56' Vdub-aru...VW,Mendeola,Subaru,Porsche,BMW..the works!

[56SemaRag]

Got to work on the seat rails this weekend. Put the seats in their nominal position, so I had to wire up the seats with 12V to move them. I removed the old Porsche connectors and replaced them with an 8 pin unit used by Subaru. Figured I am going to be doing a harness rebuild later so I got some practice in. I purchased a great set of adjustable crimpers from Vintage Connections for $35. They work awesome and I figure they will pay for themselves re doing the harness. I purchased the pins and plugs from Eastern Beaver.





TIG'd some seat rails out of 16ga steel with 1/8" tops.

[rubbachicken]

please pardon my dumb question, but should the extended subaflanges be supported ??
won't they put additional wear on the bearings, in the same way that running big spacers would do on wheel bearings ??

Hey Todd,
For the guys running the extended Subaflanges what are you guys using to seal off the inward creep of the CV grease and keeping out contaminants from the unused roll pin holes? I figured there is a cap of some kind for the splines and fill the roll pin holes with a dap of sealant. Let me know your thoughts.

[56SemaRag]

Good question....here's my take
The forces involved are different because the CV's desgin and operation is unlike a wheel spacer. The axles in the CV's float so the primary force the extended flanges will feel is torsional, whereas the wheel will put lateral and vertical force on the bearing. As a wheel goes up and down it does put additional pressure on the bearing, but not so with CV's. Under heavy torque loads there may be additional amounts of vertical/lateral force placed upon the flange by the axle/cv link stressing but the combined resultant force direction of torsion-lateral effect shouldn't be enough to overstress the bearing. We shall see, plus I wouldn't want to try and design something to support the outer edge of the flange. Cool thing is the way Todd designed these things. I can always turn down the flanges and run regular length axle if the extended ones chew up bearings.

[ttriebler]

As long as you have the correct length 1 piece axles made it doesn't seem to be an issue.

Try to do a "cut n shut" welded axle that is out of balance and has heavy loads on the flanges, cv's and bearings and it destroys the ring and pinion (and likely the rest of the transmission) in a number of hours.

As in all things - do it once, do it right.

[rubbachicken]

i pretty much knew, if you guys produced something there'd have been a lot of thought and testing behind it, was just curious

As long as you have the correct length 1 piece axles made it doesn't seem to be an issue.

Try to do a "cut n shut" welded axle that is out of balance and has heavy loads on the flanges, cv's and bearings and it destroys the ring and pinion (and likely the rest of the transmission) in a number of hours.

As in all things - do it once, do it right.

[56SemaRag]

This was the worst section of the pan, so no need to replace any pan halves. Glad it was only the battery section


Found an 18ga battery tray that "fits" 49'-79' but the inside corner was way off so I cut it off and fabbed my own strip.

Tacked in

[56SemaRag]

My radiator came in this week so it's time to mock it up, the condenser and intercooler air-water heat exchanger. Got to set the body on the chassis to work some of the clearance issues I knew I would have.

Running the Mendy I knew I would have to clearance the front, but I am also going to have to gain a little more clearance on the shock tower recesses in the body.

The front part of the Suby trans is also hitting the package tray area and the hydraulic clutch slave cylinder is hitting the engine compartments arched seal channel. I will be busy for the next several weeks with metal work, but progress feels good!

[56SemaRag]

Clearanced the rear shock recesses. Ended up fabricating a little to make it easy to get access to the air valve at the shock and make it look as factory as possible.

[56SemaRag]

Cleaning up some more rust in the firewall area. I am going to replace and fabricate my own parts for the front heater channel captive threaded bar because the rest of the heater channel and firewall is in good shape. Can't wait to get back to the Conversion part of this build

Exploratory Firewall / Heater channel cut out

Captive threaded bar fabrication

[ivwshane]

Any updates??

Oh yeah...thanks for asking. I've been really busy at work and squeezing in a few hours every day to free up my weekends with the family.

Sway-a-way 300m axles came in. For those running 930 CVs, normal width trailing arms and extended flanges...12-1/4" clip to clip length centers the CV's at full droop.

Tried a couple of different brake line setups, but they either got in the way of the CV's/axles or rubbed on the Subamount. Decided since I have to re-powdercoat the trailing arms I might as well add brake line brackets. They are clean and out of the way of everything through full motion.


Picked up some used 2004 Boxster S adjustable seats with heat. Only had 40K miles on them and are in great shape.



Got the brake proportioning valve installed and all the brake lines are finished. Now I am cleaning up the pan, filling holes and smoothing things out. I will get better at updating

I love those seats and I plan on using the same ones, how much did you pay if you don't mind me asking?

[56SemaRag]

$500. They fit great in the car too, you'll have to fab your own brackets to get them off the floor.

[ivwshane]

$500. They fit great in the car too, you'll have to fab your own brackets to get them off the floor.

You can't bolt/weld the new rails where the old ones were?

[fezzic181]

Probably if you do that they will be sitting quite low. Haven't seen a beetle seat in ages but if I recall the base is quite thick. So if you mount the rails of these straight to the floor shorter folks might not be seeing over the dash.

[itawolf]

Short people??

LoL heck I believe a 6ft person wouldn't mind being lower in a beetle


Nice work by the way

[56SemaRag]

Been busy for the past several weeks doing the passenger side forward firewall / heater channel. I used Eastwoods Internal Frame Coating and shot it in the heater channels to stop any rust that cant be reached when I have the body bead blasted. Since this type of work isn't part of the conversion but just restoration, I will just put in links. I also cut out the bottom of the spare tire area to make way for the radiator and began fabbing the sheet metal. Looks like my radiator and condenser will go in the spare tire area and the heat exchanger for the intercooler will be mounted outside where the old front torsion beam was.

Rust Damage
Removal
Amount to rebuild
Heater Channel Side
Bottom Repair
Captive Bar
Tacking the firewall
Finished firewall
Ready to close up