TheSamba.com :: View topic

Sat Aug 30, 2008 1:25 am

I'll apologize now for the pictures and probably long page load.....dial up beware. If the pictures look huge, they'll downsize once the page is finished.

The build on my '67 Rascal is coming together, so I figured that I'd post what pictures I have. I'm hoping that it will be done in around a month or two, there is a car show in October that I'd like to go to. As I said, this is a strange place to start, but I'll try to dig up some of the original pictures of the buggy when I first got it. There was no paper work that came with this buggy, it was given to me by an uncle of mine who managed to put a rod thru the side of the engine case.

Just after having the old flat red paint soda blasted off, you can see some of the original factory gel coat on the front.

Those two patches on the back seat are where a previous owner had sent the rear suspension thru the body.

The freshly cleaned hood

Overview of the chassis, did the floor in Herculiner, replaced the front and rear suspension, front arms, rebuilt the drums, cleaned the transaxle, replaced the clutch and pressure plate, ran the wiring thru the middle column, replaced the rubber brake lines with steel mesh lines, replaced the rear bearing covers, all the bearings, lots of bushings and mounts, added a fire control unit, made a seat mount that's soon to be scrapped because the seating choice has changed, etc, etc etc. Yes, I know, my shop is dirty. Oh well, it works for me, at least my tools are organized. The exhaust is doomed to be replaced, only there to keep things from melting during the short run periods.

Not as clean as I've seen them done, but good enough for me.

Close up of the replacement engine: '67 Super 1600, with plenty of chrome to go around. Also, the chrome is rather dirty.

The new paint job is going back to original: blue metal flake.

Sitting in the paint booth with nothing but the base and first metal

Unfinished glass is getting a good, heavy, black undercoat.

Filled in dash, going to be cutting new holes for all the gauges.

No badge bump, but I've got a nose ridge.

More pictures going up soon, they're still stuck on the camera.

Sat Aug 30, 2008 9:41 am

And now, the body as of yesterday:

Most of these shots are oversaturated, because my camera's auto setting couldn't handle how shiny the body was.

this is the part that was directly in the sun, to illustrate my point

This is the rear passenger side fender, it took me a while to figure out what it was just by looking at the picture.

The hood still has one more coat that needs to be put on it, there's a little bit of bumps and a small drip on the nose

Sat Aug 30, 2008 10:25 am

That's why flake is KING! Nice job. You gotta be excited! Is that '32 glass? Any pics of it?

Can't wait to get my buggy to this stage!......soon as it cools down a bit.

Sat Aug 30, 2008 2:59 pm

Awesome.

What size flake did you use?

Sat Aug 30, 2008 7:39 pm

some good looking flake there. How many coats of clear?

Sat Aug 30, 2008 7:52 pm

The '32 is at the shop down the road from me where I got the body painted. I'm pretty sure it's an all steel body. As for the size of the flakes, I don't know, but I know we went thru a lot. And easily around a dozen or so coats of clear.

Talk about an expensive paint job :shock:

Sun Aug 31, 2008 12:07 pm

How was the texture of the gel coat after the soda blasting? Did it remove any?

Sat Sep 13, 2008 1:59 pm

The body was a bit rough after the soda blast, because they had to take off the top layer that the old paint had bonded too. Running your hand over it left you with some metal on it. Unfortunatly, you can't go back to gel coat this way, as we had hoped.

The wheels came in this week, and they look gorgeous

Cragar Street Pro 390s, 7 inches in front, 10 inches in back, with Mickey Thompson Sportsman S/Rs, 26 - 8 x15 in the front, 26 - 12 x 15 in the back. Ordered them from Newstalgia wheels, paid 1600 about, for all of it. Due to some problems with getting the wheels from Cragar, it took about a month to ship in. Totally worth the wait tho.

Sat Sep 13, 2008 6:12 pm

Shameless

Beautiful buggy!!!!

Can't think of where I have seen one like it? :D :D

You did an awesome job on the flake. Has more "sparkle" than mine.

You should be very proud!!

Sun Sep 14, 2008 11:58 am

After hours of centering the adapters and moving the buggy out of the corner into a better spot, the fruit of my labor. I finished at 0345 hours, but waited till today to take the pictures.

As you can see, the camber is obscene. I'm going to have to fix that, both for tire wear and because it looks bad.

With just the lug cover on, not the spinner as well

No lug cover.

My back wheels are a good bit hard to turn right now, and I think it's cause i need to adjust my brakes, but I'm not sure. I had to really crank down on the rear bearing covers to get the brake back plate tight, otherwise they would wobble a little bit. And I had to really crack down on the rear axle nuts, and I'm still not sure if I can put the cotter pin thru it. Any tips about that? Or tips about leveling the camber out, before I start on it? I've got the Muir book, and a couple others, and I think it's covered by at least one of them, but any personal tips for the project?

Sorry these updates are so far apart, I don't get a lot of time to work on the buggy.

Sun Sep 14, 2008 12:51 pm

Man, now I'm bummed.

I also have a Rascal (coincidentally it was blue flake originally, painted over with what is now flat red). I also wanted to use Weld Rod Lites which is a wheel very similar to yours.

Back to the drawing board :lol:

Great looking buggy so far though.

Tue Sep 23, 2008 3:46 pm

Yeah, it seems that the blue metal flake is one of the more popular colors, and seeing as there aren't that many good looking colors for a buggy......it gets taken a lot.

Found my issue with the rear wheels, the drums are rubbing the outer edge of the shoes. Not the pads, but the side of the mount.

