I'm guessing that the difference in the metallurgy is that standard VW spindles are forged steel and that aftermarket ones are on the whole cast iron, which I think is a cheaper process and the reason that most aftermarket spindles are a little bulkier. I know my Empi ones certainly are.

Is there a reason you can't use standard spindles Dave? Are these 'dropped' ones to lower the ride height?

Reading your saga I can only deduce to trust no one in the aftermarket industry (not that KK were ever on my Xmas card list) and for reliability sake keep things as 'standard  VW'  as possible 

I love this forum to bits, and its great to get peoples input on things, even if what they say is not what you really want to hear, because Manxdavid has just said something that has unknowingly confirmed the end of a restless night thinking about it.

Quote from: Manxdavid on April 04, 2024, 08:20:29 AM
I'm guessing that the difference in the metallurgy is that standard VW spindles are forged steel and that aftermarket ones are on the whole cast iron, which I think is a cheaper process and the reason that most aftermarket spindles are a little bulkier. I know my Empi ones certainly are.

Is there a reason you can't use standard spindles Dave? Are these 'dropped' ones to lower the ride height?

Reading your saga I can only deduce to trust no one in the aftermarket industry (not that KK were ever on my Xmas card list) and for reliability sake keep things as 'standard  VW'  as possible 

I know I am using a set of "Borrowed" short shocks to get me started with some height measurements, but those hubs do seem to sit very high up into the arches, so I have just bypassed my cornflakes and gone out to fit a wheel - and I am not happy as I do not appear to have any suspension travel at all without the wheel physically hitting the wing. Something has gone drastically wrong here.



Mandavid's comment has saved me a lot of head scratching here though as he has spotted and commented on something that I had not even considered. It appears that I have been incorrectly sent a pair of Powder Coated LOWERED spindles instead of standard ones that I ordered and I have lost two and a half inches of travel. Didn't spot that one and could kick myself for assuming that I would have been sent the same parts that I had ordered, especially as they had been customised in blue as a special order.



I would be forgiven for losing the will to live at this point, but anger has taken over and I am not going to be beaten by this. Dave Fisher is still one of the good guys remaining, but as much as I respect how busy he can be, there are only so many times you can be told by his staff that he is not in the office when you can clearly hear him nattering in the background. I cannot wait for them to resolve this as that will be another week or two at the speed the world currently seems to operate, so its back to that Buggy in a ditch with some beer tokens and just rip the rusty front off it and bring it home. Its restoration time.

I knew I was going to come back to these at some point, but had hoped to have at least got both wheels on before having to replace them.

Don't worry Dave, 'been there done that' as they say.

I was given a rusty old beam one that had been left out for the scrap man, I used the spindles on a buggy that I was throwing together out of parts, I couldn't for the life of me work out why the 14" slotmags wouldn't bolt on. It turned out the spindles were CB Performance forged dropped ones 

I got £95 on vzi for them and they're happily chugging around London on a Karmann Ghia.

Sometimes you eat the bear...

Your problem is possibly that Eva Resto are aimed fair and square at the low brigade not buggies with big tyres, fit some standard hubs and sell the lowered ones summer is coming and you need to be on the road.

Cheap as chips...

All sorted and I am now the proud owner of a pair of complete hubs from this donor Beetle. I think that the discs and pads were replaced just before it was laid up as underneath the surface rust, the pads look new and there are no wear marks on the discs. Been standing a while though as the back plates are disintegrating as we speak and it looks like I have left a long trail of brown breadcrumbs going back to the garage.

In fairness to Dave Fisher, he rang me earlier in a bit of disbelief that this could have happened and I think he had a few choice words with Max about it. I think Snoopy is right though that Max is so used to dealing with lowered cars that everything goes out with dropped spindles, irrespective of what you ask for. Anyway, Dave is shipping me a brand new set of spindles as we speak, but I think I am going to strip these rusty ones down first and see what I can do with them as I would far rather renovate some genuine parts now and try and limit the use of some of the aftermarket bits where I can.

The Saga continues

Genuine spindles are built to a quality not a price

I'd stick with the guaranteed genuine original ones rather than risk anything new from KK that's possibly got the structural consistency of white dog muck (remember that!?).

