Maintenance and Upgrade

[Humble]

So out of boredom and necessity, I overhauled the front suspension on the street bug Mojo. I love the lowered german look but the handling has nagged me since I installed the Maxx struts. It was very bouncy like I spent most of the time on the bump stops, and that's because I was but I also found other problems.

For starters, after pulling the driver's side apart I found that the strut retaining nut was loose and the strut cartridge had about 1/2" play inside the housing. One of the bump stops had also folded in on itself from abuse.




Normally I'd say the ride height was set too low but the spring perches were at the maximum ride height setting. That tells me the spring is too soft so I compared it with a couple others I had in the garage.

Left: QA1 10" 125lb/in, Middle: Eibach 12" 80lb/in, Right: Maxx 12' unknown rate






Its hard to see in the pics but the Maxx spring uses a thinner wire than the Eibach 80# spring which leads me to believe it's close to 70#, stock super beetle is 72# IIRC.

I pulled out the strut cartridge only to find it was blown. I think it's a mk1 rabbit/golf unit at 11.75" long, Sachs super touring cartridge.


While I was at it I decided to slip over a coil over sleeve for better adjustments and fine tuning. A little careful work with a rotary rasp and they fit perfectly.






Once that was done I decided to try the 125# springs with a 1" preload to take up some of the slack so to speak. I also removed one of the bump stops on each side (there's 2 that make a diamond shape) to see how the car handles off of the stops.


Based on a vehicle weight of 2250# (wet, with driver), 925# is over the front wheels (L:488 R:437) and I think 125# is still too light. After a quick drive it's a much smoother ride and the front struts are definitely dead. I'm looking for good adjustable rabbit struts for the street and race bug and I want good struts before changing the springs again.