Hi all can I please have the best way to lower my 77 bay about 4.5 inches that does not upset the ride to much I’m not mechanical at all so need a mechanic in Brisbane area to do job . I appreciate any info thanks oh the box under drivers side is gone now
Nice looking bus mate. If you’re wanting to lower the bus you are going to reduce the amount of suspension travel that you have now. On perfectly flat roads, that won’t be an issue and if you never ever hit a bump or dip in the road then you’ll be fine. The trade off here is the more you lower then the less available spring travel you have and the more you’ll need to go at zero kph or stay on flat perfect roads. There’s lots of ways of lowering these busses, some that are frowned on but they all do that ^^^. There’s adjustable on air or hydraulic s so that you can ride around at a decent level then when you pull up, you can drop it down so it’s laying on the ground so you can pretend you’re really really really lowered . You can get reversed ball joints spindles from Transporter Haus or similar, then there’s French Slammer with their lowering set up, then you can alter the fixed point of the springs on the front with an adjuster, or cut out and turn the fixed point then re weld eek:) <<< frowns . The rear is easier by turning your springs a spline or two and usually use adjustable spring plates so you can actually get your rear wheels off. Then there’s the rear horseshoe plateseek:) <<< frowns again . But my best advice apart from ‘don’t’ is to go and ride in someone else’s lowered bus for at least an hour and see which you prefer, stock or lowered, possibly a few different ones lowered in different ways. I ran mine for about a decade with Transporter Haus on the front giving about 3 1/2 inches (90mm) lowered drop then custom coil over shocks to assist with and toughen up the springing taking it up about 20 mm and much smaller front tyres to try and stop some of the rubbing . Down two splines on the rear suspension and adjustable spring plates to get the wheels on and off. It was fun, but the novelty of stuff rubbing , banging, bouncing, crashing, etc etc teeth grinding, spine twitching etc etc etc Mrs moaning etc etc. Ozziedog,,,,,,,,you get the idea
If you lower it, you have to stiffen up the suspension too, otherwise it will bang and / or rub on the ripples in the road - you will have to learn to spot the marks on the road. Somebody out of the other 19 previous owners did the twist and cut on mine taking it down 4 inches, and left it. After that owners would drive it for about 400 miles for a year or so then sell it on again ..... At the front : It banged on stock shocks. It rubbed with shorter Beetle rear shocks. With coilover shocks, springs lifting one inch to 3 inch lowered, the tyres just occasionally rub. Of course there are no bump stops, they have to go with cut and twist lowering. My bus is called "bouncy bus" because there are some bits of rippled road where it feels like your feet get shaken off the pedals at 60mph... Mind you, nobody in my family gets travel sick riding in the bus, the harder suspension is a lot more modern and less floaty and the steering is more precise. We have ended up quite liking it after a lot of hassle getting it to work. If you have the chance, adjustable air ride is the only way to provide a decent suspension travel, with stock feel, and an optional lowered appearance for posing.
"best way to lower my 77 bay about 4.5 inches that does not upset the ride to much " = photoshop I did a lot of research and tried out various setups before i modified mine - french slammer -8cm adjustable beam set to max height, fs dropped spindles, bilsteins, custom arb and custom bump stops at the front, rear french slammer adjustable spring plates, bilsteins, hd anti roll bar and custom bump stops. Ride is good, even on 17"s although i'm probably going to swap back to 16"s at some point. Lots of effort and ££ to get this the way i needed though. If i was doing it over i'd probably go for red9 wishbones with the rack and pinion steering. Not cheap but a full system that just needs to be bolted on. Also heard good things about Contact – Fresh Kustoms who are based in your hemisphere i believe but no experience myself of these. Old Warden by Rob E, on Flickr
Are you prepared to cut chassis and tub ? If not it's not really possible Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I’m pretty sure that is a kart with a bit of beetle dressed on as an umbrella. Looks great though. Mike could be on to something there, it might not be a Devon though as there’d be nothing left that high up after the hatcheting for the pop tops. Ozziedog,,,,,,,,,,,, reckon you’re right that a pebble might be a hill too far.
yeah i saw it on my insta feed a few weeks back - its effectively a box frame with kart wheels. he took a rusty bug shell and just cut it in a straight line, dropped it on the frame
And I’ll just pop this in here as it may be the appropriate section. Ozziedog,,,,,,,,,,,tis getting seriouser and seriouser innit
