Budget rail rebuild and dual carbs project

GoMopar440 · Posted: Fri Aug 07, 2015 10:32 pm Post subject:

I made the threaded inserts to go into the lower windshield bar. I made them from some 3/4" bolts with a 2" long shoulder. The inserts are threaded for 3/8"-16, the same thread as the bolts that were in there before.

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I removed the old bolts and drilled the upper holes out to 3/4" with a Unibit. I used a grinding wheel to radius the bottom of the inserts so they would match the curve inside the tube. They needed a little persuasion to go into the hole, but once they were in they fit nice and tight.

I used some new cap head bolts, a inside star washer and then a thick washer to reattach the steering bushing in place. The radius on the bottom of the insert fit the tube well enough that I didn't need anything to hold the insert from spinning while I tightened the new bolts. I cut the flap of sheet metal that was between the slots in the hood to give me room to grind and file the tops of the inserts. They are now flush with the top of the tube and ready to be welded.

I forgot to get a pic of the new handle on the hood while I was outside. I'll try to remember to get one tomorrow.
_________________
Homemade rail for street & off road: BJ front beam (bent), IRS rear (boxed/maybe bent), stock T1 DP 1600, 009, 34PICT-3 (soon to be dual 40HPMXs), 4-1 glass pack exh, T3 brakes (F disk, R drum & Dual MC), Bug trans (002, 5 rib going in soon).
Link to my rail (re)build thread: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=629493

GoMopar440 · Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2015 12:21 am Post subject:

House projects have been hogging most of my time lately it seems. I did manage to get some flux core wire and installed that into the welder yesterday. I also took a pic of the new hood handle installed. The spots on the hood are some black silicone I used to plug the random holes in the metal from it's previous life as a dog kennel roof.

I have three more of those handles and will be putting one on each door and the other on an engine cover of some kind. I never did find out what they originally came from though. The clerk in the antique shop didn't have a clue where they came from either.

I picked up a couple of CB antenna mount parts from a truck stop we stopped at yesterday. I have a 9' steel whip antenna so I got the extra heavy duty mount and spring. I'll still have to weld the mount to the roof and brace it so it won't flex and break off. This tall of an antenna mounted on top will probably make this rail look like a giant RC car going down the road. Maybe I should get a Buzz Lightyear costume to wear to finish off the look? Laughing

I just got a notification from UPS that my new front tires should be arriving tomorrow. They are Power King, Super Traction II 7.00-15 mud tread tires so they will be about 3" taller overall than the stock bug 165 street tires I have on there now. I couldn't pass them up for $115 each with free shipping. Here's a pic I borrowed from the ebay ad.

I'll post some pics when I get them mounted and installed, hopefully tomorrow. We have to clear out some space for our contractor to be able to do a bathroom renovation before I can work on rail stuff though.

EDIT: I forgot to add that the last of my buttons and the relays arrived in the mail today. Now I have just about everything I need to get started on the wiring upgrades.
_________________
Homemade rail for street & off road: BJ front beam (bent), IRS rear (boxed/maybe bent), stock T1 DP 1600, 009, 34PICT-3 (soon to be dual 40HPMXs), 4-1 glass pack exh, T3 brakes (F disk, R drum & Dual MC), Bug trans (002, 5 rib going in soon).
Link to my rail (re)build thread: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=629493

GoMopar440 · Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2015 9:56 pm Post subject:

I'm beat so I'll just let the pics do most of the talking. The tires came in today and I got them mounted and balanced on the front rims. When I got them home I cleaned up the wheels, masked the tires off and painted them. The lug bolts got cleaned and painted as well. I also cleaned and painted the front drums before installing the new tires on the rail. The first two pics show the size difference between the stock 165-15 tire and the 7.00-15. There's a solid 3" of height difference between these two tires.

And here's the pic of the new tires mounted. The extra tire height has almost completely removed the nose down stance. The bottom of the frame is now just about parallel with the ground. This was after letting the front end down off the jack, so it may settle down a bit after I move it around some.

