Ball joint suspension travel

I am trying to improve the ride of my '79 IM. The front suspension is hard as a rock, so I followed Bruce Gordon's guide for determining my actual wheel travel. My measurements show that I am riding on the ball joints (4.25" difference). I assume that the builder of the car lowered it via the torsion bars, since it has standard ball joint spindles. My question is: How do I adjust the front end back to the point where I have some decent travel? I realize that this will raise the car and dropped spindles are in my future.

Thanks, Chuck

Someone once told me that they make a set of ball joints that allow for more travel on lowered cars. Might be a lead.

According to previous posts by Bruce, the long travel ball joints only yield an additional 0.25". I am trying to figure out what was initially done to lower the front end using the standard spindles, so that I can reverse the process to see how the ride quality will increase. Now it rides like a coal cart on a gravel road!

Chuck

Are you saying you are "bottoming out" at the end of the travel?

Do you have the welded in adjusters in the center of the front beam? They allow it to be raised back up. Only other way to lower suspension with stock spindles is by cutting/removing torsion springs (NOT recommended way!)

Actually, the top beam can be cut turned and rewelded. It gives drop just like an adjuster but is not adjustable. This is what was done on my car but only the top was rotated and my suspension still has plenty of travel. If you are truly bottoming out you may try air shocks to lift the front suspension or if you are getting dropped spindles anyway, weld in adjusters to your beam or buy a beam with them installed.
Scott

I've found that the method that works best for me is:
At least one beam adjuster.
Dropped Spindles
Stock (worn out but not leaking) shocks.
This set up allows (near) stock suspension travel without harsh ride.

One of the common problem components in ANY method you choose to lower the front end is Shocks.
If the stock shocks are used on a beam that has Adusters only, they're usually TOO long and will bottom out and limit suspension travel.

To monitor this, I cut off the dust cover from the shock. Put a tie-wrap around the now exposed shaft. Push the tie-wrap down to the body of the shock. This acts as a tell-tale indicator.

After setting the optimal ride height and test driving the vehicle, look at the position of the tie-wrap on the shock shaft. If it's pushed up to the top, The shocks are bottoming out acting as Hard Stops and limiting suspension travel.

Greg

OK, from the beginning. According to article #202 in the Knowledge section written by Bruce, a ball joint front suspension has 4" of travel with stock ball joints. If you measure the distance from the ground or wheel well lip with the suspension loaded and unloaded the difference should be less than 4". If the difference is 4", then the ball joint is at the limit of it's range and thus yield a harsher ride than is desirable. Seems logical to me. I just can't figure out how my car was lowered, since I have standard spindles and a non adjustable beam. I am assuming that something was done to the springs.

I know that lowered spindles will generally yield about a 2" drop. is that too much or too little? Do I cover all the bases and get an adjustable beam as well?

My original intent was to try to raise the car back up a little to see how/if the ride quality improves, before gutting the front suspension.

Thanks, Chuck

Be carefull raising just the rear too much. As you raise it you lessen your caster angle, making the car more twitchy and prone to wandering. When I had the rear of mine raised because I was afraid of dragging the pipes on the driveway, the car became a bit scary. After lowering it back down, it became stable again. I measured the difference in rear ride height and used a little math and discovered I had removed about 1.7 degrees of caster when I raised it.

Chuck, not to be repetitive but are you saying you have very little travel and when you hit a
large bump you are "hitting the end of your travel" coming up solid? If this is the case
then "somebody" has altered your springs. You can also check the angle of your spindle
are in ref to your torsion tube. Viewed from the side(drivers), imagining your torsion tubes
going 12 till 6 o'clock and your spindle is pointing to XXXX(4, 5 6 o'clock) unloaded. Compare this with a stock set up to check. Maybe your arms are rotated half way thru already.
Only trying to be helpful.

P.S.=I don't think you've mentioned shocks. What type do you have. Pop them off and take
a spin (a short one) and see if they are having a limiting factor.

I looked at your "pics", not very scientific but it looks like your ride height is average.

Have you gotten under the car and looked at the center of your beam? The two nuts should roughly be parallel. If one (usually the top one) is pointed more down then the beam has been cut and turned to lower.
Scott

Bruce, I will remove the shocks and take a spin. Currently, when I push down on the front fender, it barely moves. It is REALLY stiff compared to pushing down on the rear fender. I did replace the shocks when the car was disassembled. I believe that they are Boge.

You mention that my height looks normal. The distance from the top of the wheel rim to the wheel well lip is 4.25". I am curious what kind of measurement someone with dropped spindles has.

Scott, the nuts on the beam appear to be about the same, roughly 20-30 degrees from pointing straight down.

Thanks for the input. I am beginning to think that an adjustable beam w/ dropped spindles is the route to go.

Chuck

Chuck,
If you take off your shocks, you should be able to bounce your car up and down. If you cant, something is binding.

I have a Ghia, and dropped spindles is more than low enough. I had a adj. beam but that was too low and I did'nt like the ride.
Try the spindles first, if you still want lower, than get the adj.

Sounds like a plan. Thanks for all the input.

Chuck

Found the problem! I had stock length shocks on a lowered suspension. The beam is not adjustable and the spindles are standard, so the beam must have been cut and re-welded when the car was assembled. A local VW shop guy told me that cutting the beams was very common in the 70's when my car was built. The distance between the shock mounts was 13" with the wheels on the ground and the standard length shock was 13" when compressed fully. The shocks were beat to death. I put a set of Empi lowered shocks on and took a test spin this AM and the difference is huge. Thanks guys for all the help.

Chuck

Hi Chuck: The difference in length between a regular height shock and a lowered one is around 2

Thanks Bruce for the heads up regarding Puma beams. The ride is so much improved with the shorter shocks that I will probably not do any beam swapping for the time being.

Thanks,
Chuck