SWB Front Suspension Auxiliary support tube on a 912

[Joscarlang]

WOW...
It's been a while!!
Just getting rolling on my car again after lots of life.

My car, late run of 1968 SWB 912 with mixed parts.

I have the newer support tube for my suspension part #901 341 013 04
however the car was in a minor wreck and the tube was slightly damaged. (very minor. I'm a welder and can fix NO PROBLEM)

I recently acquired a earlier front lower suspension (no struts) mostly complete with sway bar etc part#901 341 013 02.

Is there an advantage to using the earlier tube and components? Are the rest of the parts interchangeable? Torsion bars same length/spline etc? bushings the same?

I have both sets hanging from my ceiling and I'm about to disassemble and bring parts to my powdercoater and should probably narrow down which is better.
I don't want to rebuild one set only to find out that I have some sort of RARE UNOBTAINIUM PARTS that i didn't use...lol

From what I'm seeing perhaps the later SWB tube can also be used with a LWB control arms etc if I wanted to "upgrade" in the future.

The earlier tube appears to be better built and perhaps stronger?
I like that the earlier tube has adjustable straps to accommodate minor differences in placement.

Thoughts?!

[Peter Graham]

I am not going to get into all the ins and outs of SWB front suspensions, but there are several minor differences between early MY65-MY67 front suspensions and MY68 (including the a-arms - MY68 has a left and right). For MY69 LWB and later, the front suspension design changed entirely: none of the LWB parts are interchangeable with SWB parts, save possibly the camber plates. That said, the entire front suspension can be swapped out between SWB and LWB: 912's can be outfitted with entire MY78-MY83 SC front suspensions with their corresponding bigger brakes.

Peter