Adjuster installation walk through

[runslikeapenguin]

a few people have been wondering about the installation process of the sway away type adjusters that are typically used in off road applications. they have been concerned about messing up a beam and or installing them wrong. so i hope this will help with any questions people may have regarding this.

for starters this is the adjuster

this is the main piece that you will be welding into the beam, its just a new center section thats clearanced to allow for movement.

this is the aluminum clamp thats one of 2 pieces that work to hold the torsions in place while your off roding

this is the center piece that pivots in the center piece, its what changes the angle of the torsions.

this bolt is to clamp the pivot point to the torsions and to hold the nut that tightens down onto the aluminum clamp.

and this is the final piece, the actual adjustment screw that you use to keep the pre-load from just moving that clamp all the way down. and so you can turn the front end up even with weight on it.

now at this point im going to assume you have your beam off and broken down to just the bare beam. at this point i recommend cleaning it up a little bit. these things tend to pick up a lot of road tar and dirt and fluids from old steering boxes and brakes and what not, so a good wire brush on a grinder will take most of it off. and a hand wire brush will get in the cracks and smaller areas you cant reach. i also took off some thick tar with a paddle wheel, i then used the same paddle wheel to clean the area i would be welding on better and i used it to get a nice clean welding area along the shock tower seams.
now the first thing i would do at this point (because its clean and because you've got the welder out) is to trigger weld the seams all the way around the shock towers, this is not necessary but its a good thing to do if you plan on any heavy off roding, these have a tendency to split and i myself would rather weld them now while the metal is bare and all the stuff is out.
you don't need a big weld just decent penetration to make sure that you get it together.

don't worry if the welds are kind of bubblegumed and not perfect its a hard place to weld, you can grind these down a little bit to clean it up.
now at this point you can start on the adjusters or do what i did and weld in gussets to the towers for some more beam prep.



Adjusters:
when starting the adjusters you want to only do one at a time to make sure the beam stays aligned. so you can do this on a table, the floor or in a vice like i did, just get the beam accessible and then hold up the main adjuster piece and line up the middle with where the grub nut is on the beam and mark either side. with a sharpie and then cut.

for cutting i would recommend a pipe cutter it will work the best but i dident have one so i used a sawz-all and you could also use a chop saw or grinder with a cutting wheel (just make sure you cut "inside" your marks) remember that its better to have to much than to little, you can always take more off if the adjust dosent fit the first time. but you just want a tiny bit of space on both sides for the weld.

now this is the part ive sensed people having a problem with. the angle of installation.

here in this picture if you look inside the main body of the adjuster you can see the pivot point. on the pivot point on the bottom is a grub nut that will hold the piece on the torsions when you install them into the beam with it on them. you want this to be at almost the same placement as the factory grub nut which is almost on the bottom of the beam. because being put there will allow the torsions when installed to give the trailing arms factory angle so you have a starting point to either lower or raise the front end.
its kind of hard to see, bottom left sticking out of the aluminum pivot point.

no to raise you want that grub nut in the stock place and you want to unscrew the adjusting bolt all the way out and move it up to where it meets the bolt that holds the pivot point insertion in place
like this

this allows for the front end to start at stock and you to utilize all 3inches of possible lift/ pre-load.

now if you were to install the adjusters to lower the car you would do this

the adjusting bolt turned all the way in and the grub nut in the stock position and the main body moved up to it, so it starts at stock and instead of screwing in to adjust you would screw out so that it would start at stock and work its way down.

now once your sure of where it goes hold it in place and mark it with a sharpie. just a line on each side going from beam over the gap to the adjuster so you have a reference. then dismantle the adjuster so that you just have the main body, put it in the gap and line it up with your marks and weld it in. start with just a tack on one side so you can make sure it will line up then tack the other side and then do the same on the back side a few times, then finish the weld

now once that one is welded in and cooled down a little bit flip the beam over and repeat on the other tube. and the only thing you have to do this time is just make sure that you get it at the same angle that you installed the first one.

and your finished!

later i can ad to this thread and show you how to install the torsions and then adjust the beam when its in the car. i hope this helped any of you who had questions regarding this. feel free to ask any more questions.

