I'm new to this and need advice

Ah, I actually have that book! I thought of that when I first got the rail. I didn't get much use out of it though since it's more like a novel than a repair manual and only about 5 different pages cover equipment that's on a sand rail and everything else is regarding actual beetles and what the author thinks about them, rather than anything useful. It's honestly more like a picture book than even a novel. The guy hired an artist and clearly paid him way too much to fill half the book with cartoonish caricatures of parts and procedures. I've been procrastinating getting a real repair manual though. I noticed they sell them on the website I found the shocks on sale, so if I can find some kind of confirmation that those are what I need, I'm ordering them up along with a bunch of other stuff. 

 
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Everything on your car is based on a VW, and in that book. 

Any long time offroader that started in the VW realm, had that book. That is where and how we all started. I don't have a VW anymore, but I have my book sitting on my work bench.  

 
the book on the right I bought used in 1982/83............  used the hell out of it. 

The book on the left I bought about 10 years ago, because I could not find my original copy.  LOL.

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Try and make this easy to understand for ya.  You have a trailing arm that connects to the chassis. It is also the rear spring as it connects to a torsion bar in the chassis. Thats the tube cover that you see with the 4 bolts.  This is the factory spring so to speak.  There were many offerings of shocks with springs to help with overload on the vw beetle.  This also helped when the torsion bars became weak or if someone wanted to remove the torsion bars and just use a coil over/shock setup.   Your car appears to still have the torsion bars and the added coil on spring.   Its not a bad thing and if you remove the coil on spring set up you may find that you've lost ride height and support. 

Now the rabbit hole on all of this is messing with the torsion spring and those trailing arms.  I cant tell in your photos and my memory on all this has faded, but your torsion bar may have a ledge it needs to sit on when assembled.  I know this is the case with an IRS rear suspension but I just cant remember on these old swing arms.  You may need to buy some tooling to get this done and it may not be worth it in the end.   I personally would use what you have or replace the shock/spring assembly like for like and run it. 

here's a few videos to help ya get an idea on what and why.



 
Took her out today to shake the cobwebs loose after replacing the shocks and boots, ended up shaking some axle grease loose too. Shame, since I found some dunes about an hour away from me (Copper Basin Dunes in Parker Dam) and was hoping to take it out this weekend. 

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What a pain this job is 😮‍💨

Replaced the seal yesterday and put the drain pan away and came out this morning to a surprise 

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Working on 60 year old stuff is SO much fun. LOL.   You will get it.

 
I just thought about something regarding the line lock for the brakes. Where would I install it? Master cylinder has 3 output lines, one each for left and right front brakes and one for the turning brake setup, which itself has two separate lines for left and right rear brakes. Front brake lines are flexible, but the supply line for the turning brakes and the lines to each rear brake are metal, and I assume it won't do anything if I installed it on the supply line for the turning brakes 

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Bobalos said:
I would think right here.
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The input line for the turning brakes? I feel like that's on the wrong side of the levers. If I depress the brake pedal, I know for sure that the front brakes are activated, but I don't think the rear brakes are. And if I pull one of the turning brake levers, that rear brake is activated, but I don't know what happens to the fluid between the master cylinder and that lever. 

 
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Ducky69247 said:
The input line for the turning brakes? I feel like that's on the wrong side of the levers. If I depress the brake pedal, I know for sure that the front brakes are activated, but I don't think the rear brakes are. And if I pull one of the turning brake levers, that rear brake is activated, but I don't know what happens to the fluid between the master cylinder and that lever. 
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Yes, the input line goes to both rear brakes, that is where the line lock should be.  Now as others have said, it might not be able to lock up those big paddle tires, but should keep it from rolling

 
we are talking about putting in a "parking brake".  is that correct? 

 
Budlight69 said:
Yes, the input line goes to both rear brakes, that is where the line lock should be.  Now as others have said, it might not be able to lock up those big paddle tires, but should keep it from rolling
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Yes, it goes to the turning brake levers which go to the rear brakes. But will putting the line lock there hold pressure in the rear brake lines if it's on the input side of the levers and not the output/brake side? 

Bobalos said:
we are talking about putting in a "parking brake".  is that correct? 
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Most of the replies so far have suggested installing a line lock instead of an actual parking brake, since the car isn't already set up for a parking brake. I'm just confused about where to install it. It dawned on me this morning that all four corners have their own lines, the front two being flexible and the back two being metal (steel?) 

 
Ducky69247 said:
But will putting the line lock there hold pressure in the rear brake lines if it's on the input side of the levers and not the output/brake side?
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Yes it will apply pressure to the rear brakes and if done correctly, the turning brake levers should feel solid when the brake lock is applied.  Just apply your brake pedal hard today, do the turn brakes lock up?  

 
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