Ditto for the Sears inclinometer. Put the car up on 4 jack stands as level as possible, measured on the tunnel near the handbrake. Write down the inclinometer measurements for each unloaded springplate before further disassembly, in addition to scribing 'angle-of-the-dangle' marks on the frame horns.
Don't nick, scratch, hammer or damage the paint coating on the torsion bar itself. (The coating's color won't be orange on every car.) This is a finely-forged, heat-treated, highly-stressed, critical part and won't tolerate any such abuse without eventually causing it to fail prematurely. It should last longer than the expected life of the vehicle without snapping even though it's under millions of cycles of severe twisting strain in both directions, while supporting heavy weight and sustaining bone-jarring shock loads. Clean and libe the splines for easy insertion and removal to assist with your vernier adjusting procedure. Touch-up paint scratchs or chips to prevent corrosion from attacking your highly-stressed members. Any surface defect will eventually cause a stress-riser to propagate, ultimately causing failure of the spring. There's a different number of splines on the inner and outer ends, that's how they engineered a 'vernier' fine-tune adjustment for ride hieght. (BTW, type 3's have these in the front axle beam also, which makes them infinitely adjustable, unlike the 'square' torsion leaves in the bug and bus front beams, which won't adjust at all. Silicone grease should be fine for lubing the inner and outer donuts, inside and out. If the torsion bar gets stuck inside the springplate, you can remove the peened-in metal end cap and punch or press it out for adjusting purposes. You don't need to MIG-weld the cap back on, just re-peen with center punch or chisel to retain it as original. After doing this job both ways, I don't recommend using a floor jack and chain. The VW tire jack with a long bolt welded on top, or the CIP1 tool is much safer and easier, plus there's not so much stuff to have to work around. This procedure is 'nearly' identical for older swingaxle vehicles, busses, things, KG's, Porsches and Type 3's, single or double springplates. 2 longer-than-original bolts, installed diagonally, will get the housing cover started together until the original shorter bolts will catch a few threads. Then just remove the longer bolts, and replace them with the remaining original, shorter bolts and tighten them all evenly. I think this is better than the 'headless bolt' method. Spray all nuts and bolts down a few times the day before, with a good quality penetrant such as PB Blaster. WD-40 is not the best for this job, but is better than nothing. Don't even attempt to start loosening things up dry; you're just asking for trouble. Be sure to lube the torsion housing bolts, shock mount bolts/ nuts and springplate bolts/ nuts as a minimum. If you need to be disassembling further, also do the axle nuts, inner and outer cv bolts, brake flex lines/ retaining clips, inner IRS trailing arm bolts, backing plate bolts, and the e-brake cable clip bolts. If you do completely remove the 2 torsion bars, they're marked L and R on thier outer ends. Don't swap them side for side. HTH, Mike B. ) ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bill May" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Air-Cooled Volkswagen Discussion List" <vintagvw@lists.sjsu.edu> Sent: Sunday, January 13, 2008 8:40 AM Subject: Re: [vintagvw] spring plate bushing..Part 2 (sorry no part 3-it was a duplicate so no worries) >i use inclometer/angle finder i bought at sears. they are cheap. > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "No Quarter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: "Air-Cooled Volkswagen Discussion List" <vintagvw@lists.sjsu.edu> > Sent: Saturday, January 12, 2008 12:00 PM > Subject: Re: [vintagvw] spring plate bushing..Part 2 (sorry no part 3 -it > was a duplicate so no worries) > > >> Nope - nothing but trial and error and it took me a whole week of about 4 >> hours a night. It would have taken me a lot less if I had the right >> tools. >> 10 years later, it's still sitting tall! >> >> Erin >> >> _______________________________________________ >> vintagvw site list >> vintagvw@lists.sjsu.edu >> http://lists.sjsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/vintagvw > > _______________________________________________ > vintagvw site list > vintagvw@lists.sjsu.edu > http://lists.sjsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/vintagvw > _______________________________________________ vintagvw site list vintagvw@lists.sjsu.edu http://lists.sjsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/vintagvw
