944 IRS conversion

[oprn]

Looking forward to meeting Mr. flat in person tomorrow. Perhaps I can come away much wiser!

In the mean while, I pulled all the cracked bits of the E brake mount back into place and welded them up. I laid a couple strips of sheet metal over the heater control slots and welded those in place too. Just another hole for junk to fall through into the tunnel and rattle around for ever!

Before.

After.

The pin that held the handle was missing the wire clips on both ends. I picked through my "pack rat" assortment of snap rings and found a pair of spiral lock rings in the right size.

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We had the stone age, the bronze age, the industrial age and now we are in the age of mass deception and mind control for corporate profit. (The mass media age)

[oprn]

The next problem is that the 944 lower shock mount bolts are WAY bigger than the hole in the VW shocks. So... to whomever said the 944 trailing arms are a direct fit in the Beetle IRS chassis... Ya, right Buddy!

They are based on the same design and basic dimensions but there are a lot of details!
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We had the stone age, the bronze age, the industrial age and now we are in the age of mass deception and mind control for corporate profit. (The mass media age)

[H2OSB]

You need this conversion bolt. It's a Porsche part.

Someone on here will know more about it. I must admit I do not.

H2OSB
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(o\_i_/o) I'm not a vegetarian because I love animals, I'm a vegetarian because I hate plants.

[oprn]

Interesting! Thanks!

I wonder what shock it fits with the tapered bits?
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We had the stone age, the bronze age, the industrial age and now we are in the age of mass deception and mind control for corporate profit. (The mass media age)

[Ian Godfrey]

Those are the shock adapters from Racers Edge:
https://racersedge-inc.com/lower-shock-adaptors/
they are for using a shock that has standard ½” ID spherical end.
you could weld a spherical end end to a VW shock.
Or push out the metal bush in the bottom of the VW shock, drill out the rubber and put a 14mm bush in so you could use the stock M14 bolt.

[oprn]

I had a really good one on one visit with Flat on Saturday! He has some really nice cars and interesting projects. He convinced me to stay the course on this project. Gave me a couple ideas on the shock bolts. I have no desire to convert to racing shocks with helical ends so some version of a standard shock conversion is going to happen.
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We had the stone age, the bronze age, the industrial age and now we are in the age of mass deception and mind control for corporate profit. (The mass media age)

[tzepesh]

Man, I was out just a bit. Some hints: the sway bar support on the torsion bar housings are fine. However, you should extend the ends of the sway bars to the down rods by ~4cm if I remember well, otherwise the geometry is wrong. I wonder how you got them to fit right. The position under gearbox seems pretty close to mine.
Also, rear shocks work. But you have to use the Porsche ones, not the bug ones. Direct fit.
Cables: good work on that. The swans are an interesting design, however I heard many having issues with them, they bend at the hook under load. That's why I used Porsche ends on bug cables.
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'74 1303S, L98B Viperngrun (extra glitter), German Look
'64 1200, Sea Blue, under restoration

[oprn]

I no longer have the Porsche to get the shocks from to try them. I do recall that they mounted on the body on the top end not like they do on the Beetle. I just assumed they would be too long. Need to check that out.

I am not seeing a problem with the angle of the down links, maybe you could take a picture and post it for us?
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We had the stone age, the bronze age, the industrial age and now we are in the age of mass deception and mind control for corporate profit. (The mass media age)

[tzepesh]

Copy/paste from my topic:
Waiting for a condensation filter for the air compressor to start painting the chassis, I worked on making the Porsche 944 rear sway bar and tow hook live together under the car.
I did not save the sway bar brackets from the Porsche frame, so I made new ones. Dodgy, are you with me? I made the supports removable! I used some 65mm exhaust clamps. It was quite hard to torque the nuts (in between the metal plates...) so after a good night sleep I got the answer: use sheet metal parts of the clamp also on the opposite side, instead of the threaded U. I have to weld the nuts in there, and just use bolts to fix everything. And the idea I stole from you: I extended the sway bar to get to a nice geometry with the down links. The down links shall be 90 degrees angle to the spring plates? I get an extension of 50mm compared to your 60mm. Anyway, very good idea.

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'74 1303S, L98B Viperngrun (extra glitter), German Look
'64 1200, Sea Blue, under restoration

[oprn]

Brilliant on the mounts! Yes, ideally the links should be 90* to the spring plates and mine are not quite there. Extending the sway bars like you did does fix that but bare in mind that it also changes the effective bar size. What I mean by that is the bar will now act as if it were a smaller diameter.

Is that a problem? I don't know. It all depends on how it handles on the road and how the front/rear sway bars compliment each other, how much it effects the under/over steer balance. It is an option that I will keep open.

