Project Slowly Underway: Berrien 295

[Vanapplebomb]

Spring plates are done. Dual spring plates, notched, with shortened tubes for conversion to swing axle torsion bars. I welded a hard washer on the end to capture the torsion bars, then added a little 1/2” tube extension on the end to fully engage with the outer bushing. A hard washer and M12 nut capped it off. In normal operation I will just fill the hole with a short M12 bolt. The idea is that if I need to make adjustments, I can jack it off the torsion bar easily by running in a long M12 bolt. A little bit easier than prying them off the lower stop with a crowbar or big screw driver.

Local hardware store was out of M12 bolts, so I ordered what I needed. Should be in soon.

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1800 Type 4 Berrien 295

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=487021

[Vanapplebomb]

Good news,

I started test fitting all the parts together. Looks like it will work out slick.no torsion bars at this point so I can move things around. Quick tape measure job, and I measured 9-3/4” of vertical travel.

With the notch in the spring plate, my spring plates rest on the stop at 13.5 degrees down with the frame as the zero reference.

I zeroed out the angle finder at full drop, them moved the spring plate to full bump, and measured just shy of 30 degrees of swing. That’s right about where I wanted to be.

With the trailing arm attached, I also got a rough location for the bump stop I want to add. To mount it I will just weld on a 3/8” threaded coupler to the torsion housing shock towers.

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1800 Type 4 Berrien 295

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=487021

[pullstart]

I wish I had the patience to work on my rail in the manner that you do... such awesome work!
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4 seater Appletree buggy, road legal with 002 IRS, 3x3 Appletree kit, 6" over Dan's beam with 10" towers and Fox 2.0 shocks, '00 Subaru EJ25 with KEP stage 3 clutch and KEP adapter plate.

my build page: https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=662104&start=0

[Vanapplebomb]

Thanks man. To be honest, it’s not that I have patience, it’s that I don’t have time. Haha.

Anyways.

Got the torsion bars in and spring plates on. I use plenty of anti-seize on the splines and silicone based grease on the polyurethane bushings.

For preload I am starting with 20 degrees. Stock swing axle with 22mm bars and no Zbar was 17 degrees. The notch in the spring plate affords me 4 degrees more drop. I figured three extra degrees of preload was a good starting point to keep the ratio of compression/rebound about the same. We will see how it works out when things settle in.

To lift the spring plates up and onto the stops I use a 3/8 all steel turn buckle between a spring plate bolt hole and a half inch eye bolt through the shock tower casting. Works pretty slick.

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1800 Type 4 Berrien 295

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=487021

[Bock]

It's coming together nicely - cool idea w/ the turnbuckle.

[Vanapplebomb]

Thanks man. Progress at last feels good. Hopefully I can get the trailing arms on this weekend. More to come.
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1800 Type 4 Berrien 295

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=487021

[jimmyhoffa]

Yep, stealing the turnbuckle idea. I slipped long bolts into my double spring plate holes, and used a very long piece of thick flat stock to lift the spring plate up and had someone else hammer them in.
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1974 Chenowth 2RL #1244 Street Legal
My other car isn't ridiculous.

[Vanapplebomb]

Yeah, turn buckle works well. Slap it on and turn it with a wrench. Just make sure you use a steel one. I wouldn’t dare use an aluminum turn buckle.
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1800 Type 4 Berrien 295

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=487021

[Vanapplebomb]

It’s a roller!

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1800 Type 4 Berrien 295

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=487021

[dustymojave]

Looks a lot better than when it was the bare frame sitting out in the leaves. Shop looks good too.
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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.

[Vanapplebomb]

Thanks Richard. It feels a lot better to work on it in the shop than it did in the leaves. Hahaha
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1800 Type 4 Berrien 295

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=487021

[pullstart]

Patience or lack of time... it looks good!
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4 seater Appletree buggy, road legal with 002 IRS, 3x3 Appletree kit, 6" over Dan's beam with 10" towers and Fox 2.0 shocks, '00 Subaru EJ25 with KEP stage 3 clutch and KEP adapter plate.

my build page: https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=662104&start=0

[Vanapplebomb]

Thanks man, I appreciate it. Really.

Up next, CV joints and axles. They really are right at the max limit. Usually I don’t bother, but because these are so right up to the edge, I’m going to disassemble the half shafts and “clock” the CV joints. I have no explanation for why this makes any difference what so ever, but apparently it does. So why not.
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1800 Type 4 Berrien 295

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=487021

[Vanapplebomb]

For fun I wanted to see what happened when C.V. joints were out of phase, vs phased or clocked as some say. Very interesting. With them out of phase, the half shaft axle oscillated inboard and outboard as it was rotated. Most likely because of the uneven thrust forces from the cross grooves. When phased, or clocked, the axle no longer oscillated back and fourth as it was rotated. Very fascinating to see what happens when the like widthed portions of the cv joints are both on the acute or obtuse side the the axle. I can see what that does for keeping the axle from pushing back and fourth taking up plunge from one cv joint and then the other.... but I still do not understand how that can possibly help with angularity. Durability, yes, saves cv cages from pounding from the oscillations of the axle, but angle...I think that is a myth.
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1800 Type 4 Berrien 295

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=487021

[Vanapplebomb]

I’ll throw this out there for people torquing C.V. bolts...

A lot of people torque the cv bolts to 25 Ft*Lbs as spect for bugs and busses etc... but most people don’t know that the same M8 grade 12.9 hardware was torqued to 33 Ft*Lbs on the Vanagons. So, don’t be afraid to crank those bolts down good and hard. I wouldn’t reuse the bolts after torquing to 33 Ft*Lbs, but they definitely will hold no problem.

No Loctite or other thread locking compound. Just two piece Nord-Lock washers between the torque spreaders and the head of the bolts with a dab of grease/anti-seize on the threads.
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1800 Type 4 Berrien 295

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=487021

[Vanapplebomb]

Next up, installing the engine.

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1800 Type 4 Berrien 295

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=487021

[dustymojave]

Van, it's EZ to lubricate CV bolt threads with grease. It's damned difficult to do a good job of applying loc-tite to clean threads though. It CAN be done, but it's a PITA.
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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.

[dustymojave]

I see the parking brake cables hanging down. What are you using for a brake lever?
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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.

[Vanapplebomb]

Yeah, to do thread locker you have to use acetone soaked q-tips. Pain. Plus, i see no need for it here with Nord-Lock washers. I did some testing on them as an engineer a couple years back. They are ridiculous. Much better than any spring washer I have ever tested. For the bolt to back out it actually has to undergo higher tension. Between that and the updated torque spec of 33Ft*Lbs for the cv bolts...it ain’t going anywhere.

As for the parkiking brake, stock lever. I have the bracket and everything. Just need to figure out where I want to run stuff. That is probably one of my last things on the to-do list because I can run it over top of anything else that’s there. Biggest obstacle will be the shift shaft.
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1800 Type 4 Berrien 295

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=487021

[dustymojave]

You could mount it above the shift shaft, like the shift lever mount is above the frame rails. Several years ago, there was a build thread on here by a guy with a Chenowth buggy. I think he used the lever assembly from a Jeep IIRC. Name of Larry. Some sort of helicopter designation for his user name. UH60CE or something like that. I'll see if I can find it.

After searching for a while, I can't find anything Larry posted, nor can I find his user ID in the member list, nor any of his posts regarding his buggy. It seems he deleted all when he left.

Might take some more searching for parking/emergency brakes in tube frame buggies.
_________________
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.