Narrowed beam, no arb?

[le catweasel]

Am i right in thinking that when running a narrowed beam the arb is ditched?

How does this affect the handling/anyone encountered problems with doing this?

Thanks

 

[paul_q]

Vw Jim does them for king and link pin beams
http://www.vwjim.co.uk/ourshop/cat_334911-Suspension-Components-Front.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Or you can do them yourself by cutting one in half, offering it up, mark and cut the overlap,
Slide a metal sleeve on to one side, weld the halfs back together, slide the sleeve over the joint then seam weld it on and add some plug welds also for good measure.

 

[Graham L]

For the French slammer beams I've just be given a shortened anti roll bar to work with the 11 cm narrowed beam, I'm fitting it to our bus to see what difference it makes.

They will retail for £100

 

[Tofufi]

I found fitting an anti roll bar to the front of mine (4" narrowed) made an improvement in how it handled, and how it dealt with some bumps/potholes

 

[*Sam*]

Running an Anti Roll Bar will without a doubt improve the handling of your bus.

 

[neilswheels]

If you weld it the properties of the ARB will be knackered by the heat.

 

[Graham L]

The French slammer ones arn't welded they are new items

 

[*Sam*]

If you weld it the properties of the ARB will be knackered by the heat.

surely thats not strictly true, every racing car i have worked on has a roll bar design of 2 vertical bars welded into a horizontal bar, is it purely todo with the position of the weld ? and it being in the middle of the roll bar in the case of narrowed one.

on a side note I'm sure a blacksmith could make one from scratch.

 

[paul_q]

If you weld it the properties of the ARB will be knackered by the heat.

There has been many a discussion on this topic and that of welding spindles. Some people say arb are sprung steal others say heat treated and both affected by welding. Until a uprated arb becomes available for narrowed king and link I will carry on with the welded one.

 

[Happystamps]

If you weld it the properties of the ARB will be knackered by the heat.

surely thats not strictly true, every racing car i have worked on has a roll bar design of 2 vertical bars welded into a horizontal bar, is it purely todo with the position of the weld ? and it being in the middle of the roll bar in the case of narrowed one.

on a side note I'm sure a blacksmith could make one from scratch.

Depends on how the metal is conditioned after welding perhaps? Or maybe they just put up with a slightly varied spring rate?

 

[neilswheels]

In general, OEM ARB's are heat treated. Welding will change this, usually making the material softer/easier to bend and then not return to its original shape.
I could make the shape, but you need an oven to heat treat it correctly.

A little bit of google research suggests that you can make one out of a high carbon content steel, some people then say you should heat treat it, others dont.

Graham, I know the French ones are new, I was commenting on the second post about cutting and welding a stocker.

 

[*Sam*]

So do you think shortening the ARB by 3 or 4" would make up for some of the loss ?
Also adding the atiffer ride that a narrowed beam gives you might take you back towards a standard set up in terms of what you get from ARB suspension, after all you don't want a front ARB to stiff as this will encourage understeer.

 

[paul_q]

Creative engineering say not to use a arb on lowered buses

http://www.creative-engineering.com/index.php?page=shop.browse&category_id=45&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=26" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

But I feel my bus rides better since fitting the arb

 

[Graham L]

That paragraph on the creative web site is very misleading they are confusing ride height and with what an ARB actually does.

Fitting good dampers and lowering the ride height will produce less body roll but will never compensate for an ARB, when I used to hillclimb and sprint a caterham the dampers we ran were expensive costing £800 a set but we still ran an ARB as it's there to balance the side to side movement of the suspension when under cornering load and to help handle weight transfer.

I think the issue is that they haven't been widely available for narrowed buses so people have just left them off but that doesn't mean they are not needed otherwise why would VW have fitted them in the first place?

 

[paul_q]

That paragraph on the creative web site is very misleading they are confusing ride height and with what an ARB actually does.

Fitting good dampers and lowering the ride height will produce less body roll but will never compensate for an ARB, when I used to hillclimb and sprint a caterham the dampers we ran were expensive costing £800 a set but we still ran an ARB as it's there to balance the side to side movement of the suspension when under cornering load and to help handle weight transfer.

I think the issue is that they haven't been widely available for narrowed buses so people have just left them off but that doesn't mean they are not needed otherwise why would VW have fitted them in the first place?

Totally agree, my bus is better since fitting the arb and my last bus was fantastic after fitting a uprated one. I am surprised nobody has made a narrow one for king and link beams.