centring the steering is important I have had several here over the years with lock to lock from centre not even this means the castor is trying to align the wheels and you are holding it off center to go straight.

Quote from: Dave DND on January 04, 2024, 02:56:29 PM
Not heard Rolt Bar before? I've come across that system (or similar) though from the Formula Vee stuff, but felt that it may have the same downfalls as the wishbone system I have just removed in that it may be absolutely brilliant for racing cars with stiffer suspension, it may not be ideal for road going cars that have a greater degree of travel.

Our rail uses the same system for off road race use 

Has a Peugeot anti-roll bar in the front beam bolted to either arm. The bar retains the arms without needing bushes or bearings as it twists with the arms, so no friction or adjustment needed.

Dave congratulations on your birthday.

I assume you are having a day off from finishing off your buggy...

Thanks Hugh 

No, the Buggy is on the back burner at the moment as doing some rebuilding on my Mothers house and trying to fix the leaks - normal service should resume soon

Apologies, as this may sound like a bit of a Rant here . . . . . 

Once upon a time, we used to be a great Engineering Nation and could turn out some High Quality Gear. Nowadays I have come to the conclusion that Nobody seems to give a stuff about Quality Control and the once excellent standard of workmanship has gone out of the window. Experience has told me to no longer trust even the most respected Manufacturers and Suppliers out there and I now feel the need to fully strip anything down that comes my way for close inspection and scrutiny before I contemplate using it. And if you think I am being a bit Melodramatic here, just remember that you are all also buying expensive stuff from the same reputable suppliers, and just fitting it, blissfully unawares of how standards have really slipped to an almost dangerous level and the worst thing is, we just seem to roll over and accept it. I am not a professional Engineer by any means and half the time will admit to just "Winging it", but even I know that some of the things I am constantly finding are just wrong.


Today was one of those rare days where I had no Hospital Appointments or Visits to contend with, all my relatives had been recently seen and none of my mates needed bailing out - so I quickly turned off the phone, unplugged the Computer and spent a couple of hours in the garage. I decided to take a closer look at my Torsion arms. Now remember that this beam arrived fully assembled with the instructions to pump the grease nipples prior to fitment. The Beam itself looks really good, nice welds, nice finish and most of you would have been forgiven for just bolting this on and attaching the wheels. Top marks so far for that bit. But I still have that constant niggle in my head that I need to check it over. I really should not have had to strip this down to component level, but with the lack of mistrust in anything now I am so glad that I did.

This is one of the Torsion Arms in question. There are two on each side, an upper and a lower, but they pretty much all look the same. Annoyingly, the close inspection I gave showed them to be very much all the same.




I'll wager that very few of you have ever looked carefully down inside the tubes and I am somewhat annoyed about what I have just found.




They have been beautifully Powder Coated to the RAL Colour I specified sure enough, but after the Sandblasting process they were not thoroughly degreased or cleaned and sticking my finger in the hole bought out a great lump of sand. Nobody thought to clean them properly afterwards and all four tubes are absolutely full of the stuff.




Now, I bet what is going through your mind is that I am being unreasonable here and that not every grain of sand, especially on the inside can be expected to have been cleaned, but just think for a minute as to where my new roller bearings will be situated? They will sit right at the inside end of this tube and I dread to think what state they would be in after a few miles had I not spent a bit of time stripping this all down and doing the job properly. The Sandblasting Company obviously did not do a great job here when degreasing and cleaning, but then I would also have expected Max at Eva Resto to have picked this up when re-assembling them too. Not impressed Guys, Not impressed at all and there are NO EXCUSES for this.



