SKULLDUGGERY

[TDCTDI]

After two years of vulturing & frequent prodding, I finally convinced the 90 y/o owner that he really wasn’t going restore that rusty POS that sat in his back yard since 1991.


Meet... SKULLDUGGERY.

_________________
Everybody born before 1975 has a story, good, bad, or indifferent, about a VW.


GOFUNDYOURSELF, quit asking everyone to do it for you!


An air cooled VW will make you a hoarder.


Do something, anything, to your project every day, and you will eventually complete it.

[kent70ghia]

Ohhh Warthog and Scullduggery threads to follow now!

[TDCTDI]

[TDCTDI]

After a quick jaunt (80+ miles round trip) one of the last remaining local parts houses, I acquired a box of bits to start installing.

Once I finished clawing my way through the packaging, I fit the adjuster together to locate where the center of the adjustment would be...

This leaves the center of the “hidden grub screw”, the part that actually engages & secures the dimple in the spring pack, directly in line with the bottom of the bracket, a nice reference point.

With that sorted, I now needed to map out the center of the original anchor point in the beam.

Starting with the top tube (doing one tube at a time keeps you from having to clamp stuff together) & after finding the center & marking it, then measured 1” to either side & then used a pipe cutter to score a line around the tube. This works perfectly as it self centers & makes a straight line around the tube.

While it would make sense to just cut the tube with the pipe cutter, the tubes are a bit too thick & it quickly starts chipping the cutting blade after about 1/2 way through.

Once the guide line is scored, I then cut the center out of the beam.

To ensure maximum penetration, I bevel both the adjuster & both sides of the beam tube & then fit the adjuster into place. (ALWAYS make sure that the clamp is installed in the adjuster before welding, unless you wanna cut the adjuster back out.)

And then make it one with the beam.

After allowing the beam to cool a bit, I loosened the clamping stud enough so that the spring pack could pass through, but the stud would still keep the adjuster clamp in place.


I then bound the end of the spring pack with a zip tie to keep the leaf pack aligned and cleaned & thoroughly greased the pack with a fistful of grease (Sorry, my pawns were to nasty to get a pic of this.) and I slid the spring pack into place.


Once in, I removed the clamping stud.

I then rotated the pack 90° to reveal the hidden grub screw.

And installed the grub screw.

I then rotated the spring pack back & installed the clamping stud, jam nut, & adjusting screw.

One down, one to go.

_________________
Everybody born before 1975 has a story, good, bad, or indifferent, about a VW.


GOFUNDYOURSELF, quit asking everyone to do it for you!


An air cooled VW will make you a hoarder.


Do something, anything, to your project every day, and you will eventually complete it.

[kent70ghia]

Chris, you make it look so damn easy, which I know isn't.

[TDCTDI]

[TDCTDI]

For today’s challenge, and with a total lack of regard for my well-being, I threw caution to the wind & repurposed a few sockets for something other than their intended use & punched out the old balljoints.

I made a quick vid to show you how bad the balljoints were, but for some reason it’s not linking here correctly.


Link



Here’s the link by itself

https://youtube.com/shorts/wr9N0P3__yQ?feature=share

Anywho, after extracting all of the old balljoints, to keep from tearing the new boots, I removed the retaining springs.

And slid the boots off...

The factory really weren’t interested in longevity.

I then stuffed the new balljoints back in.

And after packing them with grease, I slid the boots back on.

_________________
Everybody born before 1975 has a story, good, bad, or indifferent, about a VW.


GOFUNDYOURSELF, quit asking everyone to do it for you!


An air cooled VW will make you a hoarder.


Do something, anything, to your project every day, and you will eventually complete it.

[TDCTDI]

For all of y’all with a morbid curiosity, I peeled back the body bag & took some pics to share.

But hey, I gots a gas heater & all the bits for the Warthog.

_________________
Everybody born before 1975 has a story, good, bad, or indifferent, about a VW.


GOFUNDYOURSELF, quit asking everyone to do it for you!


An air cooled VW will make you a hoarder.


Do something, anything, to your project every day, and you will eventually complete it.

[TDCTDI]

Yesterday I started the swap by removing the gas tank. Upon breaking the seal on the inlet hose... ppssssshhhhhhhh, like Pandora opening the box, I was instantly tormented by the sickly sweetish funk of decades old fuel. What was probably a full tank when parked, was now a gooey, tar like layer of shellac coating the lower quarter of the tank.


After exorcising the tank & the demons within, removed the upper bolts holding the body to the beam.

Man, I gots some metal work in store for me.


I then separated the tie rod ends...

