Having never fitted a narrowed beam before Jon has found himself on a learning curve!

Now that my narrowed beam is on and the steering is all setup I turned my attention to the shock absorbers (as mentioned in my previous post)

My original stock shocks were proper kippered and the new KYB versions for a lowered Bug, that I had bought, were deemed as useful as a chocolate fire guard after I discovered they fouled the bottom trailing arm (they are far too fat to fit in the space now the beam is narrowed with angled towers) and were sitting at an obscure angle - there was no way on earth they were going to fit.

So after a few questions to the pros on Restowagen I found out that rear Mini shocks were the weapon of choice as they are much narrower.
I found some KYB versions on eBay for £15 delivered, and they arrived in good time. I also had to get some female rose joints to screw onto the top of the shock so it can mount to my shock towers.
For anyone going down this route the thread size on the mini shock is M10 with a 1.25 pitch. You can get the rose joints from Bearing Boys or McGill Motorsport (01592 653162 or mcgillmotorsport@aol.com).

With all my new bits all I had to do now was replace the bottom mount sleeves in the shocks as the Mini one is too small. I had saved my original ones so after a lot of effort involving a vice, hammer and blow torch I got the Beetle ones to fit.
Time for a trial fit!

(Click images to open in new window)

Left to right: Mini shock bottom mount, Mini mounting sleeve removed from the shock, Beetle sleeve before going into the Mini shock

The Mini shocks were perfect in terms of clearance but I discovered that there was only 5mm of travel with the beam adjusted to the lowest setting. Back to the work bench!

I decided to cut about 1.5-inches off the top of the shocks and re-thread them (another trick I had picked up on Restowagen) using a tap and die set I bought from Screwfix


Here is the female M10x1.25 rose joint and the top of the Mini shock before re-threading


You can see the difference in length after I had cut and thread the top shock. You can also see the Beetle mounting sleeves in the bottom of the shocks.They're a tight fit!

After successfully re-threading the shocks I screwed on the rose joint and et voila! I now have adequate suspension travel on the lowest setting.
I have since discovered that you can get lowered rear Mini shocks for really low Mini's so this might be the easiest way to go if you don't fancy cutting and threading the stock height ones. But seeing as I've got mine to work that is how it's staying for the time being.

Being completely new to this narrowed beam malarkey the whole process has been a learning curve for me, but not a horrible one. The only real problems were getting the urethane bushes to fit and the above trials with the shocks.
If anyone is planning on going down the narrowed beam route themselves hopefully my efforts might steer you in the right direction!