making a ball joint bug handle well?

[beetletom]

i fitted a lowered puma beam on my 66, with gas front shocks, and the ride is extremely hard!
especially when going over the tiniest of bumps!

someone said to me yesterday, that puma beams are not that good for comfort? he's right! 

would it be best switching to a 2" narrowed german beam, with sway aways, and dropped spindles?
with bugpack oil shocks too??

thanks!!

[qubek]

I have no problems with comfort with my puma beam....but I it is not adjusted all the way down and the shock absorbers are of correct hight.

[BeetleBug]

To keep the answer short; no.

Switching to a narrowed beam will not improve handling. The only thing it will do is to move your wheels 2" further in and making your handling even worse. Spindles and oil shocks will not improve handling either but the spindles will soften the ride and move your wheels making your car look funny. You can`t improve the ride of a ball joint beam unless you modify certain angles and the easiest, and cheapest, way to improve the ride of a ball joint car is to mount a link pin beam.

With regards to certain angles, take a look at the pictures of this ball joint beam belonging to a friend of mine;

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Best rgs
BB
 

i fitted a lowered puma beam on my 66, with gas front shocks, and the ride is extremely hard!
especially when going over the tiniest of bumps!

someone said to me yesterday, that puma beams are not that good for comfort? he's right! 

would it be best switching to a 2" narrowed german beam, with sway aways, and dropped spindles?
with bugpack oil shocks too??

thanks!!

[benssp]

check that your shocks aren't bottoming out, i.e too long, I ran KYB Gr2's wound down on adjusters with 145's and the ride was pretty comfortable, you may of run out of travel

[BeetleBug]

One more;

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Now you got camber which again will improve your handling. Next thing is to soften it up.. that`s the hard bit.

Best rgs
BB

[benssp]

also, your ball joints might have run out of travel, you may need some long travel joints pressed in

[beetletom]

ok thanks!

will try different shocks to start with!

[Rocket Ron]

Tom

go with full width beam, dropped spindles and decent shocks

the narrower a beam is the shorter the leaves are and the harder the ride will be

with the dropped spindles on you'll get a softer ride

ps I now you want to hear it but dont go to low if you want a decent ride  

[BeetleBug]

ps I now you want to hear it but dont go to low if you want a decent ride  

This is the reason a ball joint do not "work" It can`t be lowered without firming the ride drastically.

[Bruce]

, with gas front shocks, 

This is the sole cause of your troubles.  There simply isn't enough weight on the front of a Bug to make those hard shocks work.

[Arnoud]

Make sure the trailing arms are adjusted properly so both springs are working together.I once had to rework the bushings inside because it were too tight and the trailingarm was binding.

[BeetleBug]

OK, here is a simple test for you;

Take off your front shocks completely and see if the ride will get softer.

Or if you do not want to do the job you can just take my words for it, it will not soften up. I have adjustable and modified Koni`s on my 67 and can adjust them super soft if I want and it does not help one bit on the firm ride.

BB

[beetletom]

ok thanks!

will have to see if its the shocks or not

[beetletom]

Tom

go with full width beam, dropped spindles and decent shocks

the narrower a beam is the shorter the leaves are and the harder the ride will be

with the dropped spindles on you'll get a softer ride

ps I now you want to hear it but dont go to low if you want a decent ride  

reason i wanted to run a 2" narrowed beam with spindles is, that i've got a set of fake brm's, and because of clearance issues
as i had a set on my 65 as those were really close to the wing lips.

[DKK Ted]

Im running a CB 2" narrowed beam, but with drop spindles. The beam is still lowered a little bit, but Im also running these great oil filled stock shocks that I got from Bruce a few years back. My car rides like a Caddy. Love it. Plus, it's all in the set-up of the beam on how you adjust it. Just my 2C's.

Ted

[Lids]

I used to run a standard width beam that I welded sway-a-way adjusters in partly turned.  This meant on full drop the apron touched the floor!  I also used toxic Shocks which were hard and also long travel ball joints with uprated camber nuts.  An uprated anti roll bar, urethane everything and caster shims.  The rear was dropped one spline.  It handled brilliantly.

I have gone back to a stock beam with dropped spindles and the ride has softened.  Its not narrowed and with 4.5" Sprints its perfect.

[Jim Ratto]

I will comment on shocks....

