Nostalgia you win again!

[Nico86]

They look nice maching the body color.

[Jon]

I like them with the backend colorcoded like on the white car. But I'm considdering a custom mounting of them... I have seen a few sloppy mirrors in my time... would like to avoid this, but still have the same "look".

I know Rick, but I can't remember who it is

[Rick Meredith]

I know Rick, but I can't remember who it is

Dan Mazur... DKK Larry's Pizza

[Nico86]

Any news about this one? 

[Rick Meredith]

Any news about this one? 

Yeah... what Nico said! 

[LuftsickTero]

Couple of shots from SSC 2010:

[Nico86]

...to the rear lights!

[Jon]

Hey guys, thanks for asking... it's sitting in my carport looking on me every time I get home from work.
Before the snow leaves I have to replace the oil cooler or the gaskets beneath it and have a look inside one of the rear drums, something is going on in there.

On the slightly more interesting side I'm planning a back to the early nineties stereo, I got three Celestion AD 12 subwoofers (only one is going in tho the car though) and a Phoenix Gold M100 lined up. It will be all hidden from the outside of course, but it feels like the car lacks something like it is now. Would love to get some old Boston speakers also.

On the outside there is still a dire need for some paint... which I will tackle in my garage time permitting. The driver side front fender was welded straightened and painted by myself and it came out ok.

Still debating what is the easiest way to get a pair of Vitaloni Baby Tornado on it... 
   

[Nico86]

Sounds good. What's the engine you got inside?

[Jon]

It's a stock 1600cc for the time being with a cheap header on it. It might get some webers and a more motivating cam.

[Zach Gomulka]

Horsepower > Audio power

[Jon]

Horsepower > Audio power

I couldn't agree more, and that is why my cars the last ten years have consisted of only horsepower audio...  With no filters and a chromed funnel out back there have never been a need for stereo.
But when I drive this one I start thinking "you know, in here I could actually hear something"...

I'm trying to walk a narrow path here, trying to both keep my license and keep my hearing ability...   ain't cal-lookers fun?

[Jon]

The snow is now gone and the oil leaks have been fixed. Turned out that the sticking brakes was fixed with just a lubrication of the pedal assembly 
I have been driving it quite allot lately, and the lack of music is bugging me. So this weekend has been sent making a tailor made sub enclosure that will hold the amps and two 6x9" speakers... all hidden of course.

[qubek]

How is the car, if I may ask? I liked the topic (and the car).

[Jon]

Thanks for asking, I had to stop driving the car in September last fall. Suddenly a small but nasty crack developed in the frame head above the swaybar mount. This was partly due to the excessive lowering with a stock swaybar, and partly due to hidden rust inside the framehead. I don't like to do half ass fixes, so the body had to come of to fix the rust. I ended up removing the bottom part of the framehead and repairing most all lower edges of the top half. Before painting it inside with Por15 and welding a highly tweaked pattern part to the underside. And while I was in there I welded in a section on top of the frame tunnel from a 75 super. This was done to get clearance to a 75 rack 'n pinion on my car since it's a 74. The 74 has he more modern "negative king pin offset" suspension, but retains the old steering box. In 75 the frame head gets a deeper recess and a rack 'n pinion is introduced. After this welding was done I welded what little rust there was on the pan and straitened out some dents before painting it in Por15 top and bottom. Between everything else in my life it has taken me all winter to get this done.

[Zach Gomulka]

Cool Let us know how the rack and pinion works out for you.

[Jon]

Thanks Zach, I will!
I have taken pictures every step of the way of this conversion to share online, as it's quite a process if you want all the strenght VW put in to the 75 design.
Currently i have the body hovering in the air to do the mod on that to. Basically you have to remove a "framerail conector" since it takes up the space needed for the rack and pinion, and weld in a four captive nuts inside the frame rails.
But when you have the body of it's also wise to address the rust you may or may not find. I knew of four areas with issues, so it's going to take me about a couple of weeks of effective work to take care of it all, shortcuts is a nono so I'm doing it to a level I can live with.

[Jon]

Haha, I wrote that in April... And NOW I'm done

Took some sweet time but i'm happy with the result.
I discovered some serious rust in the frame head, so I knew the body had to come of the pan. Just welding rust is boring stuff, so I figured I would convert it to rack and pinion at the same time. Since the car is severely lowered it was suffering from the occasional jamming of the pitman arm in the trailing arm, not a good feeling, but a rack and pinion will cure this.
I did as much research as I could but I could not find a step by step description so I figured I could document how I did it.

I did a lot of rust welding in addition to the conversion but I will spare you those pictures.


Here is the frame head, at this point I had removed the bottom and repaired the vertical sides of the top half. I did not want to remove the locating tabs for the the trailing arms, so I cut them at an angel to gain access.


I got the frame head of a 75 from a local dealer, but when I saw it I knew I could only use pieces of it.


I cut a cardboard template of the notch in the 74 frame head to figure out how big the difference was.


Here you see the template on top of the 75 frame head... quite a big difference.


Cleaning up the 75 head for surgery.


Here is a picture of the reinforcement vw have placed inside the frame head.


Here is a measurement to make sure the body would fit back on after the conversion.  :?

[Jon]

Same measurement on the 75 frame head


Cleaning up the 74 head, and grinding away the fat bead of weld above the mounting point.


Laying down the cut lines at the edge of where the shapes match, also taking into consideration where Iwould have access to weld from the back side.