I wanted to clean and paint the rear wheels as well but my lug wrench is too short to reach all the way inside the deep dished wheels. Gotta find my 1/2" extensions before I can get them off of the rear arms.
_________________
Homemade rail for street & off road: BJ front beam (bent), IRS rear (boxed/maybe bent), stock T1 DP 1600, 009, 34PICT-3 (soon to be dual 40HPMXs), 4-1 glass pack exh, T3 brakes (F disk, R drum & Dual MC), Bug trans (002, 5 rib going in soon).
Link to my rail (re)build thread: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=629493

GoMopar440 · Posted: Thu Aug 13, 2015 10:51 pm Post subject:

Let's see... Today I welded up the steering bushing bolt inserts into the lower windshield bar. I had to notch the sheet metal for clearance first and then grind the top of the weld flush with the bar afterwards. I touched up the paint on the steering column stub and the lower windshield bar before riveting the sheet metal patch over the hood sheet metal. I used some black silicone between the patch and the hood so it would be a watertight repair. After I cleaned off the excess silicon that squeezed out I painted the patch to match the rest of the hood.

Next up was the battery and battery box. I got a new battery a little while ago and it was a better fit for the smaller battery box that came with the rail. However, I liked the 12v power port and LED battery level indicator on the larger box. My solution was to retrofit the power port and the indicator to the smaller battery box lid. I drilled out the rivets holding them to the large lid and traced the cutouts onto the smaller lid. I used a hole saw and a drill to make them match so the power port and the indicator would fit. There wasn't enough room for the entire plastic cover that went over the battery indicator so I trimmed it down, leaving enough space for me to still see the LEDs and attach it with some bolts. I used some black silicone on these as well when I installed them for water resistance.

Then I removed the large box and lined up the smaller one for mounting. I moved it around some to get a little more clearance from the tie rod and then drilled the four mounting holes. I used large fender washers under the screw heads to spread the clamping load over a larger area. I took Richards advice and bought a metal hold down bracket and drilled two holes through the box and aluminum diamond plate floor for the long bolts that came with it. The battery needed the flared foot at the bottom edge ground down a bit to clear the hold down bolts. I got the battery installed and clamped... only to figure out that I had the terminals on the wrong sides.

Once I unbolted the battery, turned it around and bolted it back down I was able to reattach the battery cables. The top edge of the box was causing a kink in the cables so I clipped a notch on each side of the box to clear the cables. The wingnuts on the battery hold down also required a similar notch so the lid would close properly. At this point I noticed that I had left the battery box strap off and I would have to unbolt everything again to install it. Mad

It was getting pretty dark by this time so I called it a night and will get to installing the strap tomorrow.
_________________
Homemade rail for street & off road: BJ front beam (bent), IRS rear (boxed/maybe bent), stock T1 DP 1600, 009, 34PICT-3 (soon to be dual 40HPMXs), 4-1 glass pack exh, T3 brakes (F disk, R drum & Dual MC), Bug trans (002, 5 rib going in soon).
Link to my rail (re)build thread: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=629493

dustymojave · Posted: Fri Aug 14, 2015 8:51 pm Post subject:

Looks like improvements all around.

The battery strap is the lid retainer, right?
_________________
Richard
Offroading VW based cars since 1965
Tech Inspection 1963 - 2012 SCCA/SCORE/HDRA/MORE/MDR +
Retired from building Bajas, Fiberglass Buggies and Rails in the Mojave Desert. Also Sprints & Midgets, Dry Lakes, Road Race cars. All types New and Vintage
SoCalBajas Member
Kicked Cancer's A$$...1st and 2nd round...Fight ain't over yet.

GoMopar440 · Posted: Fri Aug 14, 2015 9:02 pm Post subject:

daanbc · Posted: Sat Aug 15, 2015 2:20 am Post subject:

I like the color of the front rims. Is that gun metal ?

GoMopar440 · Posted: Sat Aug 15, 2015 4:24 pm Post subject:

Guardian1 · Posted: Sat Aug 15, 2015 4:45 pm Post subject:

I am really digging the front tires, I like the way the buggy sits now! Applause

GoMopar440 · Posted: Sat Aug 15, 2015 11:47 pm Post subject:

GoMopar440 · Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2015 7:14 pm Post subject:

It looks like the contractor will be finished with the bathroom remodel tomorrow if he doesn't run into any unexpected problems. Once he's done with it I'll be able to start putting time in on the rail project more regularly again.

Those throttle shaft bushings I ordered from Ebay a long while back finally showed up in the mail recently. So last night, after the contractor went home, I installed a pair of the throttle shaft bushings into one of the spare carbs. They were a tight fit on the shaft which is a lot better than what was in there before. You can't really see it so I didn't bother to take any pics.