Well my recently acquired thread tapping skills came in handy today as two of the backplate screws snapped as soon as I put a spanner near them. 

For those who are struggling to understand how different a set of drop spindles can be, if you have a look at these two side by side and it might help explain it a bit better.



Off to see the Powder Coaters tomorrow 


Oh, and if anyone needs a pair of discs or front calipers and is not afraid of a bit of rusty clean up work, give me a yell 

Just a point to mention. I don`t know if there is any engineering reason for this but it has been around for as long as I can remember and CSP fitting instructions made a mention of this also..... "ensure that the "facing surface" of the carrier is free of any surface rust or paint. (This would include powder coating).  I am finding lately at my age my memory is not any where near what it was so I cannot remember the reasoning behind this.

(After powder coating run a tap down thro the threads again to clear them out).

Quote from: Paul1953 on April 05, 2024, 09:01:48 AM
Just a point to mention. I don`t know if there is any engineering reason for this but it has been around for as long as I can remember and CSP fitting instructions made a mention of this also..... "ensure that the "facing surface" of the carrier is free of any surface rust or paint. (This would include powder coating).  I am finding lately at my age my memory is not any where near what it was so I cannot remember the reasoning behind this.

(After powder coating run a tap down thro the threads again to clear them out).

Powder coating can cause problems on a multitude of surfaces and easiest to explain the problem with wheels when they get coated as everyone always coats 100% of the wheel including the faces of the bolt holes. Instead of the wheel nut being nice and tight against the metal of the wheel, it ends up with a few microns of plastic coating between them that does not actually take that long to break down and when it does, the wheel bolts start to unwind themselves often with horrific consequences as the wheel falls off.

A lot of prep is required when powder coating and if you have masked everything off correctly, running a tap through a thread should not even be necessary (but done all the same)

A friend of mine had his Karmann Ghia engine rebuilt by John Maher in his old Manchester workshop. While it was in he got his wide 5 steel wheels powder coated, bolted them on and he made it about 10 miles down the M62 before all 4 wheels came loose. Brake heat had softened the powder coat on the rear of the wheels and as you say, the bolt tapers. It totally wrecked the wheels and drums, nearly the car too 😭

A bit of an update, but not as much as I had hoped 

I came back from the Powder Coaters with a pair of these - Considering what he was given and that he couldn't have bought a beer for what he charged, I am quite happy with them.




It was quite funny really, that on my doorstep when I got home was another parcel. True to his word, Dave Fisher had sent me out a brand new replacement set of spindles. Far better quality than the lowered ones from Max, these actually looked quite substantial. A decision had to be made as to which ones to use.




It was a No Brainer really - Aftermarket or OEM ? - And as I was messaging a member over on the Muddy Side (Baja Club) I found out that only a few hours earlier, one of their Cars had just suffered from snapping an aftermarket front spindle. Thankfully no real damage done by all accounts.

Right decision made then.   

The next job on my list is to sort out the correct length of shocks (spring weights will be measured later) and the way I finally ended up doing it last time (after ignoring everything that Ed from Pie Valley was telling me to do), was to jack the car up and to physically measure the length that the shock needed to be. I needed both a fully extended and a fully closed measurement. I rigged up a stick with a scissor Jack under the front beam so that I could raise and lower the front end and make a few marks to indicate the travel of the suspension.




Fully closed was an easy one, it had to be before the tyre hit the wheel arch, so that even under the heaviest of braking it will not scrub the wheels or damage the wing. Fully open was also an easy one to measure as the suspension can only travel so far, so the open measurement was just before it had reached the limit of travel.




I really need to get the wheels on the ground so that I can weigh it for the front springs, so whilst it was bobbing up and down with the scissor jack, I put my angle gauge under the floor to get a rough idea of a where a horizontal ride height would be.




And once I knew that rough suspension height, I could then recreate something resembling the smoothness of my first suspension to get the wheels back on the ground. 




Now I have these measurements, I can ask GAZ to make me a set of Shocks   

Hadn't banked on the 5 week lead time though - That's just scuppered a few early shows. 

I went with Protech for my shocks, turn around was really quick

I've come this far - another few weeks waiting for the bits I want