TheSamba.com :: View topic - 57/58 Alken Fiberglass Coachbuilt Project

Mon Mar 18, 2013 7:06 pm

Went to Summit racing today and picked up some seat frame brackets for about $50 and I think they will work fine.

I will grind off the old standard sliders and weld on the bottom have of these mounts.

The wood is just for spacing, I think I will still put some light channels across the two brackets (joining the seat bolts across the two brackets). The height of the seats seems fine too. Getting in and out will be a little challenge, I can see why they chose suicide doors.

Sun Mar 31, 2013 4:37 pm

Interesting Speedometer

The speedometer is a Survey Speedometer. It must have been mounted in the car when it was made into an Electric Car by the Nic-L-Silver battery company. When usimg the Alken as a test mule and wanted accurate measurements on battery mileage.

It also has a gear reduction unit mounted in series with the cable to get the revolution of a wheel calibrated and corret. Top mileage is 10K miles.

It is 4 inches in diameter about the size of an early Ghia speedometer and has the design of a 30s Ford speedometer.

The date code on it indicates it is from 1954.

Working on the seat mounts today.

Also had to go with a Beetle rim for the spare because the 356 rim I had done was too wide to fit in the spare pocket.

Sun Mar 31, 2013 4:58 pm

Some more pics of todays work.

Seats are ready to weld in. Picked up some new sliders to from Summit Racing, they are just down the road about 15 miles. This gave me dual locks (both slides) which I liked better. The holes in the bottom are for me to weld them on the pan, the ones on the verticle were to "lighten them", looked cooler than flat steel. I wanted some better spacers than what came with the sliders so I went down to ACE hardware and picked up some 1/2 inch thick shaft collars that worked nice.

Beetle spare with smaller tire works for spare pocket, maybe I will mount it offsite.

Cool Nic L Silver battery that came with the car. I pulled the cells out of it today. I'm going to see if I can mount a new 12 volt red top get cell inside and cover with tar! Looks like the battery is dated 1/54 on the bottom.

I would really like to find a period 12 Volt one like in the bottom photo!

Wed Apr 03, 2013 3:50 pm

Enjoying your progress, Jeff--nice work!

Fri Apr 05, 2013 4:43 pm

Thanks Steve, all incouragement helps at this point as we have finally reached about bottom and are starting to build back up.....

Got to weld the seats in. Welded the brackets in at 32 inches back, right where the taper on these pans start. Hopefully my legs at 6 ft tall work out with this and my son can drive it too.

You can see where I blew out the holes to weld the brackets to the pan. I am likely to mount the seat belts to the rear bolts by makirng the hole larger for a seat belt bolt. This is why I wanted so much weld holding the seats down. I just don't like bolts down through the pan.

Further below I found a NOS 912 German voltage regulator from fellow Ohio VW friend Tom. We swapped stories and a bunch of 20s and I was off with the regulator. 14V 25 amp to match the 912 generator on the 58 engine.

Looks like I will have to drill two holes to mound it on top of the generator and turn the holding clamp a few degrees. I'll have to look around to see if there are any differen mounting ideas.

I will use say a new 1956-57 Ghia wiring harness so I want the regulaor mounted to the generator top like a Beetle. Some have scoffed with the terminals up on this generator - maybe they will swap me a rebuilt Beetle for 12V then?

The last photo shows the tank from my 1956 Ghia. To fit it in the tank has to be mounted backwards, the filler cut and moved to the center, and the bottom banged in a little to clear the stearing. Still looking for a choice tank. I will put a sending unit in the flat area where the standard filler necks is.

The standard Beetle rim and the 4.00X15 tire finally cleared the pocket created by the Alken Engineers!

Next step is to weld the later transmission mount to the pan before pan painting.....

Sun Apr 07, 2013 4:30 pm

Working on the correct position to weld in the front transmission mount on the pan.

I leveled the pan/frame horns and have located the weld in bracket against the bottom plate on the pan and made the face of the weld in bracket 90 degress to the pan/frame horns.

Thu Apr 11, 2013 3:44 pm

Well, got tired of playing with oil and grease so I thought I would do some wood working. Had a bunch of misc lumber left over from building the garage so I built a simple stand for the pan. Some of the lumber was 1X4 trim so I added a 90 spine to stiffen it.

This allows it to be painted top and bottom (well side to side in the photos) without rotating it. Works quite well.

For the front I used long thin bolts through the front bean holders bolt holes and secured 2X4 pieces to them. Several screws later it is quite sturdy.

I also built the uprights tall enough to span my 5X10 trailer rails. I will likely have it painted (no room in the garage) so I can haul it down the street fully supported without touching anything.

Maybe I can use it later for the 56 Ghia pan.......

Thu Apr 11, 2013 3:54 pm

From the research I have the Alken was designed in 1957, applied for pattent in 1958 with the pattent approved in 1959.

Mon Apr 29, 2013 9:46 am

Mon Apr 29, 2013 10:41 am

Mon Apr 29, 2013 3:41 pm

Great explanation on the gauge hotrodsurplus, maybe they believed they were going faster........

