Hi. Alittle help please ith my suspension. 70 non super...

[BeetleTwinTurbo]

Ok, many people have confused me over the past 2 months. Being new to aircooled VWs, and fluent with watercooled ones, i'm trying to build my 70 non super bug into a german look drag beetle.

The car will see the road only on nice sundays in the summer or spring, and will mostlikely be flat bedded to the strip, or show (depending on how far it is away)

But sometimes, you just wanna change your car's ride height, and stuff just for fun ya know?


well, anyways, heres my question, and PLEASE correct me if i'm wrong, so many people have told me mixed answers in the [ast few months, and I dont know whats going on.

If I have a 70 non-super, that means that I have the IRS rear, which means that I have shocks and springs, and there for CAN have a traditional (to me anyway) coil over rear suspension, where I can adjust the height, stiffness, etc. BUT I have the front suspension of another type, which can be lowered, but not adjusted.

if this is true, can you please point me in a direction where I can lower the front, and adjust the rear? if for some strange reason there is some way to adjust my front suspension also, please give me some info on where and what I have to shop for.



Thanx a bundle

[kdanie]

You have shocks and torsion bars in the rear. They can be adjusted for height with out a lot of effort but it takes some time and is more dificult than coil overs.

For max adjustability, remove your rear torsion bars and install coil over shocks.

Your front suspension also has a torsion suspension that uses multiple torsion leaves in the front tubes. You can buy an adjustable beam that has adjustable center locators for the torsion leaves. These are quite easy to adjust. If you lower your car more than about an inch and a half with the adjusters it can ride hard and you will have "bump steer" because the tie rods are not at the correct angle. The best way to lower a VW is to install dropped spindles, this will lower it about 2.5". The adjustable beam can be used to fine tune your height. There is no way to adjust the stiffness of your front suspension other than buying expensive aftermarket torsion leaves.

ken

[Aurumen]

Can't you stiffen the front by turning the top and bottom adjusters against each other????

nick

[kdanie]

That may stiffen the suspension but not by increasing the spring rate. Binding suspension with the two stacks of torsion leaves fighting each other does not sound like a good thing to me.
ken

[Aurumen]

i see that it could be a problem if you did it too much, but essentially all you're doing is preloading it a little. It's basically the same thing as using a coil spring on a strut that's longer than the strut shaft (like most factory struts do). Correct me if i'm wrong? I'm no expert, especially on VW front ends The reason i say this, is because i think this is what has been done to the car i own by the previous owner, cuz the front end is very stiff and i assume they didn't replace the torsion leaves.

Nick