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1972 Highwheeler Bug Build
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Michael Ambrozik
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 10, 2021 5:23 pm    Post subject: Re: 1972 Highwheeler Bug Build Reply with quote

Just remember the tires are directional. The one in the picture is for the left side of the car.
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jasonvw
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 11, 2021 7:30 am    Post subject: Re: 1972 Highwheeler Bug Build Reply with quote

Yep, I just laid it against the drum to get an idea of the look. We are a long way off from wheels going on...
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jasonvw
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 12, 2021 7:10 am    Post subject: Re: 1972 Highwheeler Bug Build Reply with quote

Finally pulled the car inside and started to tear it down. First step was to get it off the ground and asses the nightmare of separating the body off this super rusty pan. As I said at the beginning, the floors are very soft and rusty since the carpet seemed to have gotten wet either by flood or just constantly being drenched and left to soak which rusted out the pan halves very badly.

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Surprisingly the body has no rust, zero at all. Very lucky for a car that was neglected and left outside. Apart from some paint deterioration under the old master cylinder reservoir, it was only dirt that I found on tear down. No hacks, no head scratchers. Under hood area is really nice, just dirty.

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The biggest bonus and shock of the day was that every single bolt came right out like butter! Not a single one broke or got tight. I got really lucky and I know it. After getting the body on stands I lowered down the pan off the jack and instantly saw daylight between the two for the first time since this car was built. I was honestly a little worried I would find some big issues or more intense rust problems but that just wasn't the case. All of it was contained to the pan halves and the rest of the car is just fine.

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jasonvw
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 19, 2021 1:05 pm    Post subject: Re: 1972 Highwheeler Bug Build Reply with quote

Started the day off whipping up a quick body dolly to keep the body moveable while the pan tear down and rebuild gets going. Super easy and cheap with some rollers.

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I got a few local friends together with a few cameras and we got to it.

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Up and over and onto the dolly with zero drama! Just the way you want it to go. Now we can really take a look at what we are working with.
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jasonvw
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 19, 2021 1:10 pm    Post subject: Re: 1972 Highwheeler Bug Build Reply with quote

We shot a quick video of the body removal and sped it up for easier viewing. Have a look:


Link


Be sure you subscribe to our Youtube channel. We will be posting a lot more videos soon on this and other builds.

Now lets take a look at the pan in better detail.
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slayer61
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 19, 2021 1:44 pm    Post subject: Re: 1972 Highwheeler Bug Build Reply with quote

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All while the Boss supervises! Nice! Laughing
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jasonvw
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 19, 2021 1:51 pm    Post subject: Re: 1972 Highwheeler Bug Build Reply with quote

Ha ha, Thats not my boss, but she supervised all the same Very Happy
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PostPosted: Sun Nov 21, 2021 12:04 pm    Post subject: Re: 1972 Highwheeler Bug Build Reply with quote

So now the body is off and safely on the dolly. The pan is a roller, but a giant mess of a project that will need some serious help. Aside from just being dirty, the body is really straight and rust free. Can't say the same for the pan but I expected that and its all going to get fixed. Here are some shots.


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The next step is going to be getting pan torn down and assessed. I have a pretty good idea what Im going to need to do to it and I will show you guys some photos of what we are working with next.
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 23, 2021 7:41 am    Post subject: Re: 1972 Highwheeler Bug Build Reply with quote

So now that the body is off you can see the state of the pan. Rust, rust and more rust. Battery pan is gone, you can put your hand through it. The thing is covered in years of dust and dirt.

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First step was a quick bath to get the grime off it. That helped some


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Then I rolled it in the garage for tear down.

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Motor came off first

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Then everything else until it was just a pan.


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And finally its down to the bare pan.

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I will update next with some detail shots of the pan and the next steps in this build.
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 24, 2021 7:13 am    Post subject: Re: 1972 Highwheeler Bug Build Reply with quote

Finally the car is getting broken down to its bare bones. Here are some shots of the pan so you can see how bad it was. Center spine is nice but the pan halves are done... I suspect that the home made loop pile carpet that was in the car was constantly wet and just destroyed the halves. Its possible that water sat inside the car for some time as well since the pedal assembly is basically junk too. I will get to that later. For now here are some pan shots.

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Due to the limited amount of free time I have during the week I am taking the pan to Washburns for the metal work. Yes, I could do this at home myself and probably knock it out in a long weekend, but with my schedule, that long weekend would stretch into a month of more and this build has a deadline.
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earthquake
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 25, 2021 12:46 pm    Post subject: Re: 1972 Highwheeler Bug Build Reply with quote

Ya always need someone in a tied dyed shirt when working on a VW!

eQ
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 25, 2021 3:20 pm    Post subject: Re: 1972 Highwheeler Bug Build Reply with quote

Thats called dressing for the occasion Very Happy
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Dr. Larmdank
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 25, 2021 7:43 pm    Post subject: Re: 1972 Highwheeler Bug Build Reply with quote

Really digging this thread! Keen to see where things go mate
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jasonvw
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PostPosted: Sat Nov 27, 2021 7:15 am    Post subject: Re: 1972 Highwheeler Bug Build Reply with quote

This one is going all the way. Probably way too nice for its intended use but that's just the way I build things Very Happy

So the pan is ugly, that's pretty obvious now. I got it loaded up in the truck and made the short trip over to Washburns in Orange to let them take care of the repair and mods I wanted.