Got a chance to prime the pan over the weekend. With a little glazing here and there it will be great. Nice day on Saturday in Ohio. Took a while to figure out what type of primer I wanted.

Had to wait for the pedal mount to come in and weld it in.

I kept the bulk of the center tunnel mat in place, wish I had the part to go over the rear around the VIN.

I toughed it out and measured where the tranny mount should be and welded it in. I went 90 degress with the bottom of the frame horns.

Sun May 12, 2013 8:24 am

Working on the front axle so I can take it out and blast it. I will continue to use the 65 axle due to the nice condition and I like the damper. Not sure how this will work on the 58 pan to clear the fuel line but we will work it out.

I got some original tie rod ends with the castle nuts but need the left inner still 113-415-821 if anbody has one.

I made a chart so I know what I need. It has 356 spindles so I need the later 68 and on outers which have a larger shaft diameter.

Later today I am going to set the front king pin offset. I have the original alignment tool 270A to set the offse shimst.

I think the left side of the car up front was sagging so I flipped the top leaves around (my thought is to average out the sag). Nothing was cracked when I took them out and that side of the car just seemed to sag easier. We'll see later if this was a good idea.

Getting the axle together so I can blast it with the backing plates for primer.

65 Axle with 356A spindles

Sun May 12, 2013 10:22 am

Pulled out my old gauge, worked well. One offset was 6.0 and the other 6.5.

I also noticed in the VW manual that the torsion rods are at different angles by 1.5 degrees. This must be to assure some loading when the king pins are installed. The bottom arm hangs lower. Maybe it is just to compensate for the separation distance of the King pins?

With my Avis adjusters in, with the same number of notches which is two down (how I welded them on) I have maintained that angle.

Mine measure 19 top 21.5 bottom and the manual indicate 49 top 51.5 degrees bottom. Unloaded this indicates the lowered angle is about 30 degreesfrom stock. If I had this measurement I could have just done a cut and turn on the adjuster section of the tube.

Couldn't resist some math and playing with the torsion rod angles in the bottom sketch. This angle change, unloaded indicates a verticle drop of about 2.5 inches.

Notice in the background that the center grub screws used for lowering. The bottom screw still points higher than the top screw.

Sun May 12, 2013 4:00 pm

More work on the steering.

Seems the beam number is 3,216,137 which by the Samba table is a July 60 front axle? Would not have thought that.

I wondered because as I looked at the steering box is is a worm and sector not the later roller. Part number on casting is 111 415 111 and the top is 111 415 131.

Looks to be in great condition but I tore it down for cleaning. The seal on the bottom is a 28X40X6 mm maybe. I ordered 2, 5mm ones to see if they work (can use one for the 56 Ghia).

The pitman arm has markings 2571 VW and then a 28 on the bottom, right where the clamp pulls together.

On a Ghia thread I am trying to understand what 141.415.371 is for the sector box and 141.415.371A was for the later roller steering box. Seems that one Alken article from 58 talked about using the Ghia pitman arm so I am looking into why?

Sun Jun 09, 2013 1:17 pm

Back on the project today. Pulled the engine and started to pull some of the other items off for paint to move over to the other pan.

When I pulled out the pedals I had a little surprise. The either needed more travel or more leverage. The added a custom hook extension for the cable pull. The lever arm is now about 1.6X longer.

The last image was of two pulleys to connect to the clutch cable. I'll add the cable length later but these two pulleys take the place of the bowden tube. The are also positioned likely to use the stock cable.

I was thinking the clutch lever should be more straight up at rest like the VW but after pulling the engine from the trans this looks like the whole way back position.

Someone really put thought into getting the 356 driveline on this VW chassis.

Mon Jun 10, 2013 5:02 pm

Took off the starter, I guess it was from the 1958, 356 Porsche too.

The part number is EED 0.5/6 L35

I see BNR is recommended for rebuilds

Wed Jun 12, 2013 6:07 pm

Well, everything is off the 65 pan.

Here is the 1958 356 Transmission. You can see where the front support arms were cut off in the lower picture.

The adapter picture shows the first plate that mounts to the trans, the second plate is a filler where the VW trans use to fit into the vibration mount, then the early 60s vibration mount, then a spacer to adjust for overall length.

The second picture shows the assembled custom mount.

Below it is a picture of the transmission and the front support arms are cut off.

Tue Jun 18, 2013 6:09 pm

Loren is helping me out with a Ghia pitman arm. The parts book speaks of an early arm and a later. This is likely a late 50s from his recollection.

The Ghia steering column must be a lower angle. This pitman arm allows you to rotate the steering box to line up with the steering column while keeping the tie rod angles.

The Alken articles I read talk about needing a Ghia pitman arm likely for the same reason. Since I have to mount the tank backwards I think it will hit the column and need "banged in" to clear. I don't think this will help with that situation.

This Beetle sketch shows the angle of the steering box with no angle.

Fri Jul 05, 2013 6:24 pm

Finally got the pan primed and painted along with all the backing plates. I was able to keep all of the tunnel mat except for around the VIN.

I will sort through the parts tomorrow to find all of the hardware to take out for cad plating.

Sat Jul 06, 2013 5:44 am

Fantastic work Jeff!