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Ian Epperson
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 12, 2007 8:30 am    Post subject: Torque bar Reply with quote

When you've got a much stronger than stock engine, you need to reinforce the stock mounting points, either through adding a mount to the rear or putting in a torque bar (also called a kafer cup) that ties the frame horns into the suspension.

Two weeks ago, I bought Aircooled.net's torque bar and received it last week.
(from their site)
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


When you order it, you have to specify 61 and newer or 60 and older. I (of course) ordered the 61 and newer. It's a nice looking setup (welding near one of the bolt holes is a bit sloppy preventing one of the bolts from seating flush, but it'll hold) but when I tried to install it, I discovered that the ends don't fit on a Thing. It seems like the angle they're designed for is about 15 degrees different. Once one side is bolted up, the other side misses the mark by about a foot.

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.

(the tab on the left horn is actually for the right horn and it points up - figured those out)

Their instructions leave a bit to be desired, and I figured that when I got the bar it would make more sense. Not so much. No additional drawings or pictures to help figure out how it goes together.

I've e-mailed Aircooled.net twice now and called them once (with them saying they'd look at the e-mail) and still no response. When I called them, they said they hadn't tested it with a Thing. I think at this point, I'm just going to have to return it - I don't think I'm screwing something up, I think it just doesn't fit.

I think I'll just go with the Bugpack truss bar instead:
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


Construction isn't as heavy, but the ends look adjustable. I'll give a call this time before making another plunge.
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Ian Epperson
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 12, 2007 10:28 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Also found CSP's torque bar:
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


A lot more welding involved though.
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krewe01
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 13, 2007 6:44 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ian
I bought the aircooled.net bar as well but have not even tried to install it. I am building a garage so I kinda took a break from the Thing for awhile. I looked at the csp one but went with the aircooled.net one because I didn't want to bother with all the welding. Looks like I may go with the bugpack one and return the aircooled.net one as well. Let me know what you come up with
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Ian Epperson
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 13, 2007 8:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I stopped by my FLAPS yesterday and they had the Bugpack truss bar on the wall. I bought it and started fitting it last night. It's very adjustable and definately not as sturdy as the Aircooled.net bar. Because of the angles, it seems like downward pressure may twist the top of the shocks. The Bugpack's instructons are much better, and I'll poke around with it more tonight.
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Go-SpeedRacer
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 13, 2007 8:28 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ian,

If you check over in the Off-Road Forum, you will find a bunch of variations of this. This is a must for the off-road guys, since most have bigger motors, prevents wheel hop, and just the overall bouncing the off-road delivers to your transaxle would be a quick death otherwise.

Basically the kit you have posed is a couple of turn buckles with some tabs for attachment, not sure what that bar on top is for, since I have never seen one on any of the off-road set ups that I have seen. Most people, myself included, just buy a couple of turnbuckles and weld a couple of tabs onto each end and call it done. I went with Stainless Steel Turnbuckles, that I tied into my 10 deg trans mount, but most that I see just go down to the local Tractor Supply and buy the turnbuckles, weld tabs onto horn and tie other end into shock tower or to bottom side of body. So basically you can tie them in anywhere you want. There is a topic on this in the Off-Road section, there is probably 30 variations of this in that thread, none however had used one of these kits. Tell you the truth I did not even know a kit existed for this.

Don't sweat it, just tie the tops in at good angle that you feel would give you the best support. These are kind of a secondary support so it is not very critical where they go or the angle, they will work no matter what. I would throw that top bar away, just some extra stuff that will be in your way of something else later.

Good Luck!
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Ian Epperson
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 17, 2007 9:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The top bar ties the two shock towers together strengthening the rear end. The turnbuckles bolt into that. If you simply pull on the shock towers, the force would drive them down and inward, so ideally, something would prevent them from bending inward too.

I again spoke with Aircooled.net, and they're STILL looking into it to see what can be done. Evil or Very Mad I think there's nothing more to be done but a return. John told me that the ends are designed for most chassis where the angle of the rear shock mounts are at 45 degrees. I just checked mine, and they're betwee 15 and 20 degrees (I'd guess they're probably exactly at 17.5) so there's no way this bar will fit. It's really too bad, it's a great looking kit and a strong bar.

The Bugpack bar doesn't seem well designed. Tightening up the cross bar results in the pivot points moving forward and down. I can grab it and pull it down and watch it start bending at the shocks! One good bounce and I think it'll either tear itself up or bend/break the top of the rear shock towers! Additionally, with everything where it should be, the uprights are too short and don't tighten up. I tried SpeedRacer's advice of bolting the uprights to the crossbar mounts, but the uprights don't reach to the side tabs. I think at this point I'm going to modify the side mounts to add long tabs to hold allow the uprights to bolt in at a good angle, and keep the top tabs for the crossbar.

Not exactly "bolt on" but workable.
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Go-SpeedRacer
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 18, 2007 2:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ian, sorry to hear that you are having such a problem. Your problem sucks because you already have the pieces in hand that you paid for, in lieu of buying turnbuckles to meet your specific length required. Also, it was hard to see in your photo, but does your piece have a swiveling eye on each end, that is the other key to happiness is have that round eye with the hole in the middle that swivels to allow you to mount it.

