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  #16  
Old September 23rd 2011, 00:39
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Here's a fun one. Between my roomate and I we ran out of space in the garage for a couple of weeks. So, move the freshly painted pan into the living room!

Please excuse the mess, we were in the middle of organizing a 3-day classic car event…






Oh hey, Look! A 1971 Super Beetle!







Here's the beauty of it all...it's virtually rust free. In fact, it's as rust free as you can expect to buy for a steal. The one spot that I think it has should be super easy to fix and something I was going to need to cut-up anyhow.

I think the guy I bought it off of almost cried when I told him I was going to paint it. You can still smell the current paint job curing on the car.

-Dave
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  #17  
Old September 24th 2011, 02:29
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The dry sump tank for my oil system arrived. Fairly impressed with it, though the finish on the outside is a little rough. Meh, I can live with it. I do think I'm going to upsize the feed fitting, still haven't quite sorted out the feed and return line sizing yet. My bigger problem is figuring out how I'm going to setup an oil-level on the tank. It's going to be remotely mounted, accessible for cleaning and oil changes, but pretty much inaccessible on a day-to-day basis. The Porsches all have an oil-level gauge, similar to a fuel level gauge...but with the internal baffles I'm not sure that idea is going to be easy to implement. The other option is to do catch-can style tubing on the outside, but that just screams leak potential to me. Thoughts? Ideas?

I've looked into Motorsport fluid level gauges, and while I can certainly get something I'm hoping to not spend $400 just on a sender!






Now this is a nice score. 5.5" width Sport rim! Rally car tires will fit on it, and the swap meet guy says he's got another four for me. Seriously big score, I've been looking for a set of the 5.5's close to home for a long while. The new project needs to run on Factory wheels, the reason for which I'll reveal later.

And now I'm working on how I'm going to fit the oil-sump tank filler. I'd really like to go with a Newton Flush Fill Valve, but have you ever priced one out? Lets put it this way, for the cost of one Newton Flush Fill cap I could buy a bladder'd fuel cell. Don't need a bladder? Well then that will cost you only half as much as the valve. Geesh, I just want a locking flush mount :P Apparently the Newton valves will flex slightly for curves, but I'm not 100% sure that I've got a flat enough surface.




Anyways, back to the garage...

-Dave
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'71 Type 1 - Rally Project
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'73 Type 1 - Proper Germanlook project
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  #18  
Old September 25th 2011, 01:32
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Front suspension 1st cleaning stage...


And the beginning of my rear suspension setup. I'm ditching the torsion bars and going with a rod-end for the pivot. Currently working with some steel to put them into double-shear, figuring it out as I go along. It has to all fit under the fender and clear the main body, but at the same time be easily removed for swapping out the Rod end. The Audi Rally car taught me that rod-ends are not necessarily a long-life solution to suspension applications! I haven't yet decided if the second plate will bolt on, or be welded to the first plate for the double-shear. Need to go back to the books and do some reading before I make a decision. The rear shock mounts will get braced with a Kafer-Bar to take the increased load of coil-overs, and that will give me a suspension setup which allows for easy rear-end ride height adjustment. Much easier then rotating torsion bars at least. The downside is losing a relatively simple suspension setup with naturally progressive action.









-Dave
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  #19  
Old September 25th 2011, 17:58
Kafer_Mike Kafer_Mike is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by owdlvr View Post
Here's a fun one. Between my roomate and I we ran out of space in the garage for a couple of weeks. So, move the freshly painted pan into the living room!

Please excuse the mess, we were in the middle of organizing a 3-day classic car event…

Makes a way cool coffee table...
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  #20  
Old September 26th 2011, 01:33
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Alrighty...back for a rather lengthy post.

First off, remember that rare sport wheel from the post above? Yeah...this one, not so valuable any more.


Basically, I F***ed up on the tire machine. Rally car tires are super, super, super stiff. And while I have mounted hundreds on alloy wheels, I've only ever mounted one a onto a steel wheel four times before. If you don't get the bead down enough on an alloy wheel, the machine just stops. On a steel wheel, apparently, it bends the *&$#!!! out of the wheel. Took two of us to eventually get the second bead on, and then my buddy Gord got the rim as round as he could with the hammer. Guess I know which one will be my spare! (sigh)



But you have to put these things behind you...I mean, yes I destroyed a rare wheel, but this is a race car project...quite frankly I'm more then likely to bend all four in the first 100km of an event anyways. Such is life, move on. And with that, I had an incredibly productive day today out in the garage. I finally managed to get the '69 out of the shop, which meant I could pull the new '71 into the shop. I started on the rear, pulling each fender, the running boards, glass and finally the front fenders. This particular car has a pretty heavy (for a Bug) application of undercoating, and I spent much of today scraping it away to see what surprises lay underneath. Let me tell you, this was a TREAT compared to doing the same thing to an Audi. May I never have to scrape one down again!


