Urethane bushings in front beam.

[5500]

My 57 came with a 2" narrowed, adjustable axle beam of unknown source. Rides like sh*t. Darty as hell. Adjusters installed so that they just lower the car. Took all the adjustment out of them, which raised the front end a bit but made it feel undersprung. Tie rod ends and shocks are good, steering box adjusted and lubed. Added castor shims and dialed out what looked like a lot of toe out with only minimal improvement. King/link pins look decent and are properly adjusted and lubed. New front wheel bearings properly adjusted. Was hoping I could get the handling dialed in but no luck so far. The torsion arms are riding in urethane bushings. They appear new but could they be the source of the instability at highway speed? Car is darty and very twitchy in crosswinds. First experience with adjustable/narrowed beam and urethane bushings.

[splitjunkie]

Urethane bushings are crap. You can find plenty of threads here discussing that very topic.
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Chris

You know, a lot of these scratches will buff right out... Jerry Seinfeld

[5500]

[esde]

urethane bushings are definitely shit, but if they're new might not be the source of the problem. What side of the steering arm on the steering box are the tie rods mounted? Sometimes lowered cars flip them..
Did you check the rear wheel alignment? You can adjust the toe, my experience is that they like zero toe at ride height to handle well. But often guys just slam the torsion housings full forward when they install a trans, so then the rear is toed in and always tends to want to go one way or another.
especially when you hit a bump and it toes in even more....
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modok wrote:
Bent cranks are silent but gather no moss. I mean, ah, something like that.

[66brm]

When you raised the front did you correct the toe? Altering the ride height affects the toe in the front end. The rear should also be checked as mentioned above
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Aust. RHD 66 Type 1
Aust. RHD 57 Type 1 Oval

[5500]

Thanks for the replies.

66BRM, raised the front, installed caster shims then reset toe. Not perfect but biased a bit towards toe in and based on past experience, should have been enough to reduce the twitchy/darty steering and instability in crosswinds.

ESDE, my thoughts initially. The rear was lowered as well ( havent taken it apart yet so not sure what was done besides reclocking the spring plates). Was going to check alignment front and rear ( well, at least toe) using the string method, then did a search on front suspension, which made me suspect of urethane bushings.

I’m thinking that since the car is new to me, i will inspect it more carefully over the winter. Since the rear spring plates also have red bushings, will probably replace with factory or delrin. Looking into disc brake conversion up front so will probably need a narrower beam to get the wheels tucked in a bit for clearance.

Having been out of the VW universe for about 40 years I was not aware of the shortcomings of urethane bushings, but as I said, the car is fairly new to me so really need to go through it, inspect everything, have alignment checked at some point on a rack in order to know what i’m dealing with.

[esde]

I always use OG beams make my own narrowed and lowered beams, that way I keep the good needle bearings at the torsion arms. They're quieter and smooth riding. The red bushings always squeak like a cheap bedspring.
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modok wrote:
Bent cranks are silent but gather no moss. I mean, ah, something like that.