Stiff front or Normal

[Lonesome Rider]

I've been reading a lot on here and trying to research opinions. Maybe mine is normal and i don't know it because I'm new. I can't imagine it being normal. I'm building a woods buggy, looks like an old sandrail.
I had new ball joints installed on the front end. I'm reassembling the parts on the passenger side. I had a hell of a time getting the knuckle back on. Springs are super stiff. The guy i got it off of had limiting straps on it, so i put a jack under the lower trailing arm to compress the suspension a little to reinstall the strap and the suspension on that side didn't compress at all. So i got on the bumper and my 175 lbs didn't even budge the suspension on just the one side alone. Tried bouncing too and no movement. I can't imagine having twice that amount once i put the drivers side back together.
Is this normal? At this point I'd have a rigid front end it seems. With the tires off I can lift the front of the car by hand, so it's really light.
Everything is greased. The bearings in the tubes move freely and are packed up with new grease. I'd hate to re-assemble everything if there's a fix for it. I don't have adjusters on the tubes either. Any thoughts?

[tripicana]

When you did the ball joints, did you align the marks when you pressed them in? The trailing arms have marks, and the balljoints have notches. These need to line up or you get the problem you’re describing.
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[Lonesome Rider]

I had them done by a local VW shop. Even without the knuckle connected the individual upper and lower arms are very stiff. I may pull the springs and see if there's an issue with them.

[Dale M.]

Typically since a sand rail, woods buggy is about 6-800 pounds lighter than full bug, its customary to remove some of the narrow leaves in both torsion bar stacks or totally remove one stack and replace it with through rod... What you are experiencing is a "preload" for full bug and you have maybe half (of less) the weigh so the preload on torsions is pretty stiff...

Dale
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"Kellison Sand Piper Roadster" For Street & Show.
"Joe Pody Sandrover" Buggy with 2180 for Autocross (Sold)
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All suggestions and advice are purely my own opinion. You are free to ignore them if you wish ...

[cbeck]

Take it for a ride before you do anything drastic. My 6 over beam with wider/longer front arms would not budge when I jumped on it, yet I had used all 12 inches of travel without beating on it. Maybe it didn't feel like I was beating on it with 12" of travel?
Something about the ball joints not being properly indexed when pressed in will make ball joints stiff?
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www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=647779

[dustymojave]

VW front suspension is rather like picking up a kid with their arms held straight at their sides. But when the arms bend at the elbows, or move out from the kid's sides, all of a sudden they won't hold the child up. With the VW arms hanging down, weight on the end of the arm is pushing up along the length of the arm. Not rotating the arm

With a VW, the arms extend to the rear. at ride height. With a ball joint, once it's assembled, they extend to the rear. But still, you need to hit obstacles with the wheels at some speed to rotate the arms up and back. It will seem stiff at low speed. If you want to use it as a woods buggy, it can be expected to need stock torsion leaves, even though the buggy is light on the front. Only if the car is going to be used at very low speed or on very smooth roads should the torsion leaves be cut.

My Baja Bug still has its original 954K mile 63 year old front torsion leaves. My wife has never in the 40 years we've been together, complained about how stiff my Baja Bug rides.

If you want to use it on the links at the Country Club, cut the leaves. Otherwise, leave them and drive it. As in ACTUALLY take it out in the woods and get after it before you consider softening the ride.

It would have a softer, smoother ride if it had a modified link pin front end with 10-12" of travel. But it's ball joint with only 6" max travel. And it takes lots of fabrication by someone who knows what they're doing to convert to link pin. Yet lots of people run ball joint buggies and flog the snot out of them with big smiles on their faces.
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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.

[Lonesome Rider]

Thanks for the help. I pulled the springs out and checked them for anything that might look bad or broken or damaged and reassembled everything after adding more grease. It still seems stiff but maybe it’s normal. Can’t drive it yet, still don’t have the foot controls or hydraulic clutch hooked up yet. After getting everything back on, the steering is a bear. I hope that loosens up cuz it’s a struggle to get the wheels to turn. Also seems like there should be a limiter on how far you can steer. Full clock both ways and the tires hit the suspension arms. Lol This is turning into quite the project 😐 next is figuring out what fittings I need for the clutch and actually mounting the pedal assembly. Thanks again for the help.

[dustymojave]

The pitman arm on the steering box should have a pair of smaller arms sticking out the sides, that contact stop brackets with bolt and jam nuts for adjustment to stop the steering travel. On your buggy, somebody before you may have cut those off.

It should NOT take a lot of effort to steer. Might be your steering box is in need of grease and/or adjustment.

With the tie rods disconnected, are the individual wheels hard to steer? If yes, then the ball joints may be crusted up.
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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.

[Lonesome Rider]

Ball joints are brand new. I already popped the cap off the steering box and loaded it with more grease. It wasn’t bad really. I adjusted some play out of it while i was waiting for the ball joints to be pressed in. I undid what I adjusted to see if that made a difference and it didn’t. I’m goinghh be to say the new ball joints are causing the stiffness. They were stiff to move around while trying to install the knuckles. As for the the stops being cut, I wouldn’t doubt they were. I’ll check this morning to see what’s there and post a pic.

[Lonesome Rider]

[dustymojave]

[Lonesome Rider]

yes i do see it . Thank you! I haven't gotten back out to do any more work on the buggy actually. Hopefully this weekend.