I won’t bury the lead on this thread, here’s the car in its current form. But the fun is how I got there. First a little bit of history, This is the first car I EVER bought. I was 13 years old, and my parents made a deal that they would split the cost of a car with me, and I always wanted a bug, so it was obvious what I wanted. One day a buddy called my dad from Lawrence KS swap meet, and told him “theres A bug for sale here for $300, if you want it I can flat tow it up.” So I dug into the money I had saved, and got my $150 out. When it showed up I was so stoked. Within a day or so, we had a couple friends over, and after doing some tune-up stuff to it, we got it running, and it sort of stopped, so we drove it around the garage that used to sit where my house is now. I really wanted a “volksrod” cause they were super hot at the time. So I had plans for a ford axle, chop top, and all sorts of things. I then did what every 13 year old with poor judgment does, I tore it all apart, found rust, and then bought two more VWs. Then I sold the second VW, and built the third one into a volksrod that I would daily through high school and college. The whole time, my first car sat. But while I was driving my other bug, I never forgot about my first car. It was a double edged sword, the only reason it got to here is because it was JUNK. It had so much rust (pans, heater channels, front apron, package tray, wheelwells, door pillars, ect..) that no one else would have bought it if I had tried to sell it, and I also had no qualms when it came to cutting it up. Years go by, since I had already built a volksrod, I didn’t need to build another, so the plan was to build a simple lowered fendered bug… Then I built one of those for a buddy. (bought it off of him, and wound up trading it to my dad) So having built a simple car for somebody else, I realized what things I would do if I had free reign. And I also had a car that I wasn’t worried about cutting up. I had seen @32coupedeville build a VW notchback with ford spindle mount wheels, and so I reached out and sent him a set of original vw spindles, and a set of early ford spindles that were hacked up, but had good stubs. He sent me back a set of built drop spindles that used a vw inner and ford outer, and also dropped the car a couple inches. I mocked them up on “the white bug” and did some measurements for how much I needed to cut on mine, I wanted mine to sit lower and still turn and drive. then I built a T coupe from scratch in 3 months to flip and sold it. And that gave me some money to start ordering parts. I started in fall of ‘21 and got to tearing it down. I started by bracing the whole body... the more I dug, the worse it got, the worse it got, the less I felt bad about cutting it up, and the less I felt bad the more I hacked out. and eventually it all went away. (side note, the red you see above, is in fact, where they re-sided the car after a T bone) Yeah, its a JUNK old car. So anyways I kept hacking. I also stared mocking up the front wheels again to determine the width of the front end, and how I wanted the tires to sit. I made a jig to hold the wheel, and with the fender in place... and a looser mockup to get the feel... I determined that a 6" narrowed beam would work well. so I made one. I also took out a big bar out of top and bottom, and rotated the center sections 5 degrees more than the stock beam, so it lowered it even more. you can also see my spindles here. after I finished getting it tacked together, I did a little mockup, printed it out, and did some doodling on it. I wound up deserting the side exhaust idea, but as shown in the opening photos, i did wind up with rockers instead of running boards. join next time for "how to make a rusty car's doors shut with a click!" .
I think its gonna get a simple 1600 with a cam for now, no room for duel carbs, but maybe a turbo someday. That's why it's in the OT part of the forum.
After removing the whole of the bottom 4-6 inches of the body structure, I began to figure out how much I was going to channel the car. I had decided I didn’t want to deal with the pan dragging on the ground, so I landed on channeling the body the height of the heater channels, and adding rockers made from tubing, as a sort of rock slider/low point to drag. I had planned for this when I built the inner structure for the body, so all I had to do was cut the edges loose and measure from the center tunnel to the cross bars. I then added in some uprights to hold it in place. Once I had the body sitting securely where I wanted it, I cut apart the bottom of what was left of the door pillars, If you have ever owned an older bug, you know that the doors sag, there’s not much you can do about it, they just do. I decided that installing the rockers was the perfect time to square up the doors and make them fit right. So while I was working on the rocker I had the door clamped to the drip rail, with the top of the door touching the inside of the doorjamb. I used a piece of 1x2 tubing for the main body of the rocker, then decided it needed to be taller, and a little tougher, so I piece of 1/8 wall 1x1 tubing was added on the bottom. I had to cut some reliefs in the back side of the tubing to allow it to curve with the body. I built these cool little sweeps for the front, that tie the head of the frame point into the rockers. It also gives a ramp for the body to go up over any obstacles that I may hit. After I got everything squared away, I made these little feet for the body to sit on the pan. I also made some for the B pillars. After that I made filler panels for the kick panels to connect to the pan. These are all 1/8 plate, gusseted everywhere I thought they needed it. paper pattern: to steel! after I finished welding on these, even without having the body bolted down, the doors shut like a dream, one finger click,click. I also cut a bunch more out of the back, in preparation for placing these giant meats (8.20/15 hurst pie crust slicks) under there. Eventually I added in a bunch more tube structure to the rear and made it sit snug on the pan. but that's with the new pan, and rear suspension. . . join us next time, for: What holds this up? or How short do those axles need to be? .
That looks excellent. I had some 12 spokes fitted to a pair of link pin drop spindles, with brake discs bolted to the back of the wheels (there's just enough meat for it on some of the AREs), but I never had a chance to use them and sold them on. The stub axles were pressed out and replaced with Ford Pop/Anglia style spindles. So if you want brakes, it is possible.
The Jalopy Journal
