New VW (Volksrod) owner from northern NJ

[jipple28]

*Warning, this thread is not suggested reading material for the VW purists. This is my project and it only needs satisfy me.*

Howdy,

I recently bought my first project bug; a 1966 body (partially chopped) on a 1962 tub. I bought it from a guy in Idaho who had to move and was unable to take it with him. The tub is beautiful from what I've seen in photos and been told by the seller. It left ID on 5/27 is scheduled to arrive in NJ sometime tomorrow, 5/31.

Here are the specs and links to the photos I have at this point:
-4" chopped out of the roof
-brand new custom ragtop slider
-59 oval window to be installed
-suicide door hinges with a shaved door kit and bear claw door latches.
-two sets of doors, extra roof for donor metal

The pan has a 4-wheel disc brake conversion, mounted tranny with all smooth welds. All the hardware is plated. The pan also has 3/4" square tubing welded along the bottom of the floor boards and a solid flat piece of sheet metal along the bottom. When you look at the bottom it is completely flat and looks so sweet. The whole pan/tranny is painted a powder purple (Dodge Neon color).

I will be continually adding photos of this project to my photo set on Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jpl3k/sets/72157629775140468/

I plan on purchasing a Corvair 110 or 140 and the necessary adapter plate, flywheel, clutch and expose it out the rear. My thought is to 'flip' the front beam instead of installing a beam extender, but I need to read up on that a little more. I'll run no fenders, no deck lid, drop it front and rear, taller tires on the rear (nothing wide).

Although I do not intend to replicate it by any means, I am taking a lot of styling from Drew Strunk's KDF Mangler:
http://www.speedhunters.com/2010/09/interview_gt_gt_drew_strunk_on_the_kdf_mangler/

I am entirely new to VWs, so this is very much be a learning experience while building, but I look forward to the challenge and expect to drop in with updates and question quite often.

Thanks all,
Jonathan "JPL"

[lovethatconvertible]

Cool, But shouldn't this be in Readers Rides instead?

[jipple28]

[Glenn]

[lovethatconvertible]

Welcome to your new location, Anyway you should check out this thread, it will provide some inspiration. he's been there done that on the Corvair Engine and worked out a lot of the bugs. It's a good read. Keep us in the loop, and pictures are always fun.
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=466290

[ovalshark]

Cool project, is it the one from Mountain home? If I dig deep enough, I swear I have a pic of the red and white puzzle car in the Twin Falls, Id. car show in around 1991. Enjoy and good luck!

[jipple28]

Thanks lovethatconvertible, I have seen that thread and am sure it will come in handy.

[jipple28]

This past weekend I didn’t have a ton of time to work on the VW, but I pretty much finished tacking the A & B pillars and three roof extensions above the driver door, windshield, and passenger door. Added roughly 3” of extensions, but had to cut the roof lines straight first, so it was actually a little less than 3”. Still have to complete the rear extension, C pillars, oval window graft, and find an original 3-fold ragtop slider clip.

Pics prior to installing the hood:

Picked up the hood for the front and started lightly sanding spots wherever rust discoloration was present. The tip of the nose is rough, but nothing that I can’t cut and weld to smooth out. I don’t think I’ll need replacement pieces or anything to repair it. The rest of it is very solid and it bolted on perfectly; just a couple minor dings and nasty-looking spiders crawling around here and there.

I also met a guy locally who used to rebuild Corvairs and picked up a clean set of 140 heads, six jugs, four primary carbs, and the carb linkages. All need cleaning, but not excessive work. I’m waiting on the [rebuilt, running] ‘69 110 engine, but expect to have that real soon. Still need reverse camshaft, distributor gears, alternator fan, flywheel, clutch, and adapter plate for the transaxle. Also need the ragtop slider clip and 8" front beam extension. If anyone has any leads on these LMK. I need to check and post on the classifieds. I checked eBay last week or so, but that’s all.

-JPL

[vaughn bros.]

Nice house and surroundings. Are you sure your wife will allow you to build that car in the driveway?
VOLKSWAGENUT just finished his and my buddy Drew built the KDF Mangler. After seeing the youtube of VOLKSWAGENUT vair powered volksrod, I know I aint gonna try to race them. Drew always seem to have belt guide problems. Check out VOLKSWAGENUT's valve covers. Keep up the hard work.

[jipple28]

Thanks Vaughn Bros, but this is my parent's house.
I've been looking for a bachelor pad; 2-3 car garage with a studio apartment upstairs, but that's not a common find in my area. Older carriage houses only pop up once every so often and I just missed the last one about a year ago. I'm a single guy, so it's the best I can do right now. I prefer the country to crowded suburbs any day.. especially in Jersey! #spit

I'm sure I've seen VOLKSWAGENUT's.. Was that dubbed 'Operation X'?
Drew's Mangler is like my all-time favorite Volksrod. It's my desktop background at work. If he sold autographed posters/calendars of it I'd own both.

This project is something entirely new to me.. I've never done bodywork like this. My daily driver is a fairly beefy Jeep (see background of the last photo I posted). I've fabbed a couple things for it, but I'm tired of pouring money and gas into it, so I've shifted to this.. gotta play with something, right?
My dad disagrees, but I feel this currently has too much of a highboy look to it, and I'm not thrilled with that. Thinking I may need to section about 3" out about the lower door hinge.. would appreciate feedback on this. How difficult do you guys reckon that being? My only real concern is splicing the door because I want to be able to have working driver and passenger windows. I don't expect it to really be relevant, but I intend to install suicide door hinges with bear-claw latches and shave the door handles (already have all the hardware).

