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I found a picture on OlyDubs earlier and made a post - they're almost identical except for the beefy tubing and the tire mount bracing

Anyway, remembered I had an old 5-lug drum off in the weeds and went to work on it...







Mounted up the spare 235/75-15 too...it's about 29" or so it looks like - close enough, don't ever want to use it

EDIT: here the ARMY baja is:

Made it locking...and ground down the splines on the axle and air chiseled-out a bunch of the splines in the 'hub' so now it slides off like butta'.




Got the main rack 95% welded, had my buddy and one of his gal friends come over and give me a hand on it, lol. With the spare mounted (~60lbs) and his 210lbs right in the middle without distributing it very well, he put a slight permanent bow in the cross bar, not biggie though...but anyway, it only distorts ~1/8" when he's on and off of it.

I've been 'close' to getting the car running for a couple weeks now, but things keep distracting me...finally put in several hours this morning and got the exhaust squared-away (for now ) A buddy gave me this 350Z tailpipe tip so I decided to slap it on there:

turbobaja wrote:Rack's lookin real good Chris. I saw a baja @ spring fling with a similar rear contoured tire mount, but with some heavy looking 1.5" tube. I like the tire mount with room left for gear, very slick.

Second that, real nice. Like the curve to it. Nice!

I get the whole "Have to do it myself" thing, believe me. I try to do everything myself if I can, mostly cause I'm cheap...
But, for $45 this would have been a whole lot easier:
Spare Mount

That's neat, I've never seen one before...I can see how someone might go that route if they weren't sitting on a small junkyard of VW parts to make things from for free. It also didn't hurt that at the time I was laid-off and bored

I think last time I was counting things up I had ~$150 in just material into the rack

that title cracks me up. I wish it was dryer outside......and that my baja would just paint itself already !

You know it's wet outside when your stuff starts to rust.....sitting inside the garage.

It was a beautiful day today, and I stayed on point most of the day and all said and done put about 20 street miles on it. In short, it rides way better than I could have imagined and it's a pleasure to drive...This being the same engine I