Michis vw rod

[EGLITOM]

Hallo

As i posted some times ago my son and me will build a vw rod for him.
After a 2 months search we found a good basis to start with,
it is a 69 chassis with a mex body. It was restored by the previous owner in 98 and just very occassionaly used since than.

It is in perfect condition body- chassis and suspensionwise. THe engine will need a rebuild. After i bought it from that guy i told him what the plan is and could clearly see he didn´t liked the idea very much.
This is what we gonna do:
1st. getting the technic up and running. Plan is to have a decent type 1 engine with 1900 - 2200 cc and around 120 HP, a nice phyton exhaust system and a single modified stock carb. on a mild cam. If he wants more power later he can drop in a hot cam, lifters and rockers and a set of weber carbs and can reach around 160 - 200 HP.

This is the plan on the design side:

From this ( probably the first years look)

over a 2,5" chop

to this with a 1 inch channeling and torque thrust ´s

This will be a fun project and Michi definitely will learn a lot

TOM

 

[WEGENER Engineering]

Tom - What a great father/son project. Having left the fatherland some 30 years ago I cannot believe that all this is legal now. Did they abolish the TUV?
I love the chop & channel. All it needs is an american bug club affiliation like "der kleinen panzers" or "der rennwagenfuehrers". Both are clubs here in greater LA.
Mike or Michi
as they call me in the old country

There is a great historybook regarding custom VWs. Its called California Look VW by Keith Seume. I bought my copy on ebay for a few bucks. Great stories on all the clubs, Empi and the drag cars etc.

 

[EGLITOM]

Hi Mike,

"der rennwagenführers" sounds very cool. Would you have a contact adress. Would be great to have some first hand contact close to the source of many cool parts and cars. May be they are interessted in a german spin of.

TOM

 

[Gary]

Or you could go this way.

 

[Pete McCluskey.]

Or this way.

 

[WEGENER Engineering]

Hi Mike,

"der rennwagenführers" sounds very cool. Would you have a contact adress. Would be great to have some first hand contact close to the source of many cool parts and cars. May be they are interessted in a german spin of.

TOM

I will get ahold of Dave Rhoads. He is the eternal president of Der Renwagen Fuehrers. I am sure that they will enjoy a spin off.
Shall I get you that book on Cal Look cars and the Los Angeles Scene? No trouble for me. Just PM me your address and I will get it done.
Here is the ebay link if that works from over there:
280379170694

Mike

 

[EGLITOM]

Update on Michis rod

We have refurbished to platform including suspension completely.

We modified the front end to get the car lower and increase stability on the straights (increased caster)
We achieved this by cutting out a wedge of the framehead, pulling it together and rewelding it. This way the front is lowered additional 2 inches to the already adjustable front beam.

After this we cleaned up the chassis and sanded it completely and than repainting it in semigloss PU chassis paint.

All the suspension and brake components where disassembled , cleaned , renewed where needed and repainted. We added a new set of lowered red Koni shocks and PU bushings for the rear swingarms.

the gearbox was cleaned up and refurbished with new gaskets, we didn´t paint it because we want that aged look of magnesia.

We also purchased a BUGTECH shifter which makes shifting realy short and
crispy, after renewing the bearings of the shift rod there is no play at all.

THe wheels where sandblasted and powdercoated dull black. THe rear wheels where rewelded with new wider rims to achieve the classic hot rod deep dish look.

Like this side by side picture very much. He is working on his car on the right side of the garage and i on mine on the left side. We spend a lot of time together in there, which is great (don´t ask the rest of the family about that).

Most of the work was done my Michi, i supported him and showed him how to do. He learned already a lot. Welding, painting, mechanical assembling, He is a very exact working guy. The Feedback from his boss´s at the porsche dealership is realy good. He is the only second year apprentice who is allowed to work by himself on the customer cars.

TOM

 

[Randy V]

GREAT WORK Gentlemen!!!!

I like the idea of increasing the caster for better stability..


I do believe that we have a Build going on here so why do we not put this in the Build Logs section of the site?

If no complaints - I think we should...

 

[EGLITOM]

GREAT WORK Gentlemen!!!!

I like the idea of increasing the caster for better stability..


I do believe that we have a Build going on here so why do we not put this in the Build Logs section of the site?

