Building my 69 Baja from the ground up

[Adrenaline Junky]

Well I thougt I better start posting a thread before this thing gets done....

First off, I want to thank all that have posted informative threads and answered my relentless IM's. I've been on the forum for about a year now doing research and gathering information. So as a payback if anyone has a question or wants to see a photo of something just let me know.

I picked up this bug in late October.

Work on it through the holiday season was slow, but after New Years I started rolling. Here's where I'm at today. Actually I'm a little further but I need to save some pics to post later

First thing was to strip her down

Clean the pan with pressure washer. Knocked off 37 years of crud build up (neighbors loved this!)

The floor pans were worse than I thought so I removed them

Cut the wishbone for the 10 degree mount

Had to trim 9/16 to get the tranny to fit in the tunnel

Modified the pan to weld the front mount

Installed the new pans

Stripped the pans

Applied 2 coats of Eastwoods POR

I can hear it now "Trailer Queen". Yeah right. Trust me it's going to get run hard. I like to think of it as paying attention to details Figured I would never have it this far apart again. Besides if I hadn't stripped it, I wouldn't have found these cracks in the wishbones. That could have been disaster later in the hills....

I welded them up and hit them with Eastwoods

Here's the torsion pin retainers I fabricated

Little one is crying, gotta go!

[Kraut_n_Rice]

Good start!
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'68 Baja project will be powered by Supercharged 3.2 Acura on Megasquirt and a Mendeola 2D
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[el loco kingo]

lookin good.
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CUSTOM OFF ROAD FABRICATION FOR VW TYPE 1.. BOLT ON KITS. for more info, please go to: http://www.myspace.com/blackmetalworks


http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=143790

[Adrenaline Junky]

Ok, kids are in bed, back to business.

I started cutting parts off with the sawzall. Without the fenders and the one piece I was a little unsure how far to cut. This was a conservative approach.

Here's the front end cut off and welded around the seams.

And the rear

Ran into some rust in the package tray area.....

So I cut it out and built a frame to replace it.

Bent some sheet metal and filled it in

Snapped a 17mm bolt removing the body so I had to fix that before putting it back on. Here's my fix. Cut it out and weld it back

I didn't want to have to deal with stripping the paint after the cage was installed. Started in with a wire wheel and aircraft stripper. That was for the birds Made a call to Ugly Jugs in Rocklin CA. $200 for the body inside and out and doors. That's right, I loaded it up and hauled it to media blast

Not a speck of paint on it. Well worth the cash!!

Used my friends spray booth at Top Notch Auto in Rocklin CA the next morning for a fresh coat of PPG Epoxy primer. First time with a gun in my hand (paint gun anyway). Might even paint the thing.....

I'm a little behind on the pics. Made a lot of progress since then. Have piles of parts waiting to go on. More to come.....

[Adrenaline Junky]

A little more progress.....

Fabricated a couple blockoff plates for the old heater holes. Stock bolts mounted them right up.

Here's what you get with the Beannie Boy kit from VeeDub parts unlimited for those interested. The kit is pretty much complete.

Installed the arms and along with some 31 10.5 All Terrain TA's on BTR racing wheels

Baja has to stop when going fast...... 4 piston Gearone discs out back should help.

I've also mounted the bus 002 tranny to check for travel, bumpstops and mounting the shocks on the arms and inside to the roll cage I started this weekend.

[Nicksan]

Looking good. Nice fab work.
How are you going about fixing the crack in the framehorn?

[Skidmark]

I have heard good things about the Gear One brakes. Did they bolt up without any problems? No fit or alignment issues?
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"It's not complicated, it's just expensive!"

WARNING! This person has been consumed by the Dark Side.

www.socalbajas.com

http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q148/bajaskidmark/SCBaja.jpg

[Adrenaline Junky]

Nicksan, I layed a bead over them with the welder. I also plan on attaching the horns to the cage for additional support.