*edit*
due to issues regarding removing needle bearings, the races, the zerks and clearanceing a stock beam off all the junk in there, i recommend that you place the center rotation section into the adjuster as you weld them into the beam, just spray them down with some anti weld splatter stuff and you will be good to go. i always had installed these on custom beams made from raw tubing and i never had issues getting them in with the torsions but this time, ooh god the pain, i basically had to cut this thing back in half to fix it.
luke

[bajabugnut]

runslikeapenguin,
Thank you for the time that it took you to do that, very informative to those who may need that bit of info, I elect this as a sticky or is it already one.

It makes me feel better that I was able to figure that out on my own, it only took me several hours of just staring at it. Whats weird is I pretty much did what you did.

[turnaround89]

thank you so much, i second the vote for a sticky.
_________________
1971 Baja Bug
1972 Porsche 914

[bajahucks]

very,very good post man. thanks for the time. a plus

[jps1145]

Nice work RLP. I would add to draw a line along each tube where the orignial grub screw was that will extend past the section you will cut out. that way you still have a stock reference point.
_________________
Tehachapi, CA
'69 Baja
Vintage Funco single seater
My Baja

[Yellermanx]

On a ball joint beam they are not installed at the same angle as in this picture.

[HamburgerBrad]

[HamburgerBrad]

added here: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1464806#1464806
_________________
OGST | CU05 | OGJHC
1970 baja|1953 oval

Wanted: two beat up, ugly, curb rashed 6" phone dial wheels

[Dale M.]

One point and maybe I just did not see it in tutorial is to scribe a line along beam (horizontally) at center of grub screw (before cut) .... It is simply a line of reference so you can orient grub screw (in adjuster) to same location as "stock" grub screw.... this will also assist in determining if you are getting a lower position ( most of oval opening in adjuster tube below line) or a raised position (most of oval opening in adjuster tube above line). This only works for K&L front end....

Dale
_________________
“Fear The Government That Wants To Take Your Guns"
"Kellison Sand Piper Roadster" For Street & Show.
"Joe Pody Sandrover" Buggy with 2180 for Autocross (Sold)
============================================================
All suggestions and advice are purely my own opinion. You are free to ignore them if you wish ...

[runslikeapenguin]

[Yellermanx]

Just another way.

I wanted mine to adjust up and down equally from stock height. I counted how many turns it took to move the adjuster from one extreme to the other. I believe it was 14 but it was a long time ago. If it was 14 I did half of that, 7 and locked the adjuster.

Before I took the leaves out of the beam I placed a piece of tin between the center leaves at the end and marked the tube where it was. I did it at both ends just to be sure.

I cut the center out and placed the adjusters in then put the leaves in then put tin in between the leaves and lined it up with the marks then tacked it.

I did it this way because the first set I did I measured twice then welded wrong anyways.

[runslikeapenguin]

[dustymojave]

Hey RLAP! Some of the photobucket links are broken from your nice little tutorial.
_________________
Richard
Offroading VW based cars since 1965
Tech Inspection 1963 - 2012 SCCA/SCORE/HDRA/MORE/MDR +
Retired from building Bajas, Fiberglass Buggies and Rails in the Mojave Desert. Also Sprints & Midgets, Dry Lakes, Road Race cars. All types New and Vintage
SoCalBajas Member
Kicked Cancer's A$$...1st and 2nd round...Fight ain't over yet.

[runslikeapenguin]

[xirxious]

I've seen people widen beams and use 2 on each tube. Is that because they have to use 2 sets of bars and cut them a little longer than in half?

[HamburgerBrad]

[redcavyguy]

hows the ride quality compared to using 2 sets of leaves and using the stock dimples. i have not ever tried just using one set and re-drilling the dimples.

[runslikeapenguin]

[HamburgerBrad]

[VIN]

when you guys re-drill the dimples, do you use a standard taper drill bit?? the factory dimples are alot sharper angle than the standard drill bit. i noticed that when i was narrowing my beam on the street car.