Right-side rear quarter...rust FREE. Not a mark in the whole thing.


Engine Bay, some light surface rust on the right 'shelf'. Nothing a wire-wheel won't remove.


Right-side front quarter...rust FREE. Not a mark, except for some transfer from the rusting bumper mount.

Now, I haven't scraped off the undercoat on the passenger side heater channel, but I did spot-check the usual rust locations and found nothing but solid German Steel. I can't actually be this lucky could I!?!


Well, not quite. The Left front quarter shows some very minor damage on the front by the apron (there's minor bondo in there), but three of the fender bolt nuts pulled out, which me a little wary for the rest of this side.





There are a couple of odd holes behind the front strut. The lower hole looked like it was punched through and then seam-sealed over, and there's no rust. Very odd. Above this spot, but not visible in the photos, are two rust holes that are coming from the other side. They originate somewhere under the fuel tank (which I haven't pulled yet) so there is a surprise or two needing some attention. The photo on the right, however, shows the lower seam at the rear of the front fender. This is a well known rust spot, and I usually assume a beetle is rusty here. This car has some minor surface rust, which I believe is from me scraping the spot when I went to buy it a month ago!




Oh, here's the two rust spots coming through from the fuel tank area.


Moving back, it starts to get worse. The bottom of the heater channel has some holes, and some surface rust. Rust here, though, doesn't start from the outside...it comes from within. One of the running board mounting holes has significant rot around it...but the worst is in the rear. Even if the mid section can be patched, the rear most 8" of the heater channel needs complete replacement. I've asked one of my buddies who builds show-winning and magazine bugs whether or not I should patch or replace the entire heater channel.

Other then that, no surprises so far. A bit of bondo in the rear fender, and the underside shows the hammer marks where it was pounded out. Not quite sure what the damage was (it's very odd to damage a fender inboard of the tail lamp but nowhere else)...but no worries, it's fully reusable.


I've also started planning out the various items I need to cut the body for before paint. My buddy Gord, who builds the Subaru Canada rally cars, came over to discuss the roll bar options with me. Neither of us were fans of the rear-stays that came with my bolt-in roll bar, so we've agreed that he'll need to make some new ones for me. He also figured out a way to move it back another few inches to give me some more room. We'll add a cross bar and a harness bar into the main hoop. Fortunately, though, the main hoop in my kit is quite tight and will be useable.



I've also started to mock up the Accusump, Dry-Sump Tank and Oil Cooler. I think I'm going to set the car up with a "summer mount" and a "winter mount" for the oil-cooler. The winter mount will actually double as a heater for the inside of the bug. Packaging space for everything, as always, is a problem. Originally the drysump tank was going to go on the passenger side, but it needs to be sunk into the luggage floor. You can't do that, as the starter is in the way...so now it goes on the left. Then, since it's on the left, there is no longer any room for the Oil Cooler under the car...which means moving it into the car. Now the space where the Accusump was going is taken, so the musical chairs continue. Hopefully I don't get kicked out of the car before everything finds a space!



-Dave
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'71 Type 1 - Rally Project
'58 Type 1 - I bought an early!?!
'73 Type 1 - Proper Germanlook project
'68 Type 1 - Interm German 'look' project
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  #21  
Old September 26th 2011, 05:51
70Turbobug 70Turbobug is offline
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Looks great! I wouldn´t put the oil cooler inside the car,though.I don´t think it would be very effective because it only has amibient air to cool it instead of a stream of fresh air passing acorss the core.You could use two smaller coolers or a mesa type under floor cooler.A friend of mine also used his oil cooler as a heater it wasn´t effective at all whether for heat nor for oil cooling,so he relocated the cooler to the front of the car and installed an electric 12 volt heater from an RV catalog.
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  #22  
Old September 26th 2011, 13:06
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Interesting thoughts. I think I have the airflow problem worked out, once I fab it in you'll see what I mean. I did figure it would work for heat, the beetleball guys have their oil coolers hooked up this way for winter events. Hmmm...will rethink that one, and probably install a gas heater.