I looked in the McKenzies catalog, and they sell the swivel rod ends and they also have the high angle ones, you can also get them in chromoly and polished, so I think you can get some good looking ones. So worst case, buy a couple of rod ends and whatever length rod you want and you are done. Rods are one page 15 & rod ends are on page 74 & 75.
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Ian Epperson
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 18, 2007 5:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The piece in my pics does not have a swivel end - that would make the problems go away. The Bugpack part does have a swivel end, but when mounted to a Thing it puts the swivel at a really bad angle.

I'm going to be returning something here, just not sure what yet. Right now, I'm leaning toward returning the Aircooled.net bar and reworking the Bugpack bar to fit properly.

BTW, I'm getting quite annoyed with Aircooled.net. Two phone calls, three unanswered e-mails, and the only response I've gotten is "we'll look at it". Evil or Very Mad I couldn't get through today at all. "Hello, I am unable to answer your call right now, please call again. Thank you. Hello, I am ..."

Aircooled.net wrote:
We have concentrated our efforts on providing superlative web-based delivery of VW project technical support, and innovative and efficient online parts ordering.

I'm formulating a few "superlatives" to describe their technical support...
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aircoolednetvwparts
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 18, 2007 5:59 pm    Post subject: Return Authorized Reply with quote

We received Mr. Epperson's request for Return Authorization a few minutes ago at the [email protected] email address and he was immediately issued a full return authorization with instructions for returning this product so that we can issue him a refund for his shipping both ways per his request along with the following apology:

"I'm sorry this product was not workable for your vehicle. These were sold to us by the manufacturer as "fits all T1 vehicles 1961 or later" which is why they were advertised that way. We have since changed our product description to reflect that they do NOT fit Type 181 THINGS."

I can only assume that the manufacturer never saw fit to test the install of this item on a Thing and/or assumed that the geometry would be the same or similar to other Type 1 vehicles. If the other customer with a Thing who has been posting on this forum sends a return authorization request to us, we will promptly issue him a return authorization also.

Sincerely,
Channa S. Connolly
VP Operations
Aircooled.Net


Last edited by aircoolednetvwparts on Mon Jun 18, 2007 6:08 pm; edited 1 time in total
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aircoolednetvwparts
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 18, 2007 6:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

P.S. John does his best to field all technical inquiries as best he can. He does get backlogged and may take longer to address technical issues with which he has not had direct experience (i.e. In this instance, Things are not his specific area of expertise and we don't have one on site to take measurements on or do fittings). As for our phone support, Mondays are our busiest days by far (due to the numerous orders we receive over the weekend, and everyone wants their stuff shipped Monday to get it for the following weekend), but we do our darnedest to answer as many calls as we can - I know I personally answered about 10 today, and John answered double that! If you get our machine during our "phone hours" 10am - 3pm MST, we are out in the warehouse or madly processing orders to meet the day's shipping deadline. Generally speaking if you try back in 5 or 10 minutes there is almost always someone back in the office who can pick up the phone again!
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Go-SpeedRacer
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 18, 2007 6:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

If the rod length you have works, then all you need is the rod ends, they will screw into that rod that you have. Take a look at swapping out the ends. I tried to find the topic on this in the off-road forum, but did not have any luck finding it, which sucks because a lot of smart people gave some good input on this same subject.

I came home and looked at my setup vs what you said, I can not believe that where the shocks mount onto the top where the stop is for the trailing arm is, will not provide enough support for this brace. I tried to get that big old piece of steel to move, and I was unable. Now maybe I misunderstood what you were describing, however, I tied my brace to that big steel bar. The only problems that I can foresee is some extra work when it comes time to change ones shocks, but that is not very often. On mine I ran a longer bolt that will hold the shock and still have enough room to double nut the shock and still attach the top of the swivel rod end to with a nut.

Not sure if you deal with McKenzies much, but the one guy who I always talk with owns a Thing, and I am sure he could help you out to make sure you got the right stuff.
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Go-SpeedRacer
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 5:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ian, any more forward progress on this?
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Ian Epperson
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 11:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Go-SpeedRacer wrote:
If the rod length you have works, then all you need is the rod ends, they will screw into that rod that you have. Take a look at swapping out the ends. I tried to find the topic on this in the off-road forum, but did not have any luck finding it, which sucks because a lot of smart people gave some good input on this same subject.

Thanks for poking around for me! I think with a small amount of welding, I can make the Bugpack bar work (more below).

Go-SpeedRacer wrote:
I came home and looked at my setup vs what you said, I can not believe that where the shocks mount onto the top where the stop is for the trailing arm is, will not provide enough support for this brace. I tried to get that big old piece of steel to move, and I was unable. Now maybe I misunderstood what you were describing, however, I tied my brace to that big steel bar. The only problems that I can foresee is some extra work when it comes time to change ones shocks, but that is not very often. On mine I ran a longer bolt that will hold the shock and still have enough room to double nut the shock and still attach the top of the swivel rod end to with a nut.


