i.r.s.

the parts

After speaking to people and visiting various web sites I decided the best route was to build the creative engineering i.r.s set up. The main reason for this being the correct factory geometry given by there chassis legs and I believe this will be the safest way for me to i.r.s. 

For more information visit www.creative-engineering.com (CE). Or www.23window.com if you are looking for a different way (and there are many) to i.r.s. the rear of your bus, including using Porsche 944 parts. 

So what parts do you need?

I went for the the basic recommendation from CE this included their 

• bolt kit 

• top shock mounts

• chassis legs (ours being modified by CE to fit the post 1960 round tube gear box cradle). 

As our bus is a pre 1960 bus and has the oval shaped front g/box mount we needed a trans-mount adapter After talking with Mark Rafferty in Florida we made our own trans-mount adapter. This allows the late model nose cone to fit into the early bus.

We are going to use bay window and 1303 parts and I sourced 

• 1303 beetle gear box

• post 1960 split bus nose cone

• 1968 only spring plates from a bay window (the hole in which the torsion bars fits has the same number of splines (teeth) as the split bus)

• pre Aug 1970 bay window rear hubs, including backing plates, bearing carrier etc to keep 205mm PCD (wide 5's).

• any year bay window drive shafts (not automatic as either side are different lengths)

• 2 x bay window CV Joints

• 2 x 1303 beetle CV Joints

• 1 pair 68/69 swing arms (also called a-arms)

where to start!

This is in no way the bible on how to carry out the work but this is how we did it, try it at your own risk and have fun!

First off we removed the existing gear box including hubs, drive shafts, reduction boxes etc. and attempted to remove the spring plates from the bus, one came straight of but the other caused us a lot of head scratching and involved Dad building various pullers and the use of heat before it was removed - be patient, it wants to come off!

Next we took our nose cone from a late split bus g/box (the gearbox should be in neutral before removal) and fitted the trans-mount adapter (you will need a half head size bolt, included with our trans adapter kit, for the right hand bolt which holds the trans mount to the front bus g/box mount otherwise it would not fit). Slowly we started to shave off the ridge on the top of the cone and then test fitted it in the bus. This was a slow process as we did not want to damage the cone.

Once the cone and trans-mount fitted, we replaced it with the 1303 g/box nose cone, this was a straight forward swap. You must remember to put the gear box in neutral before swapping the cones.

The 1303 g/box is a nice fit and we are now ready to make a gig for the correct positioning/height of the g/box before cutting out the chassis legs and replacing them with the CE items.

Chassis leg installation

First job is to cut out the old chassis legs, takes a little while but pretty straight forward, once this is done you need to clean up the areas of any burrs etc.

We test fitted the a arm and spring plate to give us an idea of what it should look like. Then we made a small jig to get it all squared up and measured correctly and welded it in.

Next was to test fit the gear box, all looks good!