Budget rail rebuild and dual carbs project

[GoMopar440]

I found some free large pieces of sheet metal on CL with a bunch of other stuff in a "You can have it but have to take it ALL" type of ad. That has had me working on other stuff than I had planned to over the weekend. NBD though, it's all progress towards the same goal. I'll try to get some pics of what I've been doing with the sheet metal later.

The rear wheel cylinder and some shifter bushings showed up in the mail today. I'm going to try to finish what I started with the sheet metal before I swap back to working on the brakes again. Then I'll move onto the shifter bushings.

On a related note I found a source for ACVW parts that's about 45 minutes away from me. I stopped by today but he was out taking care of family business. I'll try again tomorrow. I spotted lots of front beams, engine cases and transaxles there so I was definitely in the right place. The name of the place is Brax Euro Parts and he's located in Divide, MT.
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Homemade rail for street & off road: BJ front beam (bent), IRS rear (boxed/maybe bent), stock T1 DP 1600, 009, 34PICT-3 (soon to be dual 40HPMXs), 4-1 glass pack exh, T3 brakes (F disk, R drum & Dual MC), Bug trans (002, 5 rib going in soon).
Link to my rail (re)build thread: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=629493

[GoMopar440]

I made it out to Brax's place this afternoon and was glad I went. I picked up a German Bosch 009 distributor (core for parts), a German Solex 34 PICT-3 carb (complete for rebuilding) and a new Mexican distributor clamp. He's got quite a collection of ACVW parts so it was easy to find almost all the parts I'd like to eventually put on the rail. He had some decent 002 transaxles so I'll be saving up for one of those in the near future. There weren't any Thing front spindles though so I'm still keeping an eye out for a pair of those to lift the front a bit.

While I was there I asked if he had any junked dual relief cases or dual port heads for my ultra light project. He let me dig through his scrap bins and I was able to come up with a few possible candidates. I ended up with four matched engine cases and seven heads. The heads all had cracks around one of the spark plug holes or valves, but the other sides looked to be in good shape. These should work fine for me since I'm going to be building a half VW engine for an ultralight aircraft (Hummel Ultracruiser) I want to build after I'm done with the rail. First I'll have to clean them up, inspect and measure them to make sure the damage is limited to the areas that will be getting removed.

After I got home and unloaded the parts I started disassembling the 009. It's now been completely disassembled and I've cleaned and polished most of the pieces. I only need a few small bits from it but if I need anything else the parts will already be clean and ready to use.

Depending on the weather tomorrow I'll either be working on the front of the rail outside if it's nice out, or on the new (to me) carb in the barn if it rains.
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Homemade rail for street & off road: BJ front beam (bent), IRS rear (boxed/maybe bent), stock T1 DP 1600, 009, 34PICT-3 (soon to be dual 40HPMXs), 4-1 glass pack exh, T3 brakes (F disk, R drum & Dual MC), Bug trans (002, 5 rib going in soon).
Link to my rail (re)build thread: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=629493

[GoMopar440]

Yesterday I spent some time working on the hood. I welded 1" tubes on each side going from the lower windshield bar down to the top of the axle beam right next to the shock tower bases. The new tubes were also welded to the arched top frame tubes where they pass over the tie rods. Next I welded in a 1" square tube horizontally about the midway point on the new round tubes. I welded some heavy piano hinge to the front face of the square tube for the front half of the hood. The front half of the hood will be able to open for maintenance access. The free sheet metal I picked up was used to make the upper portion of the hood. The grey paint is some Graphite colored Duplicolor wheel paint I had on hand. It's the same stuff I used on the carb and distributor previously.

The front half of the hood has most of the metal pieces already cut for it. I have to put a slight upward bend in the middle of the front half of the hood to clear the battery box. The front leading edge will come straight up a couple of inches off the axle beam to clear the steering box and shaft. Once it's done everything except for the steering box will be hidden under the hood.