I ran the typical "lowered" (i.e. "short") fluid shocks from one of the big catalog guys, but they died an early death because I was overworking them in rebound (extension). My car wasn't "dumped" enough to really work with those shocks, so when they died, I switched to a KYB GR2 shock that met my fully compressed, but not so much what I wanted on extended (you can find a PDF online showing all KYB specs, measurements, mount type, etc) but tried them anyway, and adjusted my beam as far down as I could stand to work with them. I still wasn't that happy with the setup. Next step was to crank beam back to ride height my car (and reset toe) is at now, and get rid of KYB's, replacing them with original Boge oil shocks, and stock snubber/mounts (when you buy the Boges, they come only with mounting stud, none of the upper stops/snubbers/washers/perches). The lower stops in stock configuration were too tall to allow shocks to compress under braking, etc, so I shortened them by about 0.700". I checked to make sure they weren't bottoming by smearing a little copper antisieze on upper edge of shock and drove car. I kept shortening the snubber until I didn't see the antisieze getting contact with rubber. Hope this helps.

[javabug]

Plus, it's all in the set-up of the beam on how you adjust it.

Been hearing this for years, yet can't seem to get anyone to tell me the "how." 

[Jim Ratto]

Plus, it's all in the set-up of the beam on how you adjust it.

Been hearing this for years, yet can't seem to get anyone to tell me the "how." 

I think it depends on the definition of "handling" you follow. Road race/hill climb is setup different than a car set up to transfer weight on to rear tires for drag racing. The Berg tech article on suspension is pretty good for setting a car up to sky it's nose at dragstrip.

[Lids]

I used mine on the street, it handled corners etc really well, but was horrible on long journeys.

[Zach Gomulka]

How about turning the adjuster on one beam more than the other? Yesterday I adjusted the front end up a little on AssHull's car, I turned the bottom adjuster up 2 clicks from where the top adjuster is. I've heard this improves ride quality. Any thoughts?

[Rennsurfer]

Guess that I don't understand... leave the beam width stock, replace the ball joints, if they're old... along with the shocks and steering dampener, use some good quality forged drop spindles to your height desire, and go have fun. That's what I did on my '67 when I built it, two years back. Car rides great and handles decent, for a Bug. I'm also a strong believer in using the factory sway bar.

Then, there's the other option; narrow the heck out of your front beam, lose the shocks & sway bar, add some worn ball joints and a dampener. Drive it like that, all over town, for a few months. You'll appreciate what the VW engineers already planned and figured out from the start.

 

[Jim Ratto]

Guess that I don't understand... leave the beam width stock, replace the ball joints, if they're old... along with the shocks and steering dampener, use some good quality forged drop spindles to your height desire, and go have fun. That's what I did on my '67 when I built it, two years back. Car rides great and handles decent, for a Bug. I'm also a strong believer in using the factory sway bar.

Then, there's the other option; narrow the heck out of your front beam, lose the shocks & sway bar, add some worn ball joints and a dampener. Drive it like that, all over town, for a few months. You'll appreciate what the VW engineers already planned and figured out from the start.

 

Hi Mark, took your advice on the sway bar, (but went back to my 19mm) and I'm glad I did.

[Rennsurfer]

Hi Mark, took your advice on the sway bar, (but went back to my 19mm) and I'm glad I did.

Right on. I haven't driven a Bug with a bigger front sway bar (and/or rear one) since the mid '80s. But from what I can remember, it made the car feel too stiff and rather difficult to get used to. Long as you're happy with the overall feel of it is the only thing that matters.

[Bruce]

. I have adjustable and modified Koni`s on my 67 and can adjust them super soft if I want and it does not help one bit on the firm ride.

That's because Konis are only adjustable in rebound, not compression.  IOW, adjusting them all over the map won't help the ride.

[Jon]

Great handling ball joint bugs? How much are they lowered? One question, is the lower trailing arm horizontal or pointing up/down?

[pupjoint]

read the tech article in ACN's website written by Greg Ward. hillclimb racer in Australia. article was written for many years i think, early days of cal look forum.

IIRC, for good handling, he recommended lowering the beam with adjusters, STOCK width beam, STOCK spindles, no drop spindles

check the article, well worth the read and info

[qubek]

Great handling ball joint bugs? How much are they lowered? One question, is the lower trailing arm horizontal or pointing up/down?

I think you touched my problem. I had my Bug lower then I have now. The comfort was great. This was no problem. The handling was. I could feel that the car pulls to one side under braking. Not like with the wrongly adjusted brakes, not that evident, but you could feel that something is not right. The staring rods ware pointing up (from the steering box outside). And there ware marks on the tank indicating that the longer one touches it sometimes. The front end is now higher around 1 cm and this helped.
I was thinking about turning the outer steering rod ends upside-down as they say it should help, but I have never seen this solution in person and I'm not sure about it.

[benssp]

You could always fit a bump-steer kit to level out the track rods, most of these need late outer tie rod ends

[qubek]

That's what I was thinking about. I already have later (post 69 or something like that) spindles, an thus later outward rod ends.
Do you have any experience with bump steer kits? Like I said - I heard about them, but not every modification you hear or read about is as good as they say.