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I dropped the pan of at 8 am and by 10 they had it stripped of its halves and ready to go to the blaster. A few quick points about pan Resto. It is perfectly fine to wire wheel your pan at home and blast it with Rhino liner or something similar for an off road car. I have seen that done, it looks just fine and probably works well too but for me, I wanted to go a step further and since I was turning the reins over to Washburns on this pan fix I went the extra step to have the pan first baked, degreased and then blasted. This does a few things. Baking and degreasing the pan at very high heat will get rid of all that baked on grease and grime that has accumulated in the tunnel and tubes. By doing this you end up with a completely clean pan both inside and out. It also gives you an ultra clean surface to make your repairs on which is what we were after.

Coming back from these processes the next day you can really see that the pan is actually not as ugly as it was at drop off.


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By mid morning that 2nd day they new pan halves were installed. We used Wolfsburg West halves since they seem to be the most correct in size and shape. These were spot welded in place as seamless as factory for that OE look. I did make a few changes though. We eliminated the heater cable tubes behind the seats and at the frame horns since this car wasn't going to have any heat. I think it looks cleaner as well. I also had Washburns repair a hole near the pedal assembly mount. Aside from that the pan was actually in good shape. Fuel line pressure tested perfectly, clutch cable tube was solid, shift bushing hanger was great too.


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Even the underside which you may never see is in great shape now. Keep in mind all this was done in under 3 days. The best part of this exercise is the next part, locking it all in with fresh powdercoat.

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Im really happy I chose to go this route. This could have all been done at home, but with outfits like Washburns all set up to knock out this level of a job in under a weeks time, it just made more sense to farm it out to them. My schedule would have made this a 30 day job at home and it would not have come out this nice.
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 30, 2021 7:56 am    Post subject: Re: 1972 Highwheeler Bug Build Reply with quote

Gosh bugs are so cool! I can't wait to see this one, it's going to be good! Keep it up Cool
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 30, 2021 1:53 pm    Post subject: Re: 1972 Highwheeler Bug Build Reply with quote

Thanks! Another update coming up pretty quick here. Very Happy
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 04, 2021 3:12 pm    Post subject: Re: 1972 Highwheeler Bug Build Reply with quote

All the take off parts headed off to Blast and Powder coat. This is some of it.

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It will definitely look better after some color.
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 04, 2021 3:26 pm    Post subject: Re: 1972 Highwheeler Bug Build Reply with quote

And now for the good stuff! The pan is fully powder coated and looking 100 times better than what we started with. I chose to go with semi gloss black this time.


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Washburns did an outstanding job on the pan work. From drop off to pickup it was under 7 days turnaround. The pan was really ugly to start with and they knocked the ugly off it for me. Im pretty happy with the way it all came out and now its home and ready to start the reassembly.

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This stage of the build is really my favorite part. All the dirty work is pretty much over and its just assembling clean new parts from here forward. The pan should come together fairly quickly so updates will be coming up more often.
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 09, 2021 10:08 am    Post subject: Re: 1972 Highwheeler Bug Build Reply with quote

Finally, its time to kick off the fun part!. First thing is first, this is not a true off road car build. Im not building a desert beater or race car. Clearly this level of detail isn't necessary for a car like that. This is what I call a High wheeler, a lifted big tire bug that is capable of multi use, both street, off road and snow. With that in mind I reached out to my transaxle builder Benco for a good happy medium trans to suit the large tires but also long distance driving use I have planned for this car. We came up with a fresh IRS box. We went with a pro street box 4.37 gear and heavy duty side plate with super diff. Im also going with type 2 axles so we swapped the output shafts over as well.

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Some fresh stock trans mounts and the powder coated cradle and it slid right into the chassis.

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Next up I installed one of our Dual Circuit master cylinder upgrade kits which gives you the ability to run disc/drum or disc/disc on the car. I am planning to go with front disc and rear drum so it was a perfect upgrade. We use the Varga masters since they seem to be the highest quality you can get these days. Ill get the reservoir on later.

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I also went with one of the HD shift couplers since the last few stock ones failed on my previous cars. I will give this a try and see how it does.

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The last piece I installed was our rear Truss bar set up. Its a bolt on deal, no mods needed. It triangulates the rear frame horns through the upper shock mounts to keep the flexing of the rear of the car to a minimum. On a car like this with some decent HP coming, potential off road use as well as the inherent flex in the rear of these cars it was the perfect venue to use this part.

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So far its going together pretty easily. I can't recall the last registration date on this car but I believe it was in the early 90s. It never looked this good, that I know. Im shooting for a quick finish on this car and having it driving in late January. First I just need to make it a roller!
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 13, 2021 12:12 pm    Post subject: Re: 1972 Highwheeler Bug Build Reply with quote

Staying at the back end of the car I got the spring plates on. From off road cars I have had in the past I have found that the happy medium for a lifted IRS car is right at 25 degrees of preload on the plates. This gives you about 2 inches of lift when the plates are in their installed position. To make it easier I notch the bottom of the plates slightly to maintain the strength of the plate but also give you some down travel without riding on the housing. You also get the benefit of tightening up the ride from the extra preload.

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I also got the trailing arms assembled with urethane bushings, new bolts and spacers. These were powdercoated to match the pan of course.

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Lastly I got the rear brakes all assembled as well. Fresh powdercaoted backing plates, new internals and fresh brake drums. Im sticking with the 4x130 bolt pattern for this build. Capping off the rear are these killer Mobelwagen Interceptor wheels in 15x4.5 all the way around. Those wheels are rolling inside of Deestone 7.00x15 gnarly tires. These things stand really tall and narrow which will give the car the exact look Im after.

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Now its getting exciting. I now have an idea of what this thing is going to look like when its on all 4s. Still a way to go but since its like a giant Lego set, it all goes together pretty easily now.
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