It`s very common to retro fit bump stops and they come in all shapes and sizes or make your own. Very often restraining straps are also fitted to prevent over extension of the system when a "corner" of a vehicle "rides up" and the "suspension" drops "down".

Ed has been brilliant throughout this, but I think he is pulling his hair out now as although yet another set of longer shocks have arrived, they still do not give me enough clearance between my wheels and the wheel arch as my Buggy is still sitting considerably lower on this front end than it did before. Although a suggestion was made of sending yet longer shocks, I have had to draw the line here as doing so would make the suspension geometry look visually wrong, and if it looked that bad to me, then god only knows what it would be doing handling wise. No, we had to think out of the box for another solution.




My Buggy does not really conform to the more conventional slammed or lowered look that everybody is familiar with, but is the complete opposite and actually sits quite high up in the air on tall tyres. This is probably all a bit unfair on Ed who was hoping for a more conventional first attempt, but I`m probably going to find more useful pitfalls by pushing this installation to the limit. The target ride height of mine is to replicate my broken torsion leaves that have been wound to the max, shocks that have been set as long and stiff as they can, and as a result, my Buggy has been previously described by Farmer Rob as having the worst handling of any Buggy he has ever driven - He isn't wrong and its something I am very keen to address, but I would like to keep the higher stance at the front if possible due those bloody awful square raised speed humps at the top of my road.

Mine almost has more of an Off-Road stance to it, and that got me thinking. Most of you have heard of dropped spindles, where the stub axle has been welded in a different position to allow the car to be lowered. Well, the Off-Road guys do things the other way round with "Raised" spindles. Ed had never heard of these before, and although Dave Fisher didn't know of anybody in the UK that could make them, he could probably source some EMPI ones if required. The thought of that filled me with absolute horror as there are lots of stories out there of spindles snapping that are made from cheese and its staggering how many times the name EMPI is also mentioned. No, I'm afraid that solution was not for me.




Down here in the South West, we have the very active "Baja Club" which is often referred to on here as "The Muddy Side". Great bunch of folk, and known for punishing and jumping Beetles in ways that you would not believe. A call to my good mate Sawmill Jim was made and the instant reply when it came to raised spindles was to contact a guy called Nathan Baker - a name that I`m sure I have come across before. Many of them use his raised spindles and nobody has ever had any problems with them.

Nathan was fairly easy to track down, but really difficult to establish contact with. Doesn't have a business phone number, doesn't answer his mobile, and I found that texting him seemed to be the only form of communication that he would respond to. His workshop however, was only an hour away on the other side of Exeter. I finally pinned him down to a time to go and see him - (Although we agreed 9am, it meant Manyana to him - but I was pre-warned about his lack of timekeeping) and have a chat about what he could do for me. His workshop was like Alladins Cave with just about every project you could imagine on the go in every corner, and all of this was in the shadow of huge racks bulging with old VW spares. Nathan seemed to know his stuff, and it was also interesting to see him manufacturing many of the body repair panels as seen and sold on the JustKampers website. He explained about the various types of spindle on the market and how most of the poor quality aftermarket ones on offer were actually "pressed" into place and then welded up rather than the original ones. He also pointed out that there are two sizes of spindle bearing, and that he would only ever work with the larger 29mm one from the later genuine VW stub axles as he reckoned the thinner ones were just too fragile for Off-Roading. As luck would have it, the larger ones were just what I presented him with.




He showed me the jig he used for making them that had different heights on. I didn't want to go too mad, so opted for the smaller 2.5" lift. He explained that the process involved slicing the stub back plate down the middle and using a thick metal plate, welding them back together. This method would man that the track of the wheels (width from wheel to wheel) would increase by 10mm either side. My wheels stick out already, so another 10mm each side was not really an issue - but it may be for some. He said that they would be ready first thing Saturday morning and he always opened up at 9am. I was about to point out that he was considerably later than that this morning, but thought better of it.

Saturday morning arrived, and after leaning against his padlocked gate for what felt like forever, at 9:30 he finally answered a text message asking where he was to say he was running late and would be about half an hour. There is literally nothing where his workshop is near Dunkeswell, and its the definitive description of "Back of beyond". Find somewhere for a coffee? Ha! Forget it, so I slouched back in the car seats for a doze. An hour and a half later, he finally rocked up with virtually no apology for the lateness - this was obviously the norm for him, but as said, I had been pre-warned about this by a few people.

I was eventually (yeah, that's another story) presented with a pair of very heavy duty looking spindles. The welding is without doubt, some of the best I have ever seen, and there was also a good thick brace added to the steering arm too. These were just about as bulletproof as you could get and I could instantly see why the Baja Club, loved them so much. I handed over what seemed a staggering amount of money, but the £200 given was about a third of what they seem to go for Stateside, and remember that those are the ones made from cheese. By this time I was really losing the will to live and just wanted to get home. My original plan was to return after an early start and have them fitted by lunchtime and now, I was just hoping to get home before the pubs had shut and Lisa had gone to bed.