I'll have enough sheet metal left over to make a solid roof to replace the crappy fitting canvas top I tried to make for it. I still need to add a piece of tubing or angle at the top or the windshield opening so I will have a place to mount some windshield wipers and various switches overhead. I already removed the mount for the box that was on top of the lower windshield bar that held the tach, key switch and light switches. I'd like to put all the switches in the overhead area and the gauges and lights below. I'll make a new larger box below the windshield bar for the gauges and indicator/idiot lights. A small GPS speedometer, oil pressure and oil temp gauges from http://www.speedhut.com/ are on the list be added to the new console. If I can afford it, a matching tach would be nice as well. Until I can save up for the new speedometer, I'll just use my Garmin GPS for my speedometer until then.

Today was threatening rain all day so I spent most of my time out in the shop cleaning up the parts I got from Brax. I got a package of choke parts in the mail today (Thanks again earthquake) so I was able to start working on those as well.

One thing I did do outside was a simple mod to the Mexican distributor bracket that Brax suggested. I MIG welded the head of the bolt to the bracket to lock it in place. After it cooled off I ground and sanded down the top of the weld just enough to make it the same profile as the bracket. That way the weld won't interfere with the distributor body or the engine casing. A little black paint to keep the rust away and it looks and works as good as an OG German bracket.

I cleaned and painted the distributor cap clips from the core 009 yesterday so today I just had to mount one in place of the missing clip on the 034. I also salvaged a small wire C clip from under the felt pad inside the 009 and put it on the 034. It's hard to see but it looks like it snapped into place ok so I dropped the felt pad back as well.

The newest 34 PICT-3 got completely torn down for cleaning and didn't offer up any surprises. Since this carb was more complete than the first one I took some pics of how the parts were assembled during the tear down to help make sure everything gets put back together in the correct order.

The accelerator pump actuating rod and the throttle cable attaching barrel both have a LOT of wear on them. I'll be keeping an eye on them until I can get some parts in better condition to replace them. This new carb has a little bit more wear on the throttle shaft bushings, but other than that, it's in about the same overall condition as the first carb. When I was in town today I ordered enough Oilite bronze material to make new throttle and choke shaft bushings for all three carbs. The bronze material should arrive next week.

All the parts are now cleaned and painted or polished, except for the main castings. Those larger pieces are soaking in a can of Berrymans carb dip. After they've had some time in the dip I'll finish cleaning them and blow out all the passages with some carb cleaner spray. Once the parts are completely dry I'll paint them to match the first carb.

I also bought an almost new Empi T-handle shifter from a Samba member's ad in the classifieds. It should be here next week. I'll put the new shift bushing in when the new shifter goes in.

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Homemade rail for street & off road: BJ front beam (bent), IRS rear (boxed/maybe bent), stock T1 DP 1600, 009, 34PICT-3 (soon to be dual 40HPMXs), 4-1 glass pack exh, T3 brakes (F disk, R drum & Dual MC), Bug trans (002, 5 rib going in soon).
Link to my rail (re)build thread: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=629493

[GoMopar440]

The weather today was rainy for the most part so I didn't get to work on welding up the hood. Instead I went out to the shop and started tinkering with the chrome chinese E-brake handle I got from daanbc. I already made a new aluminum button for it, but the rod was having trouble actuating the little toothed pivot that catches on the bigger tooth rack piece. The pivot piece was stamped out of 1/4" steel and the sides were all slanted from the punching process.

First thing I did was to use a couple of files and square the outer edges up. I used a triangular jewelers file to straighten the tooth profile as well. The hole in the middle of the pivot also had a taper to it so I drilled it out to get the hole walls straight. Then I drilled the pivot hole in the handle out to the same larger size I now had in the pivot. I machined a new pivot pin from stainless and then drilled and tapped it all the way through with a 1/4-20 tap. I parted it off on the lathe so that the pin was just barely wider than the outside width of the handle at the pivot hole. Since the inside of the handle is wider than the the pivot is thick, I made some aluminum washers to fill the empty space and keep the pivot centered in the handle. They ended up being about 1/16" thick and 1/2" wide. I used a couple of allen socket screws to hold the pin in the handle. I cut them down so the ends of the screws met in the middle of the pin. I used red locktite on one screw and let it set up in the pin first. Once that had cured I used blue locktite on the other screw so I could still remove it later if necessary.

The other big toothed gear piece was made the same way as the pivot and had the same slanted sides and messed up teeth. On that bigger part I just cleaned up the teeth with the triangular jewelers file so the teeth were straight.

