Flipped / Dropped Spindles

This is a job that is beyond most home mechanics, but read this and you’ll see where you money goes when enlisting the help of a professional

- Mark Walker

Flipped dropped spindles on the front of a link pin beam equipped Split (or modified Bay) allow you to drop the ride height approx. 3.5 inches, as well as narrowing the track 9mm per side. As well as dropping the front of your Bus, the best thing about dropped spindles is the ride quality will be the same as stock. Over the years dropped spindles have become a staple in lowering a Bus and paired with a narrowed beam, allow you to go really low too.

This is a guide for those who are pretty handy and want to save a chunk of money by building their own dropped spindles. If you can’t yet fathom out an oil change though, you really should buy a set from one of the many suppliers out there. This guide assumes you can work out how to remove and refit the spindles yourself, as well as construct some basic press tooling and is a guide on modifying a stock spindle into a dropped spindle.

01 Plan job and remove spindles

Before we dive into the task, you should read the whole how-to and gather the tools you need. Although it is possible to press in and ream your own king pin bushes and ream the track rod reverse taper yourself, we had a machine shop do the bushes, as despite having the correct adjustable reamer, it is a laborious task. Buying the correct tapered and adjustable reamers can be expensive, so it may be better to get the machine shop to do more if this is a one-off. Press tooling is another thing. We made our but a good engineer should be able to press the spindles for you if you are struggling.

02 Strip spindles

With this done, you can put the spindle in the press tool you constructed in the hydraulic press and press apart the king pins. Either this or take them to a reputable machine shop or good old fashioned motor engineer, who will do it for you for a small outlay.