fad
Posted a lot
Posts: 1,781
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F*ck me that's a broken arm / thigh waiting to happen. I always used a ratchet strap for pulling preload onto the rear. Either pull tight with the ratchet, or slip the plate on where you want it but not fully engaged, drop the car onto its wheels, let the weight of the car pull it round, ratchet strap around the axle and hooked over, tighten, jack up, wheel off, bolt the torsion plate cover home after some lovetaps with a hammer.
Or make adjustable springplates and never, ever have to mess about with preload again, just set with the spring plate at the bottom of travel and the adjuster wound all the way out, drop onto its wheels and then wind the adjuster in until you have desired ride height.
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F*ck me that's a broken arm / thigh waiting to happen. I always used a ratchet strap for pulling preload onto the rear. Either pull tight with the ratchet, or slip the plate on where you want it but not fully engaged, drop the car onto its wheels, let the weight of the car pull it round, ratchet strap around the axle and hooked over, tighten, jack up, wheel off, bolt the torsion plate cover home after some lovetaps with a hammer. Or make adjustable springplates and never, ever have to mess about with preload again, just set with the spring plate at the bottom of travel and the adjuster wound all the way out, drop onto its wheels and then wind the adjuster in until you have desired ride height. See!!! Back to lowering  Adjustable spring plates are a job for when it’s back on the road, will make them up to swap over. Along with a beam with adjusters |
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I like the chain between shock / body mount and frame of a trolley jack method, nice smooth control both applying and removing tension from the torsion bars that way. But no, no lowering. That thing should be up in the air on knobbly tyres |
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luckyseven
Posted a lot
Owning sneering dismissive pedantry since 1970
Posts: 3,839
Club RR Member Number: 45
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(Not sure if video works, but here goes!) Baler twine is the new brakes Just popped by to say thanks to you and Tom for showing me so much of how my Beetle should go (back) together  What a dude, I've been reading this thread with slight jealousy marvelling at how far short I'd fall of getting my 10-year-old to focus anywhere near the level that your Tom's managed. A testament to both your patience! |
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Just popped by to say thanks to you and Tom for showing me so much of how my Beetle should go (back) together What a dude, I've been reading this thread with slight jealousy marvelling at how far short I'd fall of getting my 10-year-old to focus anywhere near the level that your Tom's managed. A testament to both your patience! It’s nice that you have got something from ‘the lunatic ramblings of a man and his son’ Tom is really competent, I have to remind myself he’s only young and to be patient sometimes! But thanks  |
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Oct 10, 2017 17:35:14 GMT
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Got some argon hobby gas!!  Need to carry on practicing welding |
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Don't know if I've posted this before: cal-look.no/lounge/index.php/topic,26893.0.html It's a link to a thread on the Cal-Look Lounge started by a guy who's bought an ex drag race Fugitive. There's a couple of photos of it on there for inspiration! |
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1968 Cal Look Beetle - 2007cc motor - 14.45@93mph in full street trim
1970-ish Karmann Beetle cabriolet - project soon to be re-started.
1986 Scirocco - big plans, one day!
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Oct 11, 2017 14:45:24 GMT
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As most have said, I really wouldn't put the fuel tank right up front, it's a changing weight, and the last thing you want is the car braking differently when the tank is empty compared to full, try to keep it near the centre of the chassis - mine's sat in the centre between the driver and passenger footwell as that's as far back as I could get it whilst keeping it sealed behind a firewall. It used to be behind the seats which was closer to the CoG but things get a bit warm back there these days so the fuel boils You don't need weight up front to get the brakes to work, you just need to set them up properly, with you having adjustable bias pedal box that shouldn't be an issue. |
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Oct 11, 2017 21:58:26 GMT
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Don't know if I've posted this before: cal-look.no/lounge/index.php/topic,26893.0.html It's a link to a thread on the Cal-Look Lounge started by a guy who's bought an ex drag race Fugitive. There's a couple of photos of it on there for inspiration! I remember the Botch Boys from ‘back in the day’, but not a fugitive.... Mostly the splitty with the rear arches cut out and big wellers Got all reminiscent, found my beetle on RTTS’91, stopped to help some lads who had broken down  |
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RTTS was something I never did - always clashed with exam time at school or uni - but I did Bug Jam every year from 1995 to about 2009ish. God to be pretty good mates with Paul Venners during that time although haven't seen him for about three or four years. Commentator at the Gathering sounded like him though!
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1968 Cal Look Beetle - 2007cc motor - 14.45@93mph in full street trim
1970-ish Karmann Beetle cabriolet - project soon to be re-started.
