1969 Baja Bug - TX Build

[sailtexas186548]

Transaxle is in and shouldn’t be coming back out… we will see. I also installed the torsion bars after several hours of dressing the King Kong adjuster splines, the splines are not perfectly round I think from the heat treat after they cut/edm the splines caused them to move a bit.

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it's more fun loud and dirty

[sailtexas186548]

Spring plates and rear trailing arms cleaned, painted and installed, also put the Bowden tube and throttle tube on. I am waiting to do the brakes until the front end is together and I can do all four corners at once.

Dug the beam out and gave it a few hours of scraping and cleaning with solvent. One arm seems to have a bad inner bushing so I’ll be swapping that out. This beam isn’t in terrible shape so I’m just gonna put new boots on the ball joints and see how it does. the balljoints appear to be the “high angle” ones, and I have some adjusters in the mail hopefully they arrive tomorrow.

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it's more fun loud and dirty

[sailtexas186548]

Still waiting on parts to continue the beam…

Went ahead and put the turning brakes together and test fit a seat (needs a cleaning). The turning brake handles have pretty bad quality control, I had to take them all the way apart and dress the burrs and polish up the bushings to get them to work smoothly. I also had to open up the holes to get the hydraulic cylinder bolts to line up. They work great now!

This is generally where I am going to mount the unit. I painted the shift rod so tomorrow I’ll install it and make sure I have enough clearance to the shifter in 2nd and 4th before I mount the turning brake.

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it's more fun loud and dirty

[Mike Fisher]

These dual tempered steel spring plates look tough enough to me.

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https://imgur.com/user/FisherSquareback/posts
69 FI/AT square Daily Driver
66 sunroof,67,70,71,71,71AT,72,72AT,73 Parts
two 57 oval ragtops sold
'68 Karmann Ghia sold

Society is like stew. If you don't keep it stirred up you end up with a lot of scum on the top! - Russ_Wolfe/Edward Abbey

[sailtexas186548]

Painted the shift rod except the bushing area. Put a new shift rod bushing in and got the rod installed.

This shift coupler The PO installed is junk, bent, crumbling, and a wood screw to top it off haha. It was good enough to install and get the shifter adjusted for turning brake clearance

This empi trigger shifter is in good shape, and felt great but it wasn’t locking out reverse (the 3/4 lockout when the trigger is pulled was working) so after figuring out how it works, I discovered that someone or something had pulled the shifter so hard they bent the reverse detent or stop or whatever you want to call it. A little readjustment with a BFH and dull chisel punch got it back in place, works awesome now. This shifter feels way better than my Manx shifter, hopefully it lasts longer than people describe online

Put the passenger seat on the pan, this is where the turning brakes will go, I need to build a mount now.

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it's more fun loud and dirty

[sailtexas186548]

Been taking care of lots of small things, brakes lines are mostly together, fittings and mount for the turning brake are done, master cylinder is painted, pedals mounted for now (clutch cable still hasn’t arrived).

Most of this weekend was spent on the front beam, added adjusters (stock height is all the way “down”). The ball joints are in surprisingly good shape, so I greased them and put new boots on

I thought one of the upper arm’s inner bushing was damaged, turns out someone In the past had removed/replaced the trailing arm and pushed the DU style bushing out of the carrier. Since I had the beam cut open I was able to reinstall the bushing shell from the middle - everything is nice and tight again.

Gonna be a roller again soon!

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it's more fun loud and dirty

[sailtexas186548]

It’s all coming together now, TIG’d some nuts to the turning brake

Mounting bracket ready to be welded to the tunnel

Welded in a filler panel for the old e brake (used OG Steel from another 1969 pan tunnel I shortened for a Manx 2

Front spindles and brakes on, getting closer!

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it's more fun loud and dirty

[sailtexas186548]

New Shift rod seal installed, you can see the old one was torn

New shift rod connector

Turning brake mount welded in place

Turning brake installed

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it's more fun loud and dirty

[sailtexas186548]

Made the brake line from the master to the turning brake, it’s always a challenge to get it bent up right through the Napoleon hat and around the pedals

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it's more fun loud and dirty

[sailtexas186548]

Made up the last two brake lines, need to drill a hole in the passenger side pan for a pass through bushing, and tweak/secure the lines when they are in for the final time.

