1973 V8 Super Beetle Front Engine Conversion - 283 SBC

[V8SuperBeetle]

Some updates.

Well, it's been a nice long week off. Saturday, Nov. 7th I got married and I took the week off following the wedding. So I really didn't do too much to the bug, but I did manage to get some work done.




Some of the small things I did that weren't worth photographing are things like moving the tranny crossmember forward and torquing the tranny mount bolts, the crossmember bolts, bell housing, bolts, etc.


Few things I ordered came in. FlowMaster 40 series 2.5" mufflers, flexplate / tranny dust cover, inline water filler neck, and an overflow plug for the radiator. I plan to have the overflow come from the inline neck rather than from the radiator.




The garage was getting a little out of control so I felt the need to get it organized. That and I got tired of working off of the floor. So I built a table, a tool organizer and cleaned up the garage.






Painted and installed the tranny dipstick, as mentioned.




I started making the firewall, engine bay, and floor patterns. I'm almost finished with the patterns. All that's left is the section that'll go behind me. There's a few 4' x 8' sheets of 14 gauge steel I plan to use because it's free and it should be plenty strong for the flooring.




Last but not least, I cut out some 2" reinforcement triangles out of the 1/8" plates that came with my cage and welded them into the top of the cage, the dash bar, the lateral bars, and the main hoop outriggers. The pics look like crap and the flux doesn't help, but they came out really well. I also redid a couple of the cage welds so they would nicer. I'm getting better at this overhead welding business.








By the end of this week I hope to at least have the flooring on it's way to being finished. Once that's done I'll take it to the muffler shop and have the exhaust and plumbing work done.

More soon...