b8njw

I’m planning on having the front beam on my 71 beetle narrowed after Christmas, so planning on doing the strip down over the Christmas break.

Any hints, tips, idiot’s guides for successful removal??

Mr Self Destruct

From the top of my head as I'm at work now:

• Loosen front wheel bolts.
• Jack up front of car (handbrake on!)
• take off wheels
• undo outer track rod ends by unscrewing out of the track rods
• undo upper and lower ball joints either side (4 in total)
• prise upper and lower trailing arms apart and remove steering hub either side
• Hang hubs out of the way with something OTHER than the brake hoses!
• open bonnet
• undo the 13mm bolts that hold the petrol tank in place
• raise up petrol tank as far as it will go without pulling the pipe out
• unscrew and remove the track rods off the steering box as you'll need to shorten them
• undo 4 nuts & bolts on the rubber coupling between the steering column and the steering box
• undo the 2 vertical bolts in the top of the beam
• under the front of the car, undo and remove the 4 big bolts holding the beam onto the frame head
• as the beam falls out onto your face, curse mr self destruct for not telling you to get a mate to help you as they're a lot fucking heavier than they look.

Have I missed anything?

__________________

poobagdog

last time i removed and stripped a beetle beam i needed air tools, a welder and a good angle grinder. thats just to get the beam off and stripped! track rods can be a bugger to completely unscrew them so the angle grinder helps abit there. the nuts around the allen key bolts on the beam move ok but often the allen key bolts wont move,last one i did i used a welder to weld the 17mm nut to the allen key bolt to get it out, worked a treat. some of the bigger bolts wont shift without the hammer action from air tools, they dont tell you any of this in the HOW TO sections in the vw magazines. good luck.

camper dave

When i removed my beam , the lower 2 bolts on the front fixing beam to framehead had corroded so badly that the remaining steel was less then 2mm in thickness!!!!
I just cut mine off as needed new framehead ,brakes and beam anyway!!

poobagdog

yeah i know what you mean, i did one once where the bolts didnt tighten up due to corrosion so they welded the beam on, i had to get the angle grinder to it to cut it off then repair the framehead!

kyle

i havent checked yet but always hav a look on youtube for 'how to's' they have complete engine rebuilds on there n everything! but anyways...... jus fitted a red 9 design coil over kit to a bus n gettin the arms off the torsion springs was a bit of a ballache but we got there eventually jus make sure u get all the grub screws (allen head) out n remove the shox n spindles 1st n keep hittin it with a hammer while pulling on the arms. i never had a problem with anything really, the ball joints came out easy AFTER i took the split pin out!!! and wen i did my track rod ends on my bug. n most of the grub screws came loose when i undid the big 17 or 19mm nut on them. now u jus got the steering to disconnect (may b easier to take the petrol tank out) n un do the big 4 bolts that hold it on. remember to hav the car jacked up on somthing else cus the car will fall if u jack with the beam n un bolt it!!! pack lots of grease back in to it too and in where the grub screws go.