The issue is the coller that bolts to the top of the shock mount. It's about a 2" long collar with a tab on it. The kit comes with longer bolts for the top of the shock so they can go through that collar and bolt up. The cross piece bolts to those tabs, then there are additional tabs a few inches in from the ends of the cross piece for the uprights. When I say that I can pull it down and have it bend at the shocks, I'm saying that those tabs end up at a very bad angle. Tightening up the cross bar tightly pushes those tabs perpendicular (45 degrees) to where they need to be - they point forward instead of down and back. So, when I pull down in the direction that the uprights would pull, I've got a bit of (bad bad) leverage against the top of the shocks since it's not all pulling in a strait line. The bar twists and binds the top shock bolt with only me tugging on it by hand - any real force will either break the upper shock bolt or break the top of the shock mount. If it were all in a strait line it'd be MUCH stronger.

I know a pic or two would help a lot, but it's all apart right now.

Last night, I cut up some cardboard forms for tabs to weld to those collars that bolt to the top of the shock. Tomorrow, my neighbor (awsome retired machinist, Bob, with a metal shop for a garage) is going to help me fab the tabs and weld up the collars. I'll keep the original tabs and the cross piece to tie the shock towers together, and put the new tabs at the proper length and angle to hold the uprights securely. It'll be stronger than the original with only a small amount of bench cutting and welding Very Happy I'll take pics when it's installed.
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Ian Epperson
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 22, 2007 11:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Got it working tonight! Took some pics too.

Out of the Box
Now, here's how they think it'll bolt up:
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


However, when the cross bar is tightened on a Thing, those ends rotate forward: (ignore, for now, that new tab sticking out to the left)
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.

You can see how the bar is pulling the tab to the closest position which is a pretty bad position on a Thing! When you pull the bar in the direction of the upright (as it will when the engine moves downward) it starts to bend the top of the shock as shown.

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


You can see how this isn't pulling strait, it's pulling the mount around an angle and would quickly break something.

New custom mount

Tonight, I worked with (awsome neighbor) Bob to make new tabs and he welded them to the collar. This allows the cross bar to pull the collar to a good position and hold it there, and allows the upright to bolt in a strait line to the shock tower:
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


Nice geometry - it pulls nearly strait down from the top of the mount
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


Other side:
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


Nice and tight! All ready to weld my frame-horn seams tomorrow.
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Go-SpeedRacer
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PostPosted: Sat Jun 23, 2007 5:55 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Nice, that is exactly how I did mine, without that bar going across from one side to the other. I can not see the point of having that bar anyway. Only difference is mine does not have the neighbor Bob fabricated tab on the top, I attached my rod to the stud where you put that tab, but essentially the same set up.

Glad to see you got it.
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Ian Epperson
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PostPosted: Sat Jun 23, 2007 9:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ian Epperson wrote:
All ready to weld my frame-horn seams tomorrow.


Whew! Just finished that. Taking a break, then gonna rust convert and prime everything.
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Ferretkona
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 24, 2007 9:42 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

No need to rust convert new metal but some surface rust looks like it is appearing on some nuts and fittings.
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Ian Epperson
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 24, 2007 11:55 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Not doing the rust covert for the new metal, doing it for the old horn surfaces - I can't seem to get it down to bare metal, and I'm running short on time. Last night, I painted rust coverter on the horns (welds and all) and this morning top coated it with Eastwood's rust encapsulator. Last night I also powder coated the updated part - welding on the collar required sand blasting the zinc off the surface and the new tab wasn't preserved at all.

Today, I'm debating powder coating the transmission carrier too. Gotta go return that welder first.
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 25, 2007 6:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Interesting article on make your own if anyone is interested.

http://www.tunacan.net/t4/howto/kaferbrace/

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.
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Ian Epperson
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 26, 2007 8:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

OK, finally got good pics and Solomon Grundy created a CAD drawing of the changes needed to make an Bugpack Truss bar fit in a Thing.

Here's what you get:
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


and here's what it'll look like when you're done:
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


You've got to modify the upper mounts on the left and the right. First, get some nice steel and cut out two of these:

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


Note that the angles around the holes are not that precise - they're just there to trim some of the metal and round it a bit. The length and width is also not so critical - 4.5" x 1.5" is fine. The 45 and 25 degree angles are pretty important as they set the proper angle while clearing the top of the shock.

You need to weld this to the upper collar on the left and right side. Here's what the finished product looks like (right side)
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


Left side:
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


As you can see, this is 90 degrees from where the original tab is welded (right side)
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.

The 45 degree angle where it welds to the collar is slightly narrower than the collar. It's very important to keep flush the new tab up to the inside elbow, otherwise it will not clear the shock. That is, weld the new tab back from the shock to flush it up to the vehicle-inside of the collar. In the above photo, the side facing the photographer is flush.


When bolted up, here's what it looks like:
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


There you have it. Let me know if any of this isn't clear. The nice bit of this mod is that, although the kit isn't a bolt-on, the modifications can be done on a bench and the resulting part can be bolted up. No welding or grinding on the car is required.
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