1961 Bug Rescue and Patina Build - Pic heavy

[rah253]

Nice build, i'll be watching closely, building my first air-cooled, lots of inspiration here.

[AirKooledGarage]

Another weekend in the garage. Getting closer on the air beam build and pan updates.

I'm thinking a 3/4" pie cut should do the job (sorry purists).

Trans had sixty years of goo on it. Still not all the way there, but getting closer.

Five+ hours in I'm starting to see metal. Wire brush is helping. Will pull axles next.
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1973 Bus
1974 Long Body Buggy (sold)
1965 Manxish buggy (kids car)
1961 Patina Bug

[AirKooledGarage]

It's officially winter in the Midwest (first snow) so time for the winter builds! The Patina bug's pan is finally wrapped. Will have to wait until body is closer to done before I pie cut the front (body will need to set on pan and have as many connection points as possible. Lost my rear torsion arm covers, though!

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1973 Bus
1974 Long Body Buggy (sold)
1965 Manxish buggy (kids car)
1961 Patina Bug

[AirKooledGarage]

Now on to the body. Bottom 5+ inches of this car are screwed. Very likely bit off more than I can chew here. Channels are bad as well as some of the connecting tissue. Tentative plan is to mount the replacement channels to the pan as well as the rear crossmembers and then lower the body over it, picking up the beam mount and rear shock tower mounts to locate the body.

Body was braced and I left doors on

channels are toast as rear crossmembers and part of the front bulkhead.

Managed to cut all the rotted parts off today and will get back to it next weekend and grind off all the remaining rust. That should give me a pretty good sense of what panels I'll need to order. What could possibly go wrong?
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1973 Bus
1974 Long Body Buggy (sold)
1965 Manxish buggy (kids car)
1961 Patina Bug

[AirKooledGarage]

Spent the morning prepping the Dansk heater channels. Typical of these things, fit is sketchy. They hit the seat mount and often have incorrect threshold plates. Mine did both.

Ground back the inside seam to clear the seat mount, drilled out spot welds on the driver side threshold plate and removed it (oddly, passenger was correct) and chased all the threads with a tap.

Correct threshold clip (opens to inside of the car)

Wrong shape and facing wrong way

Channels fought a bit, but finally got them to lined up. Rear cross member and front cross panel are on the way and once I have them sorted, I should be able to drop the body on the car and start welding. Likely going to need bottom of front door pillars as well as complete rear wheel house and front lower wheel house pieces. When all is said and done, I should roll in at about $700 in steel and a number of hours that I'd rather not tally.
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1973 Bus
1974 Long Body Buggy (sold)
1965 Manxish buggy (kids car)
1961 Patina Bug

[pastellgreen]

I took Gersons and they are a pleasure to work with. Also, they are period correct, have a real good thickness and will last long. Perhaps you may overthink your choice? Look up my 1960 thread.

[AirKooledGarage]

More prep for mating the body to the channels. If everything goes as planned that should happen this month.

Channels and Crossmembers loosely bolted in and mated to eachother.

Cleanup up the package tray and what's left of the quarter panels. New Crossmembers should mate nicely, but there's barely any quarter panel left to mate to.

Once body is laid on channels I'll graft in quarters and tie it all together. The missing material on the inside may be bought panels or just some sheet made to fit. We'll see after they are together.

Also bought a really silly turbo header and intake manifold off of a random FB group. This definitely fits the look I'm after!

This car is pretty much my inspiration (sorry purists!).
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1973 Bus
1974 Long Body Buggy (sold)
1965 Manxish buggy (kids car)
1961 Patina Bug

[AirKooledGarage]

Some more updates on the dirty 61. Ground down and fitted the new heater channels and cross members. As anticipated, this stuff needs a fair amount of prep to fit and be weldable. Bolted beam back on the pan to use it as a guideline for aligning the body (front body mounts are one of the few parts that are stable on this car). Also trimmed out the nose for the single bag.

Body dropped on without much of a fight, but rear mounts are not stable enough to support it. The result is rear slid over channels to far, putting doors on top of channel/jams. Next move is to jack up rear of the car to get it into position and replace the wheelhouses. Front aligned well and clearly shows where metal will need to be added.



Next up was engine mockup.

Scored a slick header and intake off of a Facebook group and everything mocked up nicely. Engine is a barn find 1600 out of a bus that had clean plugs and oil, so we're not blowing it apart for now. Plan is to use this motor to learn turbocharging and at some point build something bigger. Turbo is off of Amazon and carb is an S&S Super G. What could possibly go wrong?


Stumbled across this one on CL for super cheap. Came off of an air boat! Prop must have destroyed thrust bearing as it has an 1/8" of endplay!

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1973 Bus
1974 Long Body Buggy (sold)
1965 Manxish buggy (kids car)
1961 Patina Bug

[AirKooledGarage]

Tackling rust repair this week. As I get deeper into this it often occurs to be not to ever buy a rusty car again!

Rear quarter panel and wheelhouse on both sides were destroyed. Took an entire afternoon to align the body on the new channels and crossmembers without the guidance of the rear body mounts. Less than fun.

