Slammed/Lowered?

[MJKBugsandbuggies]

We are in the initial phases of our first Thing project, a '74. We have the body and chassis back from media blasting and are working toward a rolling chassis. Welded in adjusters on the beam and just took some intial mearsurements, with the stock trailing arms and spindles (which we do not plan on using) and stock wheels and tires(again, not using). At full lower on the beam we are at 12" from the pan to the floor, without the body. The tire and wheel combination we have chosen will take this down another 2" appx.
The plan was to go with Ghia spindles and bug trailing arms or 2 1/2" dropped bug spindles and bug trailing arms. So here is the question, will the 2 1/2" dropped spindles take us too low? Wheel rub, scraping, etc. I am certain we will have additional questions as we progress, Thanks for the help.

[mstatedog]

i just lowered and narrowed mine with cb spindles and an adjustable bug beam. I have 145s on BRMs on the front and the clearance above the tire with the beam adjusters in the stock position is about 3 inches. You can see pictures of my thing in the thing gallery. Search for mstatedog.

I don't believe I needed the spindles....and depending on the travel, i may go back with stock bug spindles and just adjust the beam.

c

[MJKBugsandbuggies]

Thanks for the info, we've been looking at your pics a lot. I put Ghia spindles on today, we are going with 15x7 Porsche cookie cutters all the way around, waiting on the rotors now. With the Ghia spindles, bug trailing arms, and lowered beam, I believe we are about 8 1/2" lower than stock. I don't think we are as low as you are with the BRMs though. I have a set of Fuch alloys on my son's '66 beetle with low profile BFG G-Force tires, we are going to try them on the thing before we make a final decision on the sizes. P.S. What color are you painting yours? There's an argument going on with me and my 15 year old right now over our final color choice.

[mstatedog]

I've always liked the stock avacado green color....and I was lucky enough that my thing was originally this color, so I am going back original. This will be my first full car paint job. I also think that going back original will help hide stuff like chips and any area that might get missed. I have already replaced both pan halves and repaired the rockers. What are your color choices?

c

[MJKBugsandbuggies]

I am voting for Cadillac Escalade pearl white, 15 year old wants Coddington Red, Wife wants anything other than what we want. We're kind of tossing around some of the bold old Mopar colors like Grabber Green, Orange, Yellow, etc. We are about 4 weeks from paint so we've got a little more time to argue. Good luck with your project and keep posting pics, we'll do the same.