-Dave
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  #23  
Old September 26th 2011, 16:41
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i am REALLY enjoying this thread - keep the pictures coming! shame about the rim - i bet a few choice words were used! the shell looks insanely solid for a fat chick - good find!
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  #24  
Old September 27th 2011, 00:10
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Alright, so allow me to show you why it's a sub $2k car:



The luggage area is just a wee-bit rotten. Now, normally this might concern you as a buyer...but if you're like me, and realize you'd be cutting the luggage area for the Dry Sump tank, you just don't care. Now, I've always wished my white bug had just a little big of extra room in the engine bay. If it had, say an extra inch, my Breather tank wouldn't be rubbed by the carb, I could probably actually reach my arm in to bolt up the motor easier and I might even be able to adjust the carbs with greater ease.

If one inch would be good...wouldn't more be better? Awww heck, lets just make some room...





I haven't quite finished cutting out all the bad metal, but when I'm done tomorrow I'll have a clean slate for the firewall and the luggage area. The plan is to move the firewall in by 3", and adjust the luggage area to suit.

-Dave
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  #25  
Old September 27th 2011, 01:24
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Originally Posted by dub_crazee View Post
i am REALLY enjoying this thread - keep the pictures coming! shame about the rim - i bet a few choice words were used! the shell looks insanely solid for a fat chick - good find!
Thanks!

Yeah, that rim really hurt. I've been looking for a good set over the last two years, finally find a perfect set of five...and do that. Could be worse though, could be the car! haha.

-Dave
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  #26  
Old September 28th 2011, 03:10
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Started getting my Arts and Crafts on tonight...



...and when I could no longer handle it, started working on the removable apron, which will make pulling the engine so much easier. I'm pretty sure the apron was welded on by a guy who was told he'd lose his job if he didn't smarten up. There are TWENTY-ONE spot welds per SIDE!! Unreal. But now at least I can easily pop the apron on and off for pulling the motor. My friends who have done it say it's their number one favorite modification.







The road-race guys just use the pinching force of the fender bolts to hold their apron's on, but I'm not entirely convinced thats going to do it for the way I use my car. So I'll likely work out a bolt-on solution in the next few days.

-Dave
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  #27  
Old September 28th 2011, 18:30
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On the removable apron, I've seen guys run an extra fender bolt between the existing two fender mounting points. They drilled a hole and welded a nut on the backside of the inner fender well, and added a corresponding thru-hole to the edge of the apron and fender (if that makes sense). In addition to the "pinch" of the existing fender bolts, the thru-bolt won't allow the apron to blow off. And the apron can still be removed without removing the fenders...
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  #28  
Old September 28th 2011, 19:23
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Hi

Bad luck with the wheel, can you get another rim fitted to the centre?

Steve
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  #29  
Old September 29th 2011, 00:39
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Regarding the Apron, I haven't welded it up yet but I'm going to go with 1/2" tabs and some M5 bolts or hinge-pins and posts (think hood pins) all from the face of the apron. The Huebbe brothers, who rally a '69 in the Rally America Series, said the one thing they wished they had done with their removable apron was have it removable without having to deal with fender bolts. In a stage-rally service, you only have 20min to fix whatever needs doing, so every second counts!

And Steve, regarding the wheel, I could indeed get another rim fitted to the center, and might still. But for now it will work fine as a spare...once the budget stabilizes in the new year I'll look to repair it and powder-coat all five.

Back into the garage for yet another evening. Fire wall was cut out, then I ran it over to a friend's shop to put the two 90deg bends in it. Once tacked into place I instantly understood why Volkswagen ribbed the heck out of the factory firewall. Can anyone say "steel drum"? Not sure that dynomat alone will help it, but at the same time I only have it tacked in so we'll see how it is once welded in completely.





From there I worked out the side rails, and did some problem solving on the Oil-cooler mount. The overall plan is to have as much of the luggage-area floor removable, as it gives great access to the starter, clutch adjustment and the one engine bolt that is a pain to get to normally. I also figure that it should make reaching the 6-miles of oil lines and fittings I plan to install a little easier. In addition to moving the firewall in by 3", and the removable floor panels, I've also decided to move the luggage floor up by about 3". Its going to cause me some problems as far as the dry sump is concerned, but will give me more space above the transmission and Kaefer bar that I'm going to be installing. This in turn will make the oil-cooler mount much easier to problem solve. It's a trade off, with the Dry Sump, but one that seemed like a good idea this evening! And, really, I can always sink it back down if I have to (even just a portion of it) which I figure is easier then trying to raise it up down the road. At the very least, it will look better ;-)



Overall it was a pretty long night in the garage, with what feels like so little to show for it. Ah well, on the plus side I think I'm "over the hump" in regards to the firewall modifications. Once again picking up some pace and motivation to keep moving forward.

-Dave
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  #30  
Old September 29th 2011, 02:00
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Hi

It probably too late now, but I had a hatch made to cover my motor and the sheet metal guy made 2 very shallow diagonal folds in it which made it much more rigid.

Steve
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