Luckily I now have a small parts washer tank, and after spending a while flushing them one through, poking a rag down the hole, then flushing, then ragging, repeatedly for about half an hour each one, I think that they are now at least clean inside. Whilst mentioning parts washing, I ran out the fluid that came with my birthday present and was amazed as to the costs of replacement. I could drive to my local Machine Mart and pick up another 5 litre ready to use (ie diluted) container for £15, or I could have a 25L tub of concentrate delivered from ebay the next day for £30. That should last me a while - No brainer really




So lets now turn to the ball joints, actually that's a poor choice of wording, because turning is the last thing they are doing. Lets have a closer look at them. My limited knowledge of the Upper and Lower Ball Joints is that beneath the rubber boot they have an elongated slot for them to move in, and that when they are fitted into the arms using a Hydraulic Press they have to to be correctly aligned so that they do not lock up when the suspension goes up and down. I recall this being a problem many years ago when the tools became cheap enough for the home mechanics to do this themselves, not realising how important the alignment was. If you look at the bottom of the round base of the joint, you can see a couple of square notches in the metal. These line up with some marks in the arms, but if yours have been covered in thick paint or Powder Coat, then you may not see the marks, so as long as the notches are at 90 degrees to the main shaft, then all should be well. These ones look to be aligned correctly.




Now my Ball Joint is absolutely rigid and does not move in the slightest. From reading up on numerous forums, stiff Ball Joints are either as a result of poor quality materials or because they have been badly pressed into place. If you look closely at the picture, there is evidence of an indentation, something circular that has been heavily pressed against the bottom of this and it is very clearly off centre. I think we can make an assumption as to what has happened here then. These have been professionally fitted using a Hydraulic Press but due to not enough care being taken, the joint inside has now been squashed which is why it does not move freely. Speaking with Dave Fisher, he said that sometimes you can get away with applying some pressure in reverse and forcing them back into shape, but this again just sounds wrong to me. I could send them back to Max to be re-done, but as all four look the same I just don't think that anything coming back will fare any better as there is obviously a problem in the methods being used here.




Oh well, nothing to lose here and might as well take an even closer look at this joint. My understanding is that the metal ball joint sits tightly inside a nylon housing that is lubricated with grease and has a rubber boot on the outside that keeps it dust free. I know that these are a hot topic nowadays with the MOT centres that just love to fail split or damaged boots, but I have never stripped one down before nor realised just how cheap and easy it is to replace them. You just need to be a bit careful when removing the retaining clips that you do not inadvertently puncture the rubber boot with the end, but other than that its a very simple thing to remove.






If you Google this problem on the Interweb, you will find many V-Dubbers all complaining about the problems they are having after replacing Ball Joints. You see, a stiff Ball Joint can lead to a number of problems from Poor Suspension travel to very stiff steering, and if you have ever driven a car that does not "Self Centre" after you have turned the steering wheel, you will appreciate just how dangerous this can be. And for every complaint I have read about, I can see that we are not only all being fobbed off by the suppliers about this, but we are generally accepting that it should sort itself out after driving between 500 and 1000 miles. What utter crap. So I am supposed to drive that sort of distance and only once it is out of warranty will all be well, assuming I have not ended up in a ditch first? Ok, maybe I should explain how tight my Ball Joint is, the joint that should allows my wheels to turn smoothly in each direction. Well, I cannot turn this at all, even with a ratchet fitted, and that to me is just not right.




   


Over the years I have had many vehicles, I have had many suspension joints replaced, and not once have I ever heard such rubbish as the VW Community is being given, as I can promise you that No other Marque would put up with this at all. I mean, driving 1000 miles in my Buggy would take me a couple of years if the last few are anything to go by, and everything I am reading are tales of woe from when only one joint is replaced at a time - Can you imagine what I would be faced with in trying to set up new steering and suspension when all four joints are this tight? No, I am just not accepting this and as the Manufacturers and suppliers are so adamant that this is now the way of things, I guess its yet again down to me to find a workable solution.

Ok - Rant over (for now) - Engage Diagnostic Mode 

So what happens to a squashed and deformed nylon bush over a period of 1000 miles? Well the obvious answer is that they wear, and as part of the wearing process the Nylon will reshape itself and once that happens, you should get movement. ManxDavid came up with a top suggestion of introducing some premature wear by spinning them up in a drill, making sure to lubricate them with a quality oil at all times. I did a bit of Googling on this idea and came across a few that had tried with little success, and even Snoopy chipped in that he had never got this method to work properly either. Might as well try it though and attached my Cordless Drill to it. Nope, that just flicked a light and would not even turn - No surprise there really. Time to break out my big Bosch Power Drill, and even that just went Bzzzz without turning. So I thought that before admitting defeat and replacing the joint, I would try it with my Impact driver which is brilliant for removing stubborn wheel bolts. (As a quick side note, if you have never played with one of these Cordless Impact Drivers, I can really recommend getting one and this Draper version cost me less than £20). These joints should have a bit of movement under pressure, but I wouldn't have expected it to support the weight of this.