I know it should be pretty quick when finished, but I don't intend to race this thing at all. I just want to build something to my tastes that I can enjoy and drive.

[jipple28]

Made some progress lately.. primarily last night as I decided to cut out the section between the B and C pillars and drop in the lengthier piece from the donor roof.

I chopped the necessary interior channels too, so will need to go inside and weld them in after the exterior shell is in place.
Firewall was chopped about 2” (I think), dropping the rear window. Instead of trying to pinch the rain rails in towards the grill (which looked extremely awkward from the rear) I decided to chop between the window and the body curve and add a gap between the two. I'll just graft in some sheet metal to make up the difference later. This allows me to leave the flow of the rails and not widen the rear window, which I had actually considered at one point. In the photos these sections are just mocked-up in place with locking pliers and magnets. It should all line up in the end. Considering where I came from and what I hacked away thus far it’s looking pretty dang good.

What do y’all think about my chopped ‘oval’? Just kidding, I am going to insert the original ’57 Oval once everything else looks smooth.
After that I’ll get the interior support channels in place and start prepping for an original ragtop slider clip.

I ordered a bunch of Corvair-to-VW parts from Starr Cooke (adapter place, flywheel, clutch, reverse camshaft, etc), so those should be arriving any time now.
Still need the ragtop clip, if anyone has one collecting dust.
Also need to order a 10” extension beam and associated parts.

I have to admit- I had a dream last night that I was actually driving this beauty.. I was so proud.

More photos can be found at my Flickr photoset:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jpl3k/sets/72157629775140468/

-JPL

[vaughn bros.]

Lotta work man. Keep going and posting pics.

[jipple28]

[jipple28]

A quick update; I decided to keep the shorter, wider square window instead of grafting in the '57 oval. Much of the work in the rear is complete, aside from some minor cut/weld adjustments.

Honestly I think the rain rails look great from behind the B pillar to the tail end, but still not pleased with the front.. I cut the A and B pillars yet again and will work on lining them up properly. Without the rails I could easily hide the difference, but that's not how I want to do it.

Here's a pic showing how I got my 63' ragtop slider home from central Jersey last weekend. Worked excellent.

It is pristine, barely any surface rust to be found!
Almost all of the slider hardware was included (minor surface rust). I know I need one of the long aluminum rails that the plastic wheels slide down, however (I think the driver's side track).

Before cutting the ragtop clip out and grafting into my project bug I need to get the A and B pillars sorted out for good. I had them close, but not to my liking and I'm pretty dang close to a perfectionist. I'm taking many more measurements now trying to figure out what needs to go left/right and up/down.
-JPL

[VOLKSWAGNUT]

[jipple28]

Thanks Volkswagnut. Nice to meet you too.
I actually already have a '69 110 in 'running' condition, 140 heads/jugs and 4 primary carbs. Also picked up the adapter plate, clutch, flywheel, distributor gear and reverse camshaft from Starr Cooke. It's a matter of rebuilding the engine and fabricating supports for the thing now.
Honestly I'm kind of kicking myself for not running a larger turbo'd VW, though. I'm concerned as to how far out the back the Corvair engine is going to hang and if my body is going to be low enough to pull it off.. Don't know if I could recover enough of my funds to make it feasible at this point.

A belated Happy Independence Day to all!
I didn't go to any local fireworks but I showered myself in sparks all day if that counts. Anyway, lots of progress made; perhaps the most single productive day with the bug. Lined-up A and B pillars, tacked B pillars in and then cut out just below the rain rails to allow me to lay the A pillars and rain rails on top. To my amazement everything worked like a charm.

When I was pleased I dropped in the ragtop clip and tacked that in (added supports to hold the ceiling up), then began filling the rear center that was previously left wide open.

Next I'll continue filling roof gaps, pinch the upper A pillars together (as they are too wide), building up the B pillars where they meet the roof, etc. Moving forward.

The height of my visibility through the window is 8 1/2"; how much of a chop does that equate to?

I'm really looking forward to pulling the doors off and working on those, too, but don't know if I have enough strength in the whole roof section to do so yet. Thoughts? Right now I barely fit though the windows (I'm a fairly thin guy), so I am carefully getting in and out of the thing by stepping on the front tire and in over the roof through the ragtop clip.
Also seriously considering sectioning out a few inches of the body. I don't need heater channels, and certainly want to drop the body as low as possible so there's no gap between the rear grill and the top of the engine.

For the rest of my photos so far see my flickr set:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jpl3k/sets/72157629775140468/
-JPL

[VOLKSWAGNUT]

You can always sell the Corvair stuff to another sucker....

[jipple28]

[VOLKSWAGNUT]

The roof will hold it together side to side if you have it fairly well welded in place.
Chances are its already sprung a little, just due to the previous owners work, in addition to the rag top clip being added.
Besides..its going to be a Volksrod... you can pretty much make this up as you go ...

Im not a body guy by no means... more mechanical, but I've at least learned it doesn't hurt to have the extra support in place.
It looks like the doors were welded as braces???
I wouldnt take the chance of having the roof hold it all together when you break those loose.

I'm just giving you advice, as I have learned by experience and the caution of others.
It looks like you have it under control...now get to workin'...

By the way do you have a name for your project... of did I miss it?

[jipple28]