[T3] Axel Beam...

[Jim Adney]

On 11 Dec 2014 at 4:17, J. Jonik wrote:

> How high should front axle beam be above street level?   And, if too
> low....where to look for reasons why, and how to fix?  Should torsion
> bars be set a notch or two differently? 

Okay, I went out and measured from the ground up to the middle of the 
lower edge of my front axle beam: stock '73 car and tires, but the 
car may have settled over time. Still, it's pretty close.

I get almost exactly 8". (You owe me: It's 22 F outside and there's 
snow on the ground, ;-) but none under the car.)

The torsion bars are adjusted in small amounts by moving one spline 
forward and one spline backwards. The inner and outer splines have 
different numbers of teeth. Doing it this way gives the ability to 
make small adjustments. Moving one tooth on one end only makes a 
large change, which is not what you're after if you're trying to dial 
in your front end. The actual process is nicely laid out in the 
Bentley, but that requires a tool that only Russ had, and no one 
seems to know where that one went.

> Or is this about the car bending in half because of body rust or something?

If you have that problem, you should be able to see it coming apart 
underneath. It would be obvious. This really isn't anything that 
happens to our cars, but I know someone who used to drive old Saabs 
who that happened to. His first clue was when he noticed that his 
headlight beams tipped up when he accelerated at night. Pulling up 
the carpet between the front seats and the pedals revealed a crack 
that ran completely across the car, side to side. The roof was the 
only thing holding the 2 halves of the car together. He fixed it with 
some long straps and turnbuckles welded underneath the car.

That problem doesn't happen to our cars because our tunnel is quite 
beefy. The old Saab floor pan was much like our pan, but without the 
tunnel.


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Jim Adney, jadney at vwtype3.org
Madison, Wisconsin, USA
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