That drive home was a long one. What should have been just under an hour turned out to be nearer three as traveling so much later in the day than planned meant that I had now hit every bit of holiday traffic that was heading down the M5 to the South West on an August weekend. Caravans and RV's had gridlocked the entire network. But it didn't matter, because I was so exited to think that my Buggy was that much closer to being on the road now. As soon as I had got them out of the boot of my car I thought I would just give them a lick of blue hammerite so that they would be ready to fit the following day.




Quick lick of paint - What was I thinking?
Should have tried them first.                         

Errr..., lower A arm balljoint housing interface interference complication?

Errr..., lower A arm balljoint housing interface interference complication?

Well spotted, but that was just the start of many problems   

Time to fit the spindles - Could this finally be the day that the wheels go on? 

Here in Paignton, we still have Steam Trains, and every now and then you can hear the sound of the whistle echoing around the town. Well, today the steam coming out of my ears must have sounded very similar as I too, blew my top, and then immediately afterwards, my heart just sank.

No sooner had I placed the stub axles onto the lower ball joints, I realized that I had a major problem. The lower A-Arm has a nice thick ring around it holding the ball joint in place and Nathan had added so much extra material to these axles when converting them that the two did not fit together. With the stub axle loosely bolted in place, the suspension was absolutely locked solid, no movement whatsoever.




Having spent a few hundred quid on these, you can imagine that I was far from being a happy bunny, but I now had an important decision to make. Do I grab the phone and a tub of Vaseline, track Nathan down and insert them (in hindsight, I wish I had), or do I just try and sort them out myself. Being realistic, it was pointless trying to call Nathan, he seldom responds at the best of times and if I am brutally honest, most of the delays I have had now are from waiting for others. Time to do what I should have done all along and just reach for the angle grinder and sort this out once and for all myself. Turns out that my premature painting of these yesterday proved to be a very good idea as over the next few hours of precision grinding, I could now see where the paint was rubbing against the lower joint. Quite a lot of metal had to be removed, which was a bit concerning, but there was still a good thickness left behind and certainly no thinner than they would have been originally at this point. Should not have had to do this though and I`m still a bit annoyed by it.




They now seem to fit properly and move freely in all directions - (Albeit with the tolerance of fag paper) Phew! Time to repaint them and then fit them back in place. Next problem has now arisen. I know that the Muddy Side don't always run the disc shields for fear of clogging them up, but I had not expected the three mounting holes to have been blanked off and no longer threaded all the way through. However, there is still around 10mm of thread in what is now a blind hole, so I have just trimmed the mounting bolts down as this is far quicker than drilling and tapping new holes. Thanks Nathan, didn't expect to have to do that either.




You would be forgiven for questioning just how good these axles are given the problems I seem to be having with them, and I am actually wondering the same, but I really have saved the best until last. After repacking my wheel bearings and refitting the discs to the axles, it was then time to fit the brake calipers. Somehow I wasn't actually surprised to find that the disc would no longer rotate due to the caliper body being firmly wedged against the face of the disc. The drivers side one was even worse as the backing plate was so out of alignment (warped with heat maybe?) that I couldn't even tighten the bolts up to get the caliper to fit. I`m sorry, but this is just crap engineering and I hope that Nathan see's this and hold his head in shame and that any potential customers think carefully before going down this route. Yes Nathan, you may be able to weld, but everything else here is just so badly wrong.




On the rear of the caliper mountings are two raised webs and the clearance issue was quickly resolved by removing a mm or two. Not difficult to do, but again, its not something that I should have had to have done. On the warped side I simply ground these back at a slight angle.

I'm sure that this was an isolated incident as I recall what I was told that many of the "Off-Roaders" use his spindles and nobody has ever had any problems with them. Well apart from the lack of tolerances, too much material around the ball joint mounts, blind holes, back plates not fitting and calipers rubbing against the discs, they seem fine - Oh, and I forgot to mention that the speedometer cable hole has also been welded up! They do appear to be as solid as they come but with a total lack of alternatives available, I have had no option other than to make these fit.

Nathan Baker of NB Restorations was so proud of these that he also imprinted an ID number on them - 

I`ll let you decide that one I think - Just don't ever ask me to recommend him.   

Did he leave you the hole for the speedo cable dare I ask?

Did he leave you the hole for the speedo cable dare I ask?

Looks like you missed that bit David.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that the speedometer cable hole has also been welded up!

Did he leave you the hole for the speedo cable dare I ask?

Looks like you missed that bit David.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that the speedometer cable hole has also been welded up!

Yea sorry, he was going on a bit and I just glazed over...

