Rusty's Return to Life... A build page.

[TimS]

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[Leatherneck]

Good job guys,Richard way to keep them on their toes in trouble shooting engine problems.

[JUSSUMGUY]

My strong point is def. not engines, especially modern day computer controlled engines. Fabrication is more my strong suit.
I greatly appreciate their knowledge and willingness to help.

[Leatherneck]

Wish I lived closer, could use some of your Fab skills. Getting a group together to ride or figure a problem out is always fun.

[TimS]

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Reinforced the bottom. This is double layer 1/4" steel at the seams.

I have 1/8" square steel on my bug and it is well rounded.

Rest of it will be aluminum.

[TimS]

I stole an engine and transmission for Rusty. Plus many other good parts. Otherwise just been working and having fun.

https://youtu.be/4iMcdvOjBt8

https://youtu.be/RUm1oWeEKXw

Anyone wanna trade a set of Solex 40/44's with intakes for a zenith carb?

[no1clyde]

Looks like a good score

Ed

[Volksmeister]

Damn, that under carriage truss is way cool! Excellent idea and great work!

[TimS]

Thanks.

I made a shitton of progress on the cage and tacked things in. I am super stoked with how it looks and fits.

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Unfortunately, I overlooked an important item. When we first built this cage, the direction of this car was recreational. I had decided on crew tubing because it was available and affordable.

Since that time, we had morphed into the racing discussion and now a lot of planning and parts gathering has gone in that direction. I had totally forgotten about the tubing decision way back when and didn't account for tubing in the change of plans.

Disappointed in myself for sure. I honestly don't know if I can accomplish another bending feat as good as this one, but I must try to duplicate this cage in DOM. I don't see any other solution that could be considered a success all things considered.

One failure senario would be to make this a recreational car, but I would actually redesign the cage some for that anyway.

Another failure senario is that BOR let's me race it with crew tubing. I'm almost positive that the final construction would satisfy BOR's new Technical inspection guru, and it could be argued that this is a sportsman car at best and might only see a few races anyway so that a few races could be deemed successful. This is more acceptable to me, but...

I have a hand bender (jd2) and some of my concern comes from how easy the crew was to bend compared to DOM.

I've learned a lot over this last year and a half about tubing (Thanks to Ed and Richard for letting me learn). Now I have the bender and the notcher. Some of the previous results were skill and some pure luck.

I am pricing out DOM tubing today.

Two steps forward, one giant leap back.

[CentralWAbaja]

Look at DOM for your main structure and reuse some of your pieces of CREW for lacing? Just a thought.

[no1clyde]

Tim if you want, take the main tubes out and bring them and some DOM down here and we can bend up a set in the DOM using the CREW tube as a pattern. With my bender you can't tell the difference between .095 and .120 or CREW or DOM. We should be able to make them in a few hours or less so it would be you trip time that you would loose.

Ed

[JUSSUMGUY]

With my pro tools bender bending 1 1/2 x.120 wall dom is no problem but it is noticeably tougher than bending the same in crew.
One of the handiest bending tools i have is a Mittler Bros bend protractor. Takes all the guess work and math out of the equation when figuring center of bend and how much tubing a bend will use.
Duplicating the bends wont be difficult with a little practice. Use some extra crew to do test bends. If you are using a 5 inch cl die i can tell you where center of any bend will be and how much tube you will use.

[dustymojave]

If I were wearing Bill Savage's shoes in about 2005-6 CREW would still be entirely acceptable for roll cages for SCORE racers. Banning it is pure snobbishness, not based on any engineering consideration or experience. NASCAR makes FAR more sense banning 4130 for cages. Now Art Savedra has passed away, who knows who will be the new Tech Chief for SCORE. But I seriously doubt that the ban of CREW will be lifted or 4130 banned by the new Tech Chief.

[TimS]

Just an update on this. My id and ego seem to be in a constant battle between what "should" be possible and what actually materializes from my occasional forays with my junkyard collection of metal working tools and my informally acquired skill set.

Your post, Dusty, is comforting. You see, I had to make the executive decision to expeditiously continue our path forward on this project due to the fact that "green bug" is fatiguing faster than I am making progress on clearing Rusty out of the garage.

Therefore, it is now the plan to continue forth with our crew-tubed cage and, at least in spirit, continue with our race car-like visions. I am not sure if the final product will include a fuel cell or tank, but that decision will have to be made another time. The real consequence of this decision is freedom from the rulebooks. The purpose of this vehicle will be for driver training, prerunning, and recreation.

I have since lifted Rusty from the floor and placed it onto jack stands in preparation for suspension design and assembly.

I harvested the torsion bars out of the type III rear end only to be disappointed by the diameter. They are the same diameter as my growing collection of stock bug torsion bars. Also, they are of intermediate length. My joy of completing my torsion bar collection was cut short when I realized that I now have a decision to make.

I have my choice from stock short, intermediate, or long torsion bars. This choice is further complicated by the plethera of spring plates that have accumulated on my spring plate shelf. Single or double are the choices.

My intuition takes me directly to long torsions and double spring plates due to my experience with them. My logic tells me that the longer torsions will allow more degree of flexibility over the long term before failing and that two pieces of spring plate metal is better than one.

I have menacing thoughts of a more progressive rate with the short bars. This is haunting me because on the surface the highly progressive spring rate seems ideal, but dampening a highly progressive spring rate with the conventional, zero bypass, dampening mandated by my [daughter's] budget would seem to be a complex balance of motion ratios and shims that would be hard to perfect on the first try. In addition to that scrimmage, the flexibility of the single spring plate seems advantageous at times over the strength of the double.

I have decieved myself before so, despite my ambitious timeline, I thought it prudent to open up my decision for scrutiny. I am at your mercy, STF... And so is the fate of my daughter's future driving experiences.

[dustymojave]

Single Sway-A-Way spring plates are far more durable than stock double plates. I used to have a customer whose race car I prepped with double stock plates. He wanted to keep it that way, So I spent a lot of time searching wrecking yards for replacements.

The T3 torsion SHOULD HAVE had 26mm bars. If they were 22s, there is something wrong. Somebody may have replaced them at some time.