Today I decided to get the HF 2500lb ATV winch off of my work bench to get it out of my way. I took some 1.5" x 2" steel angle iron and made a couple of brackets to fit the front bumper on the rail. I turned the shorter vertical side on one piece up and down on the other. Next I centered up the winch mounting plate on the angle iron and welded it down. I made sure to leave enough room for the fairlead roller to clear the front bumper bar before welding though. Since I only rate my welding skills as so-so at best, I welded the entire perimeter of the mounting plate, on the top and the bottom. I also welded the holes shut in the plate where the mounting bolts would have gone. The way the plate lined up with the bottom of the winch I wouldn't have been able to put bolts in three of the four holes anyway. I used a flap disk on the angle grinder to clean up the weld spatter and then painted the bumper and everything on it blue. After that I drilled the 4 mounting holes for the bolts that held the winch to the mounting plate and bolted it down tight. The mounting plate already had the holes for the fairlead roller so I just had to install two bolts and tighten down the nuts on them.

I still need to mount the relay control box somewhere yet. I'm thinking of placing it on the inside of the hood area, just behind the winch. That would help keep it fairly dry and protected from any sticks or stones that might want to smack it or snag the wires.
_________________
Homemade rail for street & off road: BJ front beam (bent), IRS rear (boxed/maybe bent), stock T1 DP 1600, 009, 34PICT-3 (soon to be dual 40HPMXs), 4-1 glass pack exh, T3 brakes (F disk, R drum & Dual MC), Bug trans (002, 5 rib going in soon).
Link to my rail (re)build thread: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=629493

daanbc · Posted: Tue Aug 18, 2015 7:22 am Post subject:

Nice!! Does that unit have a remote?

GoMopar440 · Posted: Tue Aug 18, 2015 4:04 pm Post subject:

GoMopar440 · Posted: Sat Aug 22, 2015 2:54 pm Post subject:

The contractor wasn't here today so I had some free time for the rail. I wanted to get the big 4' x 4' piece of tempered 1/4" wallboard out of my way in the barn so I decided to make the windshield template. Since the opening for the windshield isn't square I first measured the top, bottom and side edges and then measured the diagonal dimensions as well. I transferred the measurements to the wallboard and cut it out with a fine tooth skill saw. Then I measured an 1/8" offset from the edges and trimmed that back to allow for the gasket material. I took the gasket and laid it out all the way around the opening and then added an extra 6" for trimming. I cut the gasket at that point and then proceeded to cut some 1" wide sections of gasket so I could mock up the template without having to fight with the entire gasket all at once. When I placed the template into the opening it appeared to be about 1/4" too narrow overall on both the sides and top.

To fix it I placed the bad template on the other half of the wallboard material and traced the lines 1/8" wider all the way around. A quick couple of cuts with the skill saw and the larger template was cut out. With the small gasket spacers back in place I fit the new template in the windshield opening. Now it takes some light pressure to fit the template into the opening fully.

I removed the template and traced the radius of a nickle (about 3/8" radius) in each of the corners to provide a bit of clearance for the welds in the corners. I used a disk sander to shape the radiuses and then used a palm sander to smooth the long straight edges. I used a paint pen to mark the "top", "front", radius info and where I wanted the safety certification to be located at (bottom left corner). After the paint dries I'm going to seal the template with wood sealer so it doesn't attract moisture and decay over time.

The rest of the buttons I ordered came in the mail yesterday. Now I just need the other relays to arrive before I can start updating the wiring. The contractors still have a bit more work to do before they're completely finished here. I'm just working on small bits and pieces of the rail as I have time to do so.
_________________
Homemade rail for street & off road: BJ front beam (bent), IRS rear (boxed/maybe bent), stock T1 DP 1600, 009, 34PICT-3 (soon to be dual 40HPMXs), 4-1 glass pack exh, T3 brakes (F disk, R drum & Dual MC), Bug trans (002, 5 rib going in soon).
Link to my rail (re)build thread: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=629493

Aerindel · Posted: Sat Aug 22, 2015 11:20 pm Post subject:

Have you figured out how you are going to do your wipers yet? You may want your windshield to be a little shorter and run a strip of sheet metal across the bottom 4" or so to mount a wiper motor to.

