Given (probably) a Chenowth 2lw, a few vintage buggy questions

[racecougar]

Nice! That FLIR camera is a handy tool to have. The bend and exhaust detail on the sail panels look great.

Been driving it much? Mine is insured as of today. I ended up doing a $10k agreed value policy with Grundy (added it to my other policies with them), and it was surprisingly not a hassle at all. Now if my title would just show up in the mail, I'd be able to go get a license plate for it.

[jimmyhoffa]

For sure! I started driving it as soon as it warmed up, and that motivated me to tidy up the panels and get some at least mediocre paint on them. I am looking to get back to St. Joe's now that I have carburetor shielding and a steering stabilizer - my two issues from last time. It didn't stop me from launching the car 4 feet in the air, and I aim to do it again. I have one bus stabilizer on the hydraulic assist tab of the rack now, and I have the mounting provision for another one on the other side of the tab if I need it. We'll see how one does first.

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1974 Chenowth 2RL #1244 Street Legal
My other car isn't ridiculous.

[racecougar]

Right on! I'm shooting to get back to St. Joe in the next few weeks, but I'll be taking my daughter and our ATV's. She's stoked to get to go ride at her first off road park.

[jimmyhoffa]

Finally getting a chance to attack some lingering quickie-fixes on the car. The oil filter mount was scabbed onto the trans brace tab and was pretty scary. I sorta forgot about it, until I didn't.

Oil filter mount machining:

Cute little milled out weight reduction doubling as bolt head locks so you only need a 13mm to unbolt it! Proud of that little innovation. Sorry it's dark, the Costco LED lights above my car died and it's midnight here.

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1974 Chenowth 2RL #1244 Street Legal
My other car isn't ridiculous.

[racecougar]

I dig it!

The terrain at St. Joe was WAY softer and smoother Saturday than it was for my trips in October and November last year. It was so rough last year that I didn't understand why anyone would want to subject themselves to the spine-compressing misery of trying to run at any appreciable speed there. It was more like rutted concrete than sand. Now I get it; the terrain changes a ton based on the weather.

[jimmyhoffa]

Yeah it is definitely way different. Way more comfortable in the dry. The sand has way more traction the few days after a rain though, and if you wrench your harnesses down in your seat it beats you up less, and you can run faster in the hard rutty stuff.

I ended up hitting the strip Sunday for Import Face-off, ran in the high 13s until I did a burnout in the box and something irreversible happened to my Dick Cepek AT tires. They never hooked again. I didn't give up though. The drag crowd dried up towards the end and I just kept ripping laps through staging. Probably put down 25 passes.

Link

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1974 Chenowth 2RL #1244 Street Legal
My other car isn't ridiculous.

[racecougar]

Nice! That's out of the norm for Gateway, at least how it used to be anyway. I was typically lucky if I got three passes there over the course of a day; way too much time sitting in the staging lanes. That said, I haven't raced there in a decade now.

[jimmyhoffa]

I got my carb protector panels trimmed, sanded, primed and painted with 2k single stage paint and now they're quick-release with DZUS fasteners. I perfectly matched the horrible orange peel on my other stuff I painted too, since I'm an expert. The gold heat tape actually works really well that close to the exhaust, and now I finally get to do the art project! Graphics and sticker time! I got some name stickers with the flag, but they're kinda small. I also designed some little filler brackets to secure the firewall out of .060" SS and printed prototypes. (See the yellow bits) I am going to have them dimple-died which I think will look tasteful.

Next I pushed forward on the hood which is a horrible incredibly time-consuming task.

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1974 Chenowth 2RL #1244 Street Legal
My other car isn't ridiculous.

[racecougar]

They look really good! That hood should keep you a bit drier next time you take it out in the rain.

[jimmyhoffa]

Thanks man! I had a sample of Vvivid Neptune Blue Pearl vinyl wrap from a vendor booth sample at the Diode Dynamics open house 2 years ago. I tried poorly to teach myself how to do this real quick. No doubt the workmanship is rough but I'm in love with the color. Blue it is for the whole car. I'm not joking, I'm 100% sold on this. Already ordered more wrap.

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1974 Chenowth 2RL #1244 Street Legal
My other car isn't ridiculous.

[ORANGECRUSHer]

What material did you fab the carb guards from?

NM I went back and saw what I missed..
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Brian H.

OrangeCrushERBerrien Warrior-2.4L Quad4-2x3 arms-1.5Fox coilovers-094-930CVs
LAZY MARY1970 Baja 2110cc-82mm CB forged crank-AA pistons/cylinders-Grant rings-1.1 vw rockers-CB serpkit-CB chromoly PRs-CB maxiflow filter pump-wix51515 filter-Dual 44IDF-cut/turned front beam-AEM wideband-Auber CHT-Donaldson Dual PowerCore filters-custom AL air boxes

[jimmyhoffa]

Good progress on the wrap! Everything I know at this point is from the experience pictured, or the Canadian guy I found on YouTube. All things considered it's going well. Everything but the hood is done and on the car!

Next I thought to try to attack the spider crack on my hood without sanding out all the gelcoat like you're supposed to. I really hate bodywork and I had this feeling I was setting up to make something worse than it already was. So, I gouged out the cracks with a razor, and vacuum-extracted them with this lil pneumatic vacuum generator thing I had from a few jobs ago. Then I sprayed some 2K epoxy primer on WAY thick, and started using the vinyl squeegee to smash it down into the cracks. It purged the cracks full and eventually stopped taking any more. Then I let it cure, sanded it, and primed the hood! You almost can't see it.

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1974 Chenowth 2RL #1244 Street Legal
My other car isn't ridiculous.

[racecougar]

It all looks great! I like the color a lot; it matches one of my cars.

[jimmyhoffa]

Thanks! I finally got around to ordering any applying some Old Skool Kool graphics that I think were originally designed for a Jeep Gladiator. I really am digging this look, it adds character to the car for sure. I also designed and had SendCutSend make me these little dimple die tie-in brackets to keep the firewall from chattering on the highway.

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1974 Chenowth 2RL #1244 Street Legal
My other car isn't ridiculous.

[racecougar]

I dig the graphics.

What did SendCutSend charge for the brackets? I have a press and dimple dies here if you want to use them in the future. I have 1/2", 3/4", and 1", but I've been meaning to either buy or turn larger sets; just haven't had reason to yet.

I did this air cleaner mount a while back with them.

[indianpeaksjoe]

As my high school spanish teacher would say "Jesus, Maria and Jose" - that buggy looks cool and the details you are adding are amazing.

Are those genuine jackman wheels or something else? They look great.

-Joe
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Adventures in owning a 66 beetle

[jimmyhoffa]

Thanks guys! And I'll hit you up for those dimples if I need 'em. That would be great. SendCutSend got $34 each for those brackets. It was a bummer because the flat pattern is the same for both sides, but they don't give you a discount because the parts are mirrored so the bends and dimple directions are flipped, so you don't get the quantity discount.

Those are real Jackmans, which I like! There is a weird concentration of them in St. Louis actually, because the midwest's distributor for them at the time they were popular was in Earth City, MO, about 20 mins northwest of downtown StL. In the local classifieds it is extremely common to find old rusty buggies with a full set of Jackmans on them because they were so readily available when buggies were popular around here. I have 4 on my car, 6 in my driveway, and 2 in the shed, in various states of rusty.
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1974 Chenowth 2RL #1244 Street Legal
My other car isn't ridiculous.