4" Narrowed Beam, Balljoint Dropped Spindles, AVO Coilovers & Disc Brakes

[Tim S]

4" Narrowed beam with centre adjuster, T2D balljoint dropped spindles, flipped track rods, OEM disk brakes all from a late 1970 (MY 71) van. Set up by Autotechniks. Calipers were refurbed items around 5000 miles ago. I also have adjustable AVO coilovers to go with this setup. Recently removed from my van as I've gone over to a Red9design wishbone front end.

Coilovers have been removed from suspension so I could replace the top bushes which had split. The top bushes have 0 miles on them! Bottom bushes are OK, no splits. The coilovers are adjustable for damping and height.

Includes drag link.

The van looked like this with it on:

£1000 ono including coilovers.

Collection from Washington, West Sussex.

 

[sychosis]

Hi

Will the spindles take early bay drums?

Cheers

Lee

 

[Tim S]

Hi

Will the spindles take early bay drums?

Cheers

Lee

Hi Lee - no, they won't - they're 71-72 disc specific.

 

[Austin]

Interested in this setup, particularly as I could upgrade to discs at the same time. Mine is a 1970 so beam bolt to chassis pattern is fine, and I don’t have a servo either, looks like you didn’t either.

How did it brake with these discs and callipers? And how old is the beam?

Cheers

Austin


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Tim S]

Interested in this setup, particularly as I could upgrade to discs at the same time. Mine is a 1970 so beam bolt to chassis pattern is fine, and I don’t have a servo either, looks like you didn’t either.

How did it brake with these discs and callipers? And how old is the beam?

Cheers

Austin


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Hi Austin - apologies for slow reply. You are correct, I don't have a servo. I've never driven a drum brake van so don't know how it compares but I would say the pedal needs quite a bit of pressure compared to a modern vehicle. It did stop reasonably well if you stood on the brakes, but not as well as the ventilated 4-pots I have now!

As far as I know the beam is the same age as the van, but narrowed around the time the van was imported in 2006. The van came from Austria where they don't salt the roads in winter so is largely rust-free as is the beam.

The dropped spindles and adjusters were fitted in 2010 and the shocks are newer than that - around 2013 or so from memory. I should also add I put new discs on when I put the refurbed calipers on so they've got plenty of wear left. I have a spare set of pads I can throw in with this as well.

Cheers, Tim

 

[Tim S]

Original post updated with more photos.