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[email protected] Samba Member
Joined: August 22, 2002 Posts: 28 Location: Lakeville, MN
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Posted: Mon Oct 29, 2018 5:50 pm Post subject: Has anyone narrowed a vw pan and drivetrain? |
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I just bought a Subaru 360 van and it needs a ton of work. I'm going to upgrade the motor and drivetrain and one of the options I actually saw on a customized Subaru 360 van was an air-cooled VW motor and I assume the drivetrain. But, the biggest problem is these vans are about 10 inches narrower then a VW bug. I was thinking you could possibly narrow a pan to make it fit. Has anyone done this and if so, what was involved? Any input or direction would be greatly appreciated. |
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chickengeorge Samba Member
Joined: August 18, 2004 Posts: 5634 Location: Spokompton Warshington
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Posted: Tue Oct 30, 2018 9:47 am Post subject: Re: Has anyone narrowed a vw pan and drivetrain? |
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Building your own pan halves is pretty straight forward. Cutting down the torsion tubes out back and abandoning the torsions in favor of coil overs or air ride would also be fairly easy. If you went with an IRS rear, you could have axles made to length. The rear is going to be way more difficult than the front, but the front has it's issues as well. Narrowing the beam that much might require rack and pinion steering or something. When you narrow the beam as much as what it would take to get it under that little Subby, the driver's side steering arm gets really short and can cause scrubbing, terrible bump steer and other issues. |
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chickengeorge Samba Member
Joined: August 18, 2004 Posts: 5634 Location: Spokompton Warshington
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[email protected] Samba Member
Joined: August 22, 2002 Posts: 28 Location: Lakeville, MN
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Posted: Tue Oct 30, 2018 10:19 am Post subject: Re: Has anyone narrowed a vw pan and drivetrain? |
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Yeah, that is the one that gave me the idea of using an air-cooled motor, but there are no real details about the frame and driveline except that he used custom made a-arms front and back. |
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[email protected] Samba Member
Joined: August 22, 2002 Posts: 28 Location: Lakeville, MN
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Posted: Tue Oct 30, 2018 10:32 am Post subject: Re: Has anyone narrowed a vw pan and drivetrain? |
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chickengeorge wrote: |
Building your own pan halves is pretty straight forward. Cutting down the torsion tubes out back and abandoning the torsions in favor of coil overs or air ride would also be fairly easy. If you went with an IRS rear, you could have axles made to length. The rear is going to be way more difficult than the front, but the front has it's issues as well. Narrowing the beam that much might require rack and pinion steering or something. When you narrow the beam as much as what it would take to get it under that little Subby, the driver's side steering arm gets really short and can cause scrubbing, terrible bump steer and other issues. |
After reading this I did a little more research and saw a 550 spider(see pic)
that used the vw driveline and they removed everything but the axles and added 2/4 link type setup and I think that would work, what do you think? I would do the install in the normal direction.
How difficult is it to cut down the axles?
I would definantly consider a rack and pinion for the front. |
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vwuberalles Samba Member
Joined: October 18, 2003 Posts: 1357 Location: Richmond, VA
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chickengeorge Samba Member
Joined: August 18, 2004 Posts: 5634 Location: Spokompton Warshington
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Posted: Tue Oct 30, 2018 12:26 pm Post subject: Re: Has anyone narrowed a vw pan and drivetrain? |
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[email protected] wrote: |
chickengeorge wrote: |
Building your own pan halves is pretty straight forward. Cutting down the torsion tubes out back and abandoning the torsions in favor of coil overs or air ride would also be fairly easy. If you went with an IRS rear, you could have axles made to length. The rear is going to be way more difficult than the front, but the front has it's issues as well. Narrowing the beam that much might require rack and pinion steering or something. When you narrow the beam as much as what it would take to get it under that little Subby, the driver's side steering arm gets really short and can cause scrubbing, terrible bump steer and other issues. |
After reading this I did a little more research and saw a 550 spider(see pic)
that used the vw driveline and they removed everything but the axles and added 2/4 link type setup and I think that would work, what do you think? I would do the install in the normal direction.
How difficult is it to cut down the axles?
I would definantly consider a rack and pinion for the front. |
There are places that do it for drag cars and whatnot. It's not something you can do yourself. Maybe the housing on a swingaxle, but not the axle itself. I'd stick with IRS. |
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slalombuggy Samba Member
Joined: July 17, 2010 Posts: 9145 Location: Canada
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Posted: Fri Nov 16, 2018 9:53 am Post subject: Re: Has anyone narrowed a vw pan and drivetrain? |
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Doing a short axle swing is WAY easier than IRS. You can buy 3 and 5" shorter axles, although you may have to do some digging for the 5" as they aren't made by SAW any more. I found mine in Europe and shipping was pretty cheap.
Cut the rear torsion tubes, use 21 5/8" torsion bars and early spring plates with the snouts on them and matching torsion covers, easy peasy.
The front is also pretty easy. You can do a rack like I did or you can center mount a the steering box and use a jointed steering column.
If I were doing your project, I would abandon the VW floor pan altogether and start with a simple tube chassis. You can use square tube for the main part, it's easy to cut, get, square and build off of. Draw out your Subi 360 dimensions on the garage floor and build from there. Here's my narrowed buggy project. Probably won't apply to much but might be some stuff you can use or get ideas from.