I lost the washer that went behind the button so I decided to make a new one with a few added improvements to make it operate more smoothly. The spring on the rod was a lot smaller that the hole it rode in inside the handle. When I made the new washer I made it about 1.75" long with a 1/2" OD and a hole big enough to pass the rod through. Then I drilled a hole just barely bigger than the spring OD and made it 1.5" deep. This created a washer with a pocket to support the spring and keep it centered in the handle. I made a shorter one for the other end of the spring to hold the rod centered closer to the pivot.

I assembled the parts and discovered the rod, now centered along the bore of the handle, was not contacting the round nose on the pivot. To fix it I put a slight Z bend in the rod to get it closer to the pivot. It took a few tries to find the right amount of bend, but now it works perfectly every time.

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Homemade rail for street & off road: BJ front beam (bent), IRS rear (boxed/maybe bent), stock T1 DP 1600, 009, 34PICT-3 (soon to be dual 40HPMXs), 4-1 glass pack exh, T3 brakes (F disk, R drum & Dual MC), Bug trans (002, 5 rib going in soon).
Link to my rail (re)build thread: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=629493

[GoMopar440]

We finally got a good day weather wise and my back decides to act up. I was able to get outside later on in the day to work on the hood a bit though. Unfortunately it got dark before I finished so I didn't get any pics today.

The frame for the front half of the hood is now about 3/4 done. I need to pick a piece of 1" x 1" x 3' angle iron tomorrow so I will be able to attach the frame to the hinge. Once the rest of the hood frame is all welded up I'll be able to skin it. I haven't decided what I want to do for a hood latch yet. I'll look around the hardware store tomorrow and see what they have to work with.

I also need to pick up a 3' long piece of 1.5" tube to create a new upper windshield bar so I can install a windshield and gasket. The roof will get skinned after that bar is welded into place.

I have a 2500 lb HF winch I was going to put in the bed of my truck, but I decided to mount it on the front of the buggy instead. I have an old ATV winch plate I'll use to make a winch mount for my existing front bumper.

While the welder is out, I need to make a steering stop for the pitman arm. As it is right now, I only have a stop for turning left. I'll use some 1" square tubing and make a copy of the left stop bar for right side. That should keep this from happening again in the future.

I'll have enough sheet metal left over to close up the space between the upper and lower front axle tubes. I will still need to allow for the steering arm movement and a place for the winch cables to pass through.
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Homemade rail for street & off road: BJ front beam (bent), IRS rear (boxed/maybe bent), stock T1 DP 1600, 009, 34PICT-3 (soon to be dual 40HPMXs), 4-1 glass pack exh, T3 brakes (F disk, R drum & Dual MC), Bug trans (002, 5 rib going in soon).
Link to my rail (re)build thread: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=629493

[GoMopar440]

We had more rain yesterday so I was only able to get one more piece welded onto the hood frame. I had to cover it with some paint as is, flux splatter and all, before the rain got to it.

The mailman brought me the 1/16 NPT tap I needed for the carbs and fuel pump yesterday so I was able to work on those. I don't remember if I mentioned it before but I bought some 1/16 NPT hose barb fittings for the carbs and fuel pump. It's for a reliability mod to prevent the brass hose fittings from pulling or falling out of the cast pieces and causing a fire.

I moved inside the barn to get out of the rain and started working on the carbs. I pulled the newest carb pieces out of the Berrymans bucket and hosed it all down with a spray can of carb cleaner. My bucket of Berrymans is pretty old so it leaves a slick residue on the parts unless I rinse them off immediately after coming out of the bucket. I pulled the top off of the first carb I rebuilt so I could get at the fuel inlet nipple. I grabbed the nipple (no NOT that one ) with some pliers and pulled it out of the carb top plate. IMHO it came out WAY to easily. This probably would be one of those carbs that cause all those VW fires I hear about. The fuel inlet nipple in the newer carb was MUCH tighter and I had to use a hammer on the pliers to get that one out. I measured the small end of the tap to find a tap drill size. And if anyone is wondering, the 25th edition of the Machinist Handbook (AKA: the Machining or Machinist Bible) doesn't list a tap drill size for 1/16 NPT. The chart starts at 1/8 NPT for some reason. If someone wants to know the size just let me know and I'll post what I used. I don't remember what size I used so I'll try to jot it down the next time I get out to the shop. Anyway, even with using Tap Magic cutting fluid, the tap felt VERY draggy working its way into the metal. I had to stop and clean out the chips a lot, being very careful not to crack the castings. Once the threads were to depth the hose fittings screwed into the top plates very snugly. I don't expect I'll get any leaks from those threads but I'll be keeping a close eye on them at the first start up anyway.