After that opened up the lock tabs & removed the clamp bolt on the pitman arm.

A then pried the arm apart a bit.

Once the arm was off, I removed the steering box clamp.

And removed the bolts securing the Y-brace to the beam & finally the bolts to the pan head.

And dropped the beam & drug it out.

_________________
Everybody born before 1975 has a story, good, bad, or indifferent, about a VW.


GOFUNDYOURSELF, quit asking everyone to do it for you!


An air cooled VW will make you a hoarder.


Do something, anything, to your project every day, and you will eventually complete it.

[TDCTDI]

My next step was to install the Beetle beam, I decided to stuff the beam in & build it in place. The first thing I do was to slip on new body mount pads.

Yeah, it’s going in raw, I ain’t painting shit.


After a bit of fighting, cussing, prying, cussing, jacking, & even more cussing, I finally got the beam in place, those new body pads made it a real bitch to slip into place. Once in, I stuffed a pair of caster shims between the beam & pan head.

I then installed the trailing arms.

This is where I started second guessing the angle that I set the adjusters.

Oh well, until I get a pair of drop spindles, let’s stuff stock spindles back under just in case I need to move this turd around.

Once the spindles were on, I removed the 4-lug drums in favor of the Thing drums. Hey, look at that, it already has new shoes.

I promptly tossed the Thing wheels & drums back on.

And dropped the jack.

Eh, if someone wanted a moderately lowered Thing, this would probably be a good place to stop.
_________________
Everybody born before 1975 has a story, good, bad, or indifferent, about a VW.


GOFUNDYOURSELF, quit asking everyone to do it for you!


An air cooled VW will make you a hoarder.


Do something, anything, to your project every day, and you will eventually complete it.

[TDCTDI]

While ordering parts, I tripped across the Monroe air bag shocks, since they were stupid cheap, and this project needed shocks anyway, I decided to score a set so I could join the cool kids with air ride.


Upon the first trial fit, I found that not only was the lower eyelet was too small a diameter to fit over the stud on the lower trailing arm, but to was also too long.

Well, I remedied this by pressing the lower collar out of the old shocks...

And stuffing them into the new ones.

I was then able to install the shocks onto the trailing arms but I then found that the shock bodies were too large in diameter & were fouling against the upper arms.

After a bit of research in the late model Beetle forums, I found that this was a common occurrence & that quite a few grind away on the upper control arm to gain the necessary clearance. This has got to be the stupidest fucking idea ever.


With a bit of adjusting, I determined that the shock needed to be moved inboard roughly 1/2” and the hole in the beam needed to be opened up about 1/4” and the shock body would just clear the upper trailing arm. However, there is not enough length on the lower stud to slip enough washers on before there aren’t enough threads to install the nut, so I made a longer lower shock collar that was also the nut.


First, I welded a nut to a washer...

removed a collar from another old shock, slipped it onto the trailing arm, tightened a nut against it & welded them together.

Not having a lathe, I threaded a stud into the collar & chucked it into the drill & turned the weld & nut down with a die grinder.

Once it was ground down to size, I then welded the other side of the washer to the pared down nut & turned it down too.

After applying a bit of SilGlyde, I then pressed it into the shock.

Then, using a carbide burr on the die grinder, I opened up the hole on the beam a bit to the rear & towards the inside & after mounting the shock in place, I checked for any clearance issues throughout the range of motion.

_________________
Everybody born before 1975 has a story, good, bad, or indifferent, about a VW.


GOFUNDYOURSELF, quit asking everyone to do it for you!


An air cooled VW will make you a hoarder.


Do something, anything, to your project every day, and you will eventually complete it.

[TDCTDI]

Just a repeat of what I did on the other side, I welded a nut to a washer, and I welded another nut to an old shock collar.

After employing my redneck lathe technique, I fused those together too.

Then shaved that down too.

Added a dab of SilGlyde...

And stuffed it into the shock.

Until I can find some appropriate sized washers to fit over the collar to keep the shock from working its way towards the trailing arm, I grabbed this old body pad & fit it onto the shock.

And then tossed that shock on the car too.
_________________
Everybody born before 1975 has a story, good, bad, or indifferent, about a VW.


GOFUNDYOURSELF, quit asking everyone to do it for you!


An air cooled VW will make you a hoarder.


Do something, anything, to your project every day, and you will eventually complete it.

[TDCTDI]

Well, while nothing was directly accomplished on Skullduggery this morning, I did relieve the parts Beetle of it’s rear trailing arms.


After jacking up the rear of the car, I unbolted the CV axles from the transmission & cut the brake hoses.

And removed the brake drum.