Wheelhouse required some tweaking, but went in OK. Not too concerned about aesthetics and more about strength, I layered it on some existing metal and rosette welded as well a bead on the perimeter. The quarter panel was another story. It was lipped across the top seemingly with the intent of allowing the material to overlap the existing metal and remain aligned. It do not.

Way too much filler to make this blend. I feel like I may regret this later. Wheelwells will get a raptor liner which should hide any ugliness.

After 90 minutes of wresting with door hinge bolts that had been comfortably in place for 60 years the door was removed and the bottom hinge will soon be replaced. Next up was the lower piller. Grabbed a replacement from CIP1 thinking that should be low drama. Cut away all the old material and aligned the new post. Before I started tacking it, did a few measurements only to discover the hinge bolts sit 1/2" higher than factory. Thought about cutting it up, but not stoked on cobbling such a critical part. Not great. Ordered an AutoCraft unit and hopefully it fits better.
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1973 Bus
1974 Long Body Buggy (sold)
1965 Manxish buggy (kids car)
1961 Patina Bug

[AirKooledGarage]

Not sure if anyone is watching, but here goes. Wrapped up the sheet metal repair on the hoodride build, doors close nice and gap is good. Pure miracle considering rust on channels and lower door hinges.

Couple of minor spots to attend to and a few fender mounts to replace and the metal is wrapped. Fender wells will get Rapter lined and visible parts of the body will see a light coat of rust and a clear.
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1973 Bus
1974 Long Body Buggy (sold)
1965 Manxish buggy (kids car)
1961 Patina Bug

[AirKooledGarage]

Next up on the to-do list is pie cutting the pan. Look away purists. This move will help keep the tires off the headlight buckets at full drop as well as adding a little caster angle. Front body mounts will need some tuning to sort out and steering column to box will get a u joint.

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1973 Bus
1974 Long Body Buggy (sold)
1965 Manxish buggy (kids car)
1961 Patina Bug

[AirKooledGarage]

Now onto the turbo build. No idea what I'm doing, but really stoked on the process. Grabbed a crazy header from a buggy guy on Facebook and went to town.

First up was the intake manifold. Original piece was designed for a center mount alternator, so I cut one side off and added 3.5" to the other to re-center it. Couple of bends and it tied in nicely with turbo

Exhaust and wastegate dumps came out good, although it looks like exhaust side is a few degrees off. May have to cut and re-index it.

Now on to vacuum and oil lines!
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1973 Bus
1974 Long Body Buggy (sold)
1965 Manxish buggy (kids car)
1961 Patina Bug

[AirKooledGarage]

Exhaust and intake coming together. Oil lines will be challenging. Always hated the Rube Goldberg look of oil/fuel/breather lines crisscrossing the engine.

Boost gauge port and feed line guide tabs welded to manifold. That should wrap up that piece and will go to powdercoat after test run.

First mockup of tin/alternator revealed a massive misalignment of the pulleys

Only to realize I had used the wrong year pulley. Finally an upside of having a ton of parts laying around.

Carb support will be a real challenge. Will also be guide for throttle cable and fuel line.
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1973 Bus
1974 Long Body Buggy (sold)
1965 Manxish buggy (kids car)
1961 Patina Bug

[AirKooledGarage]

Travel slowed things down a bit, but we're back at it.

Trans now has bus nose cone and is mocked up with RLR 1" raise. Plate seems a bit gappy, so we reached out to Russ for some guidance.

Pertronix dizzy showed up and and is now recurved and advance limited to 20 degrees.

Also ran across a pic of my 80's high school car. Have had a VW problem since 1982!
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1973 Bus
1974 Long Body Buggy (sold)
1965 Manxish buggy (kids car)
1961 Patina Bug

[OvalinAz]

[AirKooledGarage]

Entire interior will remain intact.

[kpf]

This build is looking great! Awesome skills.
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1971 Super Beetle

[sportin-wood]

Nice work, and excellent documentation! I actually get a little anxious watching the progress because I don't have near the metal work skills that you have. Hoping for the best and looking forward o seeing a cool final product.
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Paused 66 project bug
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"Relax, all right? My old man is a television repairman. He's got this ultimate set of tools. I can fix it." --- Jeff Spicoli

[AirKooledGarage]

I appreciate your response on my metal working skills, but honestly, I'm average at best. Rally love the learning process, though and this car would have been a scrapper otherwise.

[AirKooledGarage]

Got a wild butt hair and decided to bag the rear end (I'm never going to finish this car!).

Looked at everyone else's stuff and in a moment of grandiose confidence in my design/build skills went for it. Using paper templates, I mocked up the support plates and then drew them in Corel Draw and sent to laser. Used 1/4" steel for all the pieces. The rod ends are Amazon items.

The shackle is just scrap metal as I have not decided on length. Also need to design a seat for the bag.

Pretty happy with the results so far. Everything is squared to the pan and for the most part allows cables and brake lines to live happily (rear brake split will get a minor relo)

This pan has endured a lot!
Sheet metal replacement
Pie cut tunnel
jack mount removal
F&R bag systems
1" trans raise

The voices want me to paint it red.
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1973 Bus
1974 Long Body Buggy (sold)
1965 Manxish buggy (kids car)
1961 Patina Bug