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Sun Apr 05, 2009 12:40 am

you sure have to go through a lot of work to get this thing past the inspection. i didn't know Australia was so strict on road laws.

watch those arms though, that's a lot of leverage on a single piece of tubing even with the sheet around it. if your going to fudge on the shock mounts make sure you run another piece of steel like the upper mount underneath so you get a gusset on the top and bottom.

and this is just something that i find in a lot of cars that can easily be fixed and will provide a decent amount of saftey.

align cage pieces as much as possible, you want lines to follow through as much as possible. if you can move the B pillar support over to match the Halo connections you would gain a lot of strength and reduce the chance of the material sheering.

Sun Apr 05, 2009 3:53 am

On the subject of the shock mount, check the second photo. that brace is directly under the inside one of the shock mounts. Don't think its strong enough? The arm itself there really isn't that much more that i can think of doing to it, so time will tell.
The rearward bar i have already thought of and will see how it all fits together once the shocks start going in.

The laws here are not really that strict, just under developed. Basically there are no ruleings at all for suspension upgrades, so generally they just say no. There are certain things that can be made legal (like the cage and the use of kombi parts) but basically i will get approval for what i can and the rest i will have to use a combination of stealth and lies.

Sun Apr 05, 2009 4:10 am

yeah the mounts look fine its just the arms that worry me. quite a few people i know have had problems with aftermarket boxed arms coming apart. not to mention that stock arms have been known to split.

so despite your incredible talent at making things appear stock i would be wary of the single tube design of the arms. especially because your extending them. but only time will tell. i was just recommending that you put another piece of plate like you put on top, on the bottom.

Tue Apr 07, 2009 1:33 am

Well thats it. Ive been talked into putting another plate on the bottom aswell and a gusset between, should have bought more flatbar :?
On a note of the arms, because of the way i have done them, before i started on the shock mounts i was able to flip them left and right to check the camber and by flipping them have got really close to zero, sweet
The next few days of photos will be a little all over the place cause i got ask to show pctures of my gearbox mounts (I am still ahead of what i have posted) except for the arms,

after looking at an ungodly amount of mounts on the samba search engine i decided that the mckenzies style 10* mount was for me, Of course the prospect of getting one from the states was out of the finacial question, so .. .. . . . . make my own :D
I changed a few things to make it simpler and to work with bushes that where avalible for cars over here. Also might find this a interesting question, all the posts on the mckenzies mount state that you had to trim the shift rod and have seen my pix of a hole cut in the body to clear the nose of the gearbox. Why not move the box back a little? running 3x3 anyway? Moved mine back a total of 20mm and the shifter bolts straight up and everything just looks good in its place. Anyway, pix. you be the judge.

Really would like some feed back on any problems caused by moving the gearbox back

Can you believe i forgot to take on all finished up? :roll: geez! anyway you get the idea

Tue Apr 07, 2009 6:06 am

Congrats on making your own 10*, that thing looks serious... :shock: and for the rear arms looking "stock", I don't think you should get harrassed :evil: for adding gussets to make something stronger you should get friendly with your local law maker and see if you can some of this stuff added in.

Wed Apr 08, 2009 10:07 pm

Great work Nilza.

I suggest you add braces from the rear of the cage to the bell housing mounts to stiffen the forks. You've cut away for the CVs and on the inner sides of the forks for gearbox clearance so you need to make up for the loss of that strength. They often break from offroading if they're stock. Now they're even weaker. Combis have hanging mounts rather than the forks underneath, so there's your logic for the "regulators". Another note: paint everything semi-flat black, and get it all dirty before you take it to Mr. Fussy the Inspector. I agree with the Penguin guy on the arms. Lots of leverage on those from the wheel.

Fortunately, in spite of some attempts to ban any modifications to cars at all, we don't have any such inspection process here in California.

