redrilling rio spindles to bolt to festiva rear beam

[ruppenduro]

Has anyone ever tried redrilling rio rear spindles/drum brake backing plates to bolt to a festiva axle beam? I have rio front brakes and want 4x100 on the rear of the car also. Rio's are a dime a dozen in the junkyards here while aspires are non-existant (and you can't find festiva/aspire spindles new anymore for a reasonable price). by looking at a pic of a rio spindle, it looks like the bolting area is quite a bit bigger than the festiva, with plenty of room to redrill. I considered redrilling some original sized festiva drums to 4x100, but this seems like it may be the same amount of work, and possibly a bit safer.

[Advancedynamix]

I've never heard of this, but it's possible. On other fwd cars, people make drop plates and adapter plates to run different rear spindles while lowering the car a few inches without changing the suspension geometry or spring rate. This could be done with a festiva beam and may be less work than drilling out the forged steel spindles.

[ruppenduro]

I like that idea, was just checking out some vw drop plates and there isn't much to them, seems like they would be easy to make. Do you think there would be enough adjustment in the coilover sleeves you use with the vw rear shocks to compensate for the spindle being mounted higher up? I don't want the car to be super low, as it will be daily driven.

It does seem like it would take a long time, and plenty of broken bits to drill into the spindles themselves.

[Advancedynamix]

If you only dropped it an inch with the plates you should be fine. I still offroad mine with a 3+ inch drop (just the coils, no drop plates). These cars have a lot of ground clearance stock.

[cliferton]

Very interesting. I may have to look into this. Drums to redrill to 4x100 are getting hard to get also. I've owned my festy for less than a year and have already found that to be a mission

[F3BZ]

advance! that pic makes me think of the desert evasion of Kowalskis' Challenger in Vanishing Point.

[ruppenduro]

picked up a set of rear drum/spindle assemblies off an 05 rio today. Going to try drilling a hole in the spindle mount plate to see if its doable, if I can't cut through it i'll go with the drop plates. pretty sure I'm going to need to go and buy some decent bits either way.

[sketchman]

Very interesting. I may have to look into this. Drums to redrill to 4x100 are getting hard to get also. I've owned my festy for less than a year and have already found that to be a mission

They're almost impossible to get now, yeah. You have to really just order them and see if they are the right ones or not, and then be prepared to wait again. Sucks.