What did you do yesterday on your buggy?

[MrGoodtunes]

Today I'm attaching an axle onto
transmission, which is already in
buggy, which is on jackstands.

[oprn]

Sweet! Wish I still had access to the under dash components like that!
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Our cars get old, we get old but driving an old VW never gets old!

[slayer61]

Yup. Us too. I took my little sidekick and assistant test driver out to the grocery store for some fixin's for our pulled pork sammiches! Thanks Theodore!

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[oprn]

What did I do to my Buggy yesterday? I DROVE IT!!!

After a very long time (far longer than necessary but that is a whole separate story) I finally got behind the wheel and actually drove the thing... and it makes it all worthwhile!!!
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Our cars get old, we get old but driving an old VW never gets old!

[Bikerndiver]

I finally had some free time to spend with Sandy. She got new tail lights! Sequential turn signals! '65 Mustang style.... I like them! Will get pics posted soon.
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1966 Manx clone (possibly a Joe Poty Enterprises) named SANDY. '70 to '73 1300 cc w/1600 DP heads, twin carbs and headers

[Gary E 21]

Continued construction of the new Manx Remastered kit.

[slayer61]

Minor stuff compared to most... I s'pose.

While I had the cage out for powder coating I took the seats out and put truck bed liner on the interior floor. I was pretty impressed with the "Herculiner" product. Not so much, their rollers

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[Murphy's Law]

It's actually not recycled, we have two and both get used for motorcycles. This just happened to be empty at the moment, my brother got the idea and made it work. It's his body shop, and mostly a motorcycle shop. I gave him an old Harley that sat in the corner of my shop, in return for the use of him and his shop. He has actually done almost all of the work on it since he's retired and I'm not. It's better that way.

He worked on and painted Corvettes, and I worked on and painted VW's in different shops over our careers. I'm good with fabrication, and he's excellent with 'glass so I took him up on his offer.

BTW, in the vein of recycled, I made a plate for the trailing arms when I built the pan for this body and used an old engine stand as a rotisserie. I have a heavy steel roller cart I placed at the front and could pick up the nose to roll it over and work the bottom. Easy Peasy.

I just laid some boards on the cart to level it up, and started drillin' and cuttin'. At the end my levels showed me that it worked like a charm, and all the while I was working at a height that didn't make my back scream at the end of the day!

[ppilotmike]

Side pods look great! I like the recycled motorcycle lift, good idea, wish I’d of kept mine when I sold the bike.

[Murphy's Law]

I ended up welding the perimiter of the shock towers, and adding the pad to the top.

I changed the front bump stops, put the refurbed steering box (cleaned and painted, hehe) and associated stuff on. rebuilt and modified the dash support, tried to rebuild the pedal assembly and it broke trying to pull the accelerator pin. Attempted to disassemble the Ghia calipers and the pistons will not move. I said F-it and pounded 145 psi into them both and...nothing.

Problem is, it seems like every time I get an inch forward toward a finished area, I need parts I don't have. Ugh. Mostly (right now) my body so I can fit the steering column and dash/support.

I just ordered new calipers, rotors, and a pedal assembly. The shocks I want seem to be made of unobtanium in my local area so I'm shopping for oem's but seem to be only finding Bilsteins at $100+ each. I can get exactly what I want from several places in the UK but shipping is enormous. I guess I'm just used to the $11 shocks I used to sell when I was a ACVW mechanic in the '80's. I'm trying to get over that

Soon I'll be bringing my body back home. I have a limited time in the body shop to get it done but I'm getting close to my first test mount.

BTW, I bought sidepods for it from bugstuff in PA, they look great and they fit like a glove! I'm VERY happy with them.

[Skulptorchaz]

This is a rail I did for a friend. It is powdered, and I think in a very cool blue you may like.
When it comes to powder, I understand if it is in liquid paint, it is also in powder.
Good luck!!

P.S> I believe it is a bit darker than the pix show.

[slayer61]

Thanks Chaz!

My wife is after a similar scheme as the blue/silver paint scheme that Yamaha has used with some black in it as well

Kinda like this...

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[Skulptorchaz]

Nice!
Powder coating is the only way to fly. My coater has something he calls "Super Chrome" which isn't "chrome" per se but looks like polished aluminum. I use it a lot!

[slayer61]

Stripped the seats and roll cage out of the buggy and dropped the cage off at the powder coaters. Price today is less than quoted a year and a half ago! That doesn't happen very often!

Going blue like the seats & cooling tin
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[Skulptorchaz]

There is very good reason for not welding a solid bead on something - less continual stress along that line makes it less apt to break along the weld.

[YDBD]

yep OEM beams were not welded all the way around:

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'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"

[EVfun]

Uh... My 1963 factory front beam is not welded all the way around the uprights to the torsion tubes. I just ran out to my garage to take a look. I don't see how that is a quality problem if VW didn't do it.
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[joescoolcustoms]

Ya'd think those Chinese kids would do a better job than that.
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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

[Murphy's Law]

I got my adjustable beam from Scat yesterday. I am thoroughly disappointed in the quality.

Looks like I'll be removing the bearings and bushings to complete the welding on it. Three spot welds between the tubes on each side, uprights between the tubes (where vw usually rots) are welded front/rear but no weld on the top or bottom. I don't understand that. The frame head mounts are just enough off square to be noticeable and it's powder coated. Ugh. I hate to clean powder and I hate the way the steel welds afterward, too.

Oh, and I'm pretty sure it's made of substandard material. It sounds that way anyway.

The only good thing I see is that the holes for the zerk fittings are drilled much lower than stock, but I didn't see any threads inside the holes. Probably not. I'll just do the right thing and pretend not to notice.

$385 delivered from CA to NY, guess you get what you pay for. This is a dune buggy addon, it's a good thing this will not be driven a whole lot. There is a whole slew of reasons I'm not sending it back, the biggest one is Scat's recent history of "customer service". Not to mention the length of time it took for them to actually ship it.

And yes, I knew the chance I was taking in making this purchase.

[MrGoodtunes]

Hook'd up a "Quick Start Hot Wire" on my buggy.

Before & after pics (new wire is red):

Buggy has almost always started fairly quick. But occasionally, she would crank for a full second or two. Well, I'm running a 6-volt starter for my chosen 180mm clutch and 12-volt power system. So after 1~2 sec cranking, I let the ignition key back off from start position to on position; and in that instant, the engine fires! Makes sense because upon releaving the starter motor from draining the battery, there's suddenly more battery power available for the ignition coil to provide a strong spark.

Recently, I traded some parts with Samba member @Rust Bucket 52 who gave me a 12v solenoid with an extra male spade terminal that's been missing from every solenoid I've ever had during my 47 years with this car. That terminal (VW#15a) provides a 12 volt unfused connection directly from the positive battery terminal only when the solenoid is activated (i.e. while starter is cranking).

In the following pic, I push'd back the protective sleeve so you could see this end of the red wire coming from the solenoid (shown in after pic above), using a piggyback spade connector on coil positive (VW#15) terminal:

It works great. I totally love the "click-a-vroom" sound of a quick strong start up! But I wonder. Could the same result have been achieved without the extra solenoid terminal, by connecting to the coil from the big heavy duty terminal that feeds power from solenoid to starter thru woven copper?