Having read countless threads and opinions on lowering there are a few questions I think never get answered properly. Furthermore I do not think the amount of work or pitfalls of lowering are properly explained. I am currently midway through my own lowering odyssey and wanted to share my experience thus far. Hopefully there will be some useful advice along the way and i might even learn something. Please only post to this thread if you have personal experience of lowering a bay. Im not interested in rumour, conjecture or what the fella down the pub said! Firstly it seems to me that most people, when it comes to lowering, either want a mild drop (3 or 4 inches) or to slam their bus to the ground. I fall into the former category, primarily to fit my bus into the garage but also it looks cool (fact). To achieve this goal with a very limited budget I went for horseshoe plates on the rear and beam adjusters on the front. Research showed that the best method for the rear would have been adjustable spring plates but they aren't cheap and horseshoe plates are only £60. They are pretty easy to fit I got mine from Buttys Bits. I would say that I didn't realise that the handbrake cable would have to be relocated to prevent fouling on the back of my steel wheels. From surfing the web it looks like the best option is to drill through the springplate and route the cable through. I was aware that I may have problems refitting the standard tyres but they really are a tight fit and realistically will have to be changed for a lower profile of 65. In the event of a puncture or blowout tbere wouldn't be a problem getting the flat tyre off but getting the spare on would be very dangerous at the side of the road. I haven't measured the new shock height yet but I'm hoping I can get away with something cheap like the bugpack shocks though I have heard beetle shocks may do the job? I'm looking for an impossible dream here, lowered, firm but comfortable!! Compared to the front the back was a doddle. All the bits were removed without too much fuss and we opted to leave the calipers tied up on the bus. No surprise at how heavy the beam is but we dropped it onto a rug and dragged it around. What came as a surprise was the amount of work to drill out the dimples. We built up to a 13.5mm drill bit slowly and used a tin of cutting spray. I can't see how you could get to the dimple underneath the steering idler without taking it off which is welded on very very well. The next thing that took us by surprise was the difficulty with actually turning the beams once the drilling is complete. On my beam we had to split the ends using a scissor jack then hammer the beams around individually. Once the adjusters are in I can't see that it will adjust very easily in situ, althouh the additional weight of the van and wheels may change that. Whilst I'm happy to weld my own body panels I'm getting a pro to weld in the adjusters. My next concern is the amount of suspension travel there will be with a 3.5" drop. I've already knocked off the top bump stop and I will have to cut the bottom one in half to have any travel at all. Im thinking I will have to fit coilover GAZ shocks set very firmly to prevent bottoming out but I would appreciate hearing other peoples experience?
When my bus was lowered , I went for horseshoe plates on the back and found the stock shocks were fine . On the front I used beetle rear gas shocks which worked ok .admittedly people may moan about the beetle shocks but I found they worked ok for my needs , I was running alloys though with a lower profile Tyre. Ran the bus like that for a good few years .i am back to stock height again now as had to change my beam due to rot and thought I would go original wheels and height again must admit lower looks better but stock is so much more comfy lol , if I do drop it again in the future I would consider the same combo again as it worked for me
Firstly most people consider lowering as terms of splines and a mild job is actually 1 spline = 2 1/2", not 3 or 4". Rear at 1 spline gives no probs removing and fitting standard size tyres. Rear at 2 splines - buy the adjustable plates, that what're they're for, not "dialling in the ride" which is a misleading thing to write or say. They're for one reason only - so you can get the ruddy wheel off. 2 splines (120mm) is the limit without chopping the chassis and you'll have 1" or less of the bumpstop left uncut and approx no suspension at all. This is important. Check your bus at full height and you'll see the rear stops are almost touching the landing pads (if your landing pads haven't rusted and fallen off - v common). Remove shocks, bounce it a little and watch what happens. The stops are progressive and part of the suspension. eg minis I believe have progressive (conical) stops as suspension and nothing else. Don't ignore your rear stops. The name gives a false impression of their job. With 1" left you've destroyed their worth as suspension and turned them into hard stops. Rear shocks WILL BE TOO LONG [EDIT: Apparently I was wrong here] if you lower. Thing is that sitting right over the front wheels you'll be blythly unaware whether you have any rear suspension or not, but you rear seat passengers will know! Standard shocks will bottom out. Front @robin101 you need to cut the horns right off, you can't have bump stops with your method of lowering. Taking off the rubber bit's is not enough - even at full height if you brake into a corner the arms will clang into the stop mount "horns". Lower it and you'll be riding on them full time. I'm not going to write the whole essay, but I'll watch this thread and comment if I think anyone has the wrong end of the stick. I'm not against lowering, I'm lowering someones bus right now, but don't believe the sales hype, it's not a bolt on fashion accessory. Regulars will know I've had mine down about 5" and cool as ice. I'm back up to full height now. Read into that what you like.
