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Mon Apr 14, 2008 10:51 am

Do not want to sound dumb here but, I asume that all 4 bolts should be in place on the plate cover? Also what size are the bolts? You will see in the pics what I need, discovered one is broke off inside though.

Question 2 is how do you line up the rear lower forward bolt hole where hooks to trailing arm? I asume all three should be there and is this one of the double plate set ups that I saw on an earlier thread?

The cover pic

The rear half of the plate

Mon Apr 14, 2008 11:09 am

Not sure off hand what size the torsion cover bolts are but you should take one out and go to your hardware store and you should be able to figure it out. Those are dual spring plates and the three holes should have bolts in them and that extra hole closest to the torsion cover is for lockdown when the allignment is done.

Mon Apr 14, 2008 11:55 am

wisbaja wrote: Not sure off hand what size the torsion cover bolts are but you should take one out and go to your hardware store and you should be able to figure it out. Those are dual spring plates and the three holes should have bolts in them and that extra hole closest to the torsion cover is for lockdown when the allignment is done.

Thanks, the hole closest to torsion cover( the one with the arrow pointing) Is that the one you are talking about for alignment, because the center one in the picture has no hole in trailing arm for it to line up with.

Mon Apr 14, 2008 2:44 pm

yes your supposed to have all 4 in those, most people end up leaving one out because they get really frustrated and cant get them all in. its a pain no matter how many times you've done it. but you defiantly don't want to ignore that.

as for your spring plates you also want to make sure that you get at least 3 bolts in those, the reasons the holes dont line up is because the dual spring plates have a different bolt pattern, when i installed them on my car i cant remember if i flipped the arms or the spring plates, one way or another they lined up with 3 holes.

Mon Apr 14, 2008 2:48 pm

Thanks runslikeapenguin Will work on those, I think the holes will line up just have to loosen it all and see.
As for the plates, I do put the 3rd bolt in where the arrow is in the picture right?

Tue Apr 15, 2008 2:33 pm

Okay, so I am lost here. I look at other plates and the way they are attached. All of them have 3 bolts, right. My problem is that the one where the arrow is is for alignment and the other 3 should have bolts in them but the one in the center has no hole in the trailing arm.
Are these installed wrong and what do I do? Drill a hole and put bolt in it? Put the bolt in the forward hole where the arrow is? I just do not know any help with this would be great.

Ps: I got my baja book today in the mail, the Hibbard one. Great stuff but in those pictures it also shows the 3 bolts but I believe most of them are swingaxle not irs.

Tue Apr 15, 2008 3:39 pm

your trailing arm < does it have 3 bolt holes in it? can you get them to line up with 3 of the 4 holes in your dual spring plate? if you can, i would call that good. if not, i would drill a hole. i would also wait for someone else's opinion.

Tue Apr 15, 2008 3:42 pm

2gr8dgs wrote: your trailing arm < does it have 3 bolt holes in it? can you get them to line up with 3 of the 4 holes in your dual spring plate? if you can, i would call that good. if not, i would drill a hole. i would also wait for someone else's opinion.

Thanks for the advise, may just do that but I will see what everyone else has to say as well, like you said.

Sorry, forgot to add, I think it has 3 holes but have to loosen and check it out. Thanks for your help 2gr8dgs.

Tue Apr 15, 2008 10:02 pm

rydethis wrote: 2gr8dgs wrote: your trailing arm < does it have 3 bolt holes in it? can you get them to line up with 3 of the 4 holes in your dual spring plate? if you can, i would call that good. if not, i would drill a hole. i would also wait for someone else's opinion.

Thanks for the advise, may just do that but I will see what everyone else has to say as well, like you said.

Sorry, forgot to add, I think it has 3 holes but have to loosen and check it out. Thanks for your help 2gr8dgs.

the arm should have 3 holes, you should be able to drill it, that would be a pain though, that german steel is thick and with a hand drill, your going to be there for a while. i would try flipping the spring plates first.

Tue Apr 15, 2008 10:26 pm

runslikeapenguin wrote:

the arm should have 3 holes, you should be able to drill it, that would be a pain though, that german steel is thick and with a hand drill, your going to be there for a while. i would try flipping the spring plates first.

Thanks very much, I will do that and see whats up. Will let you know how it goes but I need to read into it a bit. I hear there is a lot of tension there and you need to be carfull so I want to be sure that I know what I am doing before I take the plates off.

Wed Apr 16, 2008 3:18 am

The bolts for the torsion bar end caps are M10x1.5 and are 25mm long for a single spring plate, so I'd guess they need to be about 35mm long for dual spring plates due to the length of the spacer under the end cap.

