A barndoor chassis buried in my garden

[djfordmanjack]

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Hotrods, Fords, Veedubs and Triumph Twins !

52 Barndoor DLX Coachbuild project
55 Wolfsburg panel project, og paint Taubenblau L31
62 Dickholmer, custom color Seeblau L360
63 1500 Notch, og paint Rubin Rot L456
67 1500 Käfer, og paint Lotus weiß L282 w/red interior

[advCo]

Wow, that is too cool!!
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"He pulled the mirrors off his Cadillac ‘cause he doesn’t like it looking like he looks back"
'68/'70 Ghia Coupe Project
'70 Westy Project - Champagne I Wannabe
A bunch of vintage Japanese motorcycles
"Much ingenuity with a little money is vastly more profitable and amusing than much money without ingenuity." -A. Bennett

[Hellberg]

Amazing
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Type 2 -53 smooth Gate SC (o\!/o) Type 1 -50 |o\ /o| Type 2 -55 Barndoor kombi
...........Driving barndoor to HO 2017............

[djfordmanjack]

got it back from sand blasting and there is enough left to build a chassis from it !

bent bump stops cant stop me from bumping them straight !

and filler primer

_________________
Hotrods, Fords, Veedubs and Triumph Twins !

52 Barndoor DLX Coachbuild project
55 Wolfsburg panel project, og paint Taubenblau L31
62 Dickholmer, custom color Seeblau L360
63 1500 Notch, og paint Rubin Rot L456
67 1500 Käfer, og paint Lotus weiß L282 w/red interior

[djfordmanjack]

saved a little og paint! on this chassis Ral 7012 Basaltgrau is the closest match.
much better than Quarzgrau, which others have used. but as we all know, color of primer was changing over the years and VW used what they had.

_________________
Hotrods, Fords, Veedubs and Triumph Twins !

52 Barndoor DLX Coachbuild project
55 Wolfsburg panel project, og paint Taubenblau L31
62 Dickholmer, custom color Seeblau L360
63 1500 Notch, og paint Rubin Rot L456
67 1500 Käfer, og paint Lotus weiß L282 w/red interior

[djfordmanjack]

A little Christmas present from me to myself showed up this week all the way from England. Let's see what new years wishes will bring.

_________________
Hotrods, Fords, Veedubs and Triumph Twins !

52 Barndoor DLX Coachbuild project
55 Wolfsburg panel project, og paint Taubenblau L31
62 Dickholmer, custom color Seeblau L360
63 1500 Notch, og paint Rubin Rot L456
67 1500 Käfer, og paint Lotus weiß L282 w/red interior

[bally]

Merry Christmas to you - good choice of presents 😊

[nzvwfan]

Is that a 35 Ford ?

[djfordmanjack]

Good eye, very close! Australian '34 !
_________________
Hotrods, Fords, Veedubs and Triumph Twins !

52 Barndoor DLX Coachbuild project
55 Wolfsburg panel project, og paint Taubenblau L31
62 Dickholmer, custom color Seeblau L360
63 1500 Notch, og paint Rubin Rot L456
67 1500 Käfer, og paint Lotus weiß L282 w/red interior

[Lowdown Dirty Rat]

I’m still not convinced about these ‘bent’ bump stops on the chassis tube ends. I’ve spent some time since the old thread about them crawling around any low mileage OG bus I could and they are pretty much all bent. It takes some serious stress to bend them too. I still recon they could be bent to follow the twist in the spring plates. Or perhaps something at the factory in the way the buses or chassis are transported around.
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1951 Samba 20-017894
1952 Samba 20-028952

[djfordmanjack]

I was sharing your opinion for a long time, but I have seen plenty of BD chassis and they were all bent more on the driver's side, indicating more load on that side, especially in a panel van with cargo doors on the other side. everytime they would pile in the load, they would probably put it against the closed opposite side with the solid panel. putting even more load to the driver's side.
it was the same with this chassis. nearly no (if hardly any) bend on the passenger side and all twisted on the driver's. you could also see the ridge where the spring plates worked there way into the metal on the upper stop, until the stop was finally so much bent, that the spring plate would even go further up. So yes, I am 99% sure that they came straight from factory.
It was easy to realign them. I welded a piece of maybe 2ft ( 60cm) of40x40x2 mm(1-1/2") square tubing that you can see in the pics and cold formed it back without any heat. that steel is very ductile and I believe these pieces were either forged or must have been cast from steel alloy otherwise. I only needed the big sledgehammers to hammer the flange back to flat, which was warped because of the bend.

