.

[Happy Camper]

Moving along slowly but surely!
I got a chance to press out the old ball joints yesterday. That went pretty well. Here is a shot of the swing arms after the old parts were pressed out. If you look closely at the old ball joint laying on the bottom of the box, you can see that I used my angle grinder to cut off a bit of the flange to expose a larger "landing" on the swing arm. This made it easier to position the arm on blocks in the bearing press. Lots easier than trying to hit that tiny little slot.



Next I used the lug bolt to pinch the adjuster to the beam for welding. I welded the adjuster in place and then used the lug nut to beat the center retainer back and forth about 50 more times. It is still moving with too much resistance. I am going to have to figure out how to free these up a bit more.


Here is a shot of the upper adjuster with the locking plate and a nut installed, you know, just to get an idea of the "look", once it's done. The parts are on order and should be here early next week. Nothing left to do but a bit of painting and to start devising a method of freeing up the retainers a bit. I am thinking valve grinding compound and a few hundred cycles might do the trick.

[Happy Camper]

Loose at last!
After a bunch of wiggling and pounding, I new I had better try something different to loosen up the center retainers so I can actually adjust the beam once it's back on the bus. I finally hit on the addition of a bit of valve grinding compound! I put a little in the slot and started working the retainer back and forth and through its travel. It took a couple of hundred cycles, but it worked great. I slid the retainer out of the way and wiped the abrasive out of the tube. I wiped in some grease and the retainers move full travel with just my fingers. One big question answered. I then inserted the bolts and put on the lock plates. Next up, paint the beam and wait for the ball joints. ;D The plan is to fill the holes I drilled to free up the center retainer with black silicone after I have the beam installed and adjusted.

[bren]

Nice job.
I am interested to hear how you like the before and after ride quality.

[Happy Camper]

Me too! That's part of the reason I decided on the adjusters. I can put it right back to stock with the turn of a couple of bolts! I will be out $40, but thats a pretty cheap trial. I had to replace the ball joints anyway,I will only be out the few hours work to do the adjusters. And thats not like it's torture or anything ;D More to come! Some parts arriving today, not sure if it's the ball joints or not. Fingers crossed.

[dunedudex4]

Nice work Thanks Dave T

[teamafx]

Next week you will have to take me for a ride. It will look great when its done.

[Dustin]

Looking forward to seeing how this turns out. Dad needs to take note as well haha

[vwrick69]

What year is your bus? Did you buy it out west, it looks super solid. Good work on the beam.

[Happy Camper]

Almost Done!

After freeing up the center retainers, I needed to come up with a center grub screw for the adjusters. The screws that come with the Beetle kit are not the correct size for the bus. The bus grub screws are 14mm, the same thread as the lug nuts on the bus wide five (early bay). I initially took the original grub screws and welded half of the screw provided in the adjuster kit to the end. This made a “hybrid” screw/bolt to mount the locking plate to.



After Steve and I set the bus on the floor for a test and both lock plates rotated out of position, I started thinking about how much force was on those ratchet teeth. I made a few very basic calculations: Lets say for fun that there is 1000 Lbs being supported by the front suspension. The force is evenly divided between the top and bottom beam (in theory) Lets say there is 500 Lbs force on each torsion spring. The swing arm is roughly a 12” lever arm. The locking plate is roughly 1.25” from the center of rotation. This means there is about 4800 Lbs of force those ratchets need to keep in position. (12” / 1.25” X 500) It’s not uncommon for a large railroad track to impart 2+G’s on the system. (4800 X 2 = 9,600Lbs!) I suddenly don’t feel confident in those peewny little welds I did! I was able to get it to support the weight, but I don’t trust it. I decided I had better get a real 14mm bolt and grind on the correct taper so I can really tighten those down nicely. I found these bolts at the local hardware store and went to my bench grinder to grind on the taper. I matched the taper of the original grub screws and I am starting to feel a bit better about this whole project.




I crawled back under to install the new grub screws and I noticed the teeth in the aluminum locking plate don’t line up with the teeth on the part attached to the beam. In fact, when the teeth on one end are seated, the teeth on the other end are sitting perfectly on top of the mating part! What is going on here? The Beetle didn’t fit like that. After doing a bit more engineering, I concluded that when the weld on portion (steel) of the adjuster was bent to mate with the beam (bigger diameter than the beetle), the portion of the plate with the teeth, when flattened slightly, actually compresses the weakest portion of the part; In this case, the side with the teeth. The exact same thing happens on the aluminum part, only they stretch apart because the teeth make the inside weaker than the outside. This stretching elongates the pitch on the aluminum part and compresses the teeth on the steel part. This accounts for the poor alignment. Seeing no alternative to brute force, I positioned the aluminum adjusters on their mating steel pieces and by using a big hammer, formed a new set of teeth that more closely match each other. This is a very crude approach. The robustness of this fix will be revealed in time.



I removed the shocks, and lowered the adjusters all the way down as far as they would travel. I noticed they would not go all the way to the end of their travel. The bump stops were in the way and there was no good way to work past this other than to cut them off. I didn’t want to do that, but I figured I can always weld them back on if this didn’t work out as well as I am hoping.





After a level test, I concluded the front was a bit too low after the adjusters were placed as far down as I could get them. They still would not go all the way to the end of their travel because the ball joint travel limits the throw of the swing arms. To work around this, I loosened the lower ball joints and separated them from the spindles. This allowed me to adjust the upper arm to a better position in the travel. I locked in the upper adjuster, used a pry bar to lift the upper arms enough to re-engage the lowers and tightened everything back up. I think I am right where I want to be with this adjustment now. I still need to adjust the camber, then the toe in. After this, it’s back together and time for a test ride. More to come.

[Happy Camper]

Hey vwrick69,
The bus is a 1970. I bought it from a guy in Gailsburg, MI. He had owned it for many years, It had spent the last several years stored dry in a barn there. He bought it from a guy in Minnesota who drove it for a while. The bus originally came from California. I have no idea how long it stayed there before it headed North. Is is very solid, When I did the restoration, I did not have to fix any rust, it was very clean and dry. For $1500 I was very fortunate.

[Happy Camper]

It's on the ground!
I will spend a couple of days driving it and I will write up a summary soon. Here is a pic of the new stance.
I have enough adjustment to put the bumper in the grass if I want. I figured I would start here. The front bumper is 1.25" lower than the rear. Maybe a bit more? It's almost 2 1/2" lower that it was two weeks ago. Adjustable parts are cool ;D
Happy Camper