Lowering the Bay!

[dansam]

Great job. That bus is super clean!!

[81pumagtc]

The stance looks good to me...I'm personally not a huge fan of having the undercarriage scrape the ground. Driving up and down driveways and small potholes is a plus too!

I think you will find you like the handling less and less the lower you go.

I found they get twitchy like that.

Really like the care and effort that went into the beam and the adjusters, very nice!!!


Dave

[vwrick69]

Looks good!! Looks very subtle for 2 1/2 inches.

[Happy Camper]

Preliminary report
I went for a drive down to the beach last night and then drove it to work this morning, so that’s all the experience I have accumulated. However, this is what I can tell you so far. I think the thing that had the biggest affect on the ride and handling of the bus was the replacement of the worn out ball joints! There is no more clunking or flopping around in the front end. The second thing I noticed was that prior to dis-assembly, I checked the alignment. The camber was good, but the toe in was actually a bit of toe out! The bus always wandered on me, now I know why. So, with the toe in fixed, new ball joints, and the 2 ½” lowered front end, the handling is actually much better than it was prior to the start of this project. Unfortunately this does not help anyone who may be deciding on lowering their bus. I cant tell you if it hurt the handling or not. I can tell you that I am very happy with the ride and the stance at this point. I tried to hit every RR track I could and did several hard breaking turns to see if I could get the tires to rub, or clunk on the ball joints, but to no avail. It behaved itself admirably. A couple of weeks of driving and playing will certainly tell me more. I will be sure to post updates as they happen.
Happy Camper ;D

[Happy Camper]

Side By Side
At least as close as I have at this point.

[teamafx]

I like the 14mm bolt idea, seems safer. Looks a lot better out on the street.

[vwrick69]

Is the rear sagging alittle? Have you ever adjusted the rear torsions? Has anyone ever adjusted the rears or changed out the torsion rubbers? I am needing to do this to my DC,and would like to hear the horror stories.

[Happy Camper]

The rear is sagging a bit. They do that after 40 years. The correct way would have been to lift the rear. However, when faced with a decision like this, I chose the cosmetic route. The rear adjustment would have been free, the adjusters cost about $40 for the parts. The second reason I chose the adjusters was that I needed to tear the front end apart anyway to replace the ball joints. Dodgy logic I know, but that's where I ended up. I have never adjusted a bus, just a Beetle, but that wasn't too hard. The Bently will talk you right through it.

[tarrich]

I guess it needs a full load (or what the tires can handle) and a couple of highway lane changes to know for sure.

[Happy Camper]

Bang!

I was on the way to dinner with my boss, we were rolling along chatting a bit and we went over a RR track. Bang, the front end instantly lowered itself about 3 more inches. The next bump brought the tire up into the passenger side wheel well (my boss is a bit heavier than I am). The half curious, half frightened look on my bosses face revealed that this very loud pair of noises did not go un-noticed! This is just great, now I got some splainin to do. See, we are both engineers and he certainly knows what is going on under there. Now I have to explain why my most recent engineering project suddenly failed. Luckily my boss is a pretty wise and understanding guy. No harm done to the career path.

However, It’s time to figure out a new approach here. I crawled under there and discovered that the upper adjuster was the one that let go. It rotated almost all the way up to the top of it’s travel. I lowered it as far as it could go (as a shower of aluminum shavings rained down) with the weight of the wheels and tightened it up. I drove it to work today with no troubles.
This is my current line of thinking; I have ordered a pair of air shocks for the front. (another $80 ) I am planning on tightening the adjusters in place somewhere toward the middle of the adjustment travel and then installing the air shocks. This will give me a full range of adjustment and it should be very easy to adjust. I think the central adjustment should be a good starting point. If anyone has some thoughts here, please advise.

One thing good that came out of this is that I have discovered that even when the front end was this low, the bus still handled very well. No major behavioral problems. That was comforting.

Camper

[vwrick69]

No damage? I'm glad nothing got messed, that would have sucked after all that work on a SWEET bus!

[81pumagtc]

I have seen this happen a number of times. It is very difficult to keep the adjusters tight if they are actually adjustable, and a couple of friends have actually welded the adjusters in place once they have been adjusted.

Seems extreme to me, but I guess the nuts and bolts were not really up to the task of keeping the adjusters in place...even though they were "supposed" to be grade 5.

I modified one for a friend that I replaced everything with grade 8 bolts, and it seems to work fine, but he still double-checks the torque every few months.

One issue is that if the serrated adjusters are not perfectly matched, they can shear off the serrated teeth because not everything has 100 percent contact, and the stress does need the contact to be safe. The bolt then stretches, and bad things happen...

I am not certain if the air shocks will be the best way to go here.

It should work to raise and lower things, but adjusting the shocks can change the way they ride significantly because they are acting more as airbags and less as shocks.

Just speculation, however...

Glad no one was hurt, and there was no lasting damage...it's WAY to nice!


Dave Riedle

[Happy Camper]

A quick update. I installed the air shocks last night. I set the adjusters about in the middle of their travel. This lets the front sit very low. I could still drive it, but it is really low. The idea is that if the air completely leaks out, I could still limp home.

I rolled it into the garage and filled it with about 100 psi of air from my compressor (they can take 200 psi Max.). The bus sits perfectly level at this pressure! Very cool. I was a bit nervous about the ride, so I was trying all kinds of handling and bumping stuff on the way to work this morning. It handles very well. The ride is very good. This may be due more to the fact that I now have new shocks, as much as they are air assisted? I am not sure, but it rides great. Of course I thought the adjusters rode great as well right after I first set them up

It sure would be cool to have a valve under the dash that I could turn to lower the bus when I get to where I want to go and then give it a shot of air when its time to roll. If I could come up with that, I think I would do the rears as well. It sure is nice to have a level bus, not pointing toward the stars all the time.
Now I need some more time in the saddle to completely evaluate this mod. When I have lived with this a bit, I will write up a summary for anyone considering this.