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Post by PICTUP on Apr 7, 2020 17:58:34 GMT -8
I got the lesson already Makes a lot of sense considering what must be going on in the cockpit at high speeds... Mitch, put them back and hang a sign on them, lol!!
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Post by owdlvr on Apr 13, 2020 0:00:45 GMT -8
Well I was buttoning up the rear end on the car, half the Porsche studs I ordered had come in so I thought I’d setup the one side of the car to see the Porsche twists on it to make my final wheel decision. I got to thinking again about the Subaru wheels, and I really do think they’d be wonderful on the car. Swapping over to them is just a matter of buying four new brake rotors…or is it? Buried in my vast collection of things I’ve collected for these cars, would be a subarugears rear brake adaption kit. Oh! Maybe I’ll put the Subaru brakes on the rear, and then I only have to buy front rotors…Hmm, it would appear I bought the subarugears brake kit to match my donor car (5x100), not the wheels I acquired later (5x114.3). But by the time I got this far, I was thinking about how bloody wimpy the standard beetle discs are going to be behind any wheels. Hmmm…What do I have kicking around that would suit the rest of the car? The orange ’73 project wasn’t originally going to keep the Porsche setup, so if I steal the setup for this car…that would be okay, right? Well…down the rabbit hole we go. I took the narrowed rear end out of the car, to be sold at some point to some cal-look enthusiast who will appreciate a set of original Tweddle arms. And in went a set of steel 944 rear arms, standard length axles and I started prepping for the 944/Boxster rear brakes I have. I mocked them up to discover the width is perfect, but forgot that ’69 Beetles need longer parking brake cables so the rear will have to wait until my next parts order arrives. The fronts, it would appear, are going to be a lot more challenging. The ’73 super has aluminum mounts which mount directly to the drum-brake spindle, and I figured it couldn’t be that hard to adapt them to my drop spindles?! Hahaha. Oie. Okay so after a fair bit of thread and forum searching I now know that CB Performance drop spindles are cast slightly differently, and allow for mounting of Boxster callipers with the use of an adapter (which you need to make yourself). I Also understand why the fresh, new, CB castings make this a lot easier. It helps that a friend of mine did Rene’s adapters on his car, using the same caliper (on CB spindles), and was able to send me a photo of the rear of the adapter. I have two options, order CB spindles, or see if I can make mine work. Worst case I have to order CB spindles anyhow…so here we go! First up, enough modelling on the computer that I could understand the bolt spacing, and generally where everything needed to go. I’ve mocked up enough information on the Super Beetle setup (Which was working), my current spindles, the 944 turbo setup (so I could see how it was done) and then the Boxster caliper. I worked until I couldn’t “see” it in my head in 3D any longer and built brake adapter #1. Have I mentioned I love my 3D printer? That adapter was printed, and then cut up in the garage until it couldn’t be modified any further. I realized pretty quickly that if I moved one of the mounting holes, this would work out a whole lot easier, so built a quick drilling jig to put a small hole through the spindle, and then it’s a simple matter of clamping it down on my milling machine against the flat surface to drill and tap the hole from the other side. I then modelled up adapter version 2, took it out to the garage and cut it up until it was close to fitting. Repeat for adapter 3, and finally by adapter #4 it was fitting with only minor modifications. These photos are of adapter #3, and you can see that I have to clock the caliper pretty low on the rotor. With the Boxster callipers, and drop spindles, it’s just not possible to do it any other way. Adapter #5 is coming out of the printer momentarily, and includes both a left and right version. It *should* be the one that bolts right up without any modifications…at least on the left side. We’ll see how close we are on the right. The welded drop spindles mean some clearances can be different. I’ve modelled them in a way that will allow my buddy to CNC them on his 3 axis mill, keeping in mind the tooling that he has at home. Once I have the adapters fitting perfectly out of the printer without modification, I’ll look to see what tool paths I can add to shrink the weight. Some of the mounting areas are pretty small, so these will have to be steel and not alloy. As we’re now waiting on parts or printing, I tackled a bunch of minor items on the list; installing the starter, swapping the brake master, and setting up to flush the fuel tank. The motor bits are all at the balancing shop, and should ship at the end of the week. Powdercoating might be finished tomorrow or Tuesday. It does appear as though I’ll be using the Porsche twists for some time now, so I may look to get those powder coated as well. I did make a huge error this weekend though. One of the first things I did for the car was buy new window regulators. I pulled the doors apart, got the old window regulators out and then got to thinking about how genuine VW ones are always better than the reproductions. The glass was super stiff in the seals, not the regulators, and things started sliding okay once I sprayed silicone in the seals. So I cleaned out the original regulators, re-greased them, put them back into the doors and then sealed everything up with two layers of plastic. I popped on the new door panels (with plaid pockets!) and replaced the handle trim. It was at that moment, that I remembered why i bought two new regulators as the first thing on my list. I've got an early 67 regulator in the driver's door, and a later 68 regulator in the passenger door. They use different style window cranks. Sigh. Well, this car is getting the Scat 80's style window handles because I am NOT redoing all of that work again. It's going to drive me nuts...for years. Maybe I can paint them black?
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Post by Volktales on Apr 13, 2020 18:15:56 GMT -8
Meanwhile, I ate too much turkey and slept on the couch...