Did he leave you the hole for the speedo cable dare I ask?

Looks like you missed that bit David.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that the speedometer cable hole has also been welded up!

Yea sorry, he was going on a bit and I just glazed over...

          

 

Finally, the axles are on and everything seems to move about as it should. Hopefully I don't get any interference problems or anything locking up when test driving it, but if I do, at least I know exactly where to start looking for a resolve with a little bit more grinding if necessary.

The car has been sitting on axle stands for a long time now, and when I went to put the wheels back on I found myself smiling for the first time in ages. No, not because the wheels were going back on, but because the stub axles were now sitting so much lower that I had to jack the car up even further to get a bit more height. And then came the nail biting moment of truth - lowering it to the ground.




What a relief ! There is a lot of travel in that suspension and jumping up and down on the front I could still get the tyre within a few mm of that wing, but the geometry looks right and I still have some wriggle room to adjust the shocks if I need a little bit more ride height. Hopefully I won't have to do that as at the moment, the floorpan is also dead level from front to back.

I guess I now have to sort out a new form of electronic speedo sender now, as I have lost the ability to use my front cable driven one, but right now I'm stopping for a very large beer or three.

Can you get a long drill bit and redo your speedo hole or is that where the lower mounting sits?

And I'm presuming that each spindle and caliper mount are cut as one piece and should be as VW intended, but have moved out of alignment during welding (or cooling)? 

Can you get a long drill bit and redo your speedo hole or is that where the lower mounting sits?

Theoretically, there is probably just enough clearance to drill that, but is so close to that lower mount that I dare not risk it. Besides, it would be very dangerous to start running a drill bit down the centre of the spindle as there is a real chance of weakening it. My speedo is electronic anyway, so just have to find an alternative sender unit for it. On the other hand, if I did manage it, the speedo cable would probably wrap around that shock absorber anyway as the steering turned.

And I'm presuming that each spindle and caliper mount are cut as one piece and should be as VW intended, but have moved out of alignment during welding (or cooling)?

From what I can ascertain, yes. The plate between the two is sliced vertically, so that the front and rear look exactly the same. These are then re-welded back onto the thick 10mm plate at different heights - a bit like a sandwich. Now whether the cut was not done at an exact angle, or their is warpage from heat, I really am not sure, but whilst I have no issues whatsoever about their strength, something has gone amiss with the angles. There is enough adjustment of the suspension to dial this out, so I am fairly certain that after a significant number of hours fettling, that all should be good in the end.

Now that its back on its wheels, I decided to take the car for a sneaky drive down to the end of the road and back to see if everything was working as I was hoping it would. Didn't really go too well on the first trip as despite everything I had done, the tyre was still bouncing quite alarmingly against that front wing, and when I tried some moderate braking, I thought the tyre would go through the wing. Wow - Those were not nice noises. The short drive had also allowed the suspension to settle by a fair amount, and it was actually now sitting significantly lower.

No problems I thought, I still had a few turns left on those springs, so the ride height was adjusted upwards a bit. A few turns of the spring base made quite a bit of difference. Whilst I could still just kiss the wing with the tyre under heavy braking, the compromise by compressing the springs so much was that it had really stiffened up the suspension. I was a bit disheartened by this as the previous drive had felt much softer.

The ride height however, at last was about right, and I asked Ed if putting yet longer springs on these shocks would maintain the ride height but give me a softer ride as they would not be compressed so much. Ed agreed, and the following morning, spring set No:5 arrived. Still 175lbs, but 10" in length this time. Being that extra inch longer than the shock was designed for meant that they were a little challenging to install, but this was not before I had dropped the car to the ground with the shocks fitted but without any springs so that I could work out how many bump stop spacers I would need.




Merlin Motorsport (Contact them for one of their Free Catalogues) sell some 3mm thick Nylon "C" Washers that act as a physical barrier to prevent the shock from traveling its full distance. With the suspension set where you want it to be, the idea is to simply fill the gap with these washers, and then for good luck, add a few more. I had a gap of 12mm to fill, which meant 4 washers - but for good measure, and to allow for "bounce" I threw in another 4 of them. At £21 inc vat & postage for a pack of ten, they are far from cheap, but if they work, will be worth every penny.




This time, the drive down the road felt much softer and finally I could not get that wheel to touch the arch no matter how hard I braked. The steering felt a little strange (Understatement), but that was to be expected as the tracking has not been set yet. The biggest difference though was the total absence of rattles and the Buggy was no longer shaking me to bits.

I am however very conscious that a proper test drive has not yet been done, nor has this been tried with any extra weight from a full tank of fuel and a passenger on board, but I really want an MOT on this before attempting anything else for obvious reasons.

Good news so far,  you have a month before the Ragley trip.

Good news so far,  you have a month before the Ragley trip.

But only 8 days until Stoneleigh