After several bursts of the gun over the next couple of minutes, it finally started to turn. A drop of oil, and pull the trigger again. As it slowly turned, it was getting quite warm, and the warmer it got, the easier it turned. After repeating this process for a couple of minutes, the joint suddenly started to spin smoothly whenever the trigger was pulled, not fast as its not a quick drill, but slowly enough to now mean it was free.




I turned my attention to the other lower Torsion arm and once it had been degreased and de-sanded just like the first, I tried to fit my tool into the end of the joint. Yep, that's about Par for the Course, as the hex hole in the other identical Ball Joint was of a completely different size. It was smaller, in fact it was so small that I did not have anything suitable for spinning it up that was not made of cheese. No problems, I`ll take the nut off the other one, lock the two nuts together and spin them using a socket. I should have known better, I mean two Ball Joints with 12mm Nuts should be fairly standard wouldn't you have thought? There was that niggle in my head again about not trusting anyone to do things properly and sure enough the two joints have different pitch 12mm threads. One has a fairly standard 1.5mm thread whilst this one is 1.25mm.



You just couldn't make this up. 


The Upper Joints did defeat me though and I sent these over to Dave Fisher to apply a bit of pressure to them as suggested. They were much better when they came back, but I will admit to also giving them a few spins in the drill too, just to be sure. At the moment there seems to be enough movement there for me to now grease them up and fit them all to the beam knowing that these shouldn't cause the steering or suspension to be stiff whilst setting it up. (I know I am going to regret saying that) and if I need to replace anything later, then so be it.

So . . .  Have I completely knackered them? Or will they work for a while? Truth be told, I have no idea.   

fair rant you pay good money for stuff and services, to press joints in you need thick walled tube the fits on the outer ring not the centre where the ball is.
spinning them so they get hot whilst getting them free may shorten their life but buggies are not high mileage cars so they should last years.

Quote from: snoopy on January 28, 2024, 06:34:03 PM
. . . . buggies are not high mileage cars so they should last years.

That was my thinking too 

Honestly in 20 years of building cars I've not had a single aftermarket part - or even a part ordered to an engineering drawing - that I haven't had to correct or rework in some way. It's why I do so much stuff in house that doesn't seem to make sense to do - I don't trust *anyone* to make what they actually bloody should these days, nobody gives a damn any more so long as they've got your money.

Honestly in 20 years of building cars I've not had a single aftermarket part

nobody gives a damn any more so long as they've got your money.

Could not agree more with this. The ball joint issue is a perfect example...   I cannot calculate how many of these I have fitted since buying my first car 54 years ago. Until the modern repo market emerged these joints came out the box in waxed paper wrapping and they could be "rotated" by hand with ease and smoothly at that.

And you all thought I had finished moaning about these Torsion Arms . . .   

Whilst fitting them to the beam, I have decided that I am not really happy about the plastic end caps that have been fitted - They look like 3D printed ones to me 



So a quick trawl of the net and I found some replacement metal domed ones from LimeBug



A swift bang into place with a suitable size socket



And a quick dab of paint to protect them and seal them in place



I also checked the camber eccentric nuts and set them at zero degrees



It was quite reassuring to know that the camber remained at zero degrees throughout the entire suspension travel - VW really got this bit right


Much happier with these now.   

Look like badly 3d printed ones at that, over extruded and way too cold.

So, what do I now do about the steering? I really want a Rack and Pinion type steering if I can, and the Rack of choice at the moment seems to be a LHD Ford Escort Mk2 that is then flipped upside down for RHD use. I have crawled over both Alan's and Lawson's Buggies taking photographs from every angle, and they seem to fit really well. However, I also have an alarm bell going off in my head about bump steer due to the length and pivot points of the arms. Whilst those Buggies I have seen, I know drive really nicely with no problems whatsoever, I am also very conscious that they are both sitting quite low with a very limited amount of suspension travel when compared to mine. I am concerned that because mine sits very high with a much larger amount of movement, that I may inadvertently recreate the previous problems I had with bad handling, and for that reason, (for now), I am ruling out this particular choice.