Thu Apr 09, 2009 2:52 am

Don't worry dusty, is definatly going to happen. the rear of the cage is on hold at the moment till the suspension comes together and the axels and engine are in so that all my clearances are correct. The rear cage is technically not part of the roll cage that the engineer will be looking at because it counts as part of the baja conversion (which already has the nod) He will only be interested i what is going on inside the cabin.
On the subject of those big holes in the frame horns, sure was a surprise when i open those up

Might give you some idea how much mud this thing has seen, i think there are plenty of guys that would be in the same boat if they looked!
ook some time the clean it out thats for sure and removed the heater wire tubes while i was at it
Thats better

welded up the holes with some 4mm, to be sure i clearanced them at a radius of 128mm (just incase i lose my mind and go 934 cvs)also filled the bolt holes and clearanced and welded the perimeter of the frame horns

Next the important bit! Irs convertion. Wasn't sure how hard this actually was, and the those wordering weather the do it at home or not. It really is not that hard particularly if you start with good bits. A friend of mine actually had a t3 rear end lying around in his yard and some HD pivot boxes, SCORE!

I made up some some home made pivot jigs from the t3 rear end.
The real trick here is the cut these holes the right size, I got close but still had to add a small triangles of metal at the top and bottom, seeing as how the pivot boxes are round on the corners. Guess in hindsite i could have ground the matrial away a bit slower with a die grinder, but the real strength is where it is welded to,

All done, rear end just about ready. all thats left is some tubes welded over the pivot bolts so that i can pin them, a whole lot of cleaning and some paint back here. Oh, . . . . on the that subject, I use underbody sound deadener, is thick and rough enough to make any signs of welding disappear, being bituman based it stays soft and a light spay of oil once a year keeps it that way, as for getting it out from under your finger nails :x
Just about up to present day now, get my shocks and finish up those arms this weekend,
Happy Easter All!

Fri Apr 10, 2009 4:21 am

HEH HEH HEH, guess what i got! They are actually second hand from a local vw racer who decided to go longer. Not sure if they will need some work, and haven't got my hands on spring compressor and coil nut pliers (got them for 1/4 of replacement) :P

This is a cool photo and illustrates the "evolution" of the baja over the years. from stock, to modded stock, to kombi, to coil over

Fri Apr 10, 2009 1:20 pm

ive never seen a vw with brake cylinders like that the only ones ive seen had one cylinder on top and the adjuster on bottom

Fri Apr 10, 2009 2:00 pm

WHOA! talk about old school coil overs. those Bilsteins look sweet.

as for the brakes, the dual cylinder ones are T3 right?

Fri Apr 10, 2009 6:03 pm

Wow Nilza, you have been busy since I last saw your Baja. Thanks for the tip on the gearbox bushes, I picked up a set today and will start fabbing up my mounts.

For those who dont know, the Country Buggy Front spindles are the Australian equivalent of the 181 front lifted spindles. Difference being Country Buggy are King & Link Pin, whereas 181 is Balljoint.

Sat Apr 11, 2009 4:51 am

These brakes?
as CAB11 said i have country buggy spindles on the front, which are basically split combi spindles with a few slight differences. As a result I have split kombi brakes on the front (they are HUGE) and thats the duel cylinder going on there, any split kombi has them. As for type3, have never wrenched on one so don't know.

Is funny all the aussie blokes are all just finding my thread, is all down hill fom here :lol: but seriously, if you have any questions or what some more photos of how i did mine CAB11 give me a call, can't go wrong with those bushes. Quick tip for everyone fabbing something up. Old beetle steering rods are seamless tube and are 19mm OD and 10mm ID and are perfect for shock bosses, gearbox mouts ect. (3/4 and 3/8 for those imperially minded)

Yeah the shocks where a steal, cost me about the same as a new set of torsions where going to. That decision was a no brainer :roll:

The family and friends are pretty quiet this easter, the weather is horrible! I broke my surfboard a few weeks back and the girlfriend is out of the country. So. . . . . . . .guess who gets to play with the beetle most of the weekend! Was just aiming to get the arms finished, but things are going ahead fast.
Got the arms finished up, added the bottom brace

Bolted the right hand one on, found full compression. Tyre fits! (just) nothing extra to weld. From there found 90* from the bottom mount

This is where the center of the shaft will run, and bore a 4 inch hole at the same angle as the rod. So for all these people who cut half there car away trying the find the right amount to take out for there coil overs .. . . .. . . Stop it :x
On the inside where does that rod go? Uh Oh, that will have to be rebent. glad i put the cage on hold? Gave me an opertunity to change the position of the tube coming from the top of the B pillar too

Now we're getting somewhere!

