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The Warthog
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TDCTDI
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 13, 2021 8:39 pm    Post subject: The Warthog Reply with quote

While on the hunt for a replacement for the Ghiapet, I tripped across an ok-ish deal on a Thing.

I bought this from the widow of the previous owner (whose father sold it to him.) & since I couldn’t immediately come up with a unique “Thing” inspired name, I found out that her late husband was Lieutenant Colonel Church, so I asked her permission to (hopefully) honor him by naming this this beast in his memory.


Using just part of that title, here’s Colonel Church.
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.



EDIT

As I dig deeper, I have decided to rename this project The Warthog, ugly as hell but brutally robust as I transform it into a beast that will be exploring both urban & rural settings, it seems so much more fitting.

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GOFUNDYOURSELF, quit asking everyone to do it for you!


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Do something, anything, to your project every day, and you will eventually complete it.


Last edited by TDCTDI on Fri Mar 05, 2021 7:26 am; edited 3 times in total
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Buggeee
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 13, 2021 8:54 pm    Post subject: Re: Colonel Church Reply with quote

Good news. Cool

Awesome to find a Thing, rare as they are. And here, the Colonel is a rare avocado!

Will he be tearing through the woods on rally duty?

Looks to be in good condition too.
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didget69
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 14, 2021 5:54 am    Post subject: Re: Colonel Church Reply with quote

Looks like it's time for a Thing - nice pick!

Bryan
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77kafer
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 14, 2021 8:02 am    Post subject: Re: Colonel Church Reply with quote

Good luck with LTC Church, does it still have the heater? How many miles on it?
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TDCTDI
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 14, 2021 12:59 pm    Post subject: Re: Colonel Church Reply with quote

didget69 wrote:
Looks like it's time for a Thing - nice pick!

Bryan


Thanks Bryan.



77kafer wrote:
Good luck with LTC Church, does it still have the heater? How many miles on it?


Unfortunately the heater is gone & I have no idea about how many miles are on it.


Here it is as I drug it back.
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.

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77kafer
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 14, 2021 1:11 pm    Post subject: Re: Colonel Church Reply with quote

That looks mighty clean. Was the p/u the tow vehicle?

Back in 1980, I towed my 73 from Ft Riley KS to NY and shipped it over to Germany. Then towed it from Bremerhaven to Mannheim with a U-haul tow bar.
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Supposed to be 77käfer, but there are no umlauts on an american keyboard

Overheard on 27 June 07, one lady to another when they saw my Harli in a parking lot at West Point, "maybe he found it on the clearance aisle at the Volkswagen dealer"
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TDCTDI
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 14, 2021 2:06 pm    Post subject: Re: Colonel Church Reply with quote

77kafer wrote:
That looks mighty clean. Was the p/u the tow vehicle?

Back in 1980, I towed my 73 from Ft Riley KS to NY and shipped it over to Germany. Then towed it from Bremerhaven to Mannheim with a U-haul tow bar.





Looks great from a distance, it was definitely a case where aesthetics were the focal point. New pans will be the first plan of attack. Then brakes, suspension mods, and so on...

Yup, just shy of 150 miles with a rabbit truck. Laughing
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Everybody born before 1975 has a story, good, bad, or indifferent, about a VW.


GOFUNDYOURSELF, quit asking everyone to do it for you!


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Do something, anything, to your project every day, and you will eventually complete it.
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 14, 2021 7:36 pm    Post subject: Re: Colonel Church Reply with quote

Very Happy And a tow bar to the beam? Or one like I had that compresses on the bumper?

I didn't need pans, but I did do a full resto when I had mine over in Germany.
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TDCTDI
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 14, 2021 9:18 pm    Post subject: Re: Colonel Church Reply with quote

Yup, just a beetle tow bar.
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TDCTDI
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PostPosted: Tue Feb 16, 2021 12:24 pm    Post subject: Re: Colonel Church Reply with quote

Just like any new VW project, you get to assess what sort of funkiness was done by previous owners.


None of the original tin exists...
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And I’m guessing that the roll bar ain’t original...
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And then there’s the 2x4 seat brackets.
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.