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=687219&highlight=
brad |
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finster Samba Member
Joined: May 26, 2012 Posts: 7935 Location: north o' the border
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Posted: Fri Nov 16, 2018 1:34 pm Post subject: Re: Has anyone narrowed a vw pan and drivetrain? |
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the swedish style vw trikes, where the engine is between the riders legs, use a shortened axle and custom swing arms - see this us site
https://badasstrikecompany.webs.com/badasstrikestore.htm |
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[email protected] Samba Member
Joined: August 22, 2002 Posts: 28 Location: Lakeville, MN
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Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2019 1:39 pm Post subject: Re: Has anyone narrowed a vw pan and drivetrain? |
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Still doing research on this. One question if I do something like the reversed formula Vee setup with the motor and trans flipped, what has to be done with the trans mission to get it to run backwards? |
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[email protected] Samba Member
Joined: August 22, 2002 Posts: 28 Location: Lakeville, MN
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Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2019 1:49 pm Post subject: Re: Has anyone narrowed a vw pan and drivetrain? |
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Tried contacting them and it doesn't seem like they are in business.
I have friends with great welding skills. If this guy is cutting them apart and shortening them, could I? |
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chickengeorge Samba Member
Joined: August 18, 2004 Posts: 5634 Location: Spokompton Warshington
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Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2019 5:54 pm Post subject: Re: Has anyone narrowed a vw pan and drivetrain? |
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[email protected] wrote: |
Still doing research on this. One question if I do something like the reversed formula Vee setup with the motor and trans flipped, what has to be done with the trans mission to get it to run backwards? |
Ring gear has to be flipped from one side to the other so that the pinion turns it the other way. I admit, I don't know what all that entails, but that's what is done.
As far as shortening your own axles...the housing, your friend might be able to shorten, but the axles themselves can't be cut and welded back together. At least not that I've ever seen with any success. I think they have to be cut, have the splines machined back in them and then hardened. |
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[email protected] Samba Member
Joined: August 22, 2002 Posts: 28 Location: Lakeville, MN
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Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2019 8:59 pm Post subject: Re: Has anyone narrowed a vw pan and drivetrain? |
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chickengeorge wrote: |
[email protected] wrote: |
Still doing research on this. One question if I do something like the reversed formula Vee setup with the motor and trans flipped, what has to be done with the trans mission to get it to run backwards? |
Ring gear has to be flipped from one side to the other so that the pinion turns it the other way. I admit, I don't know what all that entails, but that's what is done.
As far as shortening your own axles...the housing, your friend might be able to shorten, but the axles themselves can't be cut and welded back together. At least not that I've ever seen with any success. I think they have to be cut, have the splines machined back in them and then hardened. |
Thanks for that info. I was looking at a bus frontend and was wondering if the part that is mounted to the front of the beam, that allows for the steering in front of the beam to transfer to the steering arms could be taken from a bus frontend and put on a normal bug beam? Not sure if this makes sense. |
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slalombuggy Samba Member
Joined: July 17, 2010 Posts: 9145 Location: Canada
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Posted: Sat Feb 23, 2019 3:32 am Post subject: Re: Has anyone narrowed a vw pan and drivetrain? |
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That's a lot of work to gain nothing. You can centermount the steering box and then just use a double jointed steering column. Much less work.
brad |
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[email protected] Samba Member
Joined: August 22, 2002 Posts: 28 Location: Lakeville, MN
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Posted: Sat Feb 23, 2019 7:03 am Post subject: Re: Has anyone narrowed a vw pan and drivetrain? |
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slalombuggy wrote: |
That's a lot of work to gain nothing. You can centermount the steering box and then just use a double jointed steering column. Much less work.
brad |
Brad, do you have a visual example of what you are talking about? |
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[email protected] Samba Member
Joined: August 22, 2002 Posts: 28 Location: Lakeville, MN
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Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2019 7:10 am Post subject: Re: Has anyone narrowed a vw pan and drivetrain? |
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Ok, let me ask this. I'm thinking about using a dune buggy rack, but flipping it forward. When you do this the steering is opposite. To correct that I have to flip the steering arms from back to forward. My question is, can I flip the trailing arms so they point forward, this way I could have access to forward facing steering arms or will this cause me some kid of handling issues? |
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slalombuggy Samba Member
Joined: July 17, 2010 Posts: 9145 Location: Canada
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Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2019 9:39 am Post subject: Re: Has anyone narrowed a vw pan and drivetrain? |
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[email protected] wrote: |
slalombuggy wrote: |
That's a lot of work to gain nothing. You can centermount the steering box and then just use a double jointed steering column. Much less work.
brad |
Brad, do you have a visual example of what you are talking about? |
Here's my double jointed steering column. Not sure why you want to flip the rack around so the input is in the front and the steering is reversed???? I imagine you could swap spindles side to side but the tie rods might foul the trailing arms as the suspension moves up and down.
brad |
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[email protected] Samba Member
Joined: August 22, 2002 Posts: 28 Location: Lakeville, MN
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Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2019 9:11 pm Post subject: Re: Has anyone narrowed a vw pan and drivetrain? |
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Brad, I have to access the rack from the front because it is a van and the steering comes from in front of the beam the front, not the rear like a normal vw. I thought about just flipping the spindles, but I don't think that will put the steering arms far enough forward. I thought about doing the flip and then extending the steering arms also. |
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slalombuggy Samba Member
Joined: July 17, 2010 Posts: 9145 Location: Canada
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Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2019 6:25 am Post subject: Re: Has anyone narrowed a vw pan and drivetrain? |
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could you just mount the rack so the input is straight up and down?
Don't mess with the length of the steering arms on the spindles, that will bring a whole other bunch of problems with steering geometry.
You could flip the whole beam and run the arms out the front. I've seen that on a couple of ratrods on the interweeb. Not sure about the ride quality, but it would give you all the clearance you needed.
brad |
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[email protected] Samba Member
Joined: August 22, 2002 Posts: 28 Location: Lakeville, MN
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Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2019 8:08 am Post subject: Re: Has anyone narrowed a vw pan and drivetrain? |
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I thought about flipping the whole beam, but was concerned about handling. |
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