Fitting your T2D Split bus dropped spindles

Slacken front wheel nuts.

Jack up front of bus.

Support front axle on axle stands, apply handbrake and choc rear wheels ( for your own safety).

Remove front wheels.

With a 17mm socket Remove both track rods, You may need to use a track rod splitter here or the shock method (as we call it) which involves hitting the around the edge of the stub axle until the joint falls from its taper (easy when you know how).
Next carefully remove both brake drums followed and the complete brake backing plates, by removing the bolts which pass though the wheel cylinders.

Next remove the brake hoses, whilst being careful not to cause any harm to yourself or your bus with the brake fluid. Be prepared by learning the risks of working brake fluid as it's nasty stuff in the wrong hands.

Now you are making good progress and getting closer to owning a lowered vw.

Remove speedo cable from left stub axle.

Remove the pinch bolts from the end of the trailing arms, these may need punching out with a parallel punch once the nuts are removed.

Once both pinch bolts are removed tap each link pin out of the trailing arms, once free the spindles will drop free, don't drop them on the floor!

Prepping your fully re-con'd t2d spindles.

We advise complementing the spindles by using new link pins, the new link pin kits come with new bushes, these will need to be pressed or drifted into the new spindles (if you are not using new link pins you will need to press or drift out these bushes from your old spindles).

Your next step is to shim up your spindles, this is an important part of the job as this is how you achieve the correct camber setting.

The first step is to measure the off set of your trailing arms (the lower arm sticks out further than the upper arm and you need to work out by how much by).  Do this by placing a straight edge on the  outside face of the lower arm, run it upwards towards the top arm, and then measure the gap between the outside face of the top arm to the edge of the straight edge, this will give you your off set measurement (do this both sides and make a note of both measurements).

The king pins now run back to front so when installing the link pins make sure they pass through the king pin eyes the correct way, to ascertain you have achieved this  revolve the king pins so that the pinch bolt that holds them together runs inboard rather than on the outside of the dropped spindle.

Once you have your off set measurements and have worked out the correct way around that the spindles run, take a look at the following diagram to work out the shim arrangement for the link pins, make you work clean and use the correct amount of inner and outer shims.

Once the spindles are assembled with the correct shim arrangement (please note you do not run seals or collars, just shims) the link pins can be introduced to the trailing arms, knock them into place and spin the with a spanner until the worm/slot in the pin is lined up so that the pinch bolts can be pushed thru the trailing arm. Make sure the head of the bolt is on top of the trailing arm and do not run a washer under the head of the bolt as sometimes the head of the bolt hits the spindle and the back face of the bolt head might need to be carefully clearanced to achieve full steering lock, like wise the back of the link pin might need to be clearanced too, this clearancing can be done with a soft/flap disc in an angle grinder.

Once the pinch bolts are in the trailing arms turn the link pins with a spanner until it compresses the shims and draws the spindle toward the trailing arm, once this is done add washers and nuts to the underside of the pinch bolts and tighten up.

Next refit brakes, if running drum brakes turn the backing plate upside down to achieve good clearance for your brake hose.

Fit the track rods, t2d track rods will be the correct length with the correct ends, use the bigger track rod ends on the spindle end, this must be fitted so that the nut is on top of the stub axle (facing upwards). When adjusting the tracking adjust both arms evenly

Next bleed the brakes and nut and bolt everything (our way of saying "checking everything is tight

Now is time for the money shot, refit your wheels and lower you van back onto terra ferma.

Set the tracking to 30 minutes toe in with a couple of people sitting in the bus.

Fitting low profile tires and uprated or coil over shocks may be required.

Check your wheel bolts and go for a test run.