Ball joint to link pin conversion beam

[suburbanlegend]

Sorry to hear that Bugzilla has passed. He was making a ball joint conversion beam that accepted link pin trailing arms. Is anyone else making these now?

I would like to upgrade without completely re-inventing everything.

[Vanillagurilla]

I think acmecarco has a conversion beam but there +6 wider then stock.
https://acmecarco.com/sandrail-options-and-accessories/

[suburbanlegend]

I saw that Acme conversion beam. I wanted to avoid coil over shocks and stick with torsion bars and adjusters at this time...

I’m just surprised nobody is doing a ball joint beam like Bugzilla did. People only complained about them in theory. I never heard anyone who had one ever complain about bump steer.

[oldschool5er]

Acme will build any conversion beam you want according to the owner when I talked to him. He just shows the coil over beam in the catalog. You have to call them to ask about building the beam.
_________________
HRE in Westerville,Ohio

Full machine shop with all types of CNC. Rapid prototyping available, CNC Plasma cutting, 3D printing and Laser engraving.

[suburbanlegend]

[Vanillagurilla]

Bump steer wasnt the issue, it was the caster change and I dont think either bugzilla or acme use stock length link pin arms. I wanted link pin in my ball joint car so I bought a 6 over beam with a center mount rack. I spent alot of hours welding a steel adapter to the balljoint panhead and cutting down the top of the panhead for tie rod clearance only to do what I should have done in the first place and buy a tubing bender. Now we are here lol

[suburbanlegend]

Nice job. But I would like to avoid having to re-do all this stuff up front. I have so much that ties into the ball joint beam, including the gas tank, hood mount/pivot, cage supports. It's going to be expensive enough converting to all link pin hardware without re-engineering everything else too.

Hopefully the ACME beam works out.

[Q-Dog]

Someone makes an adapter set that will allow you to bolt a king/link beam to a ball joint car. I don't know what vendors may sell this but a quick search in the classifeds turned up this ad.
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/detail.php?id=2128532
_________________
Brian

'69 Dune Buggy
'69 Beetle Convertible
'70 Beetle

[suburbanlegend]

I saw that adapter too. I think that’s my plan B. That would require modifications to my cage supports, front bumper, steering shaft...

I’m always looking for the path of least resistance.

There was a “bolt on” option just a few years ago...now it’s like Thanos snapped his fingers and POOF...it’s gone.

Does anyone know how to go back in time to when Bugzilla was selling these?


I will call ACME today.

[suburbanlegend]

ACME is only building beams with through rods, for coil over shocks. Nothing with torsion beams.

I’m striking out here, unless I want to re engineer everything.

[Vanillagurilla]

[TDCTDI]

I’m surprised that no one makes a combo spindle that’s spaced further apart to allow the use of link pin trailing arms in a balljoint beam. It seems like you could buy a set of combo spindles & have a machine shop make the king pin portion longer & a spacer to locate the spindle.
_________________
Everybody born before 1975 has a story, good, bad, or indifferent, about a VW.


GOFUNDYOURSELF, quit asking everyone to do it for you!


An air cooled VW will make you a hoarder.


Do something, anything, to your project every day, and you will eventually complete it.

[Vanillagurilla]

[no1clyde]

I was reading this thread and I just had an idea that is a little different but may work. Take a link pin beam and cut it into just the top and bottom tubes and mount them into the ball joint head and then make mounts with ball joint spacing but link pin beams and arms and spindles. Kinda like a conversion beam made with VW parts.

Ed

[cbeck]

The po of my rail butchered a ball joint beam to fit my king pin frame. Imagine my suprise when I came home with a spindle to spindle rblt bj beam.
_________________
My cut in half and rebuild thread
www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=647779

[JWHracing]

[petrol punk]

[suburbanlegend]

[rodeking]

I'm fairly new to VW's and have a 71 super and a BJ beam pan that I intend on making into a Class 11. It seems that if you space the LP tubes out to match a BJ frame head you screw up the caster geometry because the arms are no longer parallel? Right? This assumes you use the stock LP spindles. Or maybe I'm not understanding what you are saying.

This was referring to JWHracing's post.

[dustymojave]

NONE of the VW or Porsche beams from the factory have parallel trailing arms at any point in their travel. They are ALL designed with the spindle ends of the arms farther apart than the beam ends. So any stock VW or Porsche beam produces substantial caster change through the range of wheel travel. That caster change increases if you allow longer wheel travel with stock length arms or install longer trailing arms. The stock ball joint spacing at the spindle is farther apart than link pin spacing as well as the beam tube spacing being greater.

However, link pin spacing at the spindle is still greater than ball joint beam tube spacing. If you use king pin arms and spindles on ball joint beam tube spacing, the spindle ends of the arms are STILL farther apart than at the beam tubes and there will still be caster change of the same sort as with a stock setup. But that caster change will be markedly less than stock. In my opinion, that is a GOOD thing.

The only thing I've ever thought that MIGHT be a reason for that dramatic stock caster change is to maintain a relatively consistent steering effort through wheel travel with the stock setup. That doesn't apply with a center-load rack and pinion whether the beam is ball joint spacing or link pin.

Some who do not understand the stock geometry nor what it is changed to with different beam spacing make statements that they have not yet been able to support in actual fact on this or any other public forum I've seen.
_________________
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.