To follow the theme, if I lowered again it would be 1 spline and the 60mm dropped welded spindles Heritage have started selling recently. The spindles aren't cheap, but fitting adjusters is a PITA as can be gathered from the original post in this thread. Going back to standard is also easy with the spindles which you can then sell on to someone else.
*****ing hell, you lot need to write books. Just hit it gently with a lowering stick and it will submit
Sorry I just read your thread posting rules. Ignore my previous post. I have dropped spindles and adjustable spring plates at the back. Complete pain in the arse. Looks cool enough, the ride is good enough, but as I want wheels of my choice I have to have stupidly low profile tyres at the front which affects the ride quality for a bus. Its a wee but bouncy bouncy but I can live with that. Ride is supple enough but I think a 50 or smaller profile on a commercial truck is ridiculous. The back is a nightmare, had to use a crowbar at the weekend to get a 195 tyre from under the arch. Had to use an even longer crowbar to get my different wheel back on. God only knows how the back is, at least I don't have rear passengers. The rear adjustable spring plates, in my opinion, are down right dangerous. All is see is the back of the van supported on a block welded to the side of the plate about the size of 2 sugar cubes. Front looks sturdy enough I guess but I don't know if they're forged or welded? Or forged then welded together. Which is even worse. As you can see, I'm not a huge fan.
I first thought that this was about "lowering thread" you can get off the same bunch who sell a bag of metal scrap as unleaded additive on eBay..... Coilovers work better than beetle shocks at the price of bouncy ride .. but the antiroll bar then becomes optional as the suspension gets stiffer. If you have 185/65 R15 tyres the beetle shocks dont stop the rubbing but prevent banging on the shocks instead of the bump stops with stock shocks. And the 186/65 do come out of the rear wheel arches without too much persuasion or messing with adjustable plates at the back.
3 or 4 inches is not a mild drop IMHO. And driving a bus that looks (and drives) like the suspension is broken is not ‘cool’. Before you ventured into your lowering odyssey did you look at the front suspension at full compression (on the bump stops) to see how much clearance there was between the tyre and the wheel tub and then decided that removing 3 or 4 inches of this clearance wouldn’t be a problem? I did, and I considered 2½ “ to be the maximum drop, maintaining full suspension travel and retaining the bump stops using Wagenswest drop spindles. I was wrong, because what I hadn’t considered was that I also wanted alloy wheels and the alloy wheels specifically sold for a Bay by the major suppliers don’t have the correct et (offset). And this coupled with the fact that drop spindles increase the track means that with standard diameter tyres there is contact between the tyre and the tub at full suspension compression. Now, a way around this may be to use lower profile tyres as you suggest but I wanted standard diameter so the speedo accuracy wasn’t screwed up at the front or the gearing at the back so the way around this may be stiffer dampers (destroying the ride quality) or coilover dampers to raise the suspension back up again (defeating the object). At the back my Bay has sagged a bit over the last 35 years and is an inch or two lower than when it left the factory and the bump stops are almost touching with no load. It’ll stay that way, so I have standard Bay dampers, bump stops, and suspension travel. And I can get the 195/70x15 tyres on and off without any difficulty. “I'm looking for an impossible dream here, lowered, firm but comfortable!!” You’re not wrong - and don’t forget to tell your insurer what you have done.
^ As I said earlier, not a bolt on accessory. The dropped spindles now sold by Heritage don't increase the track (I think). A sensible 60mm. I had a westy lowered this much, changed dampers to gas ones, kept standard wheels and tyres and never had a problem even fully loaded with family camping. Gas shocks are a bit harder but with all the weight no worse than the ride with the standard shocks I now have on my standard height lightweight tintop. The big mistake is to SLAM a heavy one - Westy, Devon Moonraker etc. To get over the problems you'll end up with suspension so stiff you might as well not have any.
Dont have anything useful to add, but I just wanted to say thanks for the most informative lowering thread I've read, as I plan on doing this as soon as my bus is on the road. Normally its just peoples opinions on 'it looks stupid/broken' etc, and not actually that helpful.
Horseshoe things? I don't get these TBH. A waste of £50 for people worried about turning the splines? What do they do other than making it hard to route the handbrake cables? Yes I know they're supposed to save the camber from getting excessive except I went down 2 splines without them and didn't have silly camber because I adjusted the angle of the diagonal arm to compensate. Anyway you would want to remove the springplates to change the donuts, so stick 'em back on a spline or two round and save £50 for no extra work at all. Worn donuts cause excessive camber so maybe fitting horseshoes is treating the symptom rather than the cause.
