Building my 69 Baja from the ground up

[Adrenaline Junky]

Bashr52 - I did save a little for the doors and quarters. Although the original is still stuck on there. I left it and will probably be there for ever.

Made a little more progress. Masked off and painted the front and used a rubberized undercoating on the front fender wells and over the whole rear.

Front before

Front after

Rear after

Got the dash mounted and all the gauges in

I want to let you know about a couple products I used. Loctite professional performance MAX 300. I used this stuff on the carpet. I had to peel up a little carpet to get to the clutch line and everything basically came up right to the pan. This product is amazing!!

The next is the Rustoleum Ultra cover. I have used many rattle can paints and this is by far the best spray can paint I have used. It is a one coat product and again was amazed with the coverage. Will never buy the cheap stuff again.

Both are available at Home Depot.

[Adrenaline Junky]

Thought I would freshen up the tranny with new seals and bushings since the hockey stick was wobbling around. Pulled the nose cone and found this.

Someone had filed down the bearing carrier and glued this washer onto the nose cone. Quick call to Rancho and they hooked me up with a rebuilt nosecone and seals. Quick coat of paint and she was ready to slap back in.

Rockstar never disappoints.... Couple late nights and she's back on her tires.
Mounted the rear shocks and tucked the Ecotec brain up in the rear corner

Assembled the front

Assembled the rear

All that's left is wiring, mounting the seats, gas tank and finishing up the doors. Well then a few other odds and ends....

[1fastbigguy]

Hey Adrenaline Junky, I just spent the evening reading your build. Great job on the car and I look forward to seeing it finished up! My 16 year old son and I are building a Baja for his first car. Its a Crumco chassis with a 2.2 ecotec. Thank you for all the great info!

[Adrenaline Junky]

1fastbigguy you're welcome. You will find that most people are very helpful on this site. You're doing it in the right order. I spent months searching, reading and taking notes before I even started my build. It has minimized my mistakes and knee jerk spending. Although it did morph into an ecotec build which wasn't in the original plan.

[1fastbigguy]

How is the Baja coming along? We finished the motor and trans mounts and then found a ragtop body, so we are now fitting it to our chassis.

[Hondub]

Good work. I really like the paint. Any updates on it yet?
_________________
My Honda powered Class 5 car build.
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=6599511#6599511

[Adrenaline Junky]

Damn how time flies. I'm a consultant and my latest project is in Philly so I have less time to work on the Baja. Let me tell you something, that commute sucs from Sacramento! But I have had a few hours here and there.

Filled the tank with foam to stop the gas from sloshing around.

Used the wifes turkey carver to shape the foam

Got the tank all plumbed.

Wasn't shifting right so I had to fab a adjuster.

Rubber coated under the hood and fenders.

Now check this out. You know when the fiberglass hood closes and rubs on the side panel. It was driving me nuts. I found this rubber stripping at Grainger. Part number 4040-1/16. It’s a Buna rubber, 1/16 in thick and has an adhesive backing. Came in 4X36 in strip. I trimmed to 3 in and cut it in half at 18 in. After putting this stuff on, I convinced that it’s not coming off. No rubbing of the hood on the body panel scratching off the paint and its super quiet.

[Bashr52]

Looking good. Can you elaborate on your tank foam?

[Adrenaline Junky]

Many of the offroad tanks come filled with foam to keep the gas from sloshing around in the tank and creating air bubbles for the fuel delivery system. Also since the tank is inside the car it sounded like someone shaking a 5 gallon metal container that was half full. I just didn't want to deal with either.

I bought the foam from summit racing. Then I couldn't use the standard float style sending unit since the tank was filled with foam. I went to www.centroidproducts.com and had them build me a vertical sender 0-180 ohm to work with my VDO gas gauge. They build each sender to your specs, OHM's, length, fluid. It was like $53 and works like a champ.

[Bashr52]

Doesnt the foam take up space and absorb some of the gas? Seems to me it would lessed the amount you could fill the tank, and lead to potential drainage problems?

[Ed ke6bnl]

The stuff I used for my tank was air craft grade and came in little cubes that looked like bbq briquettes that expanded to about 2.5 in cubes that you just pushed into the tank. I was more under the thought that they where used in air plane wings to prevent the gas from sloshing around and acting like a passenger leaping from one side to the other of the plane or bug. and eliminates the need for baffles.

this is the stuff I used
http://www.evomx.com/fuel-tank-foam-information/
they claim that

The inertia of the fuel slosh can make your fuel weight seem like you have 3 times as much fuel in your tank! my 16 galllon tank would be like near 50 gal.