Today was mostly shot since I had to go see the doc again and it was raining again by the time I got back home. I did receive a few more rail parts goodies in the mail today, which is always a good thing. The T-handle shifter and a turn signal switch were both waiting for me on the porch when I got back today. The T-handle looks and feels pretty much like new. I'll be looking forward to installing it and the new bushings and trying them out soon. The turn signal switch was advertised as a old Signal-Stat 900 Sigflare four wire flasher on Ebay. When I tried to find a wiring diagram for it online I was noticing a few discrepancies. All the wiring diagrams I found were showing seven wires, not four. I finally found a PDF that covered the entire 900 series of switches. As it turns out mine is a 905 with eight wires (four are cut way back inside the outer wrap) and it has a button at the end of the stalk for a high-low beam selector switch. That was a nice bonus since I hadn't decided what I was going to use for a Hi-Lo switch yet. Now I have that taken care of, even if it was accidentally.

When I was on my way home today, about a block from my house, I spotted an unusual sight. Someone had wheeled out a... well, I'm not sure how to put it, but it looked like the bastard love child of a Thing and a Ghia that was most likely consummated in the back of either a head shop or a hardware store. And it had a for sale sign on it. I called the number and the guy wasn't home but his wife took a message for him. A couple of hours later I got a call back and I spoke with him for just a minute. He's going to drive it over to my place tomorrow afternoon for me to get a look at it. He wants $900 for it but I'm hoping he's willing to negotiate. I didn't get a good look at it because of the rain, but it looks like it probably has the Thing front axle and spindles I want for my rail. I'm not 100% sure on that so I'll be studying up in the Thing section of the forum tonight to brush up on exactly what I'm looking for. I'll try to get pics of it tomorrow whether I buy it or not, and yes, they will be EPIC. LOL.
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Homemade rail for street & off road: BJ front beam (bent), IRS rear (boxed/maybe bent), stock T1 DP 1600, 009, 34PICT-3 (soon to be dual 40HPMXs), 4-1 glass pack exh, T3 brakes (F disk, R drum & Dual MC), Bug trans (002, 5 rib going in soon).
Link to my rail (re)build thread: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=629493

[daanbc]

As if you don't have enough on your plate, your gonna take in a basterd stepchild? LOL. Please take pics of it when he brings it over.

[GoMopar440]

Don't get me wrong, I only want it for the parts on it. I'm not that mentally unbalanced to try to buff this one out.

Without further adieu... Here IT is:

Had enough yet? I hope so because that's all the pics I got of it. He said it is (was?) a 1957 VW Dasher (or something like that) station wagon. So no Thing parts on it unfortunately. However it does have dual single barrel carbs and front disk brakes. And speaking of brakes, one of the rubber brake hoses he replaced a few months ago already deteriorated and blew. He drove it over to my place, which is only about two blocks straight away from his house, using just the emergency brake to stop. The chrome skull ornament on the hood has eyes that light up and glow red when the headlights are on. Most of the other accessories scattered about the body (I'm not sure if "body" is the right word anymore) look like they were stripped off the USS Minnow. I don't have the vocabulary skills to comment further on "IT" so I'll just let you examine the pics. Be sure to have a cup of bleach handy so you can rinse your eyes out after you're done looking IT over.
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Homemade rail for street & off road: BJ front beam (bent), IRS rear (boxed/maybe bent), stock T1 DP 1600, 009, 34PICT-3 (soon to be dual 40HPMXs), 4-1 glass pack exh, T3 brakes (F disk, R drum & Dual MC), Bug trans (002, 5 rib going in soon).
Link to my rail (re)build thread: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=629493

[GoMopar440]

Now that I've derailed my thread I suppose I should get it back on track.