Skidmark, Gearone prides themselves on "bolt on". Although some rear arms have a little specs. My rotor didn't line up directly down the center of the caliper. Gearone said if I sent them back they would modify the brackets for me free of charge. It wasn't off by much so I choose to shave .070 off each outer bearing spacers to get them to fit.

[Skidmark]

Sounds like good customer service to me. Just a little pain in shipping them back if you go that route. I have new German Thing drums for the rear right now, not sure if I am going to use them temporarily or just bite the bullet and go disk...
_________________
"It's not complicated, it's just expensive!"

WARNING! This person has been consumed by the Dark Side.

www.socalbajas.com

http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q148/bajaskidmark/SCBaja.jpg

[Adrenaline Junky]

Hey Skid or anyone else,

If you decide to go with Gearone wait until they attend an offroad race, which they do quite often. Call them the following week and ask for the discount they offered at the race. Save you $100 per set

[JOSHIE68]

Nice work!
I'll be following along as I just started on mine. It's @ a '72 body on a '69 pan.
I'm looking forward to the front end work. I plan on cutting off my pan and fab up a new mount for a linkpin front end.
I really need to start a thread of the build.
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'72 Sand only project bug----just starting!

[tstone]

Could you please tell me the benefit of the ten degree mount? Also is the torsion pin retainer to avoid the bolt from backing out? by the way looks great and my neighbors love it when I do that stuff also
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74 Vert,

[rickosuave1987]

[runslikeapenguin]

just stick the shift rod on top of the tunnel it will make your life a ton easyier
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never forget 1-31-07

[subybaja]

The 10* mount is also urethane instead of hard-mount like the above-the-tunnel types.
It also (obviously) kicks your engine up 10* for a little better departure angle.
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Insanity: /ɪnˈsænɪti/ -noun: repeatedly voting for the same party and expecting different results.
Vote Libertarian

[Adrenaline Junky]

I liked it because you don't have to cut a big hole in your body to make it fit.

[Adrenaline Junky]

Some of you might remember the tubing bender I built. I tried to find the link but it looks like it got lost in the crash. Well anyway, here's a tubing bender I built for $213.
$180 - Pro-tools die
$20 - 12 ton bottle jack
$13 - steel

Started with this

Ended with this

Well I finally got to use it. Took a little to figure out the characteristics of the bends. But I'm getting better Here's the beginning of the cage work. Believe me it's VERY time consuming, but fun if your into this kind of thing.

That big tube in the second pic is my mock up shock. It's a 4 in piece of PVC to get me in the ball park All new Fox coilovers on the way. 14in 2.5 for the rear and 12in 2.0 for the front.

I'm flying by the seat of my pants on this build. If anyone sees me doing something drastically wrong please chime in...... It will be appreciated.

[Adrenaline Junky]

Ok, had a little down time for a couple weekends. The mother inlaw was here this weekend so I got some time in the garage. She says to my wife "Boy he sure spends a lot of time in the garage when I'm here" Hmm.......

Anyway got the rear Mark V race fenders mounted up. Read about AVK fasteners in Skidmarks thread. Checked them out local and bought some. I bought the little manual tool for $6. Worked like a champ. Here's what they looked like.

The fenders

Did some more cage work. Man this stuff takes a long time..... I looked at many cage photos and combined them. Some may look familiar. So, if you see something that resembles like yours. It's a compliment

Fabricated a bumpstop

Everything is just tacked together. When I get some time I'll lift the body and weld her up......

[Skidmark]

Glad you liked those fasteners... just don't cross thread one and spin them.
_________________
"It's not complicated, it's just expensive!"

WARNING! This person has been consumed by the Dark Side.

www.socalbajas.com

http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q148/bajaskidmark/SCBaja.jpg

[crane550]

Like you, I tend to pay attention to detail and spend WAY too much time on little things like paint and such. I just went and bought 6 cans of stripper and used it, but doing it again I wish I would have just taken it to someone to have it blasted. Still not all done.

Love the way your is turning out. Keep up the good work and the pics!
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How big of a hammer will it take to fix this??