I ended up with 15mm deflection forward and back and less than 5mm left and right thoughtout the full travel of the shock (not bad for a first timer i reacon) goes to show, do your research, understand it and its a piece of cake :P
Now i know i need another tube to go from the top shock mount to the torsion bar, but where should it go? Here or here?(red)
and another tube between here? (green)

Thu Apr 16, 2009 1:08 am

As mentioned there was alot of progress last weekend, have rear shock mounts done on both sides, still curious on where to put this bar from the torsion bar to? Anybody?

Mon Apr 20, 2009 3:11 am

Feel like not much happened this weekend,
lowered the seats 30mm (so my head doesn't hit the bars on the cage)
put a bar behing the seats for the seatbealts to mount to
put a bar from the top shock mounts to the rear torsion, The cabin area is starting to look busy and closer to finished every week! Need to start looking for a fuel cell.
and started mocking up for the extended front clip, am going to use a 6 inch over beam. How much caster should i be building into it? I read in one of the other posts 6* does that sound right?

Thu Apr 23, 2009 2:50 am

Update - I had my first sit down talk with the engineer today, Rollcage is looking good but he is a little worried about the front end being too strong :? Irs conversion is good, 002 install is all good too. Extending the front clip is out because of finacial reasons (this would involve a beam and torsional test, same as a convertiable conversion) The coil shocks he has pointed out are a bit iffy as well, because of "apparently" it changes the geometry of the suspension.
Any engineers or tech officers out there that have some info or drawings/files I can hit these burocrates with? (yah, i know my spelling sucks)

Thu Apr 23, 2009 3:09 am

nilza wrote: Update - I had my first sit down talk with the engineer today, Rollcage is looking good but he is a little worried about the front end being too strong :? Irs conversion is good, 002 install is all good too. Extending the front clip is out because of finacial reasons (this would involve a beam and torsional test, same as a convertiable conversion) The coil shocks he has pointed out are a bit iffy as well, because of "apparently" it changes the geometry of the suspension.
Any engineers or tech officers out there that have some info or drawings/files I can hit these burocrates with? (yah, i know my spelling sucks)

the inspector is actually going to perform a torsional load test on your chassis!!!?!?! seriously? that's more intense than most sanctioned racing bodies tech inspection.

what kind of documentation are you looking for exactly? and what kind of tech info?

Fri Apr 24, 2009 12:43 am

OK,.. . . . .in the below picture, say this is the torsion (point C), rear arm and cage. the red line between, point A and B is the shock.
I need to know what the rotational pressure would on the torsion housing at full bump (With the torsion preloaded, baja style to make it interesting) I think i could probably just put a torsion wench on the torsion bar and pull it till it hits the top and take a reading, but i have a feeling that it would be close to 500lbs.
Would it Just be the wieght of the rear of the car divided by 2 perhaps?
Then the pressure of the coil on points A and B at full bump, I am using 250 and 350lb springs and have still the original torsion bars in place set at 0* preload at full joist (I would think 350lb?)
And lastly, the one I have no idea how to work out. The deflection change (thats left and right)on the arm and springplate now the spring load is at point B not at C.

And you are right penguin, they are pretty intense here. You guys have it pretty good it the states. I wonder sometimes if a race car would be easier easier! :lol:

Fri Apr 24, 2009 1:31 am

are you using stock size torsion bars?

Fri Apr 24, 2009 3:42 am

yeah, because i need to be able to show the difference between standard and the coil setup

Fri Apr 24, 2009 6:34 am

Nilza are those Acura integra seats? I had them in my bug..