The nose-down stance of the '58 beetle has always bothered me. We attempted to correct it two years ago, in what is a relatively easy procedure, but could not get the torsion bar splines to break free. My buddy who works on classic Volkswagens full time has never seen one as stuck as mine was. Ugh. Finally decided on the weekend that I couldn't take it any longer, and it would need to be corrected.
In order to get enough leverage on the spring plates, to slide them outwards off the torsion bar splines, I needed to remove the fenders...
And then from there it was beat on the car with my 2.5lb sledge...when that didn't work, I tried the slide hammer. When that didn't work, I got to welding on some adapters. The passenger side came off with an adapter tack welded on in 6 places. The driver's side
would not budge. Eventually I welded on an adapter for the slide hammer I machined from from 2.5" steel.
From there it's an easy task of moving the spring plate however many splines you want for the drop. Only problem is you need to know what spline the spring plates were on...and I couldn't mark them due to the welded on adapter. They also didn't come off easily, so I had to guess. My first guess was spot on...for putting the car back to the way it was before. Sigh. Back into the garage, and do it all over again! Goes much faster the second time, when everything is coated in a lot of anti-seize!
Stance is much better now...sorry the photo is lousy.
-Dave