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GOFUNDYOURSELF, quit asking everyone to do it for you!


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Do something, anything, to your project every day, and you will eventually complete it.
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 17, 2021 7:46 am    Post subject: Re: Colonel Church Reply with quote

Sorry about the 'pet, that sucks!
As a ghia and thing owner I believe you will find the thing to be much more suited to your type of use. Very Happy
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TDCTDI
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 17, 2021 10:56 am    Post subject: Re: Colonel Church Reply with quote

volksaddict wrote:
Sorry about the 'pet, that sucks!
As a ghia and thing owner I believe you will find the thing to be much more suited to your type of use. Very Happy


Eh, I don’t know. The Ghiapet effectively was a lifted Thing underneath with a reaallly low roofline that allowed me to dive through low lying brush & limbs that would probably shred a soft top in short order & the Thing will have a bit higher COG so tossing it around will be a bit more risky. However, the Thing engine bay looks like it will easily contain a TDI. Twisted Evil
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Everybody born before 1975 has a story, good, bad, or indifferent, about a VW.


GOFUNDYOURSELF, quit asking everyone to do it for you!


An air cooled VW will make you a hoarder.


Do something, anything, to your project every day, and you will eventually complete it.
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TDCTDI
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 17, 2021 2:47 pm    Post subject: Re: Colonel Church Reply with quote

Soooo.... the first thing was to assess what it would take to get this beast going again. Ummm... yeah... well... everything.



Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.

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Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.



Brakes, balljoints, tierod ends. Well, if you have ever tripped across any of my other threads/builds, you know that I don’t lean towards stock & that I try to do it as cheaply as possible.


So, since I gutted the Ghiapet & have all this modified, beefed up shit laying around, it’s now getting stuffed into Colonel Church.


So in about three hours, I replaced the balljoints, tierods, front disc brake conversion, hook & rod limiters, Bilsteins, raised the front, & gusseted the spindles. Twisted Evil
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.

_________________
Everybody born before 1975 has a story, good, bad, or indifferent, about a VW.


GOFUNDYOURSELF, quit asking everyone to do it for you!


An air cooled VW will make you a hoarder.


Do something, anything, to your project every day, and you will eventually complete it.
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Buggeee
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 17, 2021 3:50 pm    Post subject: Re: Colonel Church Reply with quote

TDCTDI wrote:


So, since I gutted the Ghiapet & have all this modified, beefed up shit laying around, it’s now getting stuffed into Colonel Church.


So in about three hours, I replaced the balljoints, tierods, front disc brake conversion, hook & rod limiters, Bilsteins, raised the front, & gusseted the spindles. Twisted Evil


This approach is awesome. The heart of the beast will live on!
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TDCTDI
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 17, 2021 6:44 pm    Post subject: Re: Colonel Church Reply with quote

Buggeee wrote:


This approach is awesome. The heart of the beast will live on!


Thank you sir! In addition to the Ghiapet living on, I now have more Thing bits to build “Black Betty” with. Those Thing wheels are gonna look awesome wrapped in offroad meats on an Oval.
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Everybody born before 1975 has a story, good, bad, or indifferent, about a VW.


GOFUNDYOURSELF, quit asking everyone to do it for you!


An air cooled VW will make you a hoarder.


Do something, anything, to your project every day, and you will eventually complete it.
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PostPosted: Tue Feb 23, 2021 1:26 am    Post subject: Re: Colonel Church Reply with quote

Glad to see you found a replacement. Will follow with great interest as usual Smile
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PostPosted: Tue Feb 23, 2021 1:29 pm    Post subject: Re: Colonel Church Reply with quote

metz wrote:
Glad to see you found a replacement. Will follow with great interest as usual Smile



Thank you sir!


Today I decided to tackle the rear passenger side to raise the rear up to match the front.
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.



As per usual, nothing goes right when you tear into a new project, after fighting to get the spring plate for 45 minutes to give up the torsion bar, I discovered lots of nastiness in the torsion housing...
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After scraping the inside of the torsion housing with a pry bar to knock off the scaly rust, I slid a piece of PVC pipe into the housing & then attached the shop vac to the other end to clean all of the crap out.
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.