The first cuts made, one issue, the reinforcement don't follow the outer shape to good where I choose to cut it on the 74. (75 was much tighter at this spot) I fixed this later with a couple of notches and some panel beating on the edge.


Here is the 75 piece in its new location, fits quite nicely.


To be able to fully weld the inner reinforcement I cut back the outer edges five millimeters.


Another view of the cuts and the welds needed, here it becomes apparent why the bead above the brackets had to go.


The first welds done, one have to take into consideration the shrinkage the welds introduce and try to "balance" where to weld to avoid warping the frame head.


The front part is only single skin.



First round completed.




Second round completed.


Welds ground down and new fat beads laid above brackets. If I didn't have access to the backside I would not have ground down the welds. Strength is a good thing.


Inside before welding, quite good penetration of the welds, IMHO.


The shape of the reinforcement behind the brackets also differ.


Nothing a little weld can't fix.  


Part way thru welding the inside.


Floor pan converted, and bottom half welded back on, used a pattern part from Denmark, "had to" slice it in 6 pieces to get it to look like the original part.  :roll:  The pan then had a few hidden rust traps exposed and repaired before being painted in Por15.

[Jon]

On to the body.  I started on the driver side by fixing rust in the front divider wall... where a normal bug has five sheet metal pieces meeting in one point, I found that the super has nine! pieces. Rust fest...  It all looked ok from the outside but when you get crunching sounds when you undo the two big bolts underneath you know you have some digging to do! Getting the repairs to look as close to stock as possible is a personal goal for me... no matter how hidden they are.  :?


Here I have cut away some of the heater channel and rebuilt the inner parts of the divider wall. Like making a new "cage" for the loose nut in there.


Opening up more to place the weld in nuts


Another angle of the reinforcement for the steering box. Notice the plastic bung closing of a hole, I first thought that it might be the right place for the weld in nut, but no such luck.


Luckily I had a NOS frame rail and quarter panel for a super for another project. And that turned out to be a universal piece, with provisions for bot steering box and rack n' pinion So there is three versions, first the 73-74 (on the right side) then the 75 with only weld in nuts, and the universal (on the left side)

[Jon]

Cleaning out the reinforcements to get access to both the rust trapped between the frame rail and the outer reinforcement, and to weld in the nuts.


This is the end of the spare tire reinforcement, the 75 doesn't have this and at least the ends needs to be removed to fit the rack and pinion.


Rust repaired and the frame rail extended all the way to the heater channel. I also welded up the holes left by the steering gear, to avoid getting water in there. I also discovered rust behind the legs of the shock tower, so it was cut away and a piece fabricated.


Here is a small piece from a cut up 75...  all rusted out.


This is how the 74 frame rail looks after you have removed the spare wheel well reinforcement, the holes have to go before drilling up the needed new ones.


A tricky measurement on the NOS part... measure twice


Drilling out the spot welds under the spare wheel well.


A couple of spot welds have to be drilled from the opposite side.


A pair of sandblasted 75 weld nuts welded in on the 74...


From the underside.


All closed up... with a new "leg" in place for the strut tower. At this point I had fixed the heater channel and welded in a new hookies heater channel bottom.



Here is the other side after rust removing and converting, just the closing panel left.


Closed up painted and rack and pinion mounted.  


Pretty tight in there...  cant quite understand how you could get it in there without notching the frame head. Maybe you save some space by removing the rubber booth, but how wise is that?

[Jon]

A better picture of the clearances.


Without the rack.


Driver side all done


The other parts you need of a 75...  the longest of both types are the 75 version. (the others are 74)

Now you know what I have been up to

[nicolas]

to me that doesn't even looks like bug parts.... 


 

one a more serious note are the baby tornado's fitted? 

[Berger]

Very nice work as always JHU! Now get that car on the road and go cruising in the summer rain.. 

[Jon]

Thanks guys, I got a lot to do on the house during the snow free months, so progress is quite slow. Got the engine in two days ago and the tank in yesterday, so today it might actually move under it's own power again.

The baby's is not on there yet...  But Im still looking forward to it, but during test fitting of them they seem to drop a little....  Not a good look, but how do I fix that, moving them up to the curved part of the door, or machine the base slightly?

[TEH]

Nice work!

[56BLITZ]

WOW! That is nice work . . . a lot of it!
Working on Dumper was nothing like that, of course it was still almost a new car way back then.
I can ask my brother if he remembers anything about the mirror mounting, but that was a loooooong time ago.
All the best on your project . . . it’s lookin’ good!

[Jon]

Thanks guys, I have just been out there swapping tie rods and bleeding the brakes. And all the fuel lines it all adds up.
I must say this internet thing is amazing, I never dreamed I would actually be talking to someone who helped build the dumper!!
Mind blowing...

 BTW happy birthday America

[Nico86]

Nice work

[Jon]

So another year has passed, but the 1303 is still here. I have used it very little the last year, but I changed the front tires last week... popped on some new Michelin 135s I bought at Volksworld show two years ago. 135's on a 6" rim... now that's a combo with some shape to it.
My buddy performed a meticulous alignment job on it and the steering is now amazing... that Rack and pinion steering installed was worth all the work after all.
I was so inspired by driving it again that I put on a rear sway bar, I suspect it's a Bugpack or something... I can't say I really notice a distinct difference when driving it. So I pooped on a beefier 7/8 Bugpack front sway bar as well, and it now there is a lot less roll, but the car is still WAY to soft. It keeps grinding those wheels on the fenders. Now it's time to upgrade dampers and springs.
Does anyone know what to get? I want to possibly go track racing with this thing... so no swishy washy...