The way I see it ( and I don't mean to sound negative ) is you guys have spunked a fortune only to end up with very little suspension travel , forced to run small tyres and still have issues with bottoming out ...I've been in to VWs 25 years and I still think the cheapest and easiest/best solution to lowering is beam adjusters ,keep bump stops with spax adjustable shocks ....down one spline at the rear ...cost £200 shocks £100 adjusters ...
I had beam adjusters before and I find the dropped spindles offer a lot better ride and I have more suspension travel than before. Running 175/70/14C tyres so smaller than stock but not exactly tiny and commercial rated! Still have bump stops too Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk
I think you are not too far off the mark there. I reckon with the T Haus spindles etc we have maybe lost a grand or so and gained a quarter to half inch more. So for future reference I think adjusters and shocks for the lean end (as I just wrote on a early post) or in the middle for a G or so more or go the mental bit on hydraulics or pneaumatics which is not real anyway and is mortgageable. Ozziedog,,,,,,,,,,,, If only stock fitted my garage
I'm a bit bored of jacking it up at the moment!! Going to roll around like this for a bit before experimenting further.
You quite often come across negative in these discussions, tbh. I understand where you're coming from, however my approach to this was not to open my wallet and let the scene taxers run away with my hard earned. I had a lot of old parts on my van so in changing to dropped spindles I have renewed ball joints, renewed track rod ball joints, renewed trailing arm seals, wheel bearings, new stock bump stops, dampers and ARB clamps... most of which needed doing and as a result the van drives better. This lot would cost you close to £500 before asking a garage to press in the stock ball joints. Suspension travel on mine is the same as my Golf. I'm not green laning The shocks may cost twice as much, but they are claimed to outlast the cheaper stock offerings by some margin. On first impression I would also be happy to recommend adjustable dampers or coilovers stock height van users who want to tame the sag or stiffen up the front end a bit not just those of us who want to go down Money is spent, but it's mainly my resto budget. Also, the OP doesn't really need to hear "you shouldn't have lowered it" in response to original question about choosing coilovers. By this point we've read the threads on which approach to take.... we're just finishing off the install and fine tuning our chosen approach.
I'm only negative as I've read this thread 30 times all started by different people on different forums ... Type 2 detectives leave you short ..they sell a system that isn't safe or had the R&D worked out ... I work in R&D (engineering) the Red 9 coil over thing is dangerous. , the standard beam is not designed for coil overs . The average joe can buy all this stuff and bolt it on with a few beers on the weekend but still with issues ...Zed was another guy that went this route and then changed it ... I never said not to lower it ...mine is lowered ,has been since 95 with no issues ...although she is going for her MOT today .... It's only my opinion and the op can ignore it .or ask for it to be removed
Sorry, part of me got out of the wrong side of bed. I don't normally have a pop in forums cos that's not what they should be for. I think some of those points are valid and back up what I've read elsewhere too. This thread came along at just the right point for me as it became apparent that TH spindles are lower than claimed and need to have that second level of alteration with coilovers. The more that is posted, the less often the question will be asked I agree that the stock beam isn't designed for coilovers. My first question on here when it fails will be "who makes a beam with R+D for coilovers" Keeping it positive, there is a wealth of opinions, facts and experiences in these threads but even the collated threads rarely cover all bases. I made my decisions on a mix of TLB and EB threads (not VZi, they really do argue about bugger all)... but I was thinking on the way home that a sticky of a spreadsheet of lowering methods, resulting drops, parts, costs, pros and cons, incidental info, etc. would actually help to cut through the swathes of threads and be a useful resource. You'll know as well as I do after 20 odd years in the scene that lowering VWs is as inevitable as death and free road tax so useful info + positive feedback can make not be a good thing
Nice to hear that there are people taking it fairly seriously. I keep it light hearted but you gotta know you is riding around in a junky ton and a half of metal and rust. So who is capable of organising and being the librarian HHhhmmmm, so who looks good in specs Lets lighten it a little,we can all pop on VZ if we wish to do battle with the keyboard Columbos and Schwartzynutters. But we is a bit more real on here I think. Is it possible to collate all of this from all of these sources or do we just hang on to the links to all the stuff done on the Early and VZ and here and poke peeps and say , here mate have a little look at this then ? Ozziedog,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, Guess who just got back from the Spoons ???
And the other category is the poor person who had the adjustment done in the dim past by one of the other 19 owners ... by drilling out the dimples in the beam and a new hole for the grubscrew then welding up the dimple holes after letting it drop until the grubscrew holes lined up. So no return from lowering except via pushing up on coilovers..(or fitting adjusters)
