Winter Builds for 2019: It's All About Me Now.

[hillmotorsports]

Powaypete
What did u use for a pan on the Zetec? Or did u use the stock pan with a tilted engine?

Paul
_________________
Rosemarie and Paul Hill
Morrisburg, Ontario

(With way more projects than spare time!)

[Powaypete]

I did not build it. It's on a shortened 69 sedan.
When I went looking to replace my mid-engine rail I needed a 2 seater (4 seater is too long for the toy hauler) with a water cooled motor. All the hard parts are done.
When I found this one everything is very clean (wiring, electrical is nicely loomed. Has a front radiator with roll bar tubing for radiator tubing running outside the body but under the lip of the body (acts like a side impact bar, but only bolted to the cage instead of welded) and you got to look for it to find it.
It's got a few things I want to change (choice) to make it "mine".

Pics:
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/album_search.php?search_author=Powaypete

Joe,
My skid plate is mounted to the engine cage with rivets but I like your idea of attaching it to the engine. Figured you can use a transmission jack and tie downs for the engine install/removal. Might be easier to find the balance point with 2 wide plates under the motor. By the way, I never thought about using a floor jack for engine removal, always used a hoist, even with a mid-engine....


I still need to upload more pics of the tubing and wiring that runs outside the body. On the fence about side pods to help hide it more because I just don't like the "unfinished" fiberglass look.

[hillmotorsports]

Powaypete

I just noticed your location. Too bad I had not paid closer attention sooner, we just flew home Wednesday from 5 days in San Diego, I could have answered all my questions in person!

From the pictures the engine looks to be mounted straight up as opposed to the tilt used in the Focus application. In a Focus the bottom of the pan is sloped to match the tilt of the engine. I couldn't see the pan in your pictures but I presume the builder used some sort of aftermarket flat bottomed pan? Any idea who made the pan?

Paul
_________________
Rosemarie and Paul Hill
Morrisburg, Ontario

(With way more projects than spare time!)

[hillmotorsports]

Joe...
I'm running out of popcorn.
Please fix our cravings with more updates!
Though some of your neighbors may not be so fortunate you should be high and dry on your hilltop. Or are you marooned there?

Paul
_________________
Rosemarie and Paul Hill
Morrisburg, Ontario

(With way more projects than spare time!)

[joescoolcustoms]

Paul, PM me your address, and I will send a fresh supply of popcorn. Salted or no salt?

I have been both sick and working 70 hour weeks for a month now. Pretty beat down at the moment. I have gotten a little done, but looking at June with only 6 scheduled days of work, and will start making a lot of progress. Write ups and photos coming.
_________________
Bad News Racing 2018 NORRA 1000 3rd in Class
Best Day Ever Racing 2022 NORRA 1000 2nd in Class and first All Female team to complete the race

Everyone is gifted. Some just do not open the package.

Looks like it was painted with a live chicken,polished with a brick and buffed with a pine cone

[joescoolcustoms]

Life has a way of interjecting into the best laid plans and causing distractions. Some are cool, some not.

In mid June, a buddy called and said there was a rare buggy for sale in NC. (No, not a Mono). Me being extended already, why not get Over extended? Away I go with trailer and he comes from NJ. The buggy was supposed to be in Excellent condition, a great runner. Perfect for what Paul had in mind. An "Event" buggy for a certain 93 year old fella that would be easy to get in and ride around the Manx Club events in.

The advertised "Excellent" buggy had chains running from the Firewall to the peddles to keep them up right because the pan was gone underneath them and they would have just flopped back on you. It also had chains running from the steering column to the pan side to hold it together. The bushings and coupler on the shift rod where very close to non-existent and shifting was like stirring a stick in a 5 gallon bucket of water. The exhaust had rusted through in several places and gaskets blown out. The electrical was original from the donner Beetle and in poor shape. One wheel cylinder was frozen and pulled to one side when the brakes were needed. The Roll cage was exhaust pipe with slip connections and electrical tape holding it together. No Lie!