The unusual thing about these bots is that an M10 bolt normally has a 17mm hex head on it and this sized head won't fit within the end cap :( The original bolts supplied by VW were specials and had a 15mm hex head on them.

In order to get round this, I use M10x1.5 socket cap head bolts (allen bolts) which also have the advantage of being widely available and being 12.9 grade, rather than 8.8 and are therefore stronger.

To get all 4 in, loosen them all off, or even take them all right out! Then get 4 much longer bolts or better still 4 lengths of all-thread. Make sure that you get all 4 started before you even think about winding any of them down. Once all 4 are started, wind them down evenly, a few turns at a time, and move the end of the torsion bar around (this may take a considerable amount of force, depending on the preload you've set) until you get them all seated. Once it's all tightened down, remove the long bolts, or all-thread, one at a time and replace them with your short bolts. If you do it this way, it's pretty easy to get all 4 in without too much swearing :)

Wed Apr 16, 2008 3:54 am

There are at least 2 types of IRS spring plate:

1. Single IRS - These have 4 bolt holes in the same pattern as in your photo but 3 of the holes are elongated and one (the centre one) is round.
2. Dual IRS - These also have 4 bolt holes in the same pattern as in your photo and all 4 of the holes are elongated.

There are also at least two types of trailing arm:

1. Ones with 3 bolt holes
2. Ones with 4 bolt holes

Appart from the extra bolt hole in the centre the pattern of holes is exactly the same for the two types of trailing arm above.

There may well be other sorts too but these are all the ones I could find in my garage.

Either type of arm will work fine with either type of spring plate, the only difference being whether you can put a bolt in the centre hole or not.

Since VW obviously produced a plate/arm combination with only 3 bolts, it must be fine to leave it this way, provided that the third bolt is in the position indicated by your arrow. However, a fourth bolt would obviously add more strength and make it less likely to come loose.

The spring plate is extremeley hard (spring steel) and is almost impossible to drill, however, the arm should be much softer and should be able to be drilled. If you want the extra strength, try drilling it - if it's too hard, give up!

The bolts that hold the arms to the spring plates were originally high grade M12x1.5x40 (metric fine) but these are very difficult to get now. As an alternative you can use M12x1.75x40 (metric course). I use this size in a grade 12.9 socket cap head (allen) bolt for additional strength.

Your spring plates are the right way up (don't flip them over) and so the third bolt will definately go in if you move it all around enough - however, it may take considerable force to get it lined up!

Hope this helps?

Wed Apr 16, 2008 7:03 am

rick.d.brown wrote: There are at least 2 types of IRS spring plate:

1. Single IRS - These have 4 bolt holes in the same pattern as in your photo but 3 of the holes are elongated and one (the centre one) is round.
2. Dual IRS - These also have 4 bolt holes in the same pattern as in your photo and all 4 of the holes are elongated.

There are also at least two types of trailing arm:

1. Ones with 3 bolt holes
2. Ones with 4 bolt holes

Appart from the extra bolt hole in the centre the pattern of holes is exactly the same for the two types of trailing arm above.

There may well be other sorts too but these are all the ones I could find in my garage.

Either type of arm will work fine with either type of spring plate, the only difference being whether you can put a bolt in the centre hole or not.

Since VW obviously produced a plate/arm combination with only 3 bolts, it must be fine to leave it this way, provided that the third bolt is in the position indicated by your arrow. However, a fourth bolt would obviously add more strength and make it less likely to come loose.

The spring plate is extremeley hard (spring steel) and is almost impossible to drill, however, the arm should be much softer and should be able to be drilled. If you want the extra strength, try drilling it - if it's too hard, give up!

The bolts that hold the arms to the spring plates were originally high grade M12x1.5x40 (metric fine) but these are very difficult to get now. As an alternative you can use M12x1.75x40 (metric course). I use this size in a grade 12.9 socket cap head (allen) bolt for additional strength.

Your spring plates are the right way up (don't flip them over) and so the third bolt will definately go in if you move it all around enough - however, it may take considerable force to get it lined up!

Hope this helps?

Thank you very much Rick, that has been a lot of help and I do appreciate you taking the time to wright it all out for me sure is a lot of info. That's what makes this site so great is all the help everyone gives you.

Wed Apr 16, 2008 8:51 am

rick.d.brown wrote: There are at least 2 types of IRS spring plate:

1. Single IRS - These have 4 bolt holes in the same pattern as in your photo but 3 of the holes are elongated and one (the centre one) is round.
2. Dual IRS - These also have 4 bolt holes in the same pattern as in your photo and all 4 of the holes are elongated.

