TheSamba.com :: View topic

Fri Feb 15, 2019 10:26 pm

Well what can I say. I have been waiting for my oldest son Randy to become interested in turning wrenches and building something. The day has come. He picked up a sand rail project this past weekend.
I don't think he did too bad he got the tube frame, trans, front end and motor all for the price of 300 bucks. I think it will be a good project and it is something him and I can work on together. He is 17 so it's going to be a super budget build because he wants to pay for it himself.
LOL I already warned all my buddies that I would probably be begging for some good used parts. You know them parts that we all have that we hoard because we can not bring ourselves to just pitch them, although we will never use them.

Well like most of my threads this one will be picture heavy. Enjoy..

this was how we found it on craigslist

and on the trailer

He dove right in and started taking things apart.

and then we installed some tabs to hold the floor in.

well more to come.

Sat Feb 16, 2019 8:33 am

Nice find....

Dale

Mon Feb 18, 2019 1:30 pm

Great project. Looking forward to your build.

Mon Feb 18, 2019 6:25 pm

Nice score on the rail. Cool to see the kid gettin' after it. I dig the chop top too.

Mon Feb 18, 2019 7:15 pm

Ahh yes another ConcreteAce build, well at least one with you involved :lol:

Tue Feb 19, 2019 6:45 am

Stauffenberg wrote: Ahh yes another ConcreteAce build, well at least one with you involved :lol:

I might be a little in over my head on this one. It is definitely going to be interesting with the blind leading the blind.

Tue Feb 19, 2019 7:10 am

Well this weekend really sucked because it was a four day weekend and the bulk of his parts to mock things up will not be in until today, so we couldn't get much done. He did get a few things sorted. He also got to open his first package from UPS, he now knows why I am always excited. Also knows how it feels to track a package and be bummed when it's still a day out.

A few photos of what did go down this weekend.

It took forever to get this one hub off. Pretty much everything is seized. Backing plates are missing the adjuster tabs. But the trans is apart

shift coupler was toast and rusted to the hockey stick.

Randy started on cleaning and painting the pedal assembly. I forgot to take a before picture. We are waiting on a few parts to put this back together.

He also scored some seats from his Grandpa.

The seats are proving to be challenge, my plan is to hard mount the passenger seat, but add a slider to the driver seat. I really do not think this rail was ever built. A couple of things lead me to believe this. The floor came with the rail but was never installed, no tabs and no signs of a previous floor welded in. Also no tubes for the clutch or accelerator cables, yet it has brackets welded in for the pedal assembly and brake master cylinder. Those brackets are so far away that when I sit in the seat the pedal assembly is about a foot away. Also there is nothing on the cross bar for a steering shaft. I am guessing this could have been clamped on though. I do not see any signs that seats have ever been installed. So who knows.

Mon Jun 24, 2019 8:19 am

Well this project hit a major roadblock and was stalled a bit. First off my son had to improve on some grades so I wouldn't work on it until he got them rectified. Then I figure out that the torsion housing had been welded in at the wrong angle. I enlisted the help of a good buddy to cut it off and weld it back in the correct angle, before we started cutting things off we measured and found a few other issues. The entire frame was welded wrong, it was 1 1/2 inches out of square. the beam clamps were welded to the beam and they were off center by over an inch. That was just a few things I found wrong.
I decided at that point it would probably be best to find a different frame. So I went on the hunt and found one local for $600. This time I measured things before I loaded. The other frame was the first one I had ever bought, had I known what I know now I would never have bought the first one. This new frame came with a few spare parts including 2 sets of Kadrons.

The welds on this rail are wayyyyyy better than the welds on the old rail.

unfortunately his seats will not fit, they sit way to high.

we got to work building a floor.

cut the ill welded clamps off the beam.

He also scored some low profile seats from a buddy of mine.

now we are waiting on a new steering shaft , and a new steering wheel. The 13" wheel is to big and the shaft is to short. I ordered him a 9" hopefully that will work. Im afraid it will be to tiny. Like I said this is my first rail build. I have no idea what I am doing.

Mon Jun 24, 2019 7:52 pm

And its a cooler looking frame!

Mon Jun 24, 2019 9:20 pm

weasel_ugs wrote: And its a cooler looking frame!

Randy and I agree. :D

Tue Jun 25, 2019 7:31 pm

Quote: The 13" wheel is to big...

I ordered him a 9" ...

So he can get arrested and still drive with cuffs on? 8)

My Hi Jumper has a 13". While this car is lower profile than mine above the upper side rails, I can't see a 13" wheel NOT fitting.

The seats should be "lay-down" fiberglass seats, which is what this low profile cage rail is designed for. With that low roof there is no way sit up seats will work.

Wed Jun 26, 2019 4:16 am

dustymojave wrote:

So he can get arrested and still drive with cuffs on? 8)

My Hi Jumper has a 13". While this car is lower profile than mine above the upper side rails, I can't see a 13" wheel NOT fitting.

The seats should be "lay-down" fiberglass seats, which is what this low profile cage rail is designed for. With that low roof there is no way sit up seats will work.

yeah the smaller wheel arrived, it"s ridiculously small, I ordered a new steering shaft so hopefully that will solve the issue with the 13" one hitting the outer bar. I tried searching for some "lay-down" fiberglass seats and can not find any.Are they still available from a supplier? All I can find are the poly seats at most sites. So these lowback fiberglass ones I just got won't work? Which will suck because I already ordered covers and foam set for them.

Fri Jun 28, 2019 7:18 pm

I've not seen them for sale for a long time. They were used in lots of VW-based kit cars, as well as low profile cage buggies like Invader and Fugitive. Probably have best luck searching for them on the Samba Classifieds and at VW swap meets. Maybe some of the dune buggy FB pages. (I know...That's like yelling, "Yay Dodgers" at Yankee Stadium...

Sun Jul 07, 2019 8:15 pm

Well he finally picked a color.....

Also got his rims painted, and tires mounted

got the steering shaft welded in and the back plate section tabs welded on, ran some tubing for the clutch cable and accelerator cable, bolted the seats to the floor. still have seatbelt tabs to attach and a few more odds and ends like more lights and a winch.

Mon Jul 08, 2019 5:51 am

Might I suggest adding some frame horn supports at this stage. Adding these can dramatically improve the longevity of the frame horns and add a bit of stiffness to the rear.

Mon Jul 08, 2019 2:02 pm

the frame actually has two bars that bolt on the frame horn mount that go to the top bar above the trans.

Tue Jul 09, 2019 4:36 am

Perfect, good progress thus far.

Sun Jul 14, 2019 4:40 pm

Since I have practically zero pipe bending skills I installed a Baja front bumper. It works well and it also doubles as a mounting platform for the winch.

I also had to relocate the fuel tank from its previous location due to not having a place to put the battery, so I ended up hanging it from the top bar and built a battery tray below its former location.

I also made some captive brackets for the seats, that way I could glue the foam down and not worry about the nut spinning

Then we made some brackets off of the front beam to hold some lights.

Now Randy is hard at grinding my gorilla welding

almost finished with the mochup , I still have to figure out some kind of switch box to house the ignition switch 2 idiot lights and three acc light switches.

Sun Jul 14, 2019 5:04 pm

Looking good

Mon Jul 15, 2019 5:08 am

Any concerns with hanging the tank vs bolting it down? Looking good!