Ol'fogasaurus black buggy

[dustymojave]

Found the pic a few pages back.



See the big holes straight out beside the big yoke bolt holes? They're for bumper cage. Intended for 3/4" bolts to thread through the mount straight into 3/4" nuts welded into the ends of the cage tubes. Don't mount the cage to those. In that motor mount using those holes will place the bumper cage beside the bottom of the case. Not good for banging sand.

Then see the smaller holes up under the bolts for the strap? The 3/8" holes. Those are the ones I was referring to that were intended for yoke support. Try bolting the kaefer bars to those. If the heims won't take the angle, or the bars are too long, try bolting those kit brackets to the bumper cage holes with 3/4" bolts.

[Ol'fogasaurus]

Thanks Dusty. I just got the new caliper mount bracket today and this one fits tight like it should. The first one was a smidgen off and wouldn't bolt in, this one does and the brakes are ready to be plumbed to the flex brake line.

I didn't know for sure but I thought those might be the right holes but with no shocks the kaffer bar is going to be a bit difficult to putnin place until I can make a couple of dummy shock mounts.

Depending on the weather tomorrow it will be mowing the yard, digging out then cementing in place one or two of the broken fence posts or... if it rains then I can add the washers that I just got to the CV bolts to protect the CV boots. Too many things interfering with the fun stuff.

I still have to get some metal to make mounts for the seat mounts .

Lee

[Ol'fogasaurus]

I took some pictures tonight of the brakes, mounts and CVs. Photobucket is being contrary tonight so I can't get URLs for them to post. I'll try tomorrow.

Dusty, the bigger holes by the adapter mounting bolts are about the same size as the bolt holes in the mounting tabs of the Kaffer bar. They both are something like 3/4" or 7/8"; e.g., I can get either of my first two fingers through each up to the big joint. It looks like will have to go and get a couple of bolts at the same time I get the material for the seat mount. I will also have to find out the width of the top of a bug shock to make a spacer to check things out.

Lee

[dustymojave]

PB does that every now and then. It USED to be SUCH a great site until the start of 2013. Then they killed it.

3/4" hex nuts are a light tap fit into 1.5 x .095 wall tube. So Lynn Chenowth decided decades ago that it would work well to use 3/4" bolts to mount the bumper cage to the motor mount. But his motor mounts have the cage holes much lower than the yoke holes. EMPI has mixed motor mount designs and screwed up the concept and put the holes too high for Chenowth's mounting system. Just get a pair of 3/4" x 1.5" G5+ bolts (better if they were NAS 1100 Series shear bolts) and nylock nuts to mount the kaefer brackets if the bars will be the right length.

[Ol'fogasaurus]

The washers for a bus CV. Also you can see the larger diameter hole in the Kaffer Bar mount.



The new bracket allowed me to finally install the rotor and the caliper.



You can see the mounting bracket installed and it is a good snug fit.



The CV sitting in the new drive flange off the stock bug transaxle.



The whole shooting match as it sits now. The washer should go on sometime today assuming I get my work done before it starts to rain.

All the bolt and nuts are in place but not torqued as I am sure that some of it will have to come apart again.

One other thing I ran into when down at a VW place with my oldest step-son last week. We had found a 90° adapter to mount the nylon flex brake line into the wheel cylinder on the blue buggy. My step-son asked him what he recommended for sealing the threads as pipe thread isn't a good idea.... pipe sealer? He said he uses red thread locker and, if necessary, it hasn't been a problem getting the brass back out of the slave cylinder. For what it is worth.

Lee

[cbeck]

I had to cut and notch my unknown origin solid mount to fit this 1 5/8 side exit header. It is pretty close to the hole they speak of

[Ol'fogasaurus]

I goofed, this subject should have come up before as it has been a long time since it was discussed. I run an over the top style of exhaust system for two reasons:

1) Heat rises and the header heat of under the engine exhaust tubing, the tubing coming from the forward ports, can lead to higher inside the engine temps.

2) Moving the tubing up and run it over the engine also give more under buggy clearance. I have seen several exhaust systems that have been, lets say, compromised by the ground/sand.