There are also at least two types of trailing arm:

1. Ones with 3 bolt holes
2. Ones with 4 bolt holes

Appart from the extra bolt hole in the centre the pattern of holes is exactly the same for the two types of trailing arm above.

There may well be other sorts too but these are all the ones I could find in my garage.

Either type of arm will work fine with either type of spring plate, the only difference being whether you can put a bolt in the centre hole or not.

Since VW obviously produced a plate/arm combination with only 3 bolts, it must be fine to leave it this way, provided that the third bolt is in the position indicated by your arrow. However, a fourth bolt would obviously add more strength and make it less likely to come loose.

The spring plate is extremeley hard (spring steel) and is almost impossible to drill, however, the arm should be much softer and should be able to be drilled. If you want the extra strength, try drilling it - if it's too hard, give up!

The bolts that hold the arms to the spring plates were originally high grade M12x1.5x40 (metric fine) but these are very difficult to get now. As an alternative you can use M12x1.75x40 (metric course). I use this size in a grade 12.9 socket cap head (allen) bolt for additional strength.

Your spring plates are the right way up (don't flip them over) and so the third bolt will definately go in if you move it all around enough - however, it may take considerable force to get it lined up!

Hope this helps?

there would be no change in flipping the spring plates over, if it makes the holes line up then its what you want to do, and im not sure what you mean by "take considerable force to get it lined up" if your not seeing the hole then your not just going to be able to move the arm around to find the third one.

Wed Apr 16, 2008 10:45 am

runslikeapenguin wrote: there would be no change in flipping the spring plates over, if it makes the holes line up then its what you want to do

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what you mean by 'flipping the spring plates over'. What I think you mean is taking the spring plate off one side of the car (say the left) and fitting it on the other side (say the right) and vice versa?

This would have the effect of turning the bolt pattern upside down. This is not a problem for the rear 3 bolt holes, as they are in a symmetrical pattern. However, the front bolt hole (the one that rydethis needs to get his third bolt in - shown with the arrow in his second picture) will move from the bottom to the top of the spring plate and so definitely won't line up with the hole in his trailing arm :( Unless he has his arm on upside down too ;)

Like I said, spring plates have a 'right way up' and the ones shown in his picture are correct and so shouldn't be 'flipped'.

runslikeapenguin wrote: im not sure what you mean by "take considerable force to get it lined up" if your not seeing the hole then your not just going to be able to move the arm around to find the third one.

The reason I said that, is that the spring plates are pretty springy, the arm is a tight fit between the two spring plates, all the parts are usually rusty and the spring plate often doesn't line up perfectly with the flange on the arm - especially when the pivot bolt at the front of the arm is in and tight and restricting the movement of the arm - so it can (sometimes) be difficult to move the arm in relation to the spring plate.

Also, the holes in the spring plate are not round and so don't locate the arm exactly - there's quite a lot of freedom of movement of the arm and it's very easy for the third hole to not line up at all when there are only two bolts in.

The reason I quoted the bolt sizes was that if undersized bolts are being used, this will also allow a greater misalignment of the arm until all the bolts are in.

What I was trying to say was that rydethis has it all assembled correctly and the holes WILL line up but he may have to use a lever or hit it with a block of wood or a rubber mallet to get it to move into the right place for the holes to align.

Wed Apr 16, 2008 11:18 am

Here's a couple of pictures that may help:

This one shows the 4 socket cap head (allen) bolts holding the torsion bar end cap on and also the position of the 3 spring plate bolts rydethis needs to get in. Note that the picture shows a single, rather than a dual, spring plate but the bolt pattern is the same in both cases.

This one shows the same thing but taken from the other side of the spring plate. In this one, you can see the 4th (round) hole in the spring plate - circled in orange - but there isn't a corresponding hole on the arm, so there's no bolt through it.

Wed Apr 16, 2008 11:21 am

rick.d.brown wrote: Here's a couple of pictures that may help:

This one shows the 4 socket cap head (allen) bolts holding the torsion bar end cap on and also the position of the 3 spring plate bolts rydethis needs to get in. Note that the picture shows a single, rather than a dual, spring plate but the bolt pattern is the same in both cases.

This one shows the same thing but taken from the other side of the spring plate. In this one, you can see the 4th (round) hole in the spring plate - circled in orange - but there isn't a corresponding hole on the arm, so there's no bolt through it.