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Post by magikbus on Apr 15, 2020 13:34:48 GMT -8
Hey Dave, you and I have something in common. I'm working on the rear brakes of my 74 Van too and I'm having trouble figuring out which end of the springy thing goes forward. The long end or the short end. I do have all the tools though, a nice screwdriver and a really good pair of vice grips. Stan
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Post by CrazyBrit on Apr 16, 2020 9:51:26 GMT -8
Stan, you forgot safety glasses. Those little springs are lethal!
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Post by magikbus on Apr 16, 2020 19:45:07 GMT -8
Meh, that kind of stuff is for sissys. I farmed for a few years and the emerg. nurses at the Dawson Creek hospital threatened to get me a coffee cup with my name on it cause I spent so much time sitting in their waiting room waiting for stitches and slings and tetnus shots etc.etc. My fondest memory was once when a nurse said "nah that's not too bad, the last guy who came in here with his hand wrapped in a dirty oily rag dripping blood on our nice clean floor had one of his fingers in a baggy". Stan
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Post by PICTUP on Apr 16, 2020 20:40:34 GMT -8
Is it about time we moved this 7 page thread to under another heading....say T1 builds?
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Post by owdlvr on Apr 16, 2020 21:06:47 GMT -8
lol, doesn't it have a couple of pages of MG Midget?
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Post by owdlvr on Apr 20, 2020 15:14:12 GMT -8
With my parts stash drying up, and the next order not yet on it’s way…progress on the ’68 beetle has slowed up a little. I did manage to pickup the parts from powder coating, which was pretty funny. Poor guy is overloaded with work now that everyone is stuck at home. “All the projects are being torn down, I can’t work fast enough!” Apparently I should have inspected my bumpers a little closer before dropping them off. There are two light dents I didn’t see when they were in chrome, ah well. With the rally lights mounted, I finished up the wiring. Being the smart man that I am, I recycled all my cardboard before making a template for a trunk lining. Gotta wait for the next big order of parts to have some material to work with! I must be getting lazy in my old-age. Using the PIAA relay instead of building my own relay panel. I’ve planned for a front mount oil-cooler on this car, but haven’t worked out the mounts yet (cooler has yet to arrive). Normally I would run the lines through the Tunnel or the interior, but I think on this one I might just run them below the car like subaru-swaps do with the coolant lines. If it was a body-off resto, I would have prepared the pan to run the two oil lines through the tunnel…but oh well. Brake mounts are currently being cut by my buddy on his CNC machine. Should have those mid week, as well as my next order of parts. Will allow me to finish the brakes, and the rest of the car minus the motor…no idea when that order of parts will arrive.
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Post by PICTUP on Apr 20, 2020 18:09:06 GMT -8
Pretty cool stuff. Pre-dented bumpers are a good thing, it will lessen your paranoia over making the first dent, lol!
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Post by owdlvr on Apr 21, 2020 7:53:26 GMT -8
Pretty cool stuff. Pre-dented bumpers are a good thing, it will lessen your paranoia over making the first dent, lol! Hahaha, that is exactly why I didn't fix the underside bend that comes from towing with a tow-strap. It's just going to happen again!
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Post by owdlvr on Apr 24, 2020 10:50:24 GMT -8
Rolled the car out of the shop to see it in the sunlight. I'm pretty happy. I still have some wires to run for bits that haven't yet arrived, so I haven't glued in the last piece of carpet. The chrome door hardware is probably going to drive me nuts for the next ten years. Ugh. I do not want to tear the doors apart again! My guess for suspension height is just about right...too bad I don't have an engine in the car! I sense a re-indexing in my future Brakes are all bled and feel pretty good in the driveway. Still have a number of things to button up, but I STILL don't have word that my engine parts have shipped (sigh). Lots of time to get to it, but at this stage I'm probably going to take a pause and go back to working on the '63 MG Midget project. The final parts that I need for that have arrived. I've requested a quote on the wheels I want to run on this car, we'll see how painful that comes in at...and whether or not I can stomach it, or just run the twists
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Post by owdlvr on Apr 27, 2020 8:13:52 GMT -8
Started thinking about oil-cooler placement. For whatever reason, I decided I was going to do a front-mount oil cooler on this car. Cost wise, simply due to lines, I wish I hadn't decided to go this way but once my mind is made up...well, best to not fight it. Hmmm…there isn’t a whole lot of room with a standard… Decided to tuck it deeper into the bumper, with the fittings in the bumper. Was admiring my work, when a buddy (over text…social distancing) asked me “so, I guess you won’t be parking forward in any parking spots eh?” Hmmm, that is a very valid point. Now, the cooler doesn’t hang any lower than the front spoiler on the Rally Bug, but I can think of two times I’ve kissed a parking stone with it in the last 6 years. A little different with a piece of fiberglass vs the oil cooler. So, my backup bumper was mounted…some measurements were made…and: And here’s some fittings and some silver mesh so it’s a little easier to see: I’ve ordered some banjo fittings to give the lines better ground clearance, and I’ll have to sort out how they pass through the front spoiler, but overall I have to figure this is a much better solution.
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Post by Rob Sannes on Apr 27, 2020 16:59:59 GMT -8
Love this project! I'm regretting selling my 69 every day. You all said I would. Can't waite to see it in person. I noticed it up for sale 6 months ago and thought it was a good stat for someone. Your taking it to a higher level for sure.
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Post by owdlvr on Apr 27, 2020 22:47:48 GMT -8
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