Replacement front beam, ride height and more

[Seamus1982]

Evening all,

Hope lockdown has you all busy on your buses.

I have been told that my front beam is showing some signs of rust and needs to be replaced. From what I understand my 69 bay has the ‘early’ beam, with 100mm fixings.
Can anyone offer up any thoughts on this?
Also, are the front axles drive specific, my van is LHD?

With the job of replacing the front beam, it raises the question of whether I should lower the bus at the same time. Generally, I am pretty happy with the stock ride height, the bus is pretty standard, with the exception of paint which was done when it arrived in the UK through Cool Campers.
What would make me change the ride height is any improvement on the wind sway the van suffers from. Would dropping a couple of inches make any difference to this?

I have owned the van 10 years, but my learning is through doing while I have learnt a heap about the engine and gearbox, front end set up has yet to need any work, hence starting from scratch here

Any thoughts greatly received.

Thanks in advance

 

[ozziedog]

Hi there, I’m just doing the opposite and going back up. I’ve got spindles with the ball joints reversed. Mine are now showing signs of serious wear so I’ll take this opportunity to go back up now that I can fit back in the garage.’ I think ‘ having a good condition front end is more of an issue with swaying than we know. An up rated sway bar (ARB) looks to be the very best improvement you can get and is probably the way to go, possibly with some serious coil overs to assist. I’m thinking that lowering removes the latter part of your suspension travel whereas coilovers will assist the first part of your suspension travel and this is the bit that’s affected by side gusts etc as in stiffening a tad should reduce that sudden urge to rock and roll in several lanes at one time. Looks good though or perhaps a little bit dated now? :shock: :shock: :shock:

Ozziedog,,,,,,,,,,but ,, it’s your bus innit :mrgreen:

 

[Seamus1982]

Cheers for the input Ozziedog. Sounds like I’ll stick to the ride height and look at improving the steering with the right upgrades.

 

[garytype2]

I have a rust free front beam from California
Gary Coolcampers

 

[fallingoffalot]

I found the best thing to stop the sway was to put higher load rated tyres on. I've got correct size rear van tyres on the back and smaller 4X4 tyres on the front. I am lowered a bit, and get virtually no sway in cross wind now.