New to this Thing thing - Lowering/Raising Question

[kerinon]

Ok - my husband and I are new to the Thing owner club and have a question about our Thing suspension.

When we bought "Rhonda" she was already lowered up front. We live in hilly Ohio and we need to return her to her original height. It seems that there's no easy way to adjust this front end. We were told that we could rotate the torsion arms to give lift, but the interior of the torsion arm is not "starred", but round. We're lost . . . HELP!!

Thanks - Keri

[Ian Epperson]

Congrats on the new purchase!

You're talking about the advice on how to change the height of the rear suspension, but looking at the front.

There's a couple of ways to change the height of the front. One way is to cut and turn the front beam so that the springs don't push as high. Another is to install adjusters in the middle of the front beam so you can change how high the springs push with a wrench.

However, for those who are lowering, an easy modification is to simply use bug parts. The bug parts are cheaper and easier to obtain than the Thing parts. Changing out the Thing trailing arms and spindle with a bug trailing arm and spindle will lower the Thing a few inches. Going back to the stock height means finding the original parts which isn't so easy (or cheap) to do. To check, look under one of the sides at the ball joints. Both of The Thing's ball joints point downward - there should be two nuts on two bottom surfaces on each spindle. If there's a nut on the top and a nut on the bottom, you've got bug spindles and trailing arms.
Check out this link for good pics: http://veewiki.com/TheThing/ThingOnlyParts/FrontEnd

[kerinon]

Nope Ian, I'm lookin' at the front 'cause I'm talkin' about the front. The front was lowered and the rear left alone. Thanks for the link tho! Maybe the Thing spindles were swapped for the Bug spindles, thus lowering the front.

[Ian Epperson]

[kerinon]

So will it be easier to try and find replacement Thing spindles or retrofit the (seemingly) bug spindles to correct this lowering????

[suntour]

Can you post a few photos of the front beam, spindles and trailing arms?
That way we can tell you if you have a Bug front end or a Thing front end.
If you do have a Thing front end, and we can see a picture, we can tell you how it was modified and how to bring it back to stock height.
_________________
Order of the Voodoo Spoon

[kerinon]

YEAH!! Will do so first thing in the am!

[kerinon]

https://www.thesamba.com/vw/gallery/pix/352374.jpg

https://www.thesamba.com/vw/gallery/pix/352373.jpg

https://www.thesamba.com/vw/gallery/pix/352372.jpg

Hope that these photos help to answer our questions!! Thanks for all of the master mechanical help!

[suntour]

The pictures are a tad small. 92x72 pixels are more for thumbnails than anything else. But from what I can see you have a 100% bug front end.

The spindles and trailing arms are definitely from a Bug, and I didn’t notice any of the reinforcement plates that Thing front beams have so I suspect you have a Bug beam too.

Thing spindles and trailing arms have both ball joints facing down. A bug spindle and arms have one ball joint facing down and one facing up. Thing front beams have extra reinforcement on the shock towers and extra plates welded to the ends of the beam for extra attachment points to the frame. A thing beam will have 10 bolts holding the beam on where as a Bug have 6 bolts.

So your options look like,

1. buy a complete Thing front end and install
2. buy raised Bug spindles and cut and turn your beam. (Or add front adjusters to the front beam instead of just a cut and turn.)
_________________
Order of the Voodoo Spoon

[63ziggy]

Definitely agree with Suntour. Those are bug spindles and arms. Hard to tell but did not appear to reinforcement frame supports as note dprior.

[kerinon]

Couldn't get the photos to post larger - definitely sorry for that. But a HUGE thanks for verifying what we were suspecting!! As it seems is typical from what I've read on The Samba - one is always buying something for their Thing!! LOL

Thanks again!

[surferdudedav]

hey, where in ohio are you? im in cincy and might be able to help you. i cant mention selling parts or the head hunters will delete my comment.. (love ya GLENN)