The Wagenwest spindles are 63.5mm drop and increase the track by 12mm per wheel for $590 plus shipping and import tax. The spindles sold by Heritage (and others) are 60mm drop, 10mm track increase per wheel for £525, these weren’t available at the time I was lowering mine, obviously if I was doing it now I’d buy them from Heritage.
Wow I didn't think id get such a great response. I'm going to reread this a few times to understand all the points. I would like to clarify that my goal is to get the van in and out of the garage. secondly I do believe that to understand a job you've got to do a job and despite all my prior reading this has definately been the case so far. In using horseshoe plates I thought I was maintaining the geometry of the rear end although I can now see that the transmission arms have much less upward movement. I haven't touched any rear bumpstops yet, we jammed the horseshoe plates on pretty quick so that we could push the van in the garage (front on steels without tyres). It is something we will revisit once the beam is back in. I can see I was in error in stating 3 to 4" was a mild lower, I picked that figure as I believe the horseshoe plates give me 3.5" drop. however if that is unworkable I may change to a singlespline and raise the front end on the adjusters. At the moment my plan is still to use the plates but we will see what ot looks like when the beam is back in.
In answer to one of the questions my insurance is now cheaper by £30 due to the van being garaged. Lowering is not an issue for Pete Best Insurance. Regarding the front I obviously have a lot less travel with a 3.5" drop however I thought an adjustable coilover may allow me to set a level of firmness that allows some travel without banging the stops. I have read about removing the bump stop beams and refitting them at a different angle. This is a last resort and I am finding my way as I go along. Its also a lot harder to go back from this sort of modification. Fitting the horseshoes meant we didn't have to remove the springplates, though if I'm reading Zeds post correctly I may have to take them off later to get at the rear bump stops? Finally I didn't think a change of profile to a 65 would affect my speedo reading too much and to be honest I'm not breaking many speed limits in the van. How it affects the gearing will be interesting. I can't afford to change to alloys but I believe you can now buy alloys with the correct offset from the likes of JK. These would be a 15" wheel with a 115 pcd.
It wasn’t a question concerning insurance it was a comment to make sure you declared the fundamental changes to the vehicles suspension to your insurer so that in the event of a claim the insurance was still valid. Assuming you are considering 185/65x14 tyres from the standard 185x14 the difference is 8.5%. So, when your speedo reads 70mph (if you can go that fast) you will be doing 64mph and of course the engine will be spinning 8.5% faster than it would with the standard tyres. With a 3½“ drop I don’t see how you can retain the bump stops – there isn’t that much suspension travel and you’ll be running hard on the stops all the time, many with an adjustable beam just cut the stop arms off but that not the solution to the problem in my opinion. Most of the latest 15” alloys from suppliers like JK are still only et20 (used to be et12) better but still not correct. Midland Wheels aren’t talking to me now because I complained so much to them when their response to the problem was to fit lower profile tyres, when the answer is to specify the correct offset from the manufacturers.
I started with STD wheels, adjusters and a spline at the rear. Then added the Foosh wheels in the pic << Ride was appalling. Did the research and got very confused. Opted for Horseshoe plates (had excessive camber) and drop spindles - changed the donuts whilst I was there. Got rubbage at the rear and the front wheels were almost touching the wheel tubs. Raised the font on adjusters and got new coilers from T2D. Grinded the rear arches for clearance, as, at the time had large rear tyres on the rear. Still bottoming out at the front, the shocks were indeed shocking. So off they came and a set of GAZ coilovers went on. Ride is now very good, best it's ever been in my ownership. In amongst all this opted for standard wheels again, just for a different look (still have the foosh) and narrowed the beam. The standard wheels also have standard van tyres on them so meant I have had to come up a bit, as the profile is higher - but they are better in terms of permitted loads however...which doesn't seemed to get mentioned that much. Although Zed whom has posted here has done much research on this topic. Here is a pic for reference, very slightly down at the rear so I will get some adjustable spring plates at some point for easy adjustment.
I'm not sure I see the problem with having a lower profile tyre apart from the possible engine strain. I rarely go over 55 let alone 70! I am now concerned with what I'm going to find when the beam is refitted with regard suspension travel, as I said previously I have removed the front upper stops and plan to at least half the size of the lower if not more. It sounds like AndyO has had some success with a similar setup so hopefully all hope is not lost. I fully explained to the insurer what I was doing, they took a day to decide that it didn't affect my premium. Could AndyO clarify which shocks he ended up with on the back and whether he kept the horseshoe plates and did he narrow the beam through necessity or desire? Good point about the tyre loading, I had started to worry about that but got distracted with other problems.
