SKULLDUGGERY

[Trylon]

Looks like I’m late for the party!
Won’t be leaving early for sure!
_________________
1973 Porsche 914 2.0
1959 Volkswagen Karmann Ghia
1979 Volkswagen Rabbit
1973 Volkswagen Bus
1970 MGB-GT
1962 Oldsmobile Jetfire

More tomfoolery on
The Karmann Ghia Fever YouTube Channel!

[TDCTDI]

[kgj]

PostPosted: Sat May 22, 2021 4:59 pm Post subject: Re: SKULLDUGGERY
Looks like I’m late for the party!
Won’t be leaving early for sure!

I’m even later but
_________________
1958 coupe

[TDCTDI]

Thank you sir.


Today, with a few minutes to piss away, I just had to start the trailing arm swap, so I jacked up the rear & removed the wheel & brake drum & then removed the upper shock bolt.

With those out of the way, I chiseled 45+ years of crap out of the CV bolts.

And then hammered a twelve point socket into the bolt heads.

And zipped them out with the impact gun.

I then removed the bolt holding the parking brake cable to the backing plate.

With the bolt removed, I then slipped a pair of side cutters into the spring on the cable.

And compressed the spring & lightly clamped onto the cable to keep the spring out of the way while I fought with the retaining clamp.

And removed the cable.

After cutting the brake hose, I then inserted a Snap-On17mm Allen drain plug socket into the trailing arm pivot bolt...

& pried on the ratchet with a pry bar. This not only increases leverage, but it also keeps my appendages clear of most of the rusty bits.

After removing the pivot bolt, I dropped the arm out of the way.

Setting the arms near each other, you can see the difference in the lower shock mount between the Beetle & Thing trailing arms, the Beetle ones are longer allowing the arm to be moved up while retaining full range of motion.

You can also see the difference in the bolt pattern for the mounting point of the spring plate.

I then bolted the Beetle arm in place & installed a new air shock to see where the arm would be at full droop.

This is where you can see the difference the lower mount makes.



Wanting to get a feel for where the car will sit, I lowered it down.

_________________
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]

After thoroughly inspecting the welds, I was fairly confident that there weren’t any porosity issues but... I scored a tube of silicone sealant & schmeared a bead over the seams.

And, well... I lied. I decided to paint some shit after all.

Then I swiped a pair of 195/65/15 tires off a Jetta & had them wrapped around the steelies. Believe it or not, these steelies were a good 3-4 lbs lighter than the alloys off the Jetta.

And then just had to bolt one up.

Yeah!!! THAT’S the look I was shooting for.
_________________
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]

I was presented with an opportunity to recoup my investment in this beast by someone local that wanted all the goodies that I was removing to slam the beast.

So I had to stop what I was doing & yank the last remaining trailing arm.

WELL! It’s a good damned thing that I didn’t drag this bitch any further than I did. I found that the castle nut was loose.

And I spun it the rest of the way off by hand.

After jacking it up & removing the wheel & drum, I chiseled the concretions out of the CV bolts & zipped the bolts out.

Huh, who knows how long ago that fuel line broke.

Worse yet, what appears to be wet & oozy is more like cured epoxy.


Oh well, off with its last trailing arm.

Like every heavily altered project, there comes a moment when you realize that it’s never going back, with all the Thing suspension gone, this moment came early for this project.
_________________
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.

[Waybackburris]

Awesome thread.....I'm just curious.....where in NC are you? I'm in NC too.

Thanks!

WBB

[TDCTDI]

[TDCTDI]

I continued plodding along & lopped off the tip of the other trailing arm.

And then tucked it into place…

But again, I couldn’t wait to see what it looked like so I tossed the other drum & wheel on & dropped it down.

_________________
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]

Need my fix, how are your rides coming along?

[TDCTDI]

Having this turd in the way since I kinda forgot about it while playing with a few dozen different projects & flips, I recently put another VW up for sale & was contacted by a local artist that wanted the shell for some sort of display, but didn’t need the whole car & wanted a better deal.

So I struck up a deal, drug the car to his house, & pointed out what to disassemble.

That left me with the pan & title…. Now let’s see, what should I do with it now?!? Buy a buggy body & shorten the pan?


Oh yeah, the Thing.


After dragging it back to the shop, I commenced to lopping out the old pans.

Ah yes, the obligatory compression fitting on the brake line.

Oh, and the complete lack of a pedal stop and the push rod for the master cylinder…

After breaking a saw blade, and realizing that the shade had shifted away, it stopped being fun & started to suck, so I packed it up & called it a day.
_________________
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]

This morning I grabbed my trusty chisel & proceeded with my “ribbon cutting ceremony” & removed the remaining layer of the old pan on the passenger side.

And laid the new Thing pan into place.

_________________
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]

With a few moments to spare, last night I started stitching up the new driver side pan to get it ready to install.

And tonight I filled in another.

_________________
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]

After carefully extracting the seat track, I hacked out the rest of the driver side floor pan.

Then, I used the BFH to bump the remaining strip up enough to get the chisel underneath it.

And continued making ribbons.

_________________
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.

[oldcarsguitars]

Thanks for posting. I am enjoying following along.

[TDCTDI]

[TDCTDI]

The outer lip of the pan was just as ugly.

So I messaged it with a hammer & dolly and filled in the relief cuts in it 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]

Nothing exciting, but I had to do something, so I mapped out where my welds would be & employed my pneumatic flanger/hole punch.

_________________
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…. How does one make beetle seat tracks fit a Thing/Ghia pan?


Well, after a bit of contemplation & even more redneck imagineering, I lopped the Beetle track off the old pan section…

And after hunting around, I found some cross members that were extracted from a bus project.

And hacked off a section that I drilled out a few spot welds & then tossed into the press to force a chisel between the halves.

I then made a pie cut in the center of each half & bent it to fit the profile of the pan.

With a bit more trimming, I then clamped them to the Beetle seat track.

_________________
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]

After bending the lower part of the track into shape, & positioning the Beetle track into place, I clamped them together & then scribed a line onto the lower piece.

Once I pared them down, I stitched them to the seat bracket (& forgot to take pics), and then I positioned the seat track in place on the pan half & scribed a line around the perimeter.

And then I began drilling holes into the pan.

_________________
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.