Today I went out to the barn and snapped a pic of the fuel inlet mod I did to the carb tops. When I get a spare fuel pump I'll do the same mod to both the inlet and outlet on that as well. I wrote notes on a paper towel to give the details about the mod. Just ask if anyone wants clarification on any of the notes.

The weather was finally cooperating and I was able to get to work on the front hood frame. This is where I started from today.

I added the rest of the side rail tubing and then tied it together with the front top tube. After that I got the small uprights around the steering input shaft connected to the round tube above it. Once that was done I opened the hood to finish the welds where I could only reach coming up from the bottom side. Next I got the grinder out and smoothed over the welds and knocked off the spatter from the flux core wire. This was a fairly important step so the sheet metal would be able to sit flat on the hood frame. I dusted all the metal dust off the frame and then shot it all over with some blue paint to keep the rust from having a place to start.

The hood can only open a little more than 90* so I'll be adding a prop rod to keep it open when I'm working under it.

On the bottom of the hood frame I used some 1" square tube cut in half lengthwise and placed the open end facing down onto the round tubing below it. I did this to give me a channel that I can put some sticky backed 3/4" wide foam seal (like used on door seals) to help keep rattles in check.

I still need to put latches of some kind on the front of the axle beam to keep the hood down when driving. I welded a piece of metal next to the steering box, but I still need to add one more on the passenger side of the axle.

After I completed the hood frame I started working on the issue of no steering stop when turning right. I cut a piece of 1" sq tubing and notched it so the pitman arm had a little saddle to rest in. Then I turned the wheels right just to where I wanted them to stop. I placed the saddle on the pitman arm and then welded the square tube to the axle beam. I left enough room for the wheel to be able to cycle through it's up and down arc and not let the wheel hit the frame.

That's all I got for tonight. The weather forcast looks good for tomorrow so I should be able to make some good progress.
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Homemade rail for street & off road: BJ front beam (bent), IRS rear (boxed/maybe bent), stock T1 DP 1600, 009, 34PICT-3 (soon to be dual 40HPMXs), 4-1 glass pack exh, T3 brakes (F disk, R drum & Dual MC), Bug trans (002, 5 rib going in soon).
Link to my rail (re)build thread: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=629493

[dustymojave]

It's a VW Type 3 Squareback. 1968 or later (4-bolt wheels). The ball joint front end doesn't have parts that exchange with Bug or Thing. But it has longer trailing arms. Which can allow it about 10" of front wheel travel with mild modifications you can do at home. It might be a swingaxle if it's a 68, but more likely that it's IRS. The IRS parts are all the same as Bug, except for the 26mm torsion bars as opposed to Bug 22mm bars.

It's kinda cool in some ways. But I would NEVER trust those roll bars to save my hair from the dirt.
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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.

[GoMopar440]

Even worse, those so called roll bars are actually made from pipe instead of tubing.

If I can work out a reasonable deal to get it I'll just be stripping all the useable parts off of it and then hauling the carcass off to the metal recyclers.
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Homemade rail for street & off road: BJ front beam (bent), IRS rear (boxed/maybe bent), stock T1 DP 1600, 009, 34PICT-3 (soon to be dual 40HPMXs), 4-1 glass pack exh, T3 brakes (F disk, R drum & Dual MC), Bug trans (002, 5 rib going in soon).
Link to my rail (re)build thread: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=629493

[dustymojave]

[GoMopar440]

Both tie rods were bent by the PO before I got the rail. They added pieces of angle iron, welded to the bottom of the tie rods, with stitch welding. It looks like they got bent after the reinforcement angle was added though.

I'm sure you are right about the vertical frame tube being in the way, but I don't trust my welding abilities to try to fix that right now. I'm planning on getting a new fully welded frame (Beeline Rat Pack 2 seater) next year and just swapping everything over to it. It looks like the tire rods will probably hit the vertical bar if I try to straighten them so I'm running them as is for now. The PO adjusting the tie rods so it tracks straight going down the road with the rods bent as they are now. Not an ideal setup I know, but I'm not going to be off roading it anytime soon. The worst I'll hit are just some dirt roads here and there (for now).

