The first tip was passed on to me by Bruce Meyers himself and involves the front axle, which is about four times as stiff as it should be on a lightweight buggy, it was originally designed to accommodate a VW beetle with four people on board. or upwards of 2,500 lbs . On a 1,200 lb. buggy it has only a 400 – 500lb front end load, most buggies sit hard against the stops without adjusters fitted. As Bruce says here is the most supple suspension in the world being wasted. Most people just install aftermarket adjusters that will lower the front end but wont soften the ride as all the torsion bars are still functional to resist the downward load. Although adjusters are fine fitted to a VW beetle because the spring rate will be the same just at a lower level. The buggy would work better with only one adjuster relaxing only one torsion bar, leaving the load to be carried by the remaining torsion bar, if the buggy is used on and off road then one could raise it for the dirt and lower it for the street, but this will not soften the ride when in the up position.
If sitting your arse on the front end does not depress the front springs then your buggys’ suspension is too stiff, so here’s how one softens the torsion bar front end by the removal of torsion bars:
1. First remove both rubber stops from the down limiters.
2. Jack up front of buggy.
3. Remove front wheels.
4. Position on both sides a box, beer crate or stack of boards just under the brake drums.
5. Remove set screws from all four torsion arms.
6. Pry torsion arms off the now exposed torsion and move hub assembly rearwards resting it on the box; some old torsion bars are soft and floppy, others are not, proceed by trial. I recommend doing one torsion bar at a time.
7. Remove the centre set screw from either axle beam and remove torsion bars, noting the original position and stacking order of leaves.
8. Wash and dry thoroughly. Now you are about to remove sections from the top and bottom leaves, cutting can be done by grinding a groove across spring on a bench grinder or a hand held grinder and snapping it off in the bench vice
9. Mark and cut two inches in from each end. saving these small pieces, and two four inch pieces to be saved for the centre.
10. Now the pieces will be restacked together in their original order, leaving four empty spaces where the leaves were removed. Apply fast setting epoxy about two inches from each end, and in the centre of all leaves, using clamps, squeeze the epoxy out of the leaves until cured – squeeze hard or the stack of leaves may not fit back into the axle beam. reassemble and try plunging the buggy up and down by hand. If the buggy is still too stiff repeat this operation on the remaining torsion bar. The torsion arms should be almost level, about 10-15 degrees down from front to rear with no people in the buggy.
For those that play in the dirt get rid of your anti-rollbar, because of the buggys lightweight front end this device doesn’t allow the front wheels to undulate over unven ground independently of each other. If a mound kicks up one front wheel then the other wheel follows suit because the buggy’s front end is so light and the anti-rollbar is so strong, this results in reduced directional control (steering), the ride is harder also, and the buggys roll centre is so much lower than a stock Beetle that the need for the anti-rollbar has been greatly reduced. The choice is yours : a comfortable ride and good steering all the time, or keep your anti-rollbar, lower the front end with adjusters, do not soften the torsion bars and wear a kidney belt!
The second tip involves brakes. If you decide to keep stock Beetle drum brakes on your light weight buggy, all it would want to do on emergency braking or wet road breaking is lock up the front wheels and slide. What you need to do is first swap the wheel cylinders around, i.e larger fronts to the rears, and smaller rears to the fronts If using the later dual master cylinder you will also have to change the pipe work around, as the dual master cylinder has a longer stroke to feed the large front wheel cylinders. All that is usually required for this conversion is one 6 inch (approx) length of brake pipe with correct fittings : one rear brake pipe T piece and one master cylinder outlet blanking screw. Remove both front brake pipes from the master cylinder, use the blanking screw to block off the left side feed (the top one), then remove the rear brake pipe from the master cylinder and connect this to the front right side feed – this pipe is usually long enough to reach without having to replace that long rear pipe (master cylinder to rear T piece) for one just a couple of inches longer. With the remaining master cylinder feed (which originally fed the rear breaks), connect the short 6 inch (approx) length of brake pipe and run this to the T piece which can be bolted to the fibreglass bulk head, then connect the 2 original brake pipes to this T piece which should easily reach. Next bleed your brakes. If you find you now have too much rear braking, a balance valve can be fitted on the rear break line to reduce the rear pressure.
Both of these conversions cost less than £10 to do but make a vast difference in safety and handling, You could even go much further; i.e type 3 or Porsche rear breaks and aftermarket master cylinders, but those original brakes were designed to stop a much heavier VW beetle with 4 passengers on board so they should be more than adequate to stop a lightweight buggy if set up right. With braking a lot depends on front and rear suspension, i.e weight distribution would be much different if weaker rear torsion bars are present in the vehicle which would result in more weight being transferred to the front of the vehicle under braking. This is a different story so we won’t go deeply into this now!