I see you have both the phone dials and cookie cutters! The phone dials are my least favorite style but I never thought about painting them, it does look good! Now of you polished the rim and the edge around the phone dial holes back to bare metal they would look absolutely killer!
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We had the stone age, the bronze age, the industrial age and now we are in the age of mass deception and mind control for corporate profit. (The mass media age)

[oprn]

Back to cleaning up the ravages of salt slop damage on the swans. Both sides were seized solid like this.

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We had the stone age, the bronze age, the industrial age and now we are in the age of mass deception and mind control for corporate profit. (The mass media age)

[Busstom]

Do you have #8 in this diagram?

It's the "Parking Brake Support Plate For Bow" but I've never seen one in the flesh. I know my bows rattle around a bit and I'm wondering if this doo-dad prevents that. It looks like it nests in underneath the curved "anvil" plate which the bow ends lever against.

I've never seen it in any pics around the Samba.

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My name's Steve and it's pronounced "Bust 'em" (cuz people think I'm Tom) 😏

[oprn]

Yes actually, on left side it is missing but right side is still there. It is in pretty poor shape and here is a huge amount of galvanic corrosion on the aluminum swing arm behind it. I am seriously thinking that I would be just as well without it... unless there is a good solid reason that it should be there...

I will post pictures later.
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We had the stone age, the bronze age, the industrial age and now we are in the age of mass deception and mind control for corporate profit. (The mass media age)

[oprn]

Here you go. Note the crack on it, lower right.

And the heavy corrosion around the hole where it sat.

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We had the stone age, the bronze age, the industrial age and now we are in the age of mass deception and mind control for corporate profit. (The mass media age)

[Busstom]

Interesting, thanks for posting those.

I don't guess you have any pics of it in situ. I'm still not grasping how (if) they clip, what holds them there, and which part of it contacts the expander bow.

I'm not averse to buying some new ones, but I would also like to understand just how necessary they actually are.

Also, I'm deducing that your P-brake backing plates are cast/integrated as part of the trailing arm? Mine are the earlier, separate ones that act as the bearing cover. Just weird that the dismantler that I got them from back in '05 didn't include those little sheet metal gizmos.

Edit: ahhhh! There are different designs of the 944 P-brake plate; yours don't have that curved steel bar that is peened onto the aluminum casting, and which forms the "anvil" for the bow ends to lever against.

Here's what I'm referring to (pic from "pondoras box"). It's a little tough to distinguish because these have been completely sprayed in black, but it's the curved bar at the bottom with wings on it, that looks like it's riveted to the aluminum plate...this one has a deep notch in it from years of the bow digging into it, it's completely smooth when new.

Annnnd, this exploded view of the above (and my style of) backing plate posted by "John Ghia" doesn't show that item 8 gizmo that your style has. That must explain why mine (and so many others I see on the web) don't have that part.

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My name's Steve and it's pronounced "Bust 'em" (cuz people think I'm Tom) 😏

[oprn]

Ya, I was just looking at a couple parts break downs and it looks like that part is for the newer aluminum trailing arms. It's not listed for my '83 but it is for the '86 I got the trailing arms from.
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We had the stone age, the bronze age, the industrial age and now we are in the age of mass deception and mind control for corporate profit. (The mass media age)

[tzepesh]

[oprn]

I am learning that Porsche wheels come in many many sizes and offsets.

As for the rear sway bar, going softer is likely erring on the safer side than going too stiff. Too stiff will make the car tend to over steer. I tend to get a bit exuberant on a nice winding road so I need to check mine out carefully when I get it back on the road. That really is most of the reason for getting rid of the swing axle.

I am badly spoilt by my 944 which will stay with the best of today's crop of sports cars in the mountain passes both in the corners and braking. I know this Buggy will never match that but I want to get it as close as possible to being worry free in the traffic. It is no longer too underpowered to keep up, is mediocre to fair in a corner (I did worry about hitting a frost heave or chuck hole in a corner with the swing axle) but the brakes have given me a bad scare.
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We had the stone age, the bronze age, the industrial age and now we are in the age of mass deception and mind control for corporate profit. (The mass media age)

[H2OSB]

I also agree about phone dials, but I was looking for anything in 5x130, and found a set of 15x6s in the right offset for dirt cheap. Then I installed one on my car. For some odd reason, it looked really good to me. Not sure if I'd use them for daily tires, but perhaps for autocross tires, powder coated white.

H2OSB
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(o\_i_/o) I'm not a vegetarian because I love animals, I'm a vegetarian because I hate plants.

[oprn]

To me they just look a bit bulky - pregnant or something but Flat has a set on his Bay Window and you know what? They look right at home there!
_________________
We had the stone age, the bronze age, the industrial age and now we are in the age of mass deception and mind control for corporate profit. (The mass media age)