SS100 "replica" Kit Kar

[oprn]

Yes it's difficult to have patience with the government systems at the best of times but right now it's next to impossible to get through the quagmire an get any kind of answers.

Your wiring sounds like a typical "Let's see... what can we scrounge here... need this to run... " fix!

[Ulu]

[Ulu]

I got a box of parts today, from J-bugs. Exhaust tubes, gaskets, clamps, various fuel and breather hoses, shifter bushing, O-ring oil strainer gasket sets. Body-to-chassis welting (2 rolls) so I can put all the glass on rubber where it would squeak. Still to come is an engine hardware kit (Lots of spare metric screws) an SAE style fuse box, gasket kit, more exhaust gaskets, pedal pads.

And I ordered some sturdy tail light brackets.
They are from a Model-A, but so are my lights.
I'm not sure if I can use them without modifications.
They might get a rubber wedge to aim them up a mite.

I still need to get some more light structural tubing, plus some marine quality switches for lights, wiper, starter, ignition. All the bulbs work but I couldn't tell about dash lights. The gages all work and the speedo is electric, so woohoo!.

The seatbelts were mounted to the sliding part of the seat rails, which is terrible. The adjustable rails will vanish and the seat risers will be welded into the chassis to become effective crossrails.

The two add-on cross rails which support the seat rails, and rear frame (supposedly) need redesign. What a kludge job there as well.

I spent lots of time unhooking wires from the fuse box, one by one, routing them out from under the fuel tank rack, and back to the box. The wires were covered in tape and plastic loom, all sticky & damaged from gasoline.

My car finally does not smell of gas! I thought there was gas in the main torsion beam. It was in the plastic wire loom.

I had to clean each one with thinner to remove the goo. So far they look usable. Also I can really simplify the loom, as there is lots of redundant wire.

So far I found two wires, each about 5 feet, that went nowhere-to-nowhere. I like to keep my extra wire in the tool kit.

[oprn]

Looks like this car ended up in the right hands!

[Ulu]

I am slowly cleaning every wire in the wiring loom, To determine what will be saved and what will be scrapped.

In my digging around I have discovered more minor rust around the Napoleon hat. Minor means that there’s no holes through the floor pan.

The whole body’s gonna have to come off the frame for this. I was sort of expecting that, but I wasn’t expecting it to be from this cause. Nonetheless it will have to happen.

But it was destined to happen anyway because the panels did not get proper trimming before the car was assembled & a lot of things just do not fit right or look good.

[rayjay]

This morning I was chiseling off the spot welds that held the floor pans to the tunnel and I can see that my Bug's napolean hat has a good bit of rust through down low.

[Ulu]

[Ulu]

[Ulu]

I got tired of smelling solvent, so I laid off the wiring to work on the possible frame layout.

This is shown over a swingaxle style, but I couldn't find a print of the IRS beetle.

[Ulu]

I need to mod this frame, and at least I can fix this. I already told how the sub-framing doesn't meet, except by being bolted to the pan. Tubing pushes up, and angle pushes down. Seat risers near by reinforce the pan slightly, by being bolted thru the angle iron. Those bolts are all out in the photos.

Check out that spacer...

You can see where a torch was used on a stubborn body bolt head, scarring Napoleon's brim.

I do not want to strip off the front body and weld/repair/mod this frame before the DMV gives its blessing.

Catch-22. Unfortunately the hat is hiding more rust inside, so any work done now will be re-done later.

I need to brace up the body along the lines of chrome bolts. It is sagging there, from lack of structure.

Below is a big hole for the engine bay, where the back wall of the "tub" would be...looking up...

It all falls along the top of the fan shroud, very close....looking inverted...

[Ulu]

One of these kits is for sale on Craigslist Fresno CA.

$5k unassembled with a '71 VW rolling chassis. IRS trans...Didn't see an engine.

https://visalia.craigslist.org/pts/d/visalia-vintage-complete-1937-jaguar-ss/7101587171.html

[drs1023]

I enjoyed this (mostly one way) discussion of the SS-100. Back in the 70's, anyone with a coupla' thousand bucks, a screwdriver, a set of metric wrenches and a floor jack became a master fabricator of some of the most unsafe vehicles ever to hit the road. I lived in NYC - well, actually Staten Island - for a little over 4 years and busted my cherry on some kit cars to flip and make a buck or two. I bought a '34 Fraser-Nash with the extended front beam box - I believe it was 21" long beam extender - which was properly torqued with the bolts, but the welding job looked like bubble gum and rust. So, some 58 VW's later, my last kit car was a Gazelle made by one of the 4 fiberglass molding companies who all called their cars "Gazelles".