The battery box is bolted to the aluminum floor with four bolts. The strap holds the lid on can be lengthened to go around that horizontal bar behind it for extra stability if needed. The right side tire rod clears the box through the full range of motion. The pictures make it look like the tie rod rubs on the battery box, but it actually doesn't.

I had tried moving the box to the back of that horizontal bar before permently mounting it, but the passenger foot rest is in the way and I don't want to move that. The right front brake hard line is also routed in a way to clear the box with plenty of clearance around it. The hood I built also allows for a couple of inches clearance from the top of the box. If I moved the battery box to the rear of the horizontal bar I would not be able to access it from the new hood. As it is, I can access and work on the steering, brake lines and reservoirs and the battery when I open the hood.

Richard, I want to thank you for posting your input here and hope you don't think I'm just shooting down your ideas without giving them fair consideration. It's hard to post everything pertinent to a project through a few photos and some text. Especially when I usually type this stuff after working on it during the day and then trying to remember everything I worked on right before going to sleep for the day. Some things are just plain difficult to get a good perspective on without having it right there in front of you. I'll try to do better with the pics and text in the future.
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Homemade rail for street & off road: BJ front beam (bent), IRS rear (boxed/maybe bent), stock T1 DP 1600, 009, 34PICT-3 (soon to be dual 40HPMXs), 4-1 glass pack exh, T3 brakes (F disk, R drum & Dual MC), Bug trans (002, 5 rib going in soon).
Link to my rail (re)build thread: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=629493

[GoMopar440]

Today I got a pretty late start but I was able to get the sheet metal cut and mostly installed on the hood. I just have one more cut to make and a few more rivets to put in the lower driver side edge. It got dark before I could finish so that's where I stopped for today.

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Homemade rail for street & off road: BJ front beam (bent), IRS rear (boxed/maybe bent), stock T1 DP 1600, 009, 34PICT-3 (soon to be dual 40HPMXs), 4-1 glass pack exh, T3 brakes (F disk, R drum & Dual MC), Bug trans (002, 5 rib going in soon).
Link to my rail (re)build thread: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=629493

[GoMopar440]

More progress for today. The hood sheet metal is finally all finished and painted.

After the paint dried I put some 3/4" wide x 1/2" thick foam door weather striping in the bottom hood channel to make a seal where the edge of the hood meets the top of the frame. I put a little extra foam around the steering box to close the gap around the input shaft.

Next up I started working on closing the gaps between the top and bottom front axle tubes. I also added some steel channel to give me a place to mount the hood latch securely. I got the right side done and painted before it got too dark and I had to call it quits for today.

BTW: I mentioned that I'm not a good welder by any stretch and here's a perfect example of what I'm talking about. HTH do you weld thin sheet metal like this? I turned the power all the way down on my MIG and this is the best I could do with the flux core wire I have in it. The hook part of the latch is welded solid to the thick hood frame underneath, but I kept getting blow outs through the thin sheet metal around the edges.

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Homemade rail for street & off road: BJ front beam (bent), IRS rear (boxed/maybe bent), stock T1 DP 1600, 009, 34PICT-3 (soon to be dual 40HPMXs), 4-1 glass pack exh, T3 brakes (F disk, R drum & Dual MC), Bug trans (002, 5 rib going in soon).
Link to my rail (re)build thread: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=629493

[Aerindel]

Looking good.

Its interesting how different things are challenges to different people. I wouldn't think twice about moving the vertical support but I wouldn't want to touch all that sheet metal work. Metal thinner than about 16 gauge is a mystery to me, I welded down expanded sheet metal which I am eventually going to cover with fabric.
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Homemade woods/street, bug out rail. IRS, Balljoint front end. 1967 1600cc DP, Weber 32/36 progressive, tri-mil quiet pack. Rear only cutting brakes.

