Stiff Front Suspension

[MeeferMadness]

Assembled the front end on my 59 euro and when I finished with it I stood on the front of the car and tried to "bounce" the suspension. What I found was a very stiff suspension. It would only move a half an inch or so. I would have thought that my 170 lbs would have move it further. When the body was on the car the nose seems to sit vey high. I decided to disassemble the front suspension to see if I could find anything binding, what I found was the upper trailing arm had quite a bit of "preload" and that is what is giving it the stiff feel. Is this normal, if not what would be the fix?
Thanks
Bruce

[Eric&Barb]

Hard to say, but adding the body, interior and yourself adds up to quite a bit of weight. Then try bouncing on the front pumper to check when it is all together.

As for the front being higher than the front that was often the stock stance, and adding two folks in the front seats should get rid of most of that , or your rear torsion bars may have sagged over the years.

You need to assemble all, roll the VW back and forth, then measure height, and make adjustments if need be.
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[EVfun]

That looks normal to me. The torsion bars are clocked slightly differently in each tube. The stock suspension fully tops out on the bump stop on on a bare chassis, or even a light fiberglass beach buggy.
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[MeeferMadness]

I am sure you guys are correct, I usually over think things. I will re-assemble the front suspension and wait until the car is fully assembled to make any judgement calls on how stiff (or not) it ends up being.
Thanks for the input, now to move on to the engine!
Bruce