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Tue Oct 26, 2010 12:59 pm

I agree completely ... Don't cut anything until you have what you are going to use ...

I do think your set looks good above ... Looks as if it would handle a lot of torque ....

Again,, I'll get a photo or two of the "Johnson's " up here on the site before the week is out ....

Sat Oct 30, 2010 8:58 am

williamdenson wrote: JDub,,,, Johnny Johnson was the last I knew that made the adapters, at least at a "production" level....

Yup, I talked to him about them yesterday, He was pretty amazed that people were still looking for them LOL......

When I get back down to La Paz in two weeks I'm going to see if he has any problems with Me making up some more..........

Mon Nov 01, 2010 7:14 pm

I tried to get in touch with John a few years ago.. I was trying to find out who he got to grind his stubs ...

For a while he was selling 1.68 axle sets ... We bought one set from him way back there.... (Still in perfect shape) ,,,

He was using an OEM top gear(16T) ,, but the best I could tell,, a machine shop somewhere was grinding out the 27 tooth stub .....

I was wanting another set,, and was ready to run down whatever he was doing and copy it ...

I got lucky,, and with a couple of friends here on The Samba, ended up with almost 2 more sets that were factory NOS ...

I got a phone call the other day,, I had to travel overseas again,, didn't get to take the photos I promised earlier,, will be home mid November, and will snap the photos of my adapters...

It would be pretty cool if you could make a few sets,, seems like there are some folks here that would like to have a set .....

Two years ago,, I started to make a few sets,, the phone rang and my personal shop has been locked down for two years as I've traveled...

One thing I'll say about those Johnson adapters, and everything else I bought from John,, It's still here,,, it took a beating,, and it still works !

B

Tue Nov 02, 2010 5:40 am

Here are a few pictures of one of the two NOS sets I have scored from Samba members over the last year.

And here is a link to a build I am doing using one of the sets.

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=421262

Thu Nov 04, 2010 11:20 pm

Thanks for the pictures and measurements Joe.

If and when I do reproduce them, they will not be exact replicas. They will have some minor changes to modernize a few things and fix a couple of things that I think are problem areas.

Mon Jan 17, 2011 4:48 pm

okay.. so i'm still confused after this even...

i want the lift.. my car is an around town car and cruise through the woods once in a while for fun, nothing major... i just want lift w/o the tire lean... will the redux boxes bolt to my stock 68 Swing axle trans in the beetle or is this a swap everything? if so what all do you need to do the swap? this stuff is so confusing, and living on the east cost no one really knows much about this type of stuff..

Mon Jan 17, 2011 10:28 pm

jeepinoffroad04 wrote: okay.. so i'm still confused after this even...

i want the lift.. my car is an around town car and cruise through the woods once in a while for fun, nothing major... i just want lift w/o the tire lean... will the redux boxes bolt to my stock 68 Swing axle trans in the beetle or is this a swap everything? if so what all do you need to do the swap? this stuff is so confusing, and living on the east cost no one really knows much about this type of stuff..

Any swing axle will give you the tire lean, either lean in or lean out, that is just the nature of a swing axle.

The answers to the questions you ask are in the first couple of pages of this thread. The conversion is not just a simple bolt in, you will need some sort of adapters to make the bus RGB fit into a beetle.

If you are willing to read, I have done a detailed thread of installing a RGB in my Baja build. Although the Baja is not completly done, the RGB install in the pan is comletely done. But you will have to read the thread and not just look at the pictures.

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=421262

Mon Jan 17, 2011 10:30 pm

jeepinoffroad04 wrote: okay.. so i'm still confused after this even...

will the redux boxes bolt to my stock 68 Swing axle trans in the beetle or is this a swap everything? if so what all do you need to do the swap? this stuff is so confusing, and living on the east cost no one really knows much about this type of stuff..
yes the boxes, axles, and brakes will bolt to your type 1 swing axle trans.
to do this you must turn your ring and pinion around. (I would get someone who knows what they are doing to do this because you have to measure backlash.)
At that point,because the trans is open, it 's a good idea to strength it up a little ie: superdiff, new bearrings and bushings, hardened side covers stiffeners, different gears if you want...
Also you need to either make adapters or buy some to adapt your gear reduction boxes to your spring plates.

Sat Mar 17, 2012 9:00 pm

OK, It's been quite awhile since I last posted here but recently got back to my Baja project after finishing a tractor restoration and a CJ-5 build sooooo.

When I left off I needed to figure out how I was going to incorporate shock mounts for the adapters I built. I also wanted to build a truss to stiffen the transaxle forks. The truss will help control any deflection of the forks and help minimize some of the wheel hop. The truss also incorporates the upper shock mount as I had to use the OEM mount to tie the truss in.

Truss fabrication:

Lower shock mount:

Truss and shocks installed:

This shot shows a view of the nut welded to the inner, lower bearing cap and can be pulled to replace the bearing without having to unbolt the adapters or spring plates: :)

Sat Mar 17, 2012 9:21 pm

Very nice set-up, great workmanship and design! =D> =D> =D>

Sun Mar 25, 2012 9:08 am

williamdenson wrote:

That caused a problem worse than the first problem ...

They more or less used a wheel bearing idea using roller bearings that needed pre-load in order to work.

They added threads and a nut to the back of the stub axle in order to set the pre-load and used the "plug" they drilled into the reduction case as a way to access the nut for assembly and adjustment ....

William,

I'm a bit confused after reading over your post about the bearing changes made from the early RGBs to the later. You mentioned the need for bearing preload on the later rgb. I'm assuming you were referring to the lower, outer roller bearing? All the other bearings are ball so they would not need preload. This roller bearing however is not a taper cone/cup type bearing so I'm a little confused how you would preload it if it's required. I'm not finding any information anywhere that explains the preload procedure. Help me out here cuz now I'm agonizing over having to take these boxes apart again.

Sun Mar 25, 2012 2:31 pm

hotratz wrote: williamdenson wrote:

That caused a problem worse than the first problem ...

They more or less used a wheel bearing idea using roller bearings that needed pre-load in order to work.

They added threads and a nut to the back of the stub axle in order to set the pre-load and used the "plug" they drilled into the reduction case as a way to access the nut for assembly and adjustment ....

William,

I'm a bit confused after reading over your post about the bearing changes made from the early RGBs to the later. You mentioned the need for bearing preload on the later rgb. I'm assuming you were referring to the lower, outer roller bearing? All the other bearings are ball so they would not need preload. This roller bearing however is not a taper cone/cup type bearing so I'm a little confused how you would preload it if it's required. I'm not finding any information anywhere that explains the preload procedure. Help me out here cuz now I'm agonizing over having to take these boxes apart again.

Don't worry, there is nothing in a late Large Nut RGB that requires pre-loading a bearing.

I think he got mixed up and stated the lower inner bearing needed pre-loaded when he ment that it had a nut that needed tightening, that is why the access plug is there.

Nice design on the shock mounts! Get that thing running!

Sun Mar 25, 2012 2:56 pm

WHEW :!: That's kinda what I thought. He was talking about the stub axle needing to be torqued. When ever I hear "preload" I always think Timkin type bearings. It was sooo long ago that I rebuilt those RGBs that I wasn't sure what I did or didn't do inside there. I know I'm usually pretty methodic with these things but in my old age I'm never quite as sure of myself as I used to be. :lol:

Since I've finished my tractor and my Jeep the Baja is my priority project right now so we should see more timely progress. Lots to do yet. Thanks for the Kudos!