If you look closely at the design of the whole assembly from the rear , you will see that the 'stop' bung is actually a part that protrudes from the solid cast/forged metal. so the spring plate force is applied offset to the stop/torsion bar housing which causes the whole upper part to bend. If you look at the whole thing from said direction it is very easy to understand why and how that assembly was prone to damage. On a Barndoor we also have the shock absorber bolt holes, which further weakens the design.
later buses have much heavier ribs and overall design in that area.
_________________
Hotrods, Fords, Veedubs and Triumph Twins !

52 Barndoor DLX Coachbuild project
55 Wolfsburg panel project, og paint Taubenblau L31
62 Dickholmer, custom color Seeblau L360
63 1500 Notch, og paint Rubin Rot L456
67 1500 Käfer, og paint Lotus weiß L282 w/red interior

[djfordmanjack]

come to think of it. fat chicks (even Wolfsburgs) have the the spring plates further out to the wheels, which decreases the weight load put on them by axle load force. those are a few inches further out and concerning with the short measurement from spring plate/rear axle mount to the transmission case joint (axle boot cover center) this probably decreased the leverage and impact force to the stop at least by 20% or so I reckon. possibly another reason for that change.
(I hate to use the term improvement, because all was going downhill from March '55 ).
_________________
Hotrods, Fords, Veedubs and Triumph Twins !

52 Barndoor DLX Coachbuild project
55 Wolfsburg panel project, og paint Taubenblau L31
62 Dickholmer, custom color Seeblau L360
63 1500 Notch, og paint Rubin Rot L456
67 1500 Käfer, og paint Lotus weiß L282 w/red interior

[djfordmanjack]

finishing the cradle repair, it took a lot of fitting and cutting and trying. this thing is getting solid again

slicing the ss banana

closing the tubing with ground down freeze plugs ( 1-5/8 =41mm)

_________________
Hotrods, Fords, Veedubs and Triumph Twins !

52 Barndoor DLX Coachbuild project
55 Wolfsburg panel project, og paint Taubenblau L31
62 Dickholmer, custom color Seeblau L360
63 1500 Notch, og paint Rubin Rot L456
67 1500 Käfer, og paint Lotus weiß L282 w/red interior

[bally]

Neat repair!

[djfordmanjack]

moving on with the hot rod chassis.

_________________
Hotrods, Fords, Veedubs and Triumph Twins !

52 Barndoor DLX Coachbuild project
55 Wolfsburg panel project, og paint Taubenblau L31
62 Dickholmer, custom color Seeblau L360
63 1500 Notch, og paint Rubin Rot L456
67 1500 Käfer, og paint Lotus weiß L282 w/red interior

[D-train]

Big job. Well done for taking it on. What’s the end game? 23? 15?
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shiny paint doesnt make it worth any more

[blink]

This is amazing. Keep up the good work!!!

[djfordmanjack]

Thanx guys ! yes, aiming at a coachbuild DLX with 27 windows. it will be a very open version, so this is why I need every little portion of chassis rigidity that I can get. from my calculations it will be about 40 kgs heavier than stock, but should have at least twice the torsional strength of the og chassis.

_________________
Hotrods, Fords, Veedubs and Triumph Twins !

52 Barndoor DLX Coachbuild project
55 Wolfsburg panel project, og paint Taubenblau L31
62 Dickholmer, custom color Seeblau L360
63 1500 Notch, og paint Rubin Rot L456
67 1500 Käfer, og paint Lotus weiß L282 w/red interior

[Scotty]

[Scotty]