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it's more fun loud and dirty

[sailtexas186548]

Started going though the brakes, the rear axle nut is hard to break free when there is no weight on the tire - I had to use my big adjustable wrench to wedge the wheel

Rear brakes (I drove the car with these once) are not terrible, just dirty. Gonna clean them up and reuse everything except the wheel cylinders hopefully

The front brakes also came off a car that was driving but they sat outside uncovered for a few years so they are pretty nasty. The drivers side outside wheel bearing inner race was cracked in half and some of the rollers were chewed up, and one shoe had the friction material delaminating so I had to make a run to the parts store for all new bearings and pads up front.

The old speedo cable was also stubborn to come out, I ended up cleaning the spindle passage out with a frayed cable on a drill

Cleaned up and painted the front drums (no the friction surface is not painted) and installed the new races

Installed the new front wheel cylinders, pads, retainers/springs, and cleaned up and greased the brake adjuster screws/stars. The orange stuff is CRC brake quiet, I really like the stuff and have had great results on my one ton truck with it.

More tomorrow.
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it's more fun loud and dirty

[sailtexas186548]

Lots of cleanup after pulling the stub axles and bearing out. Passenger side has been serviced before and was a little cleaner but has CHINA bearings, the inside roller is sealed which is kinda weird. Whoever did the work left out the o-ring, used the paper gasket, and used one of the swing axle shims that comes in the universal rear seal kit… gotta love it. Drivers side looks OG and had some water in it. Bearings all look good and roll smooth. Should be good to go for many miles with fresh seals and grease.

I got the drums and stubs and what not cleaned up also, there is a ton of crud that builds up after 52 years
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it's more fun loud and dirty

[sailtexas186548]

Today I found out One 14oz cartridge of grease is the exact amount needed to pack all eight wheel bearings and the housings. I use Lucas red and tacky in all of my wheel bearings and it does well, also easy to find and not worry about mixing greases when you are broken down on the side of the road

Bearings all packed and ready to install

Housings filled with grease

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it's more fun loud and dirty

[dustymojave]

Red & Tacky...Sounds like a girl I knew once upon a time...

But actually, it's great stuff. used a lot around my garage. And it's great for offroad race car CVs too. Much higher drop point (which is critical to a function like CVs in a high performance car - means it can take lots of heat) than even Swepco Moly, which for decades was the offroad racer's go-to CV grease.

I recommend it.
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Richard
Offroading VW based cars since 1965
Tech Inspection 1963 - 2012 SCCA/SCORE/HDRA/MORE/MDR +
Retired from building Bajas, Fiberglass Buggies and Rails in the Mojave Desert. Also Sprints & Midgets, Dry Lakes, Road Race cars. All types New and Vintage
SoCalBajas Member
Kicked Cancer's A$$...1st and 2nd round...Fight ain't over yet.

[sailtexas186548]

Had to wait on some seals, rear brakes and bearings are all back together

Front beam is complete!

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it's more fun loud and dirty

[sailtexas186548]

Installed the new clutch cable, throttle cable, Bowden tube, and pedal assembly

Also added some grommets for the brake lines

Took a first pass at bleeding the brakes, pedal feels great but it is a “low pedal” that I think is due to needing to adjust the brake shoes…

I did have two leaks, one at a flare I did that was not quite right, so I re-flared and fixed it. The other was through a brand new brake pressure switch… got that changed out so now it’s leak free. Going to adjust/tweak the brakes a little then it’s time to mount the body

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it's more fun loud and dirty

[sailtexas186548]

The body is on!

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[sailtexas186548]

Made up the gaskets, used an old wrist pin sharpened as a punch

Body all bolted down:

I have had this tank for years, finally found a home for it. Gave it a quick sand and got it in place. I need to make a hold down of some type

Two steering columns, the “good” one is missing the key so I’ll have to swap the ignition switch over from the other one

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it's more fun loud and dirty

[sailtexas186548]

After pulling the steering columns apart, I found the ignition switches, ignition locks, and turn signal switches were junk… I mounted the column just waiting on new parts to get it put together.

Also welded some mounting tabs on the fuel tank after extensive flushingwith soap and water, plus purging with exhaust

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[sailtexas186548]

Mounted the fuel tank, used the left over pan/body seal under it.

The Monza style fuel cap had a broken latch, I welded it up and drilled/filed it back to shape

Test fit the hood, next is to build the front bumper and hood mounts.

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it's more fun loud and dirty