This is a modified Tri-Mil exhaust system that did not have the down turn bend after the collector. I used to have a Supertrapp on the end of the upright but it couldn't meet the 93 decibel sound limit on the dunes where I ride until I had removed 5 of the 8 plates which made the exhaust system so choked up that I couldn't climb most any dune. I still think they measured it wrong.

I took what I had down to Rob at Bug Germinators (Rob is now retired but the business is still operating by, who I think is a pretty knowledgeable guy) in North Bend OR. Adding a two bolt mounting flange above the tube collector then using the upper part of another style of exhaust system, we came up with this and it the noise level is below the 93 decibel limit. The main part is a "tuned" unit; remember that bends in tubing does have some sound limiting ability themselves.





Yes, that is the Pacific Ocean.

Lee

[Ol'fogasaurus]

I finally got the washers on the boots today. Not hard work but time consuming sitting on a stool adjusted as low as it could be, bent over and trying to stay awake as I loosen to bolts, remove both, put the washer on then back together and finally tighten things back up. I then took the buggy off the stands after rotating it 90° so it would sit normally in the garage so I could get back to work on mounting the seats.

I finally got to sit in it for the first time in close to 20 years.



I put an 1/8th in plate on the floor to cover the foot well area for the back seat then placed the 3" tall mounts on it and finally placed the seat on it (driver's side as the other side should be almost identical but opposite. I put a foot stool down so I could safely climb in and not goof and accidentally step on the fenders (note to self: you got to make the fender/running board supports before too long) and gingerly climbed in once the seat was roughly located.

After some fancy foot and butt work I got the seat roughly located to where it should be good for me with the exception that the back will be too straight up and down (I was born with scoliosis; curvature of the spine, so I have to have the seat leaned back so I don't go into things slipping around in my spine) to sit in.

This brings up at least two options: Do I lean the seat itself back or do I make the mount lean back so the seat will raise or lower as it slides back and forth on the seat track (I'm not going to be around for ever and of that I am sure ) I also still have to raise the seats up a smidge to miss the body mounting flange and the tunnel so that will also play on fitting my butt into the buggy.



I also started making a pattern for the seat mount. I am not one who likes slots and notches a whole lot but they do have their places... at times; this looks like it is going to be one. I need to be able to adjust the seats side to side a bit to make them sit centered between the body and the tunnel. Those Costco double bag cereal boxes sure do come in handy at times.

[Ol'fogasaurus]

Last night I got bored so I went out to the garage and loosely assembled the driver's side seat mount. I didn't crank down on the lock nuts which are similar to Nylocks but have the blue locking stuff to which I have had bad luck with. Locking nuts have a limited amount of cycles in them before they start to lose their locking ability; the blue stuff in the lock nut, as least as far as I have used them, is a low cycle nut (a cycle is on and off) and I don't want to replace them if I don't have to. Fasteners can get expensive quickly.

Where I am having the problem is with the wire cable that joins the locking mechanism on both seat tracks together allowing the seat tracks to release together using the one handle on the right side of the seat. The cable seems to be too long so I must be doing something wrong. I think I have assembled everything as the pictures show but locking things together more solid might show if I am right or wrong; too tippy right now.

Anyway, this morning I took some flat stock and clamped both halves of the seat mount together (lose bolts remember) to act as one piece so I could put the seat in the buggy again and sit in it. With all the hardware added I got back in the buggy so now it sits a bit higher now and a lot of the interference between the seat, pan and tunnel has pretty much gone away. When comparing the angle of the seat when sitting in it to what I felt sitting in the buggy yesterday the seats (seat back) they aren't as far out of whack as I thought. I may have to shim a bit but not the inch or more that I thought I would have to do. With the type of seat it is the tilt would have to be supported full length so spacers alone would not have worked. Doing the tapered spacer thing is a lot of fiddly work to make is right. You really need two tapered spacers with opposing angles (actually the same angled spacer facing the opposite way on the nut side to keep the fastener straight).

