One thing I love about JBugs is the professional-level YouTube content they produce.
Now I have yet to ever adjust the rear IRS spring plates on any car. However, with Murbella’s bushings being 40 years old, and Żuczek to be torn down for complete chassis restoration, I’m definitely going to lose my spring plate/rear torsion bar cherry within the next 12 months or so.
I’ve been preparing myself by looking at a variety of people’s vids on YouTube as well as reading Bentley and my other maintenance guides and quite frankly, I think the JBugs’ vid really showed it as clearly as possible.
I still need to better understand the “1 tooth = blah blah” and “1 tooth = other blah blah” stuff and need to get some advice for establishing baseline rear ride height after a total tear down. So many of these vids, this one included, have you mark the current state to refer back to. However, during restoration any marks would be removed/repainted so I’m not sure how one establishes that identical state for both sides from scratch yet.
While I suspect Żuczek will get the added effort of additional support bracing for his future rear suspension, I am not yet sure if I’ll pursue the adjustable spring plates that are out there from such vendors as Atomwerk. (MAM has a video showing the installation of Atomwerk spring plates on a swing axle rear suspension).
One area I really need to understand is when in fact a torsion bar goes bad, or if they do at all.
Murbella, for example, looks like she’s sagging at the rear, and I’m talking more than just having the engine weight back there. I suppose I wont’ know how bad it is until I take her spring plates off and see if it is just the bushings that have collapsed or if I’ll just need to rework the geometry of the torsion bars to not be so saggy.
The plan for Murbella’s activity will occur in the Spring, right before her engine goes back in. I figure it may be best to do this all at that time, and also replace some other rubber mounts back there.
Murbella’s torsion caps and assorted other chassis components (above) are covered in way thick undercoating. This should be oh so much fun to deal with. I expect to chisel a lot of crap off of things and a lot of heat to loosen bolts.
Żuczek’s (above) looks a lot cleaner.