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Mon Nov 09, 2009 4:36 pm

hi my name is chris i have a sand rail with a stock vw beam i was wondering if someone would give me a step by step guid to cut and turn a bem to get more clearince i am a very good mechinac and welder so it wont be a problem i just need to know how to do it thanks and have a great day

Mon Nov 09, 2009 7:33 pm

Chris
This is the low down on how I did mine, Take your beam totaly apart so you are working on just the bare housing, next I clamped it in a big vise to keep it from moving around, only work on one tube at a time so the beam will stay in alignment, now mark a stright line on the tube where you can see it easy, this will be used as reference when you rotate the tube, next cut the top tube or bottom about 2" on both sides of the center grub screw, I use a pipe cutter that cuts in less then half a turn but you can use a hack saw, saws-all, porta a band... what ever just try to keep the cuts as straight as possible, rotate the cut part of the tube so that the grub screw goes up as looking at from the front the amount you want to turn, I went 3/8" on a full body sedan and it is pretty stiff, on a buggy I don't think I would go more then 1/4". Now I used a trick I saw here on the samba using a short piece of angle iron and 4 hose clamps to keep it all in line, now tack weld in as many places as you can, remove the hose clamps and angle iron and fully weld, let cool and repeate on the other tube.

Is this a ball joint beam or link-pin, the method I described I used on a BJ beam but should be the same for a LP beam. Now when it come time to reassemble the beam It can be a pain to get the spindle and arms back together, I made a tool to compress the lower arm up high enough to get it back togethor

All it is is a piece of 1/2" all-thread with a piece of tube that fits over the lower shock mount and a couple of washer and a nut to pull it up by tightening the nut, I also used this to hold the arm in place while I tack welded the hook stop in place. hope this helps
Do a search here, there are a couple of good threads here some where.

Earthquake

Mon Nov 09, 2009 8:05 pm

earthquake wrote: Take your beam totaly apart so you are working on just the bare housing,

I made a tool to compress the lower arm up high enough to get it back togethor

i used the same procedure on the first beam i did but on the second one i left the torsion leaves in because i was going to use the same bearings and the old dirty leaves are a PIA for me to put back in. i only removed the spindles and trailing arms. i only removed the trailing arms to change the balljoints. i used a cutting disc which left a nice gap for welding pipe back together.

i made a tool like earthquakes (copyright check is in the mail) but i added a second all thread rod that connects to the upper trailing arm with a bolt on muffler clamp to pull the upper arm up also. i used a 1/2 inch turn so the angles on the arms were a little more extreme. like earthquake said, you shouldnt need to go more than a 1/4 inch.