need to undo lowering

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I recently acquired a very, very low '56 beetle. I want to return it to stock height, both front and back. How do I do it?

[Strato56]

First thing to do is buy a new beam. Or completely rebuild yours. Odds are though if it's that low it is pretty banged up from driving around and you might want a new one anyway. For the rear end, there is four bolts right where the rear torsion bar is, take those off, slide the torsion bar out, raise it, slide it back in and put it back together. It's been a long time since I've done it, but I think that's all there is to the rear end. The front will definitly be more difficult. How's the front apron look on that thing, by the way?

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Thanks for the advice. I'll check those things out. Hopefully I won't have to rebuild the front beam!

[genrex]

For the rear end: you should have the complete procedure in front of you when you do this. For one thing, the spring-plate tension can be hazardous to your body parts.. no joke!!

The procedure can be found in many Beetle manuals under suspension/ rear/ torsion-bar adjustment.

You didn't say HOW the front was lowered.. it's hard to advise you, when we don't know. If it's a slammed "adjustable beam" then you jack up the front until the tires are just touching the ground, and then adjust the adjusting bolt on each beam until you get stock height. Don't be too surprised, though, if the torsion-leaves (inside the beams) have taken a "set" and refuse to move.. that would be a drag.

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Before you perform any of the above procedures on the rear of the car, make sure that the car is on jack stands and that the car is level. You will need to use a guage to determine the angle that you are setting the rear torsion bars because you would hate to have one side lower than the other.

As to the front of the car, it is possible that they used dropped spindles as well as adjusters in the front beam if it is slammed as low as you say. You can reuse the front beam and re-adjust back to stock. Just remember to look to see if they placed caster shims behind the beam when they lowered it. If they did, these will need to be removed. The dropped spindles will need to be replaced. You should have no problem selling them in the classifieds here.

Finally after you have successfully completed these tasks, replace the shocks because they probably went to a shorter shock after they lowered the car.

Best of luck.