Heading to the box store to get some nuts so I can lock things in place for more fit check and installation work. I didn't get the seat pattern and the assembly of the seat mount done early enough in the day to go to the metal salvage store so I will have to wait to do that until Monday. I think my spot welder is going to come in handy when putting the whole thing together. The last problem to solve is the feet of the base need to be changed as they want to slide into the foot well.

I also have to get some bolts or studs for the seats. They seem to be metric in size and thread count.

Lee

[Ol'fogasaurus]

OK, I've spent a couple of days working with the seats assembling the frames, locating them in the buggy to see what I am going to have to do plus farting around with the handle that allows the slides on the frame to work correctly.



I assembled the frame but instead of using the lock nuts that come with the kit I went down and got some standard nuts so I could jockey stuff around with out screwing up the thread locking cycle of the nuts. This bit of caution has turned out to be of such a good idea that to mention it seems to be a waste of time but... I did and I do.

I finally got it into my head that they might have sent me the passenger side's inboard seat track rather than one for the driver's side as it locking mechanism sits backwards to the side with the handle. The kit I bought has the driver's side with the sliding mechanism and the passenger side with a "tilting mechanism". The reason for this was it seems to be that every time someone who comes flying in off a side trail and is not paying attention the passenger's head or body is in the way. With them sitting back a bit even if they lean forward or tip their heads forward they do not block my vies of that side.

In the picture you can see the cable that should attach from the handle to the mechanism on the other seat track located correctly but where it is sitting is where the stop part of the mechanism is not the hole for the "pull" cable to fit in.

Tomorrow it is off the VW place where I got the kit to see what they say which means they will contact their wholesaler. I then can go and get the two pieces of flat stock to actually mount the seat on. I could do it with the mounts that come in the kit but, as is, the edge margin is a bit short for my comforts plus I don't trust the "plastic" seat with it's inserts. I want to snug the seat down fully with no "air space" underneath.



Tonight, I got playing with the Kaffer/Truss bar. Since I don't have shocks right now and since they are on the inboard side (inside) of the shock towers, the Kaffer bar cannot be put in place and tightened up. The main reason for my putting the bar assembly in place is that it may or may not occupy the same area I had planned on mounting the fuel tank in. It looks like the Kaffer cross-bar sits close enough to the transaxle and the hydraulic clutch assy. that I still can mount the fuel tank up higher in roughly the same general area.



A bit closer view of the diagonal ends and mounting brackets of the Kaffer bar. It looks like the angle mount is designed to also use the motor mount bolts to capture the brackets. Capturing the mounts between the mount and the solid motor mount will slide the transaxle back about 0.02 or 0.03 ( haven't measured yet) which shouldn't be of any consequence. Fitting loose like it is doesn't give me a lot of information and I don't want to take the shocks off the blue buggy right now... or maybe I will have to bit the bullet and get new ones. Not sure if that is a good idea or not.

I hope this helps someone.

Lee

[dustymojave]

The kaefer bar brackets SHOULD mount to the forward side of the motor mount. NOT to the back side.

The simple solution to the seat angle issue is to space the forward corners of the mount up or to lower the rear mount.

Check out the similar seat mounts being done by DarkEarth over on TOS.
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=656348
I'd post a pic or 2, but they're too large for this forum.
You might get some inspiration from his innovative and well executed approach.

He also mentions the issue of the wire being too long and how he cut and re-bent the end to fix it.

Using cardboard for patterns is standard fabricator stuff. Some fabricators I know keep a stock of large sheets of cardboard ("chip board" like cereal boxes, not corrugated) on hand for such purposes.

[Ol'fogasaurus]

My fault, I guess I wasn't clear on the picture of the Kaffer bar with the mounting brackes looking like they were to go behind the transaxle mount, I draped them like that to show the hole size relationship. I was trying to say that the brackets would be sandwiched between the solid mount and the transaxle mount or at least that is what I meant to show.



This was showing what the mounting bracket would look like but I had put a plate down to support the seat mount because 1) I didn't want to scratch things up and 2) the rear legs of the seat mount didn't fit on the sides of the foot area of the pan half.



