Kahuna's Garage. .....65 bug build w/ EJ22

[Owl Slayer]

Moved the whole project into my neighbors shop for the winter. Husband passed away several months ago and I worked out a deal with his Mrs to use the empty building......air, power, over head chain hoist, wood burning stove.......

Stripped 50 years of rust, crud and tar board from the chassis.....then a coat of etching primer for the time being.
I'll flip in next weekend and do a few small areas of rust repair, then onto new floor pans

[Owl Slayer]

Been awhile since I updated this thread so thought I'd fill it in a bit.
The chassis needs rust repair so I purchased a mig welder and sand blaster to the job correctly

Working on making cardboard templates for metal fabrication

I decided after a bunch of research to use Porsche 944 disc brakes front and rear. I sourced the parts from an 86 944 na ....this will allow for getting parts locally. I'll start cleaning them up and machining some parts to get them fit on the front

I picked up some WRX 16" wheels I'm going to try to use

I also found some Miata seats I'll have recovered

Things are moving along, I'm going to order new pans this week, hopefully I'll have a complete rolling chassis in a month or so

[Owl Slayer]

The 71 IRS pan/chassis i got for this project is pretty solid except for the bottom of the frame head.....I'd considered buying a complete frame head repop but decided on getting some 18g and patching this up

I cut out all the rot and cleaned up the metal then made some patches.....it was a chore bending it around all the funky angles

Its been 10 years since I picked up a mig but its starting to come back to me, and I have a grinder!
Some more tacks and more grinding and I'll be ready for pans.

[Ol'fogasaurus]

(edited response as I went back and looked at our discussion on the first page) Now days the frame head often takes more loading than it was originally designed for. Each of those patches on the frame head need to be solid and well welded. What the finished project's use will be determines if the frame head will need some additional supporting or not. What I am seeing in the bottom two pix's looks to be dicey. The beading in the frame head is structural for twisting of the frame head as it is important to be fully there too as as well as other things it supports racking/twisting of the front beam.

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This is a pix of the underside of my black buggy pan that shows the beads and the directions of them for structural use especially with the potential of the front beam's side to side loading ending putting a twist the frame head (not hard to do either).

I also added a 1" X 1" piece of square tube down the body mount channel which I would do again but not with 1" square tube but 1" X 2" rectangular tube but again, mine is a glass buggy body and does not have a roof for moving the loading around. I also built my own body lift as the commercial ones are too light weight and rust pretty easily. It is your call on the body lift or the "slider" though.

Lee

[Owl Slayer]

Thanks for the input......I agree it looks dicey, but I did take pains to bend the metal around to follow the existing contours and burned it in solid. I will be adding bracing on the top side that I've copied from the net .it goes from the frame head to the tub and from the beam to the tunnel spreading those loads and offering more support. I appreciate the ideas, I want this build to be strong and safe

[Ol'fogasaurus]

The front upper and lower beam supports from EMPI I have and have had them for a long time but, because of the shape of the glass body on my black buggy, the upper ones I can't use as the bend stops the body from dropping onto the pan. On a Baja with a fuel tank up front they are not a problem.

I did look them up on EMPI and the upper one (3843) has gotten very expensive, in my opinion, @$60.95. The lower one (3842) does fit properly and clamps not only to the beam but to the two slots for the bolts that connect the fire wall of a bug to the pan fit correctly (stock the bolts the pan to the body come from the bottom up) isn't that cheap anymore either @ $51.95. I can take pix for you if you want. I am sure that they are available from other places and may be cheaper but this was to give you an idea of them in-case you didn't know.

The clamps only for the beam are available too. the PN for them is 3161 for 8 clamps with fasteners or 3161-7 for the clamps only. I don't know what the material thickness of the tube is but they are DOM and do have weight.

While I am sure since you said that where you ride is reasonably flat but then "OOPs" does happen .

Lee

[Owl Slayer]

Lee I'll look them up, but yes I'd love to see pics of them.......I'm the manufacturer manager at a offroad suspension business so can have most anything made.....if I were smart ( I'm not usually) I'd let my guys who are pro welders do the work.......but shop time on the bug is therapeutic

[Ol'fogasaurus]

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This is the upper support (sorry about the "X-outs) On the stock body the flat plate is at an angle per side it will be used at. It mates to the firewall.

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A shot of it in place.

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I went out and pulled this off to show the mount for the bottom tube. The slots are necessary as the holes for the bolt holes in the pan to body, if I remember correctly, are slotted also.

Also, the tube in the lower case is seamed but by the feel and weight on the upper tube they are probably DOM.

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This shows both supports at one time. I raised the upper tube as it usually lays down when not being played with 9like the tube in the back ground0.

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Another shot showing the clamping. The clamps on the upper tube end up being at an angle while the lower tube is perpendicular (the bolt for and the outer clamp are just hanging).

When I made the 3" body lift I made a special floating bolt mount captured inside of the body lift. More on that if you need it. The body lift (I have made 2 of them now) is necessary for FG bodies because of no real support by the FG body w/no top.

Lee

[Owl Slayer]

Lee thank you very much!......this is great info, I can fabricate these at work.......pictures make it easy to understand!

[Owl Slayer]

Rust repairs mostly done......may be a few little things I do but its solid so moving on

This section was rusted badly.....I cut it all back to solid metal and formed new 18g to match all the forms. I'm pretty proud of how it turned out

On to the floor pans.....going to order them this week. I'm also going to get the drop spindles coming so I can start modding the 944 brakes to work with the bug

[Owl Slayer]

Starting the process of modifying the Porsche 944 brakes to work with the bug......first picture is 2-1/2" drop spindles for the front, second picture is the front porsche brake assembly disassembled. I'll either be machining a shim for the Porsche bearings ( they're bigger) or machining new spindles for the drop spindles. This will be a discussion and decision made with the machinist at work........
the rear brake assemblies will work as is with new bushings and after cleanup and going through them replacing parts as needed.
The 5 wide wheels won't be used for my project so I media blasted them and am in the process of painting before I sell them off to someone else to use.