I then zip tied a shop rag to the PVC pipe to effectively make a great big Q-tip & then poured some Ospho into the other end of the pipe to flood the housing & saturate the shop rag to treat the entire inner diameter of the housing.
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.



I then lowered the jack to tilt the vehicle & let the excess run out.
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After letting it dry for a while, I began to install the torsion bars, this is where I discovered that the differences in the Thing components was going to make this endeavor a bit more of an effort. To begin with, the Thing torsion bars were shorter than the 29mm Sway-A-Way bars that were in the Ghiapet.
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.



No problem, I wanted to install double plates on this beast anyway. Unfortunately, the modified spring plates that were on the Ghiapet were notched far too aggressively for the Thing.
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.



So I then needed to liberate a set of spring plates from a parts car. After that, I found that the third bolt location on the Thing was in a different location from the Beetles & Ghias. Evil or Very Mad So I had to use the spring plate from the opposite side of the parts car (Read, go back & remove the other side too.), and map out & drill the appropriate, slotted hole.
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.



Once slotted, I slid the spring plate in place, & after finding where the CVs started to bind, I scribed a line on the back of the spring plate where the suspension stop would limit the travel & carefully clearanced the spring plate.
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.



This is where the aggravation continued, while I was JUST able to remove the old torsion bar...
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The new, thicker, longer torsion bar required that I unbolt the leading edge of the fender to get it & the spring plate in.
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.



This is where I found that the captive nut on the lowermost fender bolt was spinning freely & had to cut the head off the bolt. Oh well, more rust repair is in my future. Confused


I finally managed to get it all back together (that side anyway).
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.



That concludes today’s self imposed masochism.
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GOFUNDYOURSELF, quit asking everyone to do it for you!


An air cooled VW will make you a hoarder.


Do something, anything, to your project every day, and you will eventually complete it.
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Buggeee
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PostPosted: Tue Feb 23, 2021 3:23 pm    Post subject: Re: Colonel Church Reply with quote

Warp speed and taking no prisoners.

Business as usual over there!

I'm going to take this motivation and go do something to my project, and I'm not going to take any shitake from it either.
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TDCTDI
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 24, 2021 4:07 pm    Post subject: Re: Colonel Church Reply with quote

Buggeee wrote:
Warp speed and taking no prisoners.

Business as usual over there!

I'm going to take this motivation and go do something to my project, and I'm not going to take any shitake from it either.


THAT’S the attitude! Do something, ANYTHING, to your project every day & it will get completed. Smile


With that in mind, after yesterday’s clusterf*^%, I needed a quick kill. I opted to replace the right rear brake assembly with the TypeIII brakes scavenged from the Ghiapet. This too took longer than it should have & it sure as hell wasn’t painless. Evil or Very Mad


I started by removing the cotter pin, the castle nut & then the drum.
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


I then removed the bolts securing the bearing retainer & then the backing plate.

And no, I didn’t remove that return spring.
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


Here’s what the Thing rear brakes look like compared to the TypeIII brakes.
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.



Here’s where the difficulty began, the parking brake cable was not releasing the way that it should. One of my dirty tricks is to use a pair of dykes (side cutters for you PC types Rolling Eyes) to pull the spring back & then apply just enough pressure to clamp the cable so you can remove the bowden tube clamp.
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.



The reason the cable wouldn’t release became pretty obvious when I went inside the vehicle to loosen the adjustment nuts...
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And then the discomfort began, I completely forgot about microscopic shards produced by my endeavors with the spring plates yesterday.
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


Yup, I put my hands down in it, rolled around in it, & the f#%*ng tools even picked it up & embedded it into my paws, I’ll be digging that shit out for days.
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.

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Oh well, enough bitching. I brushed off what I could & installed the drum.
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


And here’s the final outcome.
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.

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PostPosted: Wed Feb 24, 2021 7:11 pm    Post subject: Re: Colonel Church Reply with quote

Have you driven the car since you installed the Type 3 rear brakes?
I am curious because I did that installation a couple of months ago, but won't be driving my car for quite a while yet, and I see that you are from the south where it might be warm enough to drive a Thing.
What are you using for front brakes?
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