'71 Super Beetle Autocross Build

[Ol'fogasaurus]

Just "skinning" the 4 sides will help as would corner bracing or using solid angle pieces. If you have a bead roller an "X" on the skinning would help stiffen that up too.

I think I would have made the rear legs face the opposite direction as the front for additional strength (kind of like one side fighting/supporting the other) unless there is something going to be tucked in there. You are going to be both pushing and pulling (maybe hard) which would justify the change of rear post angles and add to that the tipping in all direction when you might have your hand on the shifter or the mount itself.

Always figure to the worse condition then add some .

You are going to stiffen up that hole in the rear aren't you .

Lee

[petew]

Just looking at the picture, I can see the issue straight away. Does it have to be so high up?

[andy198712]

It’ll get there! You think some gussets would stiffen it up?

[petew]

Yeah, but, I'd half the height too. Coz it's not a sequential box and you're not Governor Arnie.

[ChadH]

I like the idea to skin it with sheet metal - that should be all it needs. I don't have a bead roller, but it would give me an excuse to buy some dimple dies to dress it up a little. I'll beef it up where I cut the slot. I'm just not there yet.

Pete, I sat in the seat, put my hands on the wheel, closed my eyes and reached for an imaginary shifter. That's where my hand told me to put it. I'm not sure why it offends you so much.

[Ol'fogasaurus]

Chad's Bug.jpg

Chad, this kind of bothers me. It looks like you may have cut into the radius of the tunnel; if so not good. Drill the ends of the cuts then weld close. I think I would have made the cut a bit wider than the universal then put some tube down, parallel to the shift rod, with stiffening flanges at the end for structure. The hole in the tunnel for access to the sifter connection I think is flanged for structural support also.

In that small area beading would be hard to do but look cool. Flanged holes would look so... professional .

stiffening bends.jpg

The next best thing might be to build you skins; where the flanges meet the base add a corner relief hole the thickness of the material or slightly bigger to eliminate stress risers. Then... you can very easily made some slight bends between opposing corners for both looks and additional strength. Make a couple practice pieces first as things can take much less strength than one might think.

https://www.harborfreight.com/catalogse ... etal+brake

This is not the cheapest small break you can buy but it gives and idea of what you can make yourself.

Using a vice for a short bend or even clamp some angle iron where you want the bend then use another one with pliers to make the bends.

So many ways to do something isn't there.

Lee

[ChadH]

I think just skinning what I have, instead of building a whole new box will work. Honestly, I'm just working out of a 2-car garage and just don't have room for more big tools like a brake bender. Someday, when I build my dream workshop... Also, there's a cross tube under the dash. I can tie into that. That would be a good place to put switches too.

If you look, I haven't completely removed the metal on the tunnel, it's just bent down out of the way. I'm thinking some triangular pieces to close off the sides, where it's bent down + something like a frame around the whole opening, maybe 1"x1" box to tie it together. If you look at all the cage ties to the torsion tube, body, rear horns etc, and the fact that I will triangulate door bars after the cockpit is set up, I don't think the car will fold in half.

[Ol'fogasaurus]

I'll see if I can find it but I bought a 12" small brake from J C Whitney probably about 50+ years or so ago (I just looked and JC Whitney doesn't seem to carry them anymore but I have seen the cheap ones advertised and not that long ago.

This shows the press in a bending motion with the top piece that you bend around sitting on top of the press itself.

IMG_1319 copy.jpg

I knew where is was so I fought the good fight and got it down to photograph it. It is not 12" like I remembered but 18" long. It is AL and very light.

IMG_1317 copy.jpg

This shows the hinge/pivot working. The square blocks are where the handles fit in. The plate that holds the piece to be bent is shown here. It used "C"-clamps to hold it in place. You can make box type thing (in this case "skinning" by changing the length of the clamping plate.

IMG_1316 copy.jpg

Another view but this allows you to see the holes for the handles.

In the middle pix you can see the holes that you bolt the press down with. I would think almost anyone could figure out how to make one and on the cheap too. Stuff like this looks harder than it really is.

I bent up the pan for my horizontal/vertical drill press using basically the same idea differently.

"...I don't think the car will fold in half." It isn't the folding so much (still the cut area could widen if the right things happen but the twisting/racking that the tunnel also helps with was what I was looking at. It is the getting too close to the bend and not having any support (AKA a stiffening flange for the bend) for that small area that I am concerned about. Those areas can do wild and magnificent things in very short periods of time when not fully supported. To look at other people's things objectively was my secondary job most of my working life then in the last almost 10 years of so it was my only job one way or another. Not picking just trying to help with what I know.

I do understand the want for the sifter to sit higher than stock but still have a tight, but not too tight, shift pattern.

Lee

[ChadH]

Another why I haven't made any progress post:

Dragged home a '99 Miata for my kid. Had to get it registered, had to do a clutch, and it still has lots of little issues to sort out. On top of that, 3 races in a month.



After driving it, I definitely have my work cut out for me on the Beetle. I'm not giving up, dammit! Just need more time, as usual.

[petew]

Excuses, excuses...


Seriously though. I know your pain.

[Ol'fogasaurus]

Chad, I am at the dunes right now (its raining outside which is why I am writing) and was talking to a local guy who is my age who was a metal bender before retiring. It was interesting to talk about his way of doing thing vs. my way of doing the designs (he was also a pattern maker while I was a drafter) to end up with basically the same end product. We both cracked up at a couple of things that came up.

If you add a shaped doubler of a thicker material around the area you have made the access, structurally you should be OK. Make sure you get rid of any square/sharp corners as the joins will have a tendency to want to crack even with the doubler over them. You want the doubler to be the same shape but say a half an inch to an inch wide and be one piece. Remember that the tunnel is part of the unibody structure so even with a steel body on, if you weaken the tunnel you also weaken the rest of the bug.

This weakening of the pan is something those of us who have glass buggies have to worry/deal with: I talked to a guy who owned a VW scrapyard and he said that glass buggy's pans have a tendency to bend and/or twist in front of the shifter and can twist in the rear (not sure if I have heard of the sag problem back there but it wouldn't surprise me either. My buggy kept wanting to crack at the hole for the e-brake handle so I had to have a over that area doubler welded in (I didn't weld at the time [still not sure if I do much more than making a slag mess even now])

I talk a lot about "stress risers" as that is where problems are most likely to start hence the relief in the corners. They are very important to metal fatigue/failure most of the time.

Lee

[H2OSB]

Any updates? I need some inspiration.

H2OSB

[ps2375]

Don't let him turbo the Miata, you'll never catch him then.

[Piledriver]

Don't let him turbo the Miata, you'll never catch him then.

No small block Fords, or Buck GN motors either...

[ChadH]

..just checking in. It's been awhile. Literally zero progress since last post. I swear the project isn't dead, but I just got really busy with work, other autocross business, and life stuff. Hopefully I'll get caught up on all this other junk and get back onto the project.

My goal was to get this done before Binky is done. They've been making good progress lately, so we'll see.