You can see where there's rub around the outer edge.

Look closely at the top of the right shoe, you can see a bit of rub.

The shoes are new, but the drums are old. I think they're '68 5 lugs from a Beetle or Ghia, but I'm not sure. The only thing I can think of is a problem with positioning the shoes. There isn't any fluid or pressure in the brake lines at all, but the bottom of the shoes I don't think are in position either. I'm not sure how to go about fixing it, suggestions, anyone?

Tue Sep 23, 2008 4:35 pm

From what I can see, you have everything put together correctly. I think it may be that they were simply out of position like you stated. The brake shoes do have sort of a "resting place" so to speak once they are mounted. True them up (Visually) prior to placing the drums back on and spin the drums to listen for more grinding. Thats the only thing I could suggest unless we are talking about (possibly) the brake shoes being wider than the Drums?

Sun Nov 09, 2008 2:43 pm

Sorry for the long hiatus, school caught up with me and I haven't had any time to do any real work. But here's the status report:
Just hauled the pan (rolling pan) over to a shop today where the carb is going to be replaced with a dual carb kit (the fuel injector jet was gone, so needed a new one anyways). They're going to look at the brakes and find what's wrong with them, the suspension flattened out after being moved a bit, so no camber adjustment for me needed.
The plans for the roll bar and interior have been finalized, and when the first shop is done with the engine, it's going over to another shop to have the pan reinforced with some square track, the body mounted, the guages installed, steering column, interior done, roll cage made and fitted, windsheild installed, etc etc. Basically, it's on it's last leg of the build. Hopefully.
Unfortunately, I didn't take any more pics before we hauled the pan over to Donnie's today (the first shop, works only on VWs). I'll have some after it leaves there and goes to Wayne's though (the second shop, does a bunch of restos, but not very up to date on VW engines)

That's that. I'm ready to see this thing on the road already.

Tue Nov 11, 2008 9:01 am

Looking at your pictures, I have the identical body and hood, (dashboard is the real giveaway) but I thought mine was a VegasBuggies body. I see you called yours a "Rascal". Is that a brand/body style name, or just your pet name for the car?
Mine is still in primer while I work on the cage, but it is definitely the same kit. Here's a shot of my dash:

I don't have a shot of them handy, but my body also has the small bumps down low in the rear of the pan for torsion housing clearance.

Tue Nov 11, 2008 9:36 am

Poked around on the web and discovered that Rascal is a name for Sears kit. Thought I had heard it somewhere. Mine even has the little bumps for shock tower clearance on either side of the hole for the stock fuel tank, and did have the same cutout for the steering column to poke thru the lower dash in the cowl. Does anyone know when they stopped making them? I've been unable to determine when mine was built.

Tue Nov 11, 2008 11:21 am

I initially thought I had a Glitterbug, but a little snooping around made me realize that in fact I had me a Sears Rascal. I can't tell you the exact years of production, unfortunately, but I gathered that my buggy was a Rascal mainly by looking at this ad

http://www.manxgallery.org/gallery/album166/1971_Sears_catalog_back_cover

It's supposed to be from 1971, and by looking at the back end, it has the late tail box style back cover, over the carb. I would guess probably a few years earlier was the change over, give it five before the ad came out from initial production. So my guess would be anywhere from 1966 to about 1973 are the years. Don't hold me to that, it's just a guess. I personally consider mine to be a '68 body, out of nothing but the fact that the pan is from a '67.

To tell you the truth, I wish I did know, but unless someone has a backlog of all the Sears catalogs, with pictures, and a lot of spare time on their hands, then I'm afraid we're out of luck. As far as I can tell, there was nothing in the lines of an identification number for the bodies, but if there was, then mine is long gone. Painting and cleaning and repainting it would have removed it a long time ago.

A little bit more information (as well as a registry of a few other Rascals) is here http://www.dunebuggyarchives.com/registry/rascal .

EDIT: I've done a little more snooping and Sears does indeed have the complete "Big Book Catalog" backed upon microfilm. A listing of the places available is here:
http://www.searsarchives.com/catalogs/questions/findcatalogs.htm
If anyone does happen to have access to one of these collections and feels so inclined, please report on what you find about the years of production of this buggy. I personally will be attempting to find some information, but I'll have to do a bit of traveling to get to one of these libraries. I'm going to check at my university first, to see if they happen to have acquired one before I begin to research back at home.

Wed Nov 12, 2008 9:13 am

I never had any kind of mfg. tag on mine either, and had come up with VegasBuggies as the manufacturer by looking at pictures, but now I am not so sure. The rear of mine is different (bigger "box" around the carb area) than the other Sears pictures. I wonder if perhaps VegasBuggies bought some molds from whomever was making the bodies for Sears...anything is possible.

Mine is a pretty heavy layup...body and cowl weigh well over 100 lbs.

Here is a shot from the rear:

Wed Nov 12, 2008 10:07 am

That carb cover looks about like mine does, I just don't have a liscense plate light mounted on there like you do. Looking at the pictures of the two side by side I would say they're the same buggy, maybe a different year apart from each other or something, but incredibly similar, and the body of mine has some weight to it as well. You can pick it up by yourself if you really tried, but not very easily, just because there's no easy way to pick it up. And Terra Buggy is the company that made the bodies for Sears.

Wed Nov 12, 2008 10:49 am

Hey Shameless what did you find out on your rear drums rubbing on the shoes?? Where they the wrong drums for the Tranny??

Dave