This should show the problem up better than I did verbally. My front seat mounts do fit like the ones in the picture in the URL you posted. The rear mounts don't fit correctly because the foot rest in the floors I installed seems to be a bit wider or the rear mounts seem to be a bit closer. It also depends on how far back the rear seat mounts go as the pan is still tapering out until the door area is passed.

One of the front mounts was not welded in place flush so the seat mounts seems to be a bit tippy. Also I may want to turn the other foot of the seat mount 90° or make some kind of mounting bracket to center things up a bit. I haven't looked into that so I'm not sure about that yet. I've been fussing more about the sliding mechanism that fitment.

Thanks for keeping me honest Dusty.

Lee

[dustymojave]

[Ol'fogasaurus]

For some reason my computer does not seem to like both STF and Photobucket on at the same time. This will be my forth try to post this today.

I went back up to where I got the seat mounts to talk to him. The guy at the desk and I got talking while waiting for the owner to show up after he had car problems. I had thought out several different ways to solve the problem with the not being able to pull the adjustment handle and both sides work. One of the things he came up with was something I had but had decided not to do and that was to re-bend the wire and put it in the spot where it should be assuming that there is a right and a left hand (mirror parts) parts.

I did find out that this is not the first time this has happened where I got mine and of course there is the post about the same thing on this build string.

We got talking about it then I sat down thinking about it and suddenly I had an idea and so I tried it and it works.



This is where I started today. The wire that goes from the handle to the other side is too long to attach to where it should. The idea was to shorten the wire and re-bend it to go to the correct hole on the opposite side which I already thought about but I ended up dismissing it as the spring pressure on the two sides was going to end up breaking the wire before too long.



The arrows show the action of the parts. The cable/wire is where it looks to be intended to fit assuming that there really is an Opposite/ “mirrored assembly” based on the one I got.



This shows where the cable is intended to be attached. It was placing the wire here when I got my epiphany.



I got out a chunk of cereal box to make a template from. This is actually the second one as the first one wasn’t wide enough and there was a fault in the box where the paper tore.

I got out my hand operated leather punch and put the first hole in it then found some 3/16th inch screws and mounted the template on the inside slide’s hole. I then rotated the template over and under the bottom of the handle and marked the hole punched the template and cut it to size.



I then copied the template to some scrap stock I had laying around. I cut and drilled it to shape; this is what I came up with.



This is what the finished product looks like and … it works very well thank you.

When I take it apart to paint it I will get longer bolts as the scrap I used was a bit thicker than I had planned on. I used a washer on both sides of the new part so that when clamped into place it will still move well. I think I will either spike or peen the end of the screw over so it doesn’t back out of the nut.

I hope this helps someone.

Lee

[Ol'fogasaurus]

I must have been really tired last night when I went back out to the garage to start working on the seat adapters to the seatbase as I really screwed the measuring up.



The metal I am using is from a recycling place. As you can see it is blotchy so I must have mistake some of the markings I did with a black sharpie and drew so lines that are really off; about a quarter of an inch or more plus just the bad reading of my scale (ruler). The two guide lines for the seat are off-center from the center of the panel… if that makes sense.

This morning I got up and started drilling the holes in the location I marked and when I laid the pattern over to check… not even close.



A while back I bought the HF welding table and, while it works, I wasn’t real pleased with it. Today, I lifted the lower stop up so the panel would not slide off as I tipped the platen to weld on. I stuck a piece of thick flat stock under the panel so I would weld through the holes and really screw things up. I used a magnet to hole the block in place.

I got my MIG welder out, clipped everything in place, gave it gas and pulled the trigger and… got a sparky thing for about a tenth of a second and… nothing. To make a long story short I was out of wire! I had been using 0.23 but then I remembered I had a spool of 0.30 so it went in place. Worked great so I plugged each hole from both sides, just in case.



After sanding down the welds I have a smooth surface to start over with. I’m going down to get a couple of thin silver Sharpies so I can see what I am going, of supposed to be doing better.

Lesson learned.

For what it is worth, Lee