custom chassis for vw beetle
Some sheet steel - Match the grade you are repairing if you can.
Now that I was done moving hand brakes around, the time had come to put the centre tunnel to bed. 2) The gearbox is magnesium alloy. Repeating step six until I had things nice and level, I then tacked for a final time, measured several points from the front to the rear to make sure nothing was twisted and made some very final slight adjustments with my hammer. This chassis looked like it only needed a couple of small patches. If I get enough requests, I'll upload one about the body repairs too.
Happily, a standard metric house brick in the UK is just the right thickness. You can pick cheap floor plans up for a Beetle for less than £100 a side, and prices can get as high as £300 or more. Conversely, you can pick up top quality ones that are 1.2mm thick - slightly thicker than fitted at the factory. Mine was done by eye, bolting everything to the gearbox, tacking in place, removing from the gearbox and seam welding. Once that had gone off, I gave the chassis a rub with scotch bright to key the factory transit paint on the new metalwork.
This resulted in months of hard work, quite a lot of money spent, and a whole plethora of lessons learned and skills acquired. The bench seat I made along with the new hand brake and gear shift. It was simply two stands with a scaffolding tube that went through the middle of the beetle centre tunnel.
I used a spit to be able to spin the chassis, this was a godsend as it meant I could work really quickly without having the manhandle the chassis all the time. Firstly, the front gearbox mount for the gearbox nose cone needs to be cut off and welded into a new position. The first five pictures here speak far louder than any words I can type. May 30, 2018 December 3, 2018; 18 Comments; Beetle; Jean Fourie has spent the three years designing and building the V8 Stealth Beetle at his company 3L Engineering in Cape Town, South Africa. You can see in pics two and three the horrendous gap it left at the front when aligned at the back. Kitman revels at the German design inspirations of the 1950's. So things won't have been absolutely perfect when it was made, especially if was made on a Friday afternoon and it was Big Nigel's turn to buy the beers at the pub.
Bright LED magnetic torch - positioning a good quality light helps a great deal. It's a nice balance between being easily worked, but forgiving to hot welds. But you'll figure that out as you go along! You want to apply this like you would bathroom silicone.
It's hard to ignite, but even harder to extinguish. That was something I could rectify. Carefully adjusting and regularly checking front and rear, I tack welded the frame head in place, and marked a little more of the original tunnel I could cut away for a better fit, broke the tacks and trimmed things to fit more snugly. When you look at what you have, look hard. Sadly, the only one I could get hold of turned out to be, well... Not great. I wanted it to breathe. I certainly consulted Jesus several times throughout the build. It also lends a little more strength to the weld to not grind flat unless it needs it. Once all measurements side to side were within 2mm of one another, I began laying heavy welds. At this point, I decided to buy a whole new chassis. Secondly, the rear gearbox cradle needs to be thrown away and a new one made, with the gearbox mounts 2.5" higher up. As you could tell from the last step, there was still some metal missing from the donor frame head. You really need a good mask, otherwise you will make life hard for yourself. It was a bit of a learning curve.
This custom tube frame for our Coupe and Speedster bodies uses a standard ball joint beam in the front and a modified VW IRS torsion assembly in the rear. 2) Seam welding here creates a moisture trap, as the Nap's Hat is hollow and water does get in there (just look at the state of mine from the early steps!). You need something that will cool as well as smother the fire. https://en-gb.facebook.com/LVHEnginesRestos/. I cut off the old hand brake brackets, and selected a point suitably far forward of the gearshift to accommodate a new hand brake bracket. About: Engineer by day. This is also the most you can move the gearbox upwards without having to take the shift rod out of the centre tunnel and mount it on top. Thanks! Don't just dive in mob-handed without honing in your welder's settings. Just enjoy the show, it's all you can do at this point. I like to work in 2mm for automotive chassis work. I bought a framehead bottom plate. The pan resembles a reinforced VW Beetle pan useing a standard VW pedal assembly, has guide tubes for the clutch and accelerator tubes built into the reinforced tunnel. Chances are, neither are the fire brigade.
I didn't do this, I went at it with cutting tools until I ran out of rot to cut out. Only make one pass, don't fiddle around trying to make it look pretty. Out with the air chisel (again, a grinder would have done just fine here), and I cut the body from the floors to give what you see in pictures four and five. But since I was not installing Bug seats I cared not a jot! The body was ok, apart from the lower 3" or so which also needed extensive repair. I'd cut the floors out completely and put them in the scrap bin, and then started to wonder if this was really worth it. The result was that the wheel was always perpendicular to the axle.
Nice and simple to do at this point, and it would pay huge dividends later! Panel beating hammer and dollyFire extinguisher - a big topic but use a foam one of you can or water. A mop and bucket.
I had cut out the rot before moving it over, and this needed to be repaired too. . Making sure the front and rear mounts were level relative to one another would ensure the geometry of the wheels wound be correct when it was back on the road. Chassis Restoration on a Volkswagen Beetle Volksrod: My hotrod has been a labour of love for about seven years now. I noticed that it required a couple of patches of welding on the front end of the chassis, so set about putting this right. Then I less-than-gently tapped it. This product is made of high-quality materials to sere you for years to come. Finally, you need to swap the nosecone of your Bug gearbox for one from a Split Screen T1 van gearbox. Happily the Napoleon's Hat would only fit properly on one spot. Getting to this point meant stripping the interior and wiring harness out.
Do not use stainless, it is brittle and may crack with the torsional loads the engine puts on it. Best of all, nothing was on fire and nobody died! You DO NOT want this breaking off!! Then, shave a little off the gearbox mount (not much, you can adjust the toe-out by adjusting your spring plated later too), offer the gearbox back up and tack the mount in place. It was time to weld on the new "Napoleon's Hat" - this one really, REALLY has to be in the right place. However, this stuff is perfect for a chassis as it is extremely tough, sticks to anything and everything, and best of all looks great once laid. So, I cut the framehead bottom plate off with a plasma cutter (an angle grinder would have done nicely too), and this is where I really found issues. Very inspiring. Your time is worth far more than anything else you throw into a project, so make sure you don't feel like it was a waste by the end. I would NOT recommend seam welding, as the amount of heat would warp the floors and the amount of gas and wire you would use would be frightening! You want the best welds possible here, it's your chassis!! It's simply a copy of the original cradle, but with the mounts 2.5" higher up. I then flipped over the chassis, and checked the welds on the inside of the tunnel. Though not a true swing axle, it was designed such that the axles would move up and down on the gearbox, but the wheels had no articulation on the end of the axle. However, once I had recovered my strength, I set about hitting this with a heavy weld. Because my car sported lowered suspension, I always had negative camber - the bottom of the wheel stuck out more than the top, making the wheels look "wonky" on the back. Be super careful with your welder around it! Far better than the brush-on variety! I applied some weld-through primer to all the edges, and this allowed me to almost spot weld the floors in place, and make sure that all the welds were spot on.
I also removed the front suspension, steering etc. To weld the centre tunnel, you want your welder really cranked up to deliver a lot of current, with a high wire speed. My advice would be quite simple though. Refitting a new frame head can feel daunting, any misalignment or bad measurement would have the chassis geometry all wrong. These were not the correct year floors for my car, mine required different seat runners.
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