If no complaints - I think we should...

fine for us

TOM

 

[Dave Wood]

As I have a couple of VW based projects, I have a couple questions. First regards the "slice" you took from the front frame stub. I know that it is wedged, but what was the amount taken at the top? Was it a defined amount or was it just a stab? The second is in terms of the rear suspension. Now it has been many years, although I had a VW specialty shop for many years until the early eighties, but I see that you are using 4 bolt wheels. My recollection is that a swing arm chassis had the old 5 bolt wheels and when they went to IRS is when the 4 bolt wheels were incorporated. I see that is a swing arm chassis so I am wondering if that was a German change or one you have made? I may be wrong about US Bugs, but was pretty sure they were all 5 bolt until the IRS.
EDIT; I may have answered my own question regarding the wheels. I believe the auto-stick or full auto was introduced with an IRS and used 4 bolt wheels so there may have been an overlap of the swing arm chassis with the IRS auto one and that could explain the 4 bolt wheels.

 

[Jack]

I believe all of the Mexico built bugs using the swing arm chassis were 4 lug.

 

[EGLITOM]

Dave:

I think we ended up to have the wedge around 3/4 wide on the top. Simple math just look at the lever lenght´s. The lengt of the wedge is around 2,5 the part of the lengt of the framehead to axlemounting. Our target was to lower by 2" . 2 divided by 2,5 = app 3/4".


Don´t know exactly when thay changed to 4 lugs but is is a standard. When the introduced the IRS all US chassis where equiped with IRS. In Germany just the automatic got the irs all others stayed on swingarm. The later coil spring cars got the IRS too. All mexican and brasil cars got swingarms. We would loved to use a IRS chassis, but they are hard to find an pretty expensive. We will get around 120 HP out of a 1914 cc so we should be ok. Launch traction is better with swingarm as well ( most drag beetles run swingarms)

TOM

 

[Phil]

Tom:
Nice work there, it looks like it will be a good ride. Here in the states the last 4 bolt axles were 1967, 68 and up were 5 bolt. I think there was also a displacement change at that time to 1600 cc. I still remember the TV ads we had here, "The Volkswagen Beetle, still $1995"
Good luck on your build
Cheers
Phil

 

[Pat Buckley]

Tom:
Nice work there, it looks like it will be a good ride. Here in the states the last 4 bolt axles were 1967, 68 and up were 5 bolt. I think there was also a displacement change at that time to 1600 cc. I still remember the TV ads we had here, "The Volkswagen Beetle, still $1995"
Good luck on your build
Cheers
Phil

Did you mean the last 5 bolt wheels were 1967?

65MY was 1200cc
66MY was 1300cc
67MY was 1500cc
68MY was 1600cc

A real horsepower war was in effect from VW in those years.

 

[Cliff Beer]

Tom, very nice work your son does. Great to see a young man taking some pride in his workmanship and creating something functional and beautiful. No doubt he has you to thank for those personal traits and technical skills.

Great job!

 

[Brian Kissel]

Hello Tom !

They say "lower is better", but this may be too low for your roads.

Brian

 

[Randy V]

Brian - That is pretty low.... Actually reminded me of one of the "Zingers" that was making the show circuit rounds here back in the 70s;
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I like the Photoshop-Chops that Tom & Michi showed earlier on a bit better.. :thumbsup:

 

[Dave Wood]

.
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I like the Photoshop-Chops that Tom & Michi showed earlier on a bit better.. :thumbsup:

We did a Beetle chop at a Rod show several years back as a demonstration of the shops' work. We did it all in a few hours. No paint or final bodywork. We did all the doors and leaded the joints, people were amazed that we could set up and do it and get it loaded back up. It was a Super w/strut front. It took me most of the preceeding week to get it ready and to plan the cuts, of course most thought we did it all on the spot. It did generate several top chops for the shop, but I had the explain that it was something that needed planned, they weren't going to be able to bring it in and sit and watch us do it. It looked to easy at the show and everyone though we just came out and decided how and where on the spot...not likely.

 

[Chris P.]

There was a V8 bug that used to show up at Bridgehampton back in the early 90'2... REAR ENGINE V8!

 

[Phil]

Thanks Pat:
I was thinking about that today and realized I went dyslexic on the wheel studs, you are correct.
I guess I have a slight case of CRS.
Cheers
Phil