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69 521 Build


earlyvws

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Are u referring to the very first pic? If so that is not mine. That is a pic of the 521 as found by my friend in Sac. I didn't even know the green thing was a Scirocco. Who's doing the paint in Fremont? 16 mos is a long time but sounds about right for VW people. Ask me how I know :D

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Not yet. I'm Hoping the next 2 weeks will finish all the tedious work. ie paint doors/ bed/ apron/ gate/ and dash. Work out the frame stuff and powder everything. So hopefully in 2 Fridays I will be on my way to assembly and then the progress will get a lot more interesting.

 

Worked on motor mounts last night. Doing doors tonight.

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Ok finally got somewhere on the front suspension. Thought I took more pics but I guess I didn't. I will get more pics of the control arm tower later. I got it to a point where I can bolt things up, but it is in no way finished. I wanted to see if things were going to work before I welded in all the reinforcements and shock tower. So it is easy to make changes. My rear leaf spring bushing are suppossed to be here tomorrow, so I want to get the rear end sorted out before finishing the front. I can't tell if the front is working yet because the weight I put on the frame all transfered to the front.

 

Here is a few pics of what I did. I built in 4 degree positive camber, probably should have done 2 degrees, but at least I have adjustment.

IMG_0403.jpg

IMG_0404.jpg

IMG_0406.jpg

IMG_0408.jpg

IMG_0410.jpg

 

So after bolting everything up and put it one the ground the tires are staying at 4 degrees until I put weight on then changed to 5 degrees. But everything stayed equal.

 

right tire

IMG_0411.jpg

center

IMG_0412.jpg

left tire

IMG_0413.jpg

 

500 lbs on frame

IMG_0414.jpg

IMG_0416.jpg

 

 

So any suspension experts out see anything wrong with my setup. I have been reading a lot but I am totally winging it. I don't have anything to take measurements off of, and I have never dealt with this type of suspension setup. Like I said, I can still make corrections at this point because I have not welded the crap out of everything.

 

The lower control arms are close to the rim, is this normal?

IMG_0415.jpg

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Now that I'm thinking about it, I think I have the uppers on the wrong side. The first day I went to pick and pull I got the right upper and forgot the left. They didn't put their paint marks on them on that trip. After I got to the warehouse I realized my error and went back and got the left. Then they put their mark on it. So looking again at everything today I see I put them on the wrong side. So we will have to see what happens when I change sides. May have to cut everything out and start over.

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The reason I asked is because the offset helps you, you want them towards the rear, otherwise you will have castor issues, on the stock 720 vehicle, the towers are tilted towards the back so the arms are offset towards the front, while the on the 521 it is pointed straight out, so if you put the 720/hardbody arms on 521 with the offset towards the front, you are going to have issues.

I have been thinking about doing what you are doing, meaning raising the upper control arm mount on my 520 project, but instead of lengthening the upper control arm, I shortened the lower control arm 1 1/2 inches(actually made a drop arm), that actually lowered me so much that I might have to shorten the upper control arm.

Fact is, when one starts changing things, everything gets affected, but except for all the shims I have in back of the arm right now with the 720 arm bolted on the stock 521 UCA mount, my project drives down the road great.

I made 2 sets of drop arms, one narrowed 1 1/2 inches on each side, the other a 1/4 inch on each side, I might have to go back to the wider ones, I think I have the room with the tires I am running now, and that would fix the UCA shim issue I have.

I just don't like it shimmed out that far.

DSCN2105.JPG

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I made a drawing, is this what u are talking about with the towers?

 

Drawing markings

 

F = front

R = rear

 

Yellow line = imaginary line the stock 521 tower is in line with

 

 

So should the upper control arm be offset according to the blue line or red line. Or is this not what u are talking about.

If it is, do u have an idea of degree or a measurement.

image.jpg

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Also, should I take out the 4 degrees and maybe make it 1 or 2 degrees. I checked the other truck and withe the wheels are off the ground it had 1 degree positive. Should I copy that? I wasn't sure how much would be affected with everything hooked up so I went to 4. But since I didn't really change after torsions hooked up maybe 4 is unneccesary?

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What I was talking about is the red line, that is how all the disc brake/balljoint Datsun/Nissan trucks towers are angled, towards the back, and since the 521s are not angled at all, if you use a 720/hardbody upper control arm that is offset, you need to put the offset towards the back to get that upper balljoint in back of the lower balljoint, if you put it on your 521 tower the way it is on the 720/hardbody, the upper balljoint will be forward of the lower balljoint, and that is gobbs of fun to drive if you want to die.

OK, I should likely mention this to give you context, I put balljoints/disc brakes on my 521 before Ratsun existed, and I had lots of issues, as you put it, I was winging it, I knew nothing about all this shit I had done, and it took me a couple years to get it all figured out, the day I figured out to change the upper control arms to the wrong sides was the best thing that ever happened to me, it fixed almost all my issues, I didn't know shit about castor back then.

The last thing I would suggest is to use the 720/hardbody sized upper control arm mount bolts, the 521 mount bolts are not strong enough for these mods.

 

You can always shim positive camber out of it, but if you have no shims behind the UCA mount, and you have negative camber, you are screwed.

