front torsion arms - adjust?

If the control arm end seals are 40 years old the rubber is dried out and they will leak (or could be simply excess grease that could be cleaned off).  The arms aren't adjustabled.  If there are adjusted welded (not VW stock but added) in adjusters in the center of the H beam the height can be adjusted un/down.  The beam below shows the adjusters and red poly end bearings (I prefer the OEM roller bearings and rubber seals).

Thanks W. I really do not need to adjust them. Ride height is good.
The IM they are on is a 2003. 

I guess my better question would be, is there a way to repack and seal them. Or should I simply wipe them off and live with it?  I feel no play...
Again, this is new for me.

I simply don't know what is acceptable or what need attention.

I appreciate the advice.

The idea, Carlos, is to lubricate the front beam through the grease nipples every few thousand miles. Nothing is wrong- you stop pumping grease when it starts coming out of the joint between the beam and trailing arm. With suspension movement, time and changes in temperature a little bit of grease will leak out of that junction, so just wipe it off with a rag.

The orange Bentley manual says to grease the front beam every 6,000 miles (Lubrication and Maintenance chapter, pages 8 &14), so it's probably a good idea to do it every spring. Hope this helps. Al

PS- all you need is a grease gun like this-

and grease will come in tubes ready to load into the grease gun

Thanks Al and Wolf. Big help. I also found this, that explains what is going on quite well. I had no idea what ws inside the torsion bars... live and learn (and learn, and learn...)

http://vwblvd.com/?p=1163

Thanks again guys.

I just skimmed the article, but it seems to cover most everything. One thing- I've been told that if you bevel the outside edges of the end of the assembled leaf pack it makes install a lot easier as well-

I've also just put the stacks into a beam; there's a little more trial and error, but it works. The tape and beveling just make the job less frustrating. 

Beveling the edges certainly makes sense. I have been turning wrenches on cars for decades and never knew any of this existed. Just no need to investigate it.
But you knew. Thanks again.

MotoCarlo posted:

Beveling the edges certainly makes sense. I have been turning wrenches on cars for decades and never knew any of this existed. Just no need to investigate it.
But you knew. Thanks again.

All depends on what you have experience with. I drove Beetles for the first 15 or so years of my driving career and along the way learned how to do most repairs myself. A lot of that time was after hours at a friend's VW repair/high performance shop (when I should have gone back to school instead of hanging out and drinking beer). Other cars- I know the basics.

Beveling the ends of the outside torsion leaves does, in fact, make it slightly easier to insert them into the torsion tube center donut and/or the trailing arm, but I’ve assembled a LOT of front ends and never bothered to do that.

What does work well is to stack up the leaves and put a rubber band around them a couple of inches from the end.  Insert the leaf stack into the center donut (jiggling around helps), rubber band and all.  It will just push to the entry side of the donut and sit there forever, or until someone in the year 2027 takes it apart and wonders why the hell there is a rubber band on the torsion bar.  Last couple of times I built a front end I used the rubber band from a bunch of Broccoli and it worked fine.  

Recycle whenever you can!

On the grease thing, you wrote, “I guess my better question would be, is there a way to repack and seal them. Or should I simply wipe them off and live with it? ”

They are working as designed.  They are supposed to leak like that.  That’s how they were designed in 1946.  Wipe them off and live with it.  

BTW, 6,000 miles between front end greasing sounds wonkey on these cars.  Once a year, as part of Spring maintenence, sounds about right, UNLESS you have a pair of Urethane torsion bar bushings (it appears that you don’t).  Those are more involved to grease, unless you’ve drilled them for a grease passage and fitting.

Thanks Gordon!
I get the greasing. That is good news. If a ball joint or tie rod looked like, that I'ld be concerned.

Can you take a moment to explain the blasted torsion bar set up? The leaf springs do what? It does not look like the bar is made to flex. Do the springs slide and allow the torsion arms to move in and out?
Give and take - as if I had a handful of straws and pushed one side of the end of the straw and not the other... ?

Seems a curious design to me.

The spring pack twists. The leaves are anchored in the middle by a solid collar and at each end where the pack fits into the trailing arm ends. 

Those bar ends are in-turn fit through needle bearings (or aftermarket urethane sleeves). So nothing moves in and out until you unscrew the grub screws that hold those torsion ends in place, and the grub screws in the middle which keep the spring packs captured.

The spring pack is made simply to twist, and the spring resists twisting so there's your suspension.

But instead of a solid bar it's a bunch of leaves, which means you can also reduce the spring tension easily simply by removing leaves. 

The collar thingies are shaped such that the rest of the spring pack will tend to stay put and work fine even with the smaller leaves missing.

If you want more spring instead of less (which you don't, but IF), there are aftermarket big springs that can take the place of the stock big springs and give you a stiffer ride up front. 

It's quite a cool setup, imho.

Ed.Thanks. Well explained. That makes sense. Now I know. 

Forget the straws. Here it is.

The rear has a similar functioning round solid bar either side.  They make them with different "spring" capacities too.  Both offer a compact suspension --- over coil springs.

Not only that... torsion bars could provide 0.8 G's cornering in the 1950's if I remember correctly.

There are some inherent limitations in these trailing arm suspensions, and the front beams are kind of space hogs—they eat up a lot of trunk space compared to coils or struts.

But they are pretty darn good for their time, and can still be used to make a very fun and credible race car, let alone a street cruiser.

When I look at these VW independent front and rear set-ups compared to, say, my '67 Nova, I weep.

The Nova (like the early Mustangs) set coil springs and shocks atop the upper control arms, putting weight up high and out far for no good reason. The lower control arms were these spindly stampings, triangulated with long strut bars bushed with rubber. Those also gave you some caster adjustment. The lower arms had eccentric cams to adjust camber, and the eccentrics would deflect under load because they were basically just washers. Nothing like the thick machined things you find in the VW ball joint beams.

Anyway, the Chevy II handled like a shopping cart with a fat kid hanging off the front of it, and so did the Mustang. 

The VWs, like the Porsches, were a step up.

Now Ed, there are shopping carts and shopping carts.
I have gotten to selecting the ones with the new wheels, so I can ride it down the small hill in the Publix  parking lot to our suv. I know; I look stupid as a bald 62 year old guy doing this, but it's fun.

(They don't corner very well. Stopping is a challenge too. And no doubt I will one day run into a jacked up 4x4 with a confederate flag on the front and the tattooed encrusted owner inside... Next scene : Carlos - RIP - we knew him well...)

As long as you go out saying "Wheeee!" it's all good.

Tom Blankenship's previous band was called Shopping Cart Joyride.  I have the tee shirt.