Since they do not pop up very often, and in the East, Paul bought it and I brought it home. In one three day period, Paul drove in from NJ, we stripped the body off, removed the rusted pans, cleaned the chassis, re-welded the clutch tube where it had broken loose, welded in new pan halves, sand blasted it, painted with Catalyzed Epoxy Chassis Paint and Bed lined it.

The buggy had CAC, (Cheap Ass Carpet) and glued to everything, including the body. It was scrubbed and worked until all the Yellow Carpet Glue was gone.

Next is to create a rolling chassis. New brakes including new front disc drilled for Chevy Pattern. New rear drums also drilled for Chevy Pattern. New springs, new cylinders, master and wheel, new brake lines, new bearings, new tie rods, new rag joint, new braided flex brake lines, new shift rod bushings and coupler. The the body was set on so bumpers could be made and a new roll cage.

The Rosertor / Tourista has a rear seat that sits above the level of the Driver Navigator, so the roll cage needs to go up to allow the rear passengers to fit in the buggy under the cage.

Stripped back down, all the rest of the items cleaned and prepped for paint. Then back together it goes. A New Rebel Wiring harness was used for a Beetle do to the full length of the chassis. Worked perfect. The engine was a 1500 SP, smoked, had a plug stripped, multiple exhaust studs stripped. The engine was given a new top end and made a 1641. The crank shimmed up nicely. New clutch and Pressure Plate. Some Chrome Tin to dress it up, (and save time dealing with the old tin). The 30 PICT 2 carb was re-used and the jets enlarged for the larger engine size so it would not run lean or hot.

A short tet drive on my street, and loaded it up to head out for Painted Post NY to the Manx At The Glen Event last weekend.

It was a very, very hot event with every day in the mid 90's. But the buggy performed very well for a rushed 3 week build. Here it is being enjoyed by Paul's Daughter Brittany, and at the Windmill for the Show and Shine portion of the event.

Now a good garage cleaning/organizing and back to work on the regularly scheduled builds.
_________________
Bad News Racing 2018 NORRA 1000 3rd in Class
Best Day Ever Racing 2022 NORRA 1000 2nd in Class and first All Female team to complete the race

Everyone is gifted. Some just do not open the package.

Looks like it was painted with a live chicken,polished with a brick and buffed with a pine cone

[hillmotorsports]

What happened to "it's all about me now"?
Good thing most of your friends have buggies already... or you'd NEVER get your own work done!

Paul... still enjoying popcorn.
_________________
Rosemarie and Paul Hill
Morrisburg, Ontario

(With way more projects than spare time!)

[joescoolcustoms]

Paul you are correct. I violated my personal Prime Directive. To my weak defense, I am a push over for someone trying to do something nice, (Buggy for a 93 year old fella to ride in), and get sucked in by my big mouth every time.
I also cannot promise it will not happen again, and like my B&N Viper, these two builds could get promised before I finish them and end up in other peoples hands. So, here we go again.

True to my form, I like trying new things to see where it takes me and what I discover/learn. Here is one I have not done before. A Meyers Tunnel Window. These are made to create a Window into the tunnel right where the pedal cluster is located for ease in using a clutch cable or installing a hydraulic slave cylinder in the tunnel for a hydraulic clutch.

The kit includes a steel 1/4 inch thick curved piece to weld to the tunnel to add back the strength opening a hole in the tunnel lost. A cover plate so once work is done, it is bolted back in place to keep dirt/debris out of the tunnel. Before saying it compromises the strength and never do that bla, bla, bla, this device has been put on A LOT OF Tunnel Buggies and not one has suffered a failure. Plus, this buggy is getting a full 0.120 wall cage and a stout perimeter set up.

Discovered a rats nest inside. But did not set it on fire.

Welded inside and out. Also note the clutch tube where I hit it to prep for additional welding of the tube to reduce future tube separation and problems down the road.

And with the cover in place, (bolts not yet drilled/tapped) you get the picture of the nice additional service option this provides. At about $ 120.00 shipped from Meyers Manx, I think it is a good option to add on.

_________________
Bad News Racing 2018 NORRA 1000 3rd in Class
Best Day Ever Racing 2022 NORRA 1000 2nd in Class and first All Female team to complete the race

Everyone is gifted. Some just do not open the package.