Since I had already pilfered the spring plates for the Warthog, I just had to remove the inner pivot bolts. I used a 17mm Allen socket on a ratchet, and to apply extra leverage (and to keep my paws free of any new scars), I used a pry bar to break the pivot bolt free.

I then removed the trailing arm & flipped it over to unbolt the parking brake cable bowden tube clamp & rolled it back over to release the cable from the brake lever. I like to slip a pair of dikes between the spring coils, compress the spring, & lightly clamp the cable to keep from having to fight the spring to remove the clamp.

Sweet, this end has new brake shoes too.
_________________
Everybody born before 1975 has a story, good, bad, or indifferent, about a VW.


GOFUNDYOURSELF, quit asking everyone to do it for you!


An air cooled VW will make you a hoarder.


Do something, anything, to your project every day, and you will eventually complete it.

[TDCTDI]

So I made the trek to this weekend’s VW show at Farmington & shnagged a pair of drop spindles & couldn’t wait to see what the beast looked like with them on.
So much so that I forgot to take all the pictures necessary to fully document the process.

But I jacked up the front end, removed the drum & began disassembly.
(And took a truly horrible pic.) That’s what happens when you try to take pics with greasy paws.

After bolting the spindles up, I confirmed my suspicions that drop spindles & 14” wheels were no bueno.

So I zipped the wheels off & installed the drums & tossed a pair of ‘67 steelies on the front. Obviously, ima gonna need some new sneakers.

Yeah, that fender is laying on the tire.



But it’s starting to take on “the look”.
_________________
Everybody born before 1975 has a story, good, bad, or indifferent, about a VW.


GOFUNDYOURSELF, quit asking everyone to do it for you!


An air cooled VW will make you a hoarder.


Do something, anything, to your project every day, and you will eventually complete it.

[TDCTDI]

Since there are a pair of slotted five lugs up front, I got a wild idea about a pair of old school widened steelies I had laying around...

They’re right at 11” wide.

Let’s see if there’s any chance.

Ehh, no... dammit. But let’s try swapping the drum for a Beetle drum, they are a bit thinner.

Obviously not enough.

However, let’s put a straight edge on that fender to see how wide we can push these out.

It looks like, if I leave the Beetle drum in there, I can get another 2.5” wider wheel in there...
_________________
Everybody born before 1975 has a story, good, bad, or indifferent, about a VW.


GOFUNDYOURSELF, quit asking everyone to do it for you!


An air cooled VW will make you a hoarder.


Do something, anything, to your project every day, and you will eventually complete it.

[TDCTDI]

Or maybe.... I’ll just widen these.


Hey y’all, watch this.


The first thing I did was toss a wheel in my homemade banding jig & commence to tearing it up.

About ten minutes later, I separated the outer lip.

I then grabbed the appropriate width strip.

After that, I removed the lower mandrel from my English wheel.

And substituted my self made roller.

Then tossed in a strip & started forming it into a band.

Once it was the desired diameter, I proceeded to tack it to the outer lip.

_________________
Everybody born before 1975 has a story, good, bad, or indifferent, about a VW.


GOFUNDYOURSELF, quit asking everyone to do it for you!


An air cooled VW will make you a hoarder.


Do something, anything, to your project every day, and you will eventually complete it.

[aquavette]

Greatness.

[TDCTDI]

After thoroughly welding the band to the outer lip, I cleaned up the weld on the visible side of the hoop & did a trial fit & using a pry bar clamped to the jig, I checked the runout & got the wheel within 1/8”.

The rest of the discrepancy is due to the lip being slightly bent, I can adjust that later with a BFH & a crescent wrench so I began making them one again. Unfortunately, about 2/3 around, my faithful old Hobart shit the bed & noped out of the task at hand.

But here’s where we’re at.

_________________
Everybody born before 1975 has a story, good, bad, or indifferent, about a VW.


GOFUNDYOURSELF, quit asking everyone to do it for you!


An air cooled VW will make you a hoarder.


Do something, anything, to your project every day, and you will eventually complete it.

[flat4Imp]

The wheels are pure excellence! While mine isn;t going low, thats the look im going for with the off road tires...
_________________
"Often immitated, never duplicated."

[TDCTDI]

Thank you sir. I already have a lifted one, I figured I’d drop this one.


New sneakers showed up for the front today so I totally had to wrap a pair of wheels & toss them on.

_________________
Everybody born before 1975 has a story, good, bad, or indifferent, about a VW.


GOFUNDYOURSELF, quit asking everyone to do it for you!


An air cooled VW will make you a hoarder.


Do something, anything, to your project every day, and you will eventually complete it.