Front Suspension Question

[63square]

I have a put together a car that is going to be mostly for the strip but I will hopefully drive it on the street some as well.  My question is how soft should my front beam be?  I have 2.5\" dropped spindles and a stock beam, the top arms are tight againest the stops, I had to pry them up onto the stops.  Should it be softer?  Right now I only have gas shocks on the front, should I be changing those to some 90/10's?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Jason


Here is a link to a picture of my car
http://www.airriders.ca/phpBB2/album_pic.p...php?pic_id=2328

[James Buchan]

First NICE car, love the rims!

Your front suspension needs to travel up freely, what do you mean they are tight against the stops?

You will want to get everything moving in there and then get a soft set of front shocks,  90/10's are great but a good used set of oil filled will work as well.

[63square]

Thanks, I was hoping to have it at the Great Canadian but not everything was ready. Next year it will be there.

In order for me to put the beam together I had to twist the top arms up to get them onto the bump stops, it took both my dad and I to get them on.  They just basically sit on top of the bump stops and don't move up, like I think they should.  Here is a bad picture, but you can see the top arm sitting on the stop, it stays the same when its on the ground.

http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e48/63sq...re/P7030049.jpg

I will have to try and find some stock oil shocks and try them out once I get everything moving.

[kirin]

Honestly if your that low... I ended up cutting off my bumpstops.

What disc brake kit is that by the way?
-Kirin

[63square]

Its a stock beam, so its not low.  Its a CB performance dropped spindle disc kit.

[James Buchan]

I'm not a K&L expert, maybe someone lse will chime in.

[Bruce]

When the complete car is sitting on the ground, is the top control arm against the stop?

Gas shocks should never be used on the front of a Bug.  Replace them with simple oil shocks.

[63square]

I will double check tonight but I don't think it moves, when it is on the ground it is still sitting on the stop.

Luckily the shocks came with the car, so I won't be losing any money if I take them off.

[63square]

So the top arms are definelty sitting on the stops.  What could cuase the top part of the beam to be so stiff?  I know that I put the leaves in the same way that they came out.  I have read on other forums that the link pins can be to tight but the top arm was stiff before I even put the spindles on.  I also tried a car at the shop that I work at and it pushes down really nice and springs right back up.  Could it have something to do with the urethane bushings?

[Bruce]

Could be due to the bushings.  If they were tight going in, they will be tight on your control arms.

Did you remove those evil shocks and test it?

[Trevor P]

Did you use the correct urethane bushings? There are 2 different styles available...beams that had micarta bushings and those that had needle bearing bushings.

[neil68]

Jason,

I just put some CE 90/10 shocks on my Beetle.  You can get them from Parts Source in Calgary, if you're interested.

Neil  

[63square]

I haven't had time to take the shocks off yet, but next week I will.  The bushings I used were the right ones.  I won't be able to look at this now till probably monday night so hopefully I can find something.  

Thanks Neil, I never knew that you could get them at a normal parts store.

[63square]

Thanks for all of the wheel hop help.  Now I need to figure out the front end.

I changed the shocks out for oil shocks and still have the same stiffness.  Does any one run there beams with the urethane bushings in them instead of the original stuff (micarta or bearings)?  Should I possibly go back to the original style and try that out.  I do have another beam that has the micarta bushings in it.  Could part of my problem be that I took the leafs out of my other beam to put in the beam that I have in my car.  Not to sure if there could be a difference.

[Chris]

did you possibly install the leafs incorrectly?  

[63square]

Is it possible?  I know when I took them out of the old beam I marked which were top and bottom and which end was the driver side.  Then put them in the same way they came out of the old beam.

[Chris]

im wondering if the beam you bought has a problem, maybe the center section of the beam is off

[63square]

Thats what I was thinking may have happened.  I will have to take a look at both of them and see if anything looks physically different on the outside.

[Chris]

maybe tought to tell with out pulling the the trailing arms and comparing the resting position of the leafs in each one.

[63square]

Well I looked at my front end last night and i am starting to get some movement.  I think what I am going to do is take it apart and make sure everything is nice and greasy and see if it improves any.  But atleast I am getting some movement now.  Thanks for all the help again.  Hopefully I won't have any more suspension issues to bother you all with.