With the all the dimensions we previously measured, my mate drew up a comparison drawing on CAD overlaying the VW set up over the 924 rear end. This gave us a better idea what would need to be cut away from the rear end and any issues with clearance. I had also measured the old 924 spring plates and transferred the holes using a pillar drill for accuracy on to the van spring plates, I did nearly make a mistake drilling in the wrong place, luckily I caught myself by measuring twice (and only cutting once). Once both plates were drilled off I cut one to the desired length. Not knowing for sure how thick the spacers would need be I also cut out a recess for the A arm casting to clear but I realised later from trial and error I didn’t need to.
The A arm was first trial fitted with 26mm shims made up from £10 worth of cut-to-length steel tube, 14mm nuts, washers and threaded rod, this clunkingly amateur set up gave me an idea of where I needed to cut the chassis for clearance.
So now the point of no turning back! I got to work grinding away the chassis to get the clearance needed for the travel of the A arm.
Then with the wheels mounted directly on to the hub, with no discs or caliper spacers, the rim clearance on the wheel arch was too close for even the tyre to fit.
I did fit the discs and calipers to the hubs to see how they would look then try to fit the wheel, this reminded me I needed to shim the caliper lateraly to the disc (placing spacer washers inside the caliper mounting holes and onto the arm mounting position) and space the wheel off the disc about 6mm to clear the caliper, (see previous blogs) this meant spacing the A arm even further in than expected. But don't the disc and caliper look lovely?
With several hours spent fitting and dismantling the spring plates, grinding out the chassis a little more, cutting tubed spacers and threaded rod to length then refitting it back on the van, I finally decided to use 57mm lengths of tube to space the A arm in from the spring plate. This gave the 205/60 /15 tires about a 24mm clearance gap from the wheel arch and 18mm gap from the face of the spring plate. The problem now is that I can only fit the wheel over the disc and hub when the spring plate is set on the original spline (touching the bottom stop). I also need to work out where the damper mount and bump stop will fit. It's a good job the wheel and tyre aren't heavy...