At least that is what I am doing.
_________________
Homemade woods/street, bug out rail. IRS, Balljoint front end. 1967 1600cc DP, Weber 32/36 progressive, tri-mil quiet pack. Rear only cutting brakes.

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=630046

GoMopar440 · Posted: Sun Aug 23, 2015 1:16 am Post subject:

I'm planning on going the other way with it and mounting the wiper motor over the top of the windshield. I have the gap between the two horizontal bars over the opening to work with there. The switches are also eventually going to be moved up there whenever I rewire the rail. However, I want the wiper motor(s) up there first so I don't run into too many clearance issues.

On a slightly related note, the contractor let me know he won't be back to work here until either Monday afternoon or Tuesday morning at the latest. Looks like I'll have some free time to tinker with the rail tomorrow. Very Happy

_________________
Homemade rail for street & off road: BJ front beam (bent), IRS rear (boxed/maybe bent), stock T1 DP 1600, 009, 34PICT-3 (soon to be dual 40HPMXs), 4-1 glass pack exh, T3 brakes (F disk, R drum & Dual MC), Bug trans (002, 5 rib going in soon).
Link to my rail (re)build thread: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=629493

GoMopar440 · Posted: Sun Aug 23, 2015 7:29 pm Post subject:

I kept my work area centered around the front of the buggy today since I've got most of the other items in that area finished already.

I took all the gas lift struts I got from the JY out to the rail to see which size would work best for the hood. I selected one of the longer sets that had a pin on one end and a ball/socket connection on the other. The pin end bracket was long enough for me to bend one bolt tang down 90* so I could attach it to the scrap 1.5" x 2" angle iron piece I've been working with. I cut two 1" wide pieces of angle and used a flap disk to clean them up for welding. The pin brackets were also cleaned of the paint so the weld wouldn't be contaminated.

I MIG'd the brackets to the angles and then cleaned the spatter off of them after they had cooled a bit. When I placed the brackets onto the frame tube it looked like they needed to be turned a little to align the strut so it wouldn't bind through it's entire range of motion. I placed the brackets in a large bench vice and used a 3' long crescent wrench to twist the brackets to where I wanted them. The angle on the bracket looked good, so I cleaned the paint of the frame bar to make it ready for welding.

Then I started working on the connection point for the ball end of the strut. With the pin bracket clamped to the bar I let the strut show me where the ball needed to end up. I shortened that distance by about 1/2" to allow for some residual compression to remain in the strut at the top of the hood's range of motion. The ball ends have a metric M8x1.25 thread on them, but the hood frame was too thin for me to try to thread directly into it. What I came up with was to thread two nuts onto the ball stud and then clamp them in a pair of vise grips. Once clamped, I removed the ball stud and then MIG'd the two nuts together. I placed a total of three welds, equally spaced around the nuts, and made sure to test the threads between each weld so the nuts didn't get out of alignment. I made eight of these threaded nut assemblies so I would have enough for the other struts later on as well as the two I needed for today.

I cleaned the spatter off the nuts and wire wheeled the paint off the area they would be going on the hood frame. I peeled back the foam gasket material on the bottom of the hood, far enough from the area to be welded that it would not be damaged by the heat. Next I used some welding magnets to hold the pin brackets to the frame tube. The bracket on the drivers side had some interference from one of the lower steering shaft bearing bolts, so I clipped part of the head away with a thin grinding wheel. I didn't want the hot welding sparks to get all over the place so I placed some large scraps of sheet metal around the working area to isolate it. When I MIG'd the driver side bracket to the frame, I also welded it to the cut away bolt to reinforce it. There wasn't anything in the way of the other side bracket so it was a little easier to weld.

At this point I cleaned the weld spatter and fit the struts to the brackets using the pins I got with the struts. I'm missing one of the small E clips for one of the pins so I'll have to get one of those soon. For now I just made sure to place the clip end of the pin facing downward so it wouldn't fall out of the bracket.

The doubled up nuts were then welded to the hood and I cleaned the spatter off of that area as well. Before attaching the struts for the last time I sprayed the welded areas with blue and grey as needed. The nuts got some metal bubbling through into the threads so I ran a tap through them before bolting the ball studs in place.

The struts clipped in place easily since I had already cleaned them up right after I bought them a while ago. With both struts in place, the hood feels like normal until it gets about half way open. Then the struts take over and slowly lift the hood to it's full open position.

