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Christopher wrote:
> What is bent are the portions of the beam that have the rubber stops on
them, and >I now believe both are bent upwards just enough to cause the tires to
be so
>much closer to the body.
Is this with the car jacked up? If so then the lower torsion bars are pulling
the uppers down. This would be normal if the ball joints are still connected.
> I discovered this when the left upper torsion arm wouldn't come out despite
my >attempts to force it out with a crow bar which I not only pulled on with
all my >strength but also hammered.
Are you trying to remove these with everything still connected on both sides?
If so then you fighting the pull of the torsion bars, which will make the job
even harder than it should be.
>I realized that something had to be in the way and when I was looking I
>noticed that the portion of the beam described above which comes out just
>below the lower torsion arms was shiny silver and there were tiny pieces
>of metal around it since that part of the beam was in contact with the
>arm. The metal that is blocking the arms exit is sloped and it gets way
>to high for that arm to ever come out without that part being bent back.
There is a retaining tab (molded to the bump stop) that might be in your way
also. On the uppers, you're supposed to remove the spindles from both arms and
rotate up to be able to remove them. VW used them on both the uppers and
lowers (using different styles) to keep the torsion arms from possibly coming out
in case of a grub screw coming loose.
>Today I went to see what the upper torsion arm should look like by
>putting the right upper torsion arm in, and found the same difficulties,
>although a tad less pronounced since I was able to remove it with less
>difficulty.
I'm beginning to wonder now if you got the grub screw back in the right place
on the left side, if the right side came off that much easier. The left side
is very important as it is supposed to anchor the upper stabilizer bar in
place and allow the right side to be adjusted to remove any slack.
>Also, I was just looking at pictures of the front end when it
>wasn't jacked up and everything was assembled and noticed something that
>confused me: should the lower torsion arms be touching the rubber stops,
>or should it be the upper torsion arms that are touching the rubber
>stops? In the pictures, the lower arms are the ones that are touching
>the rubber stops.
No they shouldn't, if so then the lower arms need to be slightly re-clocked,
unless you're going for a slightly lowered look, then you need to swap the
upper and lower bump stop rubbers for each other.There should be some space
between both when the car is on the ground irregardless of lowered or stock ride
height.
>So, with this, I could--I suppose--bend that piece of the beam
>back so that the rubber stops are in about the right relationship with
>the arms, or do these have to be exact for safety and the like?
You might want to put everything back together and find a flat and level
place to park it on and do some measuring. I believe Dave Hall had a page with the
stock ride heights listed for a type3, although they were for an early car I
found most of the numbers are close even for the later cars. It listed ride
heights from the center of the headlights, tail lights, bumpers(front and rear)
clearance under different spots under the car, etc... You might want to find
these and check them against your car to see how far off you really are before
trying to make any big adjustments. I hope this helps.
Bob 65 Notch S w/ Sunroof
69 Square AT-the baby suburban
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