1986 Scirocco - big plans, one day!
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Oct 14, 2017 17:51:30 GMT
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Few hours today, We swapped the track rod ends  Replaced the rusty spring plate bolts and nuts, fitted the rear dampers And then fitted the steering column and a wheel  Then went for a drive/push around the Farm (Full action shot, hence the blurriness!)  Then had a look at the a-frame, we chopped the support bar and managed to tweak it wider. Now just need to reposition the holes for the pins (as they want to go through the beam) then weld it up...  and then we can tow the fugitive home and start work on the pedalbox and mounts |
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Oct 17, 2017 20:05:01 GMT
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Making a-frame brackets tonight. Couple of bits of angle that have a half circle cut to locate into beam, with an M10 u-bolt over the beam and bolted to the angle. These can be left on the beam for a while, might have to put something over them so we don’t keep walking into them  And then welded a couple of tabs on the underside of the a-frame that I will drill and can then put a bolt through (and bolt to the ones on the beam)   I think that’ll work, unless you can see a better way |
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fad
Posted a lot
Posts: 1,781
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Oct 17, 2017 20:50:19 GMT
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Much better welds buddy! Looking good!
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Oct 18, 2017 16:36:28 GMT
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This is what I’ve made.....  Only thing that I’m not sure about, is that it rotates on the u-bolts on the beam.  Not sure if I should radius the plates on the a-frame and tighten the u-bolts really tight on the beam (I’m guessing either way will mark the paint, not sure which will mark it least) |
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Oct 18, 2017 16:58:04 GMT
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The a-frame rotates around the beam... so I think it’ll be fine (and no worse than the a-frame)
The reason for doing it this way was so the linkage couldn’t drop and flip under/over or dig into the ground
I suspect they’ll always be a bit of damage to the paint, and it’s only black rustoleum
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Oct 20, 2017 16:27:44 GMT
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Well the a-frame worked!! We loaded up, put some air in the tyres....  And then drove round the Farm  And then home..... bit tricky getting traffic to let us put it on the drive, but it’s now parked up, we can do some work on Sunday  |
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Oct 22, 2017 15:33:42 GMT
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I’ll update in a bit, but had a busy day..... now battery on phone is flat, and got friends popping round But here is a teaser   |
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Oct 22, 2017 20:37:57 GMT
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The plan for today was to sort the pedal box, we got a OBP pedal box to go in, and having seen the frame Crossbones made for his Fugitive, we were going to replicate that in ours Got Lucy to sit in, to check her for position of the pedalbox, and Spud wanted to try it out too…. But then wasn’t too happy!  So made a frame for the pedal box to sit in  With the box in, it looked like this  We then looked at fitting it into the fugitive (and noticed ours has a lot less room in the footwell) and also how out of square it is!  The lateral bars are square (measured to the beam) but the longitudinal ones are all over the place. We made runners to slide the box along  And with the pedalbox in, need to slot the frame and drill and tap the runners (forgot to take a photo until we dropped the fug off)  I’m thinking we should fit rivnuts inside the runners rather than drilling and tapping (?) We also made a frame at the back for the fuel tank, we birdsmouthed a length of tube  Then made up some cross pieces for the tank straps  Primed up it looks quite tidy, and my welds blend in quite well with the others  Then fitted the tank!  Tom then had a go at welding, did some blobs etc, then joined 2 bits of scrap together   Wrote his name  And then welded in a bracket (for the steering column) We then started tidying up, it started to rain, and smashed the flow gauge on the gas bottle   So need to replace that Then took the fug back to the farm, when we got on the farm Tom travelled through in the fug!  Got a pile of scrap to sort hopefully this week, then we can get some bits… Need some ally chequer plate for the floor, which Mark has so need to make templates for that, and he’ll guillotine to size for us. But not sure that we want to rivet the floor to the frame tubes (as it was before) so was thinking of making up some tabs and welding them to the tubes and bolting to them instead….. any thoughts? Can also start looking at brake lines too, think we’ll get a roll of conifer and a flaring tool and have a go ourselves And how we can route the clutch cable and attach to the pedal etc |
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Oct 22, 2017 21:26:15 GMT
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All my panels are riveted to tabs:
a) You don't compromise the integrity of the frame with a load of stress concentrating holes.
b) You don't have a point of ingress for water or damp air that will rust your rollcage from the inside.
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Oct 22, 2017 21:36:37 GMT
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All my panels are riveted to tabs: a) You don't compromise the integrity of the frame with a load of stress concentrating holes. b) You don't have a point of ingress for water or damp air that will rust your rollcage from the inside. Don’t think it had done much since it was badly built, which is probably why it’s survived, as you say at the very least it’s a rust trap. I wondered if it would make it weaker... but as you say the stress is probably a bigger issue We welded up all the old holes and it doesn’t seem a nice solution to drill the frame again, so that’s great! |
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What a dude, I've been reading this thread with slight jealousy marvelling at how far short I'd fall of getting my 10-year-old to focus anywhere near the level that your Tom's managed. A testament to both your patience!