Looks like it was painted with a live chicken,polished with a brick and buffed with a pine cone

[hillmotorsports]

That's a really nice row of dimes... I'm out of practice: woodworking and carpentry do nothing for welding skills....
_________________
Rosemarie and Paul Hill
Morrisburg, Ontario

(With way more projects than spare time!)

[joescoolcustoms]

I did get a good tack on the clutch cable tube. Have to be careful doing this that you get decent penetration, but not too much to clog up the inside of the tube. Since this buggy is getting a more powerful engine and clutch to handle it, this tube being anchored in place is important.

And because VW's are mostly over or nearing the 50 year mark, rust repair is almost a necessity in the East. Just did similar on the other chassis in this thread, so sparing the narrative.

I did go a little overboard on the amount of metal put into the repair on the bottom of the front firewall, but in a future post, the reason will show up.

_________________
Bad News Racing 2018 NORRA 1000 3rd in Class
Best Day Ever Racing 2022 NORRA 1000 2nd in Class and first All Female team to complete the race

Everyone is gifted. Some just do not open the package.

Looks like it was painted with a live chicken,polished with a brick and buffed with a pine cone

[joescoolcustoms]

While the chassis is up-side-down for the pan head repairs, I cut the tunnel bottom for the shortening about to happen.

To note in the photo, the black sharpie line on the tunnel side is about where it will get cut on the other three sides. This technique allows for a underlap of the joints. It will not have all 4 sides align in the weld joint putting it back together, adding strength to the shortening seam.

Since this is a latter chassis, it has a lot going on inside the tunnel. Lots of heater control tubes and flapper control tubes.

Note the barely welded on e-brake tubes in the center. Remember, these are going to get pulled, twisted and bent on pulling the two chassis ends together. I have broken them apart before during the shortening, and it becomes hard to re-attach them later.

I do a little "surgery" on the extra tubes in the tunnel to make it a little more simple. Then add some strength to the e-brake cable tubes.

Again, care needs to be taken when welding on these tubes. They are thin and a burn through can cause an obstruction and not allow a cable to pass through the tube.
_________________
Bad News Racing 2018 NORRA 1000 3rd in Class
Best Day Ever Racing 2022 NORRA 1000 2nd in Class and first All Female team to complete the race

Everyone is gifted. Some just do not open the package.

Looks like it was painted with a live chicken,polished with a brick and buffed with a pine cone

[YDBD]

_________________
'56 pan Dune Buggy since '69
don't live in the past...but when I did:
'67 bug
'64 baja
'60 dune buggy
'73 Personenkraftwagen Type 182 "Thing"

[62kellison]

Great stuff/work Joe!.,I really enjoy these updates. ….

[joescoolcustoms]

Thanks Guys. I do enjoy figuring out problems and ways to make something work.

And to my disadvantage, I have some tools. Those tools taunt me, goad me into doing things that do not really matter, but they whisper to me strange ideas. And here is one that is just kind of stupid, extra work I brought onto myself, but I get real picky about how things feel when I am setting in a car, excavator, semi truck and a buggy. I like things to feel comfortable, so much so, you can drive it blind folded.

Brad H., (who owns the fastest aspirated buggy record on the Salt Flats) told me about getting one through tech Inspection. He said that you are blindfolded, sitting in the race car, and have to touch every control in the car, legititmately. That is how I like to build my buggies. Like eating, you don't even think about where your mouth is, you just shovel in it.

So, I want my shifter to be right there. One of the things VW seemed to change several times on the Beetle, was the shifter location. This is a late chassis, used the straight shifter, and if a curved Hurst shifter where to be used, it would be too far back and feel uncomfortable. So, it gets moved.

By the way, with the chassis flipped back upright, here is where I stopped the rust repair for a different alteration up front.

I have done the exact opposite before, moving the shifter rearward, and it is easy on a early chassis because the tunnel is round consistently and you just cut and swap. Like I did on the Sears Rascal I built.

But nooooo! VW had to make it tough and screw with the tunnel making some of it round and some squared off. Best for me was to jut use a donor piece and leave the original location in place to keep the square top looking somewhat stockish. I did drill out the shift rod hanger and got it out of the way or this would not have worked.

