TheSamba.com :: View topic

Thu Aug 15, 2013 5:11 pm

A little background: I bought this car about 5-6 years ago on a whim off ebay (my then girlfriend always liked the looks of). It had been rear ended, and had an engine fire. It was in terrible shape. I worked on it pretty hard the first year, got the body off and the chassis all redone and ready to go. Then life happened and I was only able to work on the body a little here and there. Fast forward to last Fall. My now Fiance and I bought our first house with a small attached single car garage. I spent the first few months redoing the garage and buttoning it up as air-tight as possible. She decided that it would be cool to have the Thing finished up in time for the wedding 8/10/13. So in January of this year, I brought the body over and set it up in the garage for an all out marathon to finish the car in time. I spent as much free time as I could spare over the next 7 months scrambling to get the car finished up. I finished the car and took the first test spin a week before the wedding. I tried to take as many pictures as I could through out the process, but I admit I was quite busy at times and neglected to photograph a few steps along the way.

Anyway, here is how it turned out!

Thu Aug 15, 2013 5:42 pm

Nice, no pictures with the happy couple?

Thu Aug 15, 2013 5:42 pm

Nicely done Sir!!

Any Lady should be proud to cruise in that Thing!!

Thu Aug 15, 2013 8:06 pm

nice job love the dash

Thu Aug 15, 2013 9:42 pm

Looks good. Which bed liner did you use on the interior?

Fri Aug 16, 2013 12:19 am

Wow, just amazing. I'm not usually a fan of red Things but with all the black accents and the beautiful paint job I love it!

How do you like the 2234 you built for it?

Fri Aug 16, 2013 4:32 am

77kafer- Waiting on pics back from the photographer, hoping to meet with him this weekend. Will put up a pic of us once I have it.

Chuck- It's Herculiner with a couple coats of their UV protectant on top.

GodJockey- the 2232 has about 60 miles on it now. I went to drive the thing to a local cruise in last night and the voltage slowly crept up past 17 volts, so now I need a new alternator (stupid Chinese replacements). Honestly, I'm not sure if its the added weight of the car or the short Thing gearing, but I'm not overly impressed with the performance. It's got a ton of torque thanks to the 84mm crank, but I think my 69 street baja with the 2085 is quicker. It may just be me though, my dad drove it and had a hard time keeping up with the car (although he's used to his worn out 1641 in his bug). I've got to pull a plug and check it out, I should be able to get more out of it with some tuning.

It's hard to tell in the pics, but that is a full custom exhaust I put together for it. I bought an 1 5/8 mergerd header and an old dual glasspack bug exhaust, and added two deltaflow 40 series flowmasters. It took some bending and welding, but it exits out through the stock bumper cutouts and sounds great. I didnt like how far out the merged flange stuck past the bumper, so I ended up cutting about 3.5" out of it and relocating the flange back farther. Now it barely sticks past the bumper, and it helped the mufflers fit farther back.

I did some more little custom touches, like the early single filament front turn signals I converted to do both functions (turn and parking lights), HID headlights, and automaticly controlled headlights. The rear license plate light is also an LED unit now. The car is running an adjustable Thing beam with ghia spindles and disc brakes, lowered one outer notch out back with flipped rear arms and disc brakes as well. The color is Porsche Guards red.

Fri Aug 16, 2013 7:22 am

Looks great! Congratulations on the car and the nuptials!

Fri Aug 16, 2013 8:16 am

Before you change the alternator, do you have a regular dash light hooked up to it? (idiot light) And not a gauge or led but regular bulb?
If not, run a jumper wire from positive side of coil to a generic bulb and the other side of bulb to the push on terminal of alternator and retest. You can also do this with a test light

Fri Aug 16, 2013 10:34 am

Looks fantastic ! Love the digital readout. How does that exhaust sound?

Fri Aug 16, 2013 7:07 pm

mcmscott- The alternator is indeed bad. I verified the voltage with a multimeter across the alternator and battery. It is overcharging. There is something bad inside the case. I can disconnect the exciter wire and the alternator will still produce an excessive voltage. I shouldn't be getting anything out of the alternator without the exciter at that point.

thatthing- Exhaust sounds good inside the car. the delta flow mufflers are advertised as an aggressive exterior tone, with a moderate interior volume. It sounds good to me in the car, but I havnt had anyone drive by me in it to know how it sounds coming at you :lol: I took it by the house and got on it a bit and the wife said it sounded really good.

Sat Aug 17, 2013 10:20 am

If it is over charging, then the regulator is not working(internal or not). The alternator uses the field wire to determine voltage.
Just trying to save you a buck and some time. Congrats on the wedding stuff,my wife is my best friend of 20 years. I wish you the same

Mon Aug 19, 2013 4:58 am

Sweet ride!

I dig the matching front door as well.

Mon Aug 19, 2013 5:20 am

landkholdings wrote: Sweet ride!

I dig the matching front door as well.

Lol, thanks! That was last weekends project, new front and storm door. That one on there was solid wood, its one heavy sucker! Unfortunately it sagged, closed hard, and leaked like crazy in the winter.

Thu Aug 22, 2013 12:06 pm

Congrats on the new wife and the new mistress (Thing)! Car looks great! Hope you have lots of great drives in it. I took my now-wife on our first date in my Thing in Binghamton, NY. I knew when she didn't run off after seeing it, she was a keeper!

Thu Aug 22, 2013 5:32 pm

Very nice!

Fri Aug 23, 2013 12:55 am

Bashr, I cannot believe how good that looks. you did it. Awesome, and congrats on the nuptuals. I recall seeing pics of this on another wildlife forum years ago back when I still had a 181...it really came out nicely. WOW!
What is the story on the dash pod, what did it come out of? I really like it a lot!

Mon Aug 26, 2013 12:51 pm

dagimp wrote: Congrats on the new wife and the new mistress (Thing)! Car looks great! Hope you have lots of great drives in it. I took my now-wife on our first date in my Thing in Binghamton, NY. I knew when she didn't run off after seeing it, she was a keeper!

Dagimp, thanks! We are both from the Binghamton area (endicott and port crane), and we now live in Johnson City. Doing our part to keep at least one Thing around the area!

carterzest: The dash is an intellitronix 6 gauge panel. New they are 3-400, but I found a dealer on ebay that rebuilds the units. It has all the factory support, lifetime warranty, and came with the electronic speedometer sensor, special oil temp, and oil pressure sensors needed to make it work. With free shipping, it cost me around $150! Couldnt beat it! PLus it originally was setup to have a water temp gauge, but I contacted the vendor and told him what I was using it for and that I wanted oil temp instead, and he replaced that module in it free of charge. I designed a replacement dash panel at work, and had it laser cut and bent to fit.

Mon Aug 26, 2013 6:10 pm

We finally got our wedding pictures in. Heres some real pics of the car. I wish I wasnt squinting so bad!

Mon Aug 26, 2013 6:21 pm

:shock: wow, she's a beauty!! Oh, and your bride is a looker as well!! :wink:

Congrats on both man, the Thing looks awesome!! That flattened out look has me wanting to lose my roll bar...... Hmmmm......

No action shots of that veil flying while driving?! Lol