Lowering my 68 Westy and up rating brakes

[69ragtop]

Hello all, I’m looking at sorting the running gear under my 68 Westy. It’s totally stock underneath at the mo and I need some thoughts and advice on what you are all doing to your buses. I want to upgrade the brakes but keep the wide 5 set up for the wheels as got some lovelies going on.
I want A narrowed beam by about 2 inches and lower to a nice stance where I can still go over speed bumps. Basically I want to modernise the running gear.
This is my problem , there’s so much stuff on the market and not knowing the good stuff from the bad, the wrong stuff from the right. What I need is advice on what set ups ; ideas and a plan so I can cost this up and get it done , Andy

 

[66nige]

Hi Andy, my advice would be speak to Graham at Midland Early bay. Their French Slammer stuff takes some beating, the ride and handling is incredible for a lowered bus.

 

[Moseley]

Brakes-wise, I’d be looking at fitting a remote servo as this will make a massive increase on the braking effort that can be applied. If you find in the future that your drums are getting hot (lots of high speed stopping, or descending steep hills) then a disc brake kit could then be added to aide the performance.

As said with lowering, the French slammer stuff is a great way to get a drive in - drive out service and will retain a pretty good ride quality compared with stock. I personally chose the diy approach for lowering, which saved me about £1000. That is a combination of 4” narrowed transporterhaus beam, French slammer dropped spindles and gaz coilovers. There is a reasonable amount work to do to fit yourself, so bear that in mind if you choose this route - narrowing leaves, narrowing track rods, modifying gear shift linkage are a few that spring to mind.


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[69ragtop]

Thanks 66nige I’ll give them a call in the morning and maybe they can talk me through it. Sounds like a complete setup that I need.
Thanks Moseley for your advice. If they do a walk in service I’d rather pay the money with the knowledge they’ve got compared to mine for the piece of mind. Sounds like I’ll need the disc brake kit as well as the remote servo. Who would you recommend for the servos and discs ?

 

[66nige]

I have a CSP kit on mine without a servo which is more than adequate. Quite pricey though but there is cheaper options. You need to decide on you brakes before lowering because it changes the spindle type depending on what discs you have.

 

[69ragtop]

Thanks 66nige, I’ll phone Graham in the mot and have a chat On options and go from there. I did see on their site they had 2 pre 71 ( one with drums and one with discs) . If I can’t afford it I’ll just go away and save for it unless someone decides to go back stock and sells them to me lol

 

[69ragtop]

I meant in the morning!

 

[Moseley]

Have a search on here for the Speedy Jim remote servo kit. There are a fair few people running them and I seem to recall the maths means that you can apply double the braking effort to the drum / disc than without one. There was also an interesting thread where someone did some calcs to show the difference between fitting a servo vs fitting discs as an upgrade to the drum system.

I thought the drum spindles could be re-used when retrofitting discs, but only if you go for an aftermarket disc kit that retains the wide 5 setup - so something like CSP, or Fellows Speed Shop. Someone with these kits could confirm. If you swap to a later 5x112 disc setup then this needs new spindles.


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[Kew]

i have a CSP kit on my 69 and a Brazilian made Servo, and it stops like a modern car the first weeks i drove without the vacuum to the servo (i needed to modify the engine) and the breaks was ok but with a high pedal pressure, so the CSP disk works best with a servo
i was also looking to use a 2" narrowed beam, but ended up modifying the original beam wit some adjusters and flipped spindles, so i don't get any extra track and the CSP is 0,6 less track and i use the original 14" steel wheels

 

[StuF]

Im running a CSP front disk kit and Graham at Midland Early Bay installed a remote servo to compliment their braking effect.
The difference was night and day and the bus pulls up like a modern car now - proper pedal travel and braking performance.
Was a drive in and drive out service in a day for the servo install and I cant recommend Graham's services highly enough.
Whilst I was at the unit I was fortunate enough to check out a French Slammer Front beam that was going to be installed on another Bus later in the week - they really are lovely bits of kit, wonderful engineering and so well put together. Im sure he will be able to sort you out

 

[tmcg]

Just to add my 2p.

I have recently put the fellows speed shop kit on. It keeps wide five and bolts straight on to the drum spindles it also has the advantage of being able to swap to Porsche pattern easily thanks to the stud hub design.

I find the braking really responsive the the pedal really easy / personally I don’t think ness for a servo at all with their kit on. I have partnered this with a transporterhaus adjustable front beam (similar to the French slammer one) for mild lowering and kyb shocks.

Downsides to the fellows kit , it’s not the cheapest similar to csp but figured brakes were worth spending money on.

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[StuF]

Fellows kit looks great - there are rumours about that they may start doing a rear disk kit too, which would be fantastic

 

[Moseley]

Fellows kit looks great. I have heard that the CSP kit use refurbished brake calipers off an Astra GTE from yesteryear, so rebuilds / replacement parts may be hard to come by in the future. The Fellows kit uses new Wilwood calipers which are lovely to look at as well, so this would be the route I’d go.


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[StuF]

Yep the CSP kit is derived from Vauxhall parts - Astra Pads fit so I presume the disks are from a similar vintage.
Never had a problem sourcing replacement parts for the kit though - although ive only just purchased a set of replacement pads after 5 years of usage.
Even with those I was able to get EBC Green stuff as their compound is a little more aggressive than standard.
Wilwood stuff is top notch though and fellows werent doing brakes 5 years ago when I got mine

 

[K@rlos]

How low do you wanna go? If slammed is the answer you’ll want to go the king & link pin beam route. They don’t lock out like ball joints and the bottom tube is higher up so more ground clearance. I have a 5” slamwerks beam and spindles and he ride is fantastic but I will be switching to a transporterhaus beam over the winter as Alex does a beam with caster adjustment. As for brakes again it depends on what wheels your looking at. Over all the Fellows kit is the best as it has the awesome calipers and advantage of both Porsche and vw wide 5 PCD. I’ve gone the Porsche 944 turbo route with cross drilled and vented discs which I’ll couple to a 944 master cylinder.

 

[StuF]

I’ve gone the Porsche 944 turbo route with cross drilled and vented discs which I’ll couple to a 944 master cylinder.

8) Brake **** 8)

 

[Zappa69]

If you want to go cheaper on upgrading the brakes then disks and hub of a late bay would work .

 

[kleinbusRonnie]

On my 68 westy i use dropped spindles, disks and hub from a late bay, And to have 5*205 wheels on i have 5*112 to 5*205 adapter plate.
It's not possible to use the std 14" wheels. I use 15" steel Sprintstars which i have flipped, so they compensate for the wide setup.
Org 15" splitscreen will also work.
On my other bus, a 65', I have the CSP kit..its cool and easy to find parts for.
Occasionally JK do have 16-17 % sales on the CSP setup, worth remembering.

/Ronnie
Bayland Denmark