It would have been nice to have had a longer section of the tunnel, but this one was already cut out of a rust to crap chassis I had gotten years ago, and saved what I could from it.

A weak point on the stock VW tunnel is the openings around the mechanical brake system. When VW shifted the heater controls from the side tunnel hand twist knob to the levers beside the mechanical brake handle, they added two slots to the area. Since a buggy looses the upper body for strength, this becomes a weak point and many a buggy has cracked right there. So I plate it to reduce the stress area, and fully weld the brake bracket to add back in some strength.

And cleaned up, the alterations do not look as bad. A very small amount of body filler will be used on the tunnel to "slick" it down and make it look stock.

_________________
Bad News Racing 2018 NORRA 1000 3rd in Class
Best Day Ever Racing 2022 NORRA 1000 2nd in Class and first All Female team to complete the race

Everyone is gifted. Some just do not open the package.

Looks like it was painted with a live chicken,polished with a brick and buffed with a pine cone

[buggyboyshane]

Absolutely love this thread Joe and love your buggy in avatar! Tell me is that a 3inch body.lift kit too ? I'd love to see your front bumper design that held the winch ? 😎

[Dan the workingstiff]

Great work as always!
I doubled checked but that still doesn't me I missed it. But, how did you finish out the rear cage over the taillights on the tourista? The large front windshield cage is strictly for strength?
_________________
'69 Beetle
'66 FG buggy
My other air-cooled's
'76 IH 1200
'75 IH 1200

[slalombuggy]

Hey Joe, Truly inspiring work. Thanks for sharing so we can be inspired.

Going back a couple of pages to your "rant". I think the problem today is no one thinks about consequences. It might be only a crappy bumper mount, but after a couple of years of bouncing up and down and chassis vibrations, the bumper falls off, in traffic. What happens when that bumper comes flying at you at 60 mph? Everyone seems to think they are only building their buggy for them, to be good enough for them, to keep them relatively safe. They never think that there are others on the road. If they loose control of their car, or a part falls of their car, or no one can see the lights on their car?

Years ago I was asked to build a cage for my boss' ice race car. I had done a bit of welding but told him honestly I didn't know if I was up to the task as it was mostly gas welding and a pit of arc. I went to the library and got a few books on MIG welding and race car construction. (pre-internet days) and read for a week.

The day came a load of tube, a bender and the 110V welder showed up. The first thing I did was cut 4 feet off of one tube and start cutting 6 inch chunks to fish mouth and practice welding. I welded a few and then cut them apart to see how well the penetration was and make sure that there was an actual weld. The first few were horrible, but they showed me what not to do.

Once I was happy that the welds I was doing matched the pictures in the books I was reading and the penetration was there, I welded a couple of bigger chunks of tube together at a 45* angle and drilled some half inch holes in the ends. I then chained the one piece of pipe to the telephone pole outside the shop and put a tow strap on the other one and used my truck to stress test the piece. The welds held, the tubing bent and we were both happy. So we built a cage.

My boss rolled the car 3 times over it's life span requiring the roof and pillars to be pulled every time. The cage never flexed or moved, Guess I did my job pretty well. But I understood the consequences of failure.

brad

[joescoolcustoms]

[joescoolcustoms]

[joescoolcustoms]

Brad, that sounds like how I learned to weld also.

When we rolled my buggy in the NORRA race last year, my cage never moved. I was very proud that I protected my friends in it.

There is a Part II coming about my welding rant. Not only do I have some super scary photos, but I also have some showing how it needs to be done to be safe. I am still pretty PO'ed about the welding, and have refrained my post until I can "Adult" and not call out the names and cuss them for selling their shitty work. What I will be showing could have resulted in a major accident on the highway.

Hope your LS engine build is going well. Excited to see you succeed.
_________________
Bad News Racing 2018 NORRA 1000 3rd in Class
Best Day Ever Racing 2022 NORRA 1000 2nd in Class and first All Female team to complete the race

Everyone is gifted. Some just do not open the package.

Looks like it was painted with a live chicken,polished with a brick and buffed with a pine cone