In my experience I find that changing the rear transmission bushing is just as quick (and MUCH easier!) if you remove the body. I'm supersized thanks to being reared on farm raised veggies and meats and blessed with a wife who is one of the best cooks in the county, so standing on my head in the rear seat well and getting my meat hooks in tight areas is no longer an option at almost 70 years old. So is pulling a shift rod at the tune of $250 worth of labor to replace a $0.50 part. Not to mention some of the shortened rods I've run across. Ever hear of scoring the "straight" portion of the rod to properly index the rod while rewelding it?

But, all that being said, once I finish a '61 Masset Ferguson rebuild project and a 4x4 F150 engine build, I really want another buggy to re-do. I have noticed that the body - especially the belly resting area behind the wheel - seems to have shrunk over the last almost 5 decades of my work on buggies and kit cars.

Good luck on your resto project. You'll have a nice one when it's done correctly

[Ulu]

[rayjay]

Ok, Ulu. I couldn't sleep during my nap so I thought about your car. The strength at the back is the torsion housing. You need to mount the body from that. I am enclosing some pics of a Meyers Towd frame and it's body mounting. On the Towd there are two fabricated or stamped sheet steel uprights. At the bottom goes the torsion housing. At the top the body rests on the upright and the roll bar sits on top of the fiberglass body and bolts down to the uprights.

Can you create some sort of structure that welds or saddle clamps to the torsion housing and has at it upper side a place for the body to rest ? Should be doable. Might could have two longitudinal sections and one across the back forming a U. Then off of this could come other members to help support the rest of the rear bodywork.

I also had another thought. Your muffler is probably hitting because the new rear subframe is sagging downward. Hopefully you could tie in this subframe to the new structure I outlined above. Then with a strong underpinning you could make the rear box a separate hood that lifts up or hinges or ??

The Towd frame. This one has additional tubes added along the underside. See the two stamped plates that go upward from the torsion housing ? The body sits on these.

Here is an assembled Towd. You can see the torsion housing, the stamped uprights, the body where it sits on the uprights, the roll bar base plate and the bolts that hold it all together.

[Ulu]

Thanks, I've never seen a Towd without the body.

That's an interesting concept. I think on my body the bracket would be closer to the swingarm. I'll have to study this a bit.

[rayjay]

The Towd pics are just for the concept of mounting the body to some sort of framework whose lower point is the torsion tube. On your car I'm thinking 1.5" round or square tube coming up from the torsion tube and 1.25 to 2" square tube or angle iron even as the horizontal members that the body sits on.

[Ulu]

The more I look at that Towd, the more I admire the design. Thank you for posting that, Rayjay.

I have lots of room under the parcel shelf. Also the shocks/towers/pads all fall right inside the quarter panel. There's lots of open room for a birdcage, trans girdle, fork reinforcement or whatever.

All the VW bits fall well below the body . . . completely below the shelf.

It doesn't get tight until you get to the engine compartment.

I don't want to clamshell the engine cover, but service will be a PITA.

BTW, because there's no intermediate body mounts, the fiberglass tub assembly is slowly "folding up" like an accordion. IMO the full tub rim needs steel support below.

[rayjay]

This is more a conversation post rather than a suggestion for Ulu's car. Usually these retro cars don't fare well with mags and wider tires. There is a Gazelle fs on FB that has some Cragar mags and they really work styling wise for this body and this color.

I also saw another Gazelle a while back that had the fenders removed and 3rd gen Camaro 5 spoke alloys. It also worked styling wise. When I looked at the car the thing it reminded me of was the iconic pic of Ray Harroun winning the first Indy race.

[Ulu]

I had looked at many Gazelles and considered one, but the styling is just not as nice to me.

They push the radiator out in front of the front axle and to me this made the car look somewhat porky.

Edit.....It does however fit the Volkswagen pan better than the SS 100.

[Ulu]

Finally a new toolshed for my welding equipment. My garage was chock-a-block with stuff, and I need more. This is where it'll go.

I moved a lotta dang stuff around to make this happen. Now I need new fences to keep dogs out of the welding area. I just piled up some junk to pen then in. The old dog kennel with the tarp is history.

Now I need a new carport to work under. I can't weld in the garage.