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wythac
Samba Member
Joined: August 02, 2004
Posts: 2791
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 Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2018 1:06 pm Post subject: Re: This going to take a while |
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Good progress! If I were you I wouldn't feel like I was slacking, that is a lot of work to do, and do well. I think I spent at least a year on my pan and I didn't have to shorten it as you did. And...you don't have to drive it to work on Monday, right?
I think I mentioned this in a previous post, but you should consider a body lift as a part of your pan construction...a few clearance issues that the Rascal body has are;
At the shock towers (at least with a KP/LP front beam, I don't know about a balljoint beam).
At the rear corners of the tub for the front of the rear torsion housing, and:
At the rear of the car, for overhead clearance for the engine in the back. Even with my lift I remove the dual carbs and intakes before pulling the engine...it would be pretty tight clearing the underside of the rear of the car otherwise.
A 3" lift on mine put the "door" sill up where I wanted it for comfort (elbow rest), but I think you could do an 1.5"-2" lift and clear most of the assemblies I mentioned. I have big tires on mine fore and aft to fill the wheel wells though, so if you were thinking of more of a lowered or stock height street look that wouldn't work for you...take a look in the my gallery and you can see pics of several tire and wheel combos. Might take some of the guesswork out of your future plans.
If you kept the body fitted directly to the pan with no lift, finding a way to easily separate any connections between the body and pan so that you could easily pull the body for major drivetrain service might be a good alternative plan.
Good luck with your build, and keep posting when you have progress, I'd really like to see how you put it all together. |
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LifeAsASuffix
Samba Member
Joined: August 24, 2010
Posts: 28
Location: Cary, NC
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| Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2018 8:41 pm Post subject: Re: This going to take a while |
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| wythac wrote: |
Good progress! If I were you I wouldn't feel like I was slacking, that is a lot of work to do, and do well. I think I spent at least a year on my pan and I didn't have to shorten it as you did. And...you don't have to drive it to work on Monday, right?
I think I mentioned this in a previous post, but you should consider a body lift as a part of your pan construction...a few clearance issues that the Rascal body has are;
At the shock towers (at least with a KP/LP front beam, I don't know about a balljoint beam).
At the rear corners of the tub for the front of the rear torsion housing, and:
At the rear of the car, for overhead clearance for the engine in the back. Even with my lift I remove the dual carbs and intakes before pulling the engine...it would be pretty tight clearing the underside of the rear of the car otherwise.
A 3" lift on mine put the "door" sill up where I wanted it for comfort (elbow rest), but I think you could do an 1.5"-2" lift and clear most of the assemblies I mentioned. I have big tires on mine fore and aft to fill the wheel wells though, so if you were thinking of more of a lowered or stock height street look that wouldn't work for you...take a look in the my gallery and you can see pics of several tire and wheel combos. Might take some of the guesswork out of your future plans.
If you kept the body fitted directly to the pan with no lift, finding a way to easily separate any connections between the body and pan so that you could easily pull the body for major drivetrain service might be a good alternative plan.
Good luck with your build, and keep posting when you have progress, I'd really like to see how you put it all together. |
Thanks! I've been considering a small lift for better engine clearance, it looks like it's going to be be tight. The Buggy is going to be street driven, and really a toy around town car. I plan to get the chassis done and start test fitting everything before finish to make sure it's all going to work.
I got some time to work on the car while the wife and kids were out of town.
First I cleaned up the area under the pedal cluster, it was pretty rotten;
I also repaired the bottom of the front bulkhead on the passengers side.
I removed the spacers and cleaned up all the metal
I welded in some more spacers, and not shown replaced the missing section
The replacement piece was cut from a donor pans center tunnel.
The drivers side is in worse shape, but my donor pan had a good section. I've cut it out of the donor and will graft it in when I get more time out there. |
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Q-Dog
Samba Member
Joined: April 05, 2010
Posts: 8700
Location: Sunset, Louisiana
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BIGMIKEY
Samba Member
Joined: September 24, 2007
Posts: 1105
Location: North East Pennsylvania
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| Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2018 6:59 pm Post subject: Re: This going to take a while |
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Nice job patching it up. Don't forget the sleeves for the master cylinder bolts to keep your bulkhead from collapsing. Flipping the pan around and banging on it will loose them for sure.
Mike T
_________________
BIGMIKEY
Deserter Series 1 project.
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=787047&highlight=
1973 Beetle Driver, Marina Blue. |
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LifeAsASuffix
Samba Member
Joined: August 24, 2010
Posts: 28
Location: Cary, NC
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| Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2018 6:38 pm Post subject: Re: This going to take a while |
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| BIGMIKEY wrote: |
Nice job patching it up. Don't forget the sleeves for the master cylinder bolts to keep your bulkhead from collapsing. Flipping the pan around and banging on it will loose them for sure.
Mike T |
Thanks for the tip, I noticed there was a loose sleeve in there, I'll have to measure the spacing in there to figure out what i need. |
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LifeAsASuffix
Samba Member
Joined: August 24, 2010
Posts: 28
Location: Cary, NC
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| Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2018 5:29 am Post subject: Re: This going to take a while |
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Nearly finished with the rust repair and chassis work.
The last patch;
Donor piece from the other chassis;
Removed the section of the bottom plate, looks pretty rough;
Removed the rusty section of the Napoleon hat.
New piece installed;
Spacers and bottom plate section back installed.
All Finished;
Now to clean up all the welds, touch up some thin areas and check everything over. Next comes seats and sliders, then off to get blasted and painted.
Back to work. |
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