Hello There.

Allow myself to introduce...myself.
Just wanted to say hi to you all. I've been reading on here for the last few weeks. Interesting.
A me background. I like rally. I cant work on my rally car because this is what it looked like outside this morning.

and I dont have a garage. The snowy lump to the right of the scirocco is my golf rally car.
I do, however, work at a garage as a mechanic. Although they wont let me tie up a hoist indefinately. Go figure.
But I should be doing some work on the car as soon as I can to bring it more into G2 specs from the "Production" specs that it was.
Now its time to do the dishes before the old lady gets home.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/14/2006 07:20PM by Carl S.

Ahhhh Springtime!
It's just a little snow Carl!

Welcome aboard and don't be shy---you can save that for the other place.

Here's a hint: Strengthen the rear beam

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

john do you just box them?

I've heard alot about the weaknass of the rear beam.
I figure this is a good way of limiting unwanted toe changes without increasing rear roll stiffness.


Kinda complex for someone of my fabricating skill, but I was gonna pull the rear beam off to put some new bushings in back there cause they're all tore to shit anyways.

will that fit with the stock fuel tank? most of the anti-toe bars require a fuel cell for clearance

---

-Jason

Hey, join the no-garage & crap weather team! Spring is just around the corner...

Exactly.
It's simple, a pryamid with a bolt sticking out and a coupla rod ends and Colman racing swaged trailing arm tubes for cheeep-cheep.

If there were enough of youse boys who really wanted to stop bending the shit out of things then I might think about making a weld on kit, but sorry I don't see that many VW guys clamoring for the important things.

Derek is convinced that he bent the beam (again!) in a big ass nasty hard to see pothole in the corner just before he crashed the car.
I had been trying to convince him to do something like this for at least a year and a half.

Now---too late for him.

When does it STOP snowing up there?

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

john vanlandingham Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> When does it STOP snowing up there?

We usually get at least a 10 minute break a day from the snow falling.

I think that the guy that had that beam in the picture on his car still had the stock tank in there. Wasnt a rally car though. Once I'm in there taking the beam off I'll be able to see how tall the pyramids can be and still fit in my wheels, and hopefully the rods would be able to clear the tank at full compression.

Carl, my dad has a nylotron bushing and stainless sleeve setup that eliminates the dreaded poopy rear beam bushing problem.

I tried biiiiig spherical bearings, but bent the bolts. His bushings worked much better on my VW.

When I went to school up there I got so danged depressed from the endless snow.

At least a season pass at Mount Rockley was only 125 bucks.

Stay warm.

---

Lurch
Eric Burmeister
The west coast...of Michigan

CArl you want the good Burmiester bits. Buy them.

---

JohnLane

Volvo 260turbo AKA The Fire Breathing Monster
Overkill is consistently more fun

Hey, Thanks Mr. Lane!

http://www.davenportracingusa.com/burmeister.php

---

Lurch
Eric Burmeister
The west coast...of Michigan

Carl S Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> john vanlandingham Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
>
> > When does it STOP snowing up there?
>
> We usually get at least a 10 minute break a day
> from the snow falling.

Yeah when I was there it was 68* and beautiful , 12 hours later in the 40s and 4 hours later BOOM 4-6 inches snow and the Press On spirit was missing (just as I was getting used to things) and they cancelled the last 2 stages a bit north of L'Anse, which when we transited by WERE SNOW FREE!!! Grrrrrrrrrr
>
> I think that the guy that had that beam in the
> picture on his car still had the stock tank in
> there. Wasnt a rally car though. Once I'm in
> there taking the beam off I'll be able to see how
> tall the pyramids can be and still fit in my
> wheels, and hopefully the rods would be able to
> clear the tank at full compression.

Get out the old "Industrial Strength Hairdrier" if you have a plastic tank and MAKE it fit.
When fitted these things come VERY close to the rim's inside diameter, so get 14s.
>
>
>
> Carl Seidel
> GF VW GTI
> POR, MI
> Somewhere in my 20s I think
> www.DFLrally.com

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

> Get out the old "Industrial Strength Hairdrier" if
> you have a plastic tank and MAKE it fit.
Oooh. Sounds like fun. I'll see what its like back there when I get a chance. I want to redo the skidplate over the tank anyways since its like 1/8" steel plate and heavier than fawk.

> When fitted these things come VERY close to the
> rim's inside diameter, so get 14s.
I got 14s. They just make my car so ungodly asthmatic. But that was with the old puny 1.8. Now I got my fire breathing 2 liter so it may be able to handle the larger tires better.

I've thought about fancy plastics in place of the rear beam bushings, but I'm unsure if they're a good idea.
This is a model of a mk4 vw's rear beam, which is similar to the mk2 of course, and you can see how the beam doesnt pivot perfectly around the mount.

So a full plastic bushing could restrict that movement. I would think spherical bearings would be the way to go, but if they're too weak back there, maybe stock bushings are best?
I'm not saying that those nylotron bushings didnt work well for you, Lurch. And I know that your dad makes top notch bits, I was drooling over his car at sno drift. I'm just saying what I've come to believe from what I've learned. Feel free to educate me though, I only know about 95% of everything and I'm still looking for that last 5% Nah, but I like to get into the technical nitty gritty and try to understand it
And anyways I'm far to broke to be buying new bits when I already have a set of stock bushings that I bought a few years ago! My plan right now is to do what I can to the car for cheap (mostly labor and learning) to make it more fun and less of a street car. For example: I just got a base for my dial indicator so I can measure an extra exhaust cam to figure out where I need a new keyway cut to run the cam as an intake cam with proper phasing.
But mostly I just want to have the car running and solid so I can have a hoot when race weekend comes around!

Hey Carl,

Cool animation!

The pivots on the rear axle of a Mk2 Golf are (AFAIK) in line with one another. I know mine did not have a bind with bushings installed.

So the animation must be trying to portray what happens in cornering with torsional loads. In such a case the clevis would be held in axis by the bushings and the rest of the trailing arm back to the beam would twist...along with the beam itself, just like normal.

In other words, the bushings have the net effect of a bit stiffer rear bar and slightly less rear camber change over the range of travel.

The rubber in there currently doesn't do a good job at locating the axle when new, and does a terrible job after the Munising Airport Stage at Magnum Opus causes it to degrade into mouse terds and air.



The VW I bought was originally built to VW Motorsport Grp A specs by Salty Sattalano (Libra Racing) for Walter Boyce to run the Canadian Group A championship for VW in 86. When I got the car, it had a welded sleeve in the beam to accept a spherical bearing on each side, with long tophat bushings on either side of the bearing. Those long unsupported bushings going into a relatively narrow spherical bearing caused some funky load issues that would bend the long bolt. Repeatedly.

We devised this as a possible replacement, knowing it would not allow the torsional movement of the clevis. What the heck? I'll bolt it up and try it. I'll try anything once.

I thought it worked very well and it allowed me to take that rusted out $6000 110hp Golf to a lot of stage wins in 2wd in a bunch of nationals.

YMMV.

---

Lurch
Eric Burmeister
The west coast...of Michigan



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/15/2006 09:28PM by Lurch.

Awesome! Consider that info logged away in my melon for future use. Thanks.