The leverage and speed ended up feeling just about perfect for what I wanted it to do. Now I can work under the hood without having to worry about the hood slamming down onto my head when the wind picks up. Around here we get LOTS of wind and sometimes it kicks up without any warning.
_________________
Homemade rail for street & off road: BJ front beam (bent), IRS rear (boxed/maybe bent), stock T1 DP 1600, 009, 34PICT-3 (soon to be dual 40HPMXs), 4-1 glass pack exh, T3 brakes (F disk, R drum & Dual MC), Bug trans (002, 5 rib going in soon).
Link to my rail (re)build thread: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=629493

GoMopar440 · Posted: Thu Sep 03, 2015 11:13 pm Post subject:

Well the rail hasn't been getting any time or attention lately. The simple bathroom remodel got quite a bit more complicated and has been taking all my time and energy. My mom will be coming to visit in a bout a week from now so we've been scrambling to get everything done before then.

One of the biggest benefits of all the extra work is that I now have 220v power in the barn. As a result I finally have my big air compressor and large sand blast cabinet both up and working. That should help speed up a lot of the clean up an refinishing of the old cruddy rail parts that get removed to get repaired and refinished.

I've been collecting a few more small parts for the rail here and there, but nothing really major lately. Yesterday I did come across a nice find in a local thrift shop though. I picked up a flat tow bar in great shape for just $7 that will work perfectly with my rail front bumper. Score! Very Happy

The weather is starting to cool off up here already so I think I may just reattach the gauge/switch box under the bottom windshield bar as is for now. I'll deal with the complete rewiring project over the winter when it's too cold and/or snowy to be driving it.
_________________
Homemade rail for street & off road: BJ front beam (bent), IRS rear (boxed/maybe bent), stock T1 DP 1600, 009, 34PICT-3 (soon to be dual 40HPMXs), 4-1 glass pack exh, T3 brakes (F disk, R drum & Dual MC), Bug trans (002, 5 rib going in soon).
Link to my rail (re)build thread: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=629493

GoMopar440 · Posted: Thu Sep 10, 2015 1:15 am Post subject:

There still hasn't been any new progress on the rail yet with all the other house remodeling stuff going on. However, I did have something VW related happen today.

Remember that bastardized VW thingy my older neighbor down the street was selling a couple months ago? I offered him $500 for it back then and he declined my offer at that time. Well today he showed up at my house and knocked on my door. Apparently he was sick from all the forest fire smoke and spent a week in the ICU fighting with pneumonia and COPD as a result. When he got back home he decided he wasn't going to bother working on the VW anymore so he offered it to me for $450. So now I'm the owner of a Mad Max(ish) 1968 VW. I plan on stripping it for the parts I can use on the rail and then sell off the other parts to help fund the rail project.

BTW: This '68 VW has a swing axle on it right now. Can that SA transaxle be converted for use with an IRS suspension? If so, how difficult is the process to convert it? The rail already has a T1 IRS transaxle in it and I wouldn't mind keeping the new (to me) trans for a spare if I can use it with my existing IRS setup. In the long run I would eventually like to swap in a 002 or 091 into the rail, but I'm not in a big rush to get that done.
_________________
Homemade rail for street & off road: BJ front beam (bent), IRS rear (boxed/maybe bent), stock T1 DP 1600, 009, 34PICT-3 (soon to be dual 40HPMXs), 4-1 glass pack exh, T3 brakes (F disk, R drum & Dual MC), Bug trans (002, 5 rib going in soon).
Link to my rail (re)build thread: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=629493

dustymojave · Posted: Thu Sep 10, 2015 10:35 pm Post subject:

The Type 3 trans is a Type 1 trans, whether it's IRS or Swing. converting a swing axle to an IRS can be done, they use the same case. The IRS differential carrier (required) and the side plates need to be swapped out, and the transmission assembly has to come out of the case to shim the ring and pinion lash.
_________________
Richard
Offroading VW based cars since 1965
Tech Inspection 1963 - 2012 SCCA/SCORE/HDRA/MORE/MDR +
Retired from building Bajas, Fiberglass Buggies and Rails in the Mojave Desert. Also Sprints & Midgets, Dry Lakes, Road Race cars. All types New and Vintage
SoCalBajas Member
Kicked Cancer's A$$...1st and 2nd round...Fight ain't over yet.


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Budget rail rebuild and dual carbs project
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