SKULLDUGGERY

[Trylon]

Looks like I’m late for the party!
Won’t be leaving early for sure!
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1973 Porsche 914 2.0
1959 Volkswagen Karmann Ghia
1979 Volkswagen Rabbit
1973 Volkswagen Bus
1970 MGB-GT
1962 Oldsmobile Jetfire

More tomfoolery on
The Karmann Ghia Fever YouTube Channel!

[TDCTDI]

[kgj]

PostPosted: Sat May 22, 2021 4:59 pm Post subject: Re: SKULLDUGGERY
Looks like I’m late for the party!
Won’t be leaving early for sure!

I’m even later but
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1958 coupe

[TDCTDI]

Thank you sir.


Today, with a few minutes to piss away, I just had to start the trailing arm swap, so I jacked up the rear & removed the wheel & brake drum & then removed the upper shock bolt.

With those out of the way, I chiseled 45+ years of crap out of the CV bolts.

And then hammered a twelve point socket into the bolt heads.

And zipped them out with the impact gun.

I then removed the bolt holding the parking brake cable to the backing plate.

With the bolt removed, I then slipped a pair of side cutters into the spring on the cable.

And compressed the spring & lightly clamped onto the cable to keep the spring out of the way while I fought with the retaining clamp.

And removed the cable.

After cutting the brake hose, I then inserted a Snap-On17mm Allen drain plug socket into the trailing arm pivot bolt...

& pried on the ratchet with a pry bar. This not only increases leverage, but it also keeps my appendages clear of most of the rusty bits.

After removing the pivot bolt, I dropped the arm out of the way.

Setting the arms near each other, you can see the difference in the lower shock mount between the Beetle & Thing trailing arms, the Beetle ones are longer allowing the arm to be moved up while retaining full range of motion.

You can also see the difference in the bolt pattern for the mounting point of the spring plate.

I then bolted the Beetle arm in place & installed a new air shock to see where the arm would be at full droop.

This is where you can see the difference the lower mount makes.



Wanting to get a feel for where the car will sit, I lowered it down.

_________________
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.

[TDCTDI]

After thoroughly inspecting the welds, I was fairly confident that there weren’t any porosity issues but... I scored a tube of silicone sealant & schmeared a bead over the seams.

And, well... I lied. I decided to paint some shit after all.

Then I swiped a pair of 195/65/15 tires off a Jetta & had them wrapped around the steelies. Believe it or not, these steelies were a good 3-4 lbs lighter than the alloys off the Jetta.

And then just had to bolt one up.

Yeah!!! THAT’S the look I was shooting for.
_________________
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.

[TDCTDI]

I was presented with an opportunity to recoup my investment in this beast by someone local that wanted all the goodies that I was removing to slam the beast.

So I had to stop what I was doing & yank the last remaining trailing arm.

WELL! It’s a good damned thing that I didn’t drag this bitch any further than I did. I found that the castle nut was loose.

And I spun it the rest of the way off by hand.

After jacking it up & removing the wheel & drum, I chiseled the concretions out of the CV bolts & zipped the bolts out.

Huh, who knows how long ago that fuel line broke.

Worse yet, what appears to be wet & oozy is more like cured epoxy.


Oh well, off with its last trailing arm.

Like every heavily altered project, there comes a moment when you realize that it’s never going back, with all the Thing suspension gone, this moment came early for this project.
_________________
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.

[Waybackburris]

Awesome thread.....I'm just curious.....where in NC are you? I'm in NC too.

Thanks!

WBB

[TDCTDI]

[TDCTDI]

I continued plodding along & lopped off the tip of the other trailing arm.

And then tucked it into place…

But again, I couldn’t wait to see what it looked like so I tossed the other drum & wheel on & dropped it down.

_________________
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.

[kent70ghia]

Need my fix, how are your rides coming along?