Description

Type 3 / 34 4″ Narrowed Air Ride Conversion Ball Joint Beam, Jawbreaker Series

Classic Aircooled VW Type 3 Air Beams parts by Limebug

Lets start this seciton with a deep dive into the controversial world of type 3 conversion beams.

Why do any of this and change my Type 3 Beam?

The simplest word to start this module with is limitations.  The Type 3 platform albeit a step forward in luxury in terms of its principles presented a world of issues when it came to changing anything VW had already put out there. The type 3 front axle uses a floating beam within a rubber cushion to give a more luxurious feel. By this we mean predominantly soft ride with reduced noise within the cabin.  The trade off of this is where things get a bit controversial, while no-one can deny it made it softer, I think it may be up for debate whether softer was really needed, as stock Beetles / Ghias were far from hard in the first place.  The new platform brought forward some interesting ideas with crossed over torsions, a different style of ball joint, wider track, larger brakes etc.  However You just can't get a Stock type 3 very low, the structure of the front end uses indexed torsion bars to set the ride height, so you don't have adjusters, the problem is with the width of a type 3 beam being fixed by these torsion bars, you cannot narrow the front end at all to fit tyres within the fenders as done with a Beetle.  The second downfall is there is really no way to make a dropped spindle without cutting and welding and therefore increasing the track width further. This also means that as the ride height is lowered the harshness increases with the trailing arm angle.

So how does a Type 1 conversion beam help this on a Type 3?

Critical to spec'ing your beam, with complications and benefits to both RHD and LHD configurations, its key we get this piece of information to spec such elements as tie rod length, pitman steering arm and suitable steering stop.   We can also assist you with best positions for steering box and damper mount once fitted, there are intereference points associated with certain aftermarket parts such as fuel tanks which require some specific adjustments in order to get maximum drivability from your new Fully Assembled Beam.   But doesn't this push my wheels back and make the front look weird?  The answer would have used to be yes, the more DIY style beams use the main tubes and directly mount these to the frame head of a Type 3, this would push the wheels backward by around 20mm causing a range of issues with steering column position as well as looking odd   We build in our unique castor adjuster into the beam here, whilst moving the axle tubes forward to marry up perfectly with Type 1 trailing arms, combined the wheel position in the arch is exactly as original Type 3.

Castor Adjustable Section, Why does only your beam have this? and what does it benefit in terms of drivability?

The type 3 drivability as a metric we decided to play around with the extra room and features the type 3 beam gave us. This opened up a small gap for a unique idea we had been playing with for a number of years. The Castor Adjuster… We are all familiar with the torsion leaf adjusters, but castor adjusters, why do that? As standard all Aircooled VW Car models run a few degrees of positive castor, this helps self centre the wheels when cruising and prevents bump steer. Our castor adjustable beams mimic the factory angle almost exactly giving you and almost identical driving experince in the neutral settings

So why make it adjustable then?

The answer to this is simple, all old VW's run with their front end higher than the rear as standard, and when nearly everybody lowers the vehicle typically the front receives a more excessive drop than the rear, this can be a combination of suspension and wheel/ tyre setup.  So we developed an adjustable castor system. This allows you to run stock, or slightly + or – the Original postion, typically more nose down more postive castor, the flatter the vehicle the more negative the castor. By having this additional calibration the owner can tune bump steer along with ball joint travel limits to give their type 3 the obsolute optimal ride quality, drivability and stance. 

SKU: 030020062