The Cal-look Lounge

or ball joint only?

seeing as the bottom tubes on a link pin beam sit higher than ball joint?

will the bottom beam braces fit??

Having installed a CSP set on a BJ car, I doubt they would fit a L/P beam. Tolerances are tight, fit is very good. Unless CSP make a L/P version...

Lower ones will fit without any problem for link beam. I added caster shims and that requires some filling and drilling new holes. I have not seen how those upper ones are connected - maybe some positions are possible for both. Or do you mean combined strengtheners - like triangle ones - I have seen somewhere a picture? Those must be different for BJ and KL beams.
This is a picture of my -59 K/L beam with alu strengtheners.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/oG7uNANT4sp9R-UzVAIg3Jih6UFaVSjE0isUaGCsBFmT=w439-h211-p-no)

From experience I know that these will fit and I know they're super strong. For those of us stateside they have to cost a fraction of the CSP parts. They've been around for pretty much forever.

http://www.sandparts.com/servlet/the-8886/Empi-00-dsh-3842-dsh-0-Hd-Lower/Detail (http://www.sandparts.com/servlet/the-8886/Empi-00-dsh-3842-dsh-0-Hd-Lower/Detail) 

My only question is why you'd want to spend the money and add the extra weight. If you can bend a beam you have bigger problems. We have a Baja and I can testify that an unsupported beam will take an obscene amount of punishment against rocks and ruts.

Why did VW do it?

Volkswagen did it on the Thing only because it intended it for field use. Remember, those were military commissions that got built in Mexico where real roads are rare. Volkswagen did other things to strengthen that chassis like gusset the damper mounts to the beam and support the bottom of the rear torsion housing with square tubing. The lower ball joints are bigger (and right-side up), the CV joints are bigger, the gear ratios are lower (compared to a regular Beetle from the same years), and so on. This was all to make the car last tens of thousands of miles on cow trails.

Actually the beam strenghteners were fitted from the factory by vw for specific countries. I know Thailand , Japan , got them. Yes all type 1s. The csp unit is a direct replica of those support.

Somewhere in my pile I have a VW service bulletin that shows how to make supports but I don't recall that they look like the CSP ones (or by extension the ones from rural countries). It makes sense that those countries got the supports. I got to go to some pretty rural places in Japan and even in the late '80s the roads were less than perfect. I can imagine that reconstruction-era Japanese roads were quite cobby.

I still wonder if those supports offer anything more than a sense of security on street-bound cars like ours. Consider the load path (the direction that the bars would direct any force into the chassis). Those supports address longitudinal deflection (like hitting a big rock or rut) but not so much lateral (like chassis twist like you'd get with super-fat tires on a road-race car). Cal-look cars, by definition (small tires up front) don't generate much lateral load anyway.

Christ on a bike those CSP supports are SPENDY! They're just four steering-box clamps and two lengths of carbon-steel tubing flattened on the ends! Man, before I split with that kind of dough I'd buy a set of real Thing supports and weld flat tabs to the beam. Even if shipping cost as much as the part you'd be 155 Euro ahead of the game! And you'd have an even better design (not that I think it would do anything for a street car mind you).

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/detail.php?id=1516229 (http://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/detail.php?id=1516229)

http://cal-look.no/lounge/index.php?topic=6655.msg241034#msg241034

181 here bought an NOS pair, it has VW numbers and came in VW blue box. they are not the same as those fitted to Things.

there was also another thread started by CSP when they were launching those stifeners, Nao confirmed Japan cars got them. http://cal-look.no/lounge/index.php/topic,10938.0.html

thanks for the info and help!  8)