Thanks for the pictures, I was trying to find a good ref. photo. I sure do apreciate it.

Wed Apr 16, 2008 12:38 pm

rick.d.brown wrote: runslikeapenguin wrote: there would be no change in flipping the spring plates over, if it makes the holes line up then its what you want to do

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what you mean by 'flipping the spring plates over'. What I think you mean is taking the spring plate off one side of the car (say the left) and fitting it on the other side (say the right) and vice versa?

This would have the effect of turning the bolt pattern upside down. This is not a problem for the rear 3 bolt holes, as they are in a symmetrical pattern. However, the front bolt hole (the one that rydethis needs to get his third bolt in - shown with the arrow in his second picture) will move from the bottom to the top of the spring plate and so definitely won't line up with the hole in his trailing arm :( Unless he has his arm on upside down too ;)

Like I said, spring plates have a 'right way up' and the ones shown in his picture are correct and so shouldn't be 'flipped'.

runslikeapenguin wrote: im not sure what you mean by "take considerable force to get it lined up" if your not seeing the hole then your not just going to be able to move the arm around to find the third one.

The reason I said that, is that the spring plates are pretty springy, the arm is a tight fit between the two spring plates, all the parts are usually rusty and the spring plate often doesn't line up perfectly with the flange on the arm - especially when the pivot bolt at the front of the arm is in and tight and restricting the movement of the arm - so it can (sometimes) be difficult to move the arm in relation to the spring plate.

Also, the holes in the spring plate are not round and so don't locate the arm exactly - there's quite a lot of freedom of movement of the arm and it's very easy for the third hole to not line up at all when there are only two bolts in.

The reason I quoted the bolt sizes was that if undersized bolts are being used, this will also allow a greater misalignment of the arm until all the bolts are in.

What I was trying to say was that rydethis has it all assembled correctly and the holes WILL line up but he may have to use a lever or hit it with a block of wood or a rubber mallet to get it to move into the right place for the holes to align.

effectively the only reason why you would not want to flip the spring plates side to side would be because the hole pattern would not line up with the arm, but in his case he needs to check if this is the case, if he swaps sides with those spring plates chances are that he's going to get 3 holes that line up. I can say this because mine lined up after doing this and my arms were installed as they should be stock. (for the camber reasons) so my arms that came off of a 74 bug that were boxed and installed the right way up did not line up with the way the dual spring plates that I pulled off of a ghia were, so a swapped sides with them and they fit.

by the looks of things now no matter how much muscling he does with the arm he's not going to find another hole.

Wed Apr 16, 2008 1:25 pm

rick.d.brown wrote: Appart from the extra bolt hole in the centre the pattern of holes is exactly the same for the two types of trailing arm above.

Either type of arm will work fine with either type of spring plate, the only difference being whether you can put a bolt in the centre hole or not.

... so the third bolt will definately go in if you move it all around enough...

Lies, lies, lies... :oops:

Sorry, but the above statements aren't true :(

After I posted the pictures I noticed that although the bolt patterns look kind of similar, the position of the third bolt is different.

In your picture the 3rd (arrowed) bolt hole is the same distance from the bottom edge of the spring plate as the bottom rear bolt. However, in my picture, it is further towards the centre line of the spring plate - can you see what I mean?

Having noticed this, I went and measured my spring plates and can confirm that the position of the 3rd (front) hole is significantly different between the two types of spring plate. On the dual spring plate the centre of the bolt hole is about 18mm from the edge of the spring plate, whereas on the single spring plate it is about 32mm from the edge of the spring plate.

I hadn't noticed this before, as by chance, I'd never tried to put the two different sorts that I have together - you learn something every day - Thanks! :)

The photo below shows a dual spring plate with the caliper points set to the distance measured on the single spring plate.

This would be enough difference to mean that they won't fit :(

If this is the case with your arms, I guess you have a few options:

1. Change your arms to match your spring plates
2. Change your spring plates to match your arms
3. Modify what you have so that they do fit

If you go for option 3, you'll need to enlarge the holes to get them to align but this will weaken the joint, so I'd recommend drilling out the 4th bolt hole and adding the extra bolt for security.

Wed Apr 16, 2008 1:42 pm

Rick,

See, I thought something did not look right. I may see what the boxed arms look like as for aligning them. The motor he put in the car was from a ghia, I wonder if he grabed the plates as well. I may just choose option 3 with the 4th hole and see if I can get a drill through her. I am not sure about the alignment though, guess I will have to check it when I am done. I need to get the brakes working first.