[northstarbeetle]

first off great build!!!! car looks sik.. great fab work..
i was told...
the foam is actually more there for if there is a hole in the tank, the foam will go directly to the hole limiting fuel from pouring out at a high rate, also restricting oxygen from going in the tank if there is a hole or a fire it will help reduce the chance of exploding!!! helps with sloshing also!!!
_________________
GRIP IT AND RIP IT!!!
Heres my build:
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=344748&sid=43494cd783cdc3787d870e8b8aba65d6

[Adrenaline Junky]

Thanks Northstar!

This is from the JAZ website:

These fuel cell safety foam kits from Jaz Products are designed to be used inside of fuel cells. They help to prevent fuel from sloshing around during hard cornering, hard acceleration, or the rough and tumble conditions of off-road racing.

The foam will take up anywhere from 1% to 4% of the volume of the fuel cell. This varies depending on the gallon capacity of the fuel cell. The smaller fuel cells, like 1 to 5 gallons will be around 1% to 2%. The larger fuel cells, like 16 to 32 gallons will be around 3% to 4%.

So in my application with a 17 gal tank I lost .51-.68 of a gallon.

[Adrenaline Junky]

Ecotec guys that want to run a tach - LISTEN UP. I have spent hours pouring through forums on wiring a tach to an ecotec. I have purchased a pile of parts to make it work. I spent hours on the phone with VDO trying to trouble shoot the tach because I thought it might be bad.

While down in the weeds of a forum I read "attach a wire to pin 32 of the blue connector to your tach with a 1.2k pull up resistor to +12V". I'm thinking here we go again. The guy that left the post was Steve Humphrey and he left his phone number. So I call him Sat morning and he says he has a business called Humphrey Harness and he builds harnesses for all kinds of applications and has done 100's of Ecotecs. He has even spent time with the engineers at GM so he knows his way around the Ecotecs.

So I try it and I'll be damned if it didn't work like a champ. Here's the process. Pull the blue connector off the ECM and slide this little pin keeper out.

Slide a wire with the conector on the end into J32 on the blue connector and reinstall the pin keeper.

Run that wire to your tach and wire in a 1.2K ohm pull up resistor to a positive 12V source like this.

I spent weeks figuring this out. Hopefully it only takes you an hour and 50 cents for a resistor

[1fastbigguy]

Hey Man,
Thank you very much for the info! I'm sending the harness off to enginewiring.com next week and we are about a month away from wiring the rest of the car. It looks like you just saved me a lot of time and money! The car is looking great!

[Adrenaline Junky]

1fastbigguy - Firts of all let me state that I have NOTHING bad to say about enginewiring.com. Tom over there was a life saver for me getting my Ecotec running. Spent a Sunday morning walking me through troubleshooting. Their customer support doesn't get any better than that!

Do yourself a favor and call Steve Humphrey @ 909-910-3867 and talk to him about a harness. Just one difference is that his harness comes with a tach signal wire where as EW.com didn't. What Steve has is "Real World" experience not just book smarts. He has his own offroad cars that he runs and has been in the game for years. He took the time with me on the phone to talk about the tach signal, VSS signal, running rough, blah blah. Just a good guy all around. I didn't know about him when I had my harness reworked. Knowing what I know now my next harness would be done by Steve.

My 2 cents.

[Stingray250]

Even easier setup for the Ecotec... unsolder one of the stator leads from the rectifier on your alternator... there shoud be three of these leads... any one of the three will work ... the stator is the "bird nest" looking wire thingy that encases the alternator rotor.

Piggy back a 12ga. secondary wire and re-solder both wires back to the previous stator lead you removed from the rectifier... now run the added wire out throught the alternator housing... insulate it with a piece or two of heat shrink to guard against shorting out on the alternator case... this is your new tach signal lead.

I used a standard VDO tach http://www.jegs.com/i/VDO/918/333-151/10002/-1 and it registers flawlessly all they way up to my 7k rev limiter.

[Adrenaline Junky]

Finishing up some loose ends before the Bug-O-Rama this weekend.

Here's my solution for those nasty holes I had to cut for the rear shocks. It's neoprene rubber from Grainger part # 1MUP8. It's super stretchy!
Before:

After:

I was always a little nervous about the exhaust being exposed. That was confirmed when Dad put his hand on it after a run and it lit him up like a cat on a hot tin roof. Sorry dad! Anyway I found this colored wrap from Heat Shield products. Keeps the heat manageable.

All that's left is to install the rear windows, a little touchup on the cage and a nice coat of wax

[Wired1]

Awesome thread thanks, looks very clean...
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1961 unrestored Beetle - 1966 VW Baja project - http://www.youtube.com/user/wiredkiwi

[1fastbigguy]

How was Bug O Rama? Also we are getting close to doing the exhaust. How do you like your header and what brand is it?

Thanks, Alan