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How can I or can I adjust my rear suspension. When I got the car the body and frame would bang togather when I hit a bump. I checked the shocks and one was shot. I think they were the ones that came on the car when it was new. I put on new shocks and it has helped but it will still bottem out once in a while. The car looks to me like it sits to low in the back. Is there any thing I can change or do to fix this other than really slow down for bumps? Thanks
Charlie,
Your best bet is to get the Robert Bentley manual for your year VW. A blue one for the earlier years and the Orange Bentley manual for 70 and later. In there in the chassis section are detailed directions, with photos, on how to raise or lower the rear of the car. You will need a couple of special tools to tackle the job but it can be done. It deals mainly with re-indexing the splines on the ends of the torsion bars in the rear.
Allen Caron
VW based 53MGTD - "MoneyPenny"
"If one thing matters, everything matters" - from the book The ShackFair amount of re-indexing how-tos around the inner webs. Here is a step-by-step. Here is a good indexing calculator. I found a couple video demonstrations even (this one covering the threaded rod tool to unload the spring plates). Looks like fun, no doubt.
I been pondering this job on account of Bridget is sitting a little knock-kneed right now. Not too bad, but not an ideal stance.
What I worry about is clearance for the torsion bar cap. VWs have a little plug in front of the rear fender that pops off to give room to back out that cap and pull out the bar. Not present on any TD replicas I’ve seen. This might mean we’d have to lift off the body to get those caps off for access to the torsion bars. Then again, it might be possible to just loosen the bolts and pull the caps off in the space provided, and maybe we’ll get lucky with the bar ends.
I’d really like for someone else to try this first and report back to the rest of us….
http://www.thesamba.com has many threads on this. As Ed mentioned, there is even a You Tube video on the process.
I invested in a torsion bar tool for raising up one of the two Beetles I own. It rides on the bump stops now…not to mention the extreme angle of the CV joints at the hubs.
Ed, can’t you just remove the rear fenders…like a VW?
It appears the body is in the way, even if you remove the fenders.
My carwas just a little too low for me so I put on gas charged Monroes and it raised my rear a little over an inch.
The notion that yoiu can’t use gas charged shocks on a VW is not so in my humble opinion. These shocks are also full of oil.
It would be better to do all the ride height adjustments with torsion bar settings but once the car is put together it makes it tough to get those final tweaks just the way you want them.
BTW The fiberglass hit my outer axel boot( on the right side) and tore a hole in it. Make sure to check that you have enough clearance with the suspension on the bottoming blocks. You need tie rod clearance up front too.
I just flipped my tie rods over to be below the arms. Cip1 has the little sleave you need. This corrects the geometry and keeps the tie rods from hitting the body. Also prevents “bump steer” on lowered cars.
I have been putting this off since last Oct when I ask. Yesterday decided it was time. We found that by taking the back fenders off we can get to it just fine. We have one side apart and found that it should have new rubber bushings so I just ordered new ones for both sides. So far it hasnt been a bad job. We will see what its like going back togather. THANKS for all of the information.
I even invested in that tool to lower/raise the spring plate so that it doesn’t guillitine your arm off.
It’s a PITA job, but not that hard. Each torsion bar (left and right) have a different amount of splines, one side of the bar has finer splines than the other.
I removed mine from the Pink MG and re-indexed them after having .100″ turned off of them by a local machine shop. It gave me the right ride height and softened the “spring” rate.
I am about to do this on my ’74 Beetle that is way too low in the back for my liking. It’s almost riding on the bump stops on a pool table smooth road.
just curious pink, how much does the shop charge to turn the torsion bars? did you have them polished? my car was real low in back so i moved the inside one notch down on each side to raise it .never encountered any problems with the spring plates, they can only go so far. the worst part was buying that little twelve point tool to get the axles loose and had to use a reciprocating saw to remove a little fiberglass for clearance. took pics in case i got something in the wrong place. overall it was easier than expected. i did watch some utube videos beforehand. this is a starting point. mine was so low it would bottom out. when i get it running i will sort out the ride and soften it. btw if the damn spring plate was on the outside , it would be a 15 minute job
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