There is (or was) another very popular conversion from many moons back using the centrally mounted steering rack from the old VW Polo, affectionately known as the Breadvan but it has fallen out of favour these days as there are just no parts nor donor vehicles left. It just so happens that I still have a few of those racks stashed away, along with all the necessary rods and brackets as I was actually contemplating going down this route before I got involved with the previous front end.



It does present itself with a few problems though due to its size, as it is quite large and bulky and would require a new petrol tank to be fabricated around it.



Initially, that didn't phase me, as I am going to have to make a new tank for the Subaru conversion anyway, but I would actually like this thing to see some tarmac in the near future so I am going to opt for a much quicker and faster solution so that I can come out and play with you all once more. I now just want to get this back on the road and that meant yet another call to Dave Fisher who responded by sending me a parcel. Yep, going back to basics and fitting a standard VW Steering Box albeit on a temporary basis. Its not what I wanted to do, but if I have learned anything from my mistakes over the front end swap, its not to try and change too much in one go.



By changing one thing at a time, I can always quickly unbolt stuff and revert back if it doesn't work and still keep the car on the road whilst experimenting.

Hopefully Chinese Forst are better quality than the last TRW box I brought a fair time ago, I have a good spare original stashed away for any future failure on the buggies

Even the Chinese ones can't be worse than the old box I took off, or that bloody awful rack from the Mini - I really won't miss that one   

I did a really silly thing a few years back, No, not changing the front end, I cleared out my garage of a lot of original Beetle steering stuff that I thought I would never use again and now it has come back to bite me. Have you seen the price of Pitman Arms lately? Christ, what happened there? I have been on a quest to source all of the bits now needed to restore the steering box and track rods back to original. Something I had not considered though was the end stops for the steering, those little bits welded to the beam that stop your wheels from turning too far and hitting the bodywork. I didn't fancy welding anything to my beam for obvious reasons and Dave Fisher informed me about a bolt on plate that has two adjusters that limits the movement of the Pitman Arm. Because I could not think of another way to accomplish this, I grabbed one - but if the truth be told, I`m not entirely certain about it just yet and think it may need some fettling to make it work in a better way than intended - but I will deal with that later once I've got the steering working.



Remove the bolts holding the steering box, fit plate and refit bolts - Simplez     

Yeah, right - when has anything on my car been Simple? For a start, the steering clamp bolts were an imperial size which really threw me as I thought that everything on a Beetle was metric. Turns out that there was indeed some form of abomination released from Wolfsburg, and that's the one that my Chinese manufacturer had copied. I then had to work out where to fit the box on the beam and what angle to set it at. On a genuine beam there are some small raised locating pegs and depending on which way up you fit the clamp (Beetle or Ghia I think) it sets both the alignment along the beam and the angle of the steering column shaft. So when you have a nice smooth aftermarket beam with no marks, how do you know where the box is supposed to go?

I measured a mates Beetle, and it was approximately 220mm from the centre of the shaft to the centre of the beam - So I will set it there and point the shaft towards the bulkhead hole where the steering column is emerging from, WHICH SHOULD HOPEFULLY REDUCE THE ANGLES OF ANY UNIVERSAL JOINTS.  -  Apologies, had to shout a bit there so that Ed from Pie Valley might hear it and take note as his column angles were just crap.



I then centred the steering of the box by turning it all the way to each end, counting the turns as I went along and then finding the halfway mark. Apparently there is a visual mark on the genuine boxes, whereas mine was made from red marker pen so I could ensure it stayed in one place.

Something that has puzzled me though whilst reading up on tales of woe about some of these steering boxes is that nobody seems to mention anywhere that they need to be filled with some form of lubricant. Back in the day, VW filled them with Gearbox oil and used the two plastic bungs on the top of the steering box as a fill guide. Remove both bungs and pour in some EP80 into the top hole until the level reached the bottom one and the refit bungs. I`m just wondering how many of these failures are down to dry boxes as everyone incorrectly assumes that they are sealed units?