I made a drawing, is this what u are talking about with the towers?

Drawing markings

F = front
R = rear

Yellow line = imaginary line the stock 521 tower is in line with


So should the upper control arm be offset according to the blue line or red line. Or is this not what u are talking about.
If it is, do u have an idea of degree or a measurement.
image.jpg

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Thanks Wayno for your input. I will try working out all ur suggesstions. For some reason I didn't take a picture of how the UCA is bolted up. I made a nut plate with the stock M14x1.5 bolts. I am going to try to get the rear going tonight and return to the front tomorrow or Thursday. At this point I am going to cut out what I did and redo it incorporating what you suggested. Also since I used the wrong UCA on each side it probably is going to be off.

 

As for the rear I have a few surprises. The belltech leaf springs where shipped just shrink wrapped together. They didn't tape the bushing up so when it arrived it only had the front ones and 1 side of the rear. So I ordered the D21 leaf spring bushing set made by energy and they do not fit the leaf springs. So I guess the belltech use a different bushing in the spring. Also the bushing in the kit don't fit the shackle the ID is bigger then the sleeve on the bolt. So I have a few solutions for these problems. I will try to figure out a way to bolt these up in stock mounts for everyone else info. But I am not using the stock rear mount so I am making new ones to fit the bushings.

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You don't have to cut anything off, I was just asking if you had the upper arms installed with the offset towards the front or back.

 

 

Do you know what I am talking about when I talk about the control arms being offset?

Here is a offset right hand side 720 front upper control arm, see how the balljoint  mount hole is not centered on the arm, but it is offset to the right a little, towards the front when mounted on a 720 frame.

DSCN2562.JPG

 

Here is a right front control arm, the dewalt light is the front, see in the photo below that the right side of the frame has a straight forward and backward line while the mount tower is angled backwards on this 720 frame, you can also see that the upper control arm is offset towards the front.

DSCN2559.JPG

When you put a 720 arm onto a 521 frame, you want to put the right side 720 control arm on the left front side of the 521 frame, and the left arm goes on the right side of the 521 frame.

What you did when you made your tower the way you did was allow yourself to use a stock 720/hardbody control arm without having to lengthen it like the control arm in the top photo, that's what them weld lines are, that arm was lengthened 3/4 of an inch.

You are doing just fine, I almost did what you are doing on my 520 project, but then I decided to do it another way which has worked out fine except for all them shims I mentioned earlier in this thread.

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Ok so looking at the 720 stuff I have a better idea what you are talking about now. I think the d21 is a little different, but may still have a little of what you are talking about. There is a very small offset to the UCA that I did notice and I put that to the rear, but it does not appear to be as extreme as the 720. Here is a pic of my UCA off an 89 d21:

 

IMG_0419-1.jpg

 

And here is a pic I took before I took it off the truck at pick and pull

IMG_0225-1.jpg

 

This is just the nut plate for the UCA there will be a lot more added to it after I am happy with how things are lining up.

 

Back side where arm bolts to:

IMG_0417.jpg

 

Front side. This will all be boxed in and a shock tower will surrond everything addind more strength.

IMG_0418-1.jpg

 

So when I was taking everything apart tonight I removed the spindle and brought the arms together and the upper ball joint is behind the lower. So maybe my mistake is working out?

 

I got a late start and some VW friends stopping by so not a lot got done. So the frame will not be ready for powder coat on friday, so I am going to try to finish the doors to paint this weekend. Then get back to the frame later this weekend.

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Yours is definitely different than mine, your going to have to build the right amount of castor into your mount, otherwise you might have other issues.

The issue I speak of is when you have to put shims on just one side to adjust the balljoint position back, what happens is that when you tighten the bolts holding it control arm to its mount, and the mount spindle is angled like out that, it tries to bend the head/shaft of the mount bolt, you see the bolts go straight in, but the spindle is at an angle.

That said, I was using 521 mount bolts, and I mentioned that they were not strong enough, they kept breaking on me when I hit the brakes on the driverside, while it's likely you are using 720 sized mount bolts, they might take that kind of stress, believe me when I say you don't want them bolts breaking on you.

You want to build enough room into your mount to have adjustment, if your going to bolt your arm to the outside of the tower, then build it with enough negative camber that you can put shims in it to get the upper balljoint back where you need it.

The upper balljoint needs to be slightly in back of the lower balljoint, Mike K. would be able to explain this better than I can, he understands all this, and knows where everything needs to be, everything needs to be built about dead on with room for adjustment in all directions, everything works together.

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I am bolting from the back like a 521. From the front I could not get the right camber, so the back side was better for adjustment purposes. U can go from the front but u have to make sure u put it in the right spot so that u could push out to a positive camber so u have to build in a lot of negative camber. I felt I rather have positive camber and take it out to a negative camber instead.

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I am bolting from the back like a 521. From the front I could not get the right camber, so the back side was better for adjustment purposes. U can go from the front but u have to make sure u put it in the right spot so that u could push out to a positive camber so u have to build in a lot of negative camber. I felt I rather have positive camber and take it out to a negative camber instead.

 

That is what I would do.

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