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Post by 600midengine on Jan 13, 2019 10:41:16 GMT -5
Have access to a 69 VW complete front end. I am an ex-VW mechanic. Looks to be an easy build for a reverse trike. anyone have experience with this?
thanks
Steve
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Post by davej98002 on Jan 13, 2019 12:59:23 GMT -5
Yeah a few buggy builds. The king pin of the older ones some like better. I have the ball joint drum unit from a 66 Karmin. You can get just about anything to enhance a Beam now days. Even 4 to 9 inch longer swing arms for much more suspension lift and travel. You can also cut out the top tube and weld a brace inboard. This way you can mount two coil over shocks inboard. And if you remove the lower tubes center adjusting part the whole bottom torsion bar leafs become a sway/anti-roll bar. Look real close and you can see the steel brace inboard before the shock levers.
Start with this
And modify it to this
I used to have 100's of pictures of these type mods but my laptop hard drive failed ad my backup DVD files will not open anymore for some reason.
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Post by 600midengine on Jan 31, 2019 20:37:09 GMT -5
Thanks for the reply and great photos. Any chance another member may have more details/photos? any suggestions on places to look on this forum? I am going to build a Harley Sportster Rev Trike as my first project and the VW FE looks to be a good start.
thanks again
Veteran as well, Air Force 62-66
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Post by mclark999 on May 9, 2019 19:53:42 GMT -5
Search on the web for Formula Vee suspension. This race series uses the old VW beetle suspension. Lot's of great advice out there.
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Post by TomyJ on May 14, 2019 13:29:21 GMT -5
Will this work?
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Post by TomyJ on May 22, 2019 15:02:20 GMT -5
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Post by davej98002 on May 22, 2019 17:30:07 GMT -5
They both work about the same. Weigh about the same too. Just that the King pin type Camber is adjusted with shims and the Ball joint is done with an eccentric on the ball joints. Both you can drive a speedo off the left hub.
The VW 'Thing" has a modified Beam. It has outer struts and braces for 'Off Road' use.
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Post by rtrikes on Apr 16, 2020 4:10:48 GMT -5
Old thread, but anyone reading and wanting to use one. They are to stiff to use for a light trike application. You would have to remove a few of the torsion bars and do a mod see google on how to do this, Also use non-gas shocks again to stiff of a ride or find motorcycle shocks with the correct travel,
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Post by davej98002 on Apr 16, 2020 14:28:24 GMT -5
The VW beam I am working on has no need for the top tubes Torsion leaf's. I will be cutting that top beam out and run two Honda Goldwing air shock/spring's on the inside. Then like I said above (But pictures are missing) the bottom tubes center adjuster will be removed and the torsion leaf's will then become a swaybar. Look at the 2nd picture to see inboard coil over shocks.
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Post by rtrikes on Apr 19, 2020 5:02:26 GMT -5
Aha lots of ways to do it, that is neat mod very good, but also very advance. Should knock off a bit of weight off that beam axle. The mod I suggest is for a beginner.
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Post by davej98002 on Apr 19, 2020 14:19:06 GMT -5
One thing about Bug front beams. If you remove the torsion leaf's then you must, MUST drill the swing arms and run a steel rod from left to right side with a Nut to hold the arms in. The stock way is a 'Grub nut' clamps down onto the torsion leaf divot and keeps the swing arm from pulling out. A buddy did not on his sand buggy and he cartwheeled (flipped 6 times) when his swing arms pulled out on the left side.
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Post by rtrikes on Apr 20, 2020 6:05:59 GMT -5
Scary, i've been in a vehicle that flipped a few times. I believe a beginner should only take out the out the small torsion leaves or cut them following the mods they have online to soften the ride. At the same time the shocks would need changing too, if the shocks are stiff the ride will still be to stiff for a light vehicle.
Your advanced mod with the top tube cut is very interesting. It dawned on me one could also cut the bottom and widen the axle to account for the narrow track width of the VW front suspension. One thing I don't like about the small width of this suspension setup is the small track width. I would rather have it wider, closer to or above 64 inches to make up for the lack of a forth wheel to make the vehicle roll over proof. I have added two inch wheel adapter spacers for this purpose.
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Post by davej98002 on Apr 20, 2020 12:14:56 GMT -5
In the Aftermarket most VW beams are narrowed. You can find some that have been widened but few are out there.
Then if you follow most Kit Car forums the majority will bash a builder that asks about using a VW beam. They all are using Formula 1 Racecar style bespoke tubular double A arms that look soooo cool. They will tell you that you will not corner as well or you will have too much bump steer. But that is because they tried it and used non VW steering boxes. With double A arms the wheels/tires swing in an arch 180 degrees from the rack & pinion so it is easy to adjust the rack's position to fix the bump steer. But a VW swing arms swing 90 degrees from a rack & pinion. This will cause the tie rod ends to pull the wheels toe in and out with the up and down swing. And as the VW wheel goes up or down past center it pulls the wheel forward in its arc.
To fix this you need the tie rod links to be swing from the stock VW point of arc. You can use a newer 'Buggy' rack with center tie rod connections and have the links emulate the angles of a stock VW. With this tie rod setup in the stock v shape, as the wheel swings in its arc the links can follow better and as the wheel is going forward in its arc it is also pulling slightly away from the steering box/Rack.
This is hard to explain without having a VW beam in front of me and shooting a video of its steering arc's. There are books out there on how to modify your VW Bug to handle like a Porsche, a 1965 Porsche 911, not a 2020 GT3 . I have one here somewhere and it does explain this in detail. It covers caster and setting ride heights to get the wheel arc correct for bump steer.
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Post by rtrikes on Apr 20, 2020 16:04:36 GMT -5
I see, thanks for the bump steer info. I think only one of my reverse trikes I could do this mod to. The other one has to short of a nose, feet or pedals are where the rack and pinion ends up I believe. The formulas V guys have the info to make the beam axle handle better. I remember writing the settings down a long a time ago.
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