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=630046

[GoMopar440]

Sheet metal work is not my forte either. In the Navy they have different ratings (jobs) to do different things. I was trained as a Machinery Repairman (MR) which in civilian language is a Machinist. The Hull Technician (HT) guys were the ones trained in all sorts of welding disciplines. The only knowledge I have of how to weld is all self taught, mostly with this MIG welder I got about 10 years ago. That is all with flux core wire as well. I have a tiny bottle of CO2 or Argon but I've never hooked it up since I don't have the right wire for it. If I could get someone to show me how to use it and set it up properly I'd give it a shot with the gas. For now I just deal with cleaning up the spatter afterwards before spraying the paint. It usually try to limit the welding I do to cosmetic stuff like this hood. For structural stuff like the horizontal bar I need to put over the windshield, I usually have to redo the welds a couple of times before I'm finally ok with it. Those vertical bars are something I might just have to tackle anyway if I run into interference issues if I try to straighten the tie rods later.
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Homemade rail for street & off road: BJ front beam (bent), IRS rear (boxed/maybe bent), stock T1 DP 1600, 009, 34PICT-3 (soon to be dual 40HPMXs), 4-1 glass pack exh, T3 brakes (F disk, R drum & Dual MC), Bug trans (002, 5 rib going in soon).
Link to my rail (re)build thread: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=629493

[Aerindel]

Forte or not, it looks pretty good.
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Homemade woods/street, bug out rail. IRS, Balljoint front end. 1967 1600cc DP, Weber 32/36 progressive, tri-mil quiet pack. Rear only cutting brakes.

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=630046

[daanbc]

Wow what a difference from when you first got it, till now. For the latch's I would have used the Jeep TJ rubber latches. Unless you need it locked and secure. That rail is looking good, bet you can't wait to get in it and use it.

[GoMopar440]

Thanks for the kind words. I guess I'm more critical of my own work so I notice every little thing I wish I had been able to do better.

Well today was a good day and I got a lot done. I started out by finishing closing off the front gaps in the axle beam with sheet metal. I had to weld in a couple more posts to have somewhere to rivet the skins to. Then I welded on the other hood latch. This time I was more careful and didn't try to weld the outside edge of the hook. This side looks a lot better that the last one.

When I was welding I caught some of the foam sealer on fire so I had to replace the part that went around the steering box input shaft. I'm not sure how well this open cell foam will last when exposed to the elements. If it rots out too quickly I'll find some closed cell foam or some kind of neoprene rubber to seal the opening.

I checked the small lights that mount on the front axle beam and realized that they would be in the way of the hood if I wanted to open it. Rather than just bending the lights out of the way every time I needed to get in the hood, I welded on some 1" extensions to the light mounts. Now I just need to drill the new holes for the light mounting bolts and they'll be done.

It was about this time I ran out of flux core wire but still had more welding to do. I checked my welding supplies box and all I had was some .025 MIG wire. So I took the plunge and hooked up the gas bottle to the welder and changed out the spool. On my welder I also had to reverse the polarity wires and flip the feed wheel for the smaller wire to run it in MIG mode. I followed the directions for metal thickness and gas flow settings and was ready to give it a go.

Before I could go make sparks I had to cut the tube for the new windshield top bar. It is 1.5" heavy wall (looks like .120) tubing and is probably overkill, but that was what they had in stock at the metal vendors place. It took a while to fish mouth the tube to get it to fit properly. The thinner wall stuff (.090) would have been easier to make the notches in. I measured the tube alignment from the top down and from the bottom up to make sure it was sitting square to the frame. I held the tube in place with some welding magnets.

Before I started welding I threw a cotton towel over the seat and the hood to catch the sparks so they wouldn't burn my seats up. LOL. That didn't work as planned... Got a big burn hole straight through the towel, seat cover and seat foam on the passenger seat. The hole goes all the way through to the FG seat bucket below. Luckily I was able to smother the fire before it could ignite the entire seat.

Anyway, I was able to finish welding the new tube in place without any further excitement. My first MIG welds look pretty crappy IMHO, but they seemed solid enough. I wire wheeled the welds to clean them for paint and look for porosity. The welds still looked passable to me so I went ahead and shot some more blue paint.

That's where I stopped for today. Tomorrow I plan on tackling the metal for the roof.
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Homemade rail for street & off road: BJ front beam (bent), IRS rear (boxed/maybe bent), stock T1 DP 1600, 009, 34PICT-3 (soon to be dual 40HPMXs), 4-1 glass pack exh, T3 brakes (F disk, R drum & Dual MC), Bug trans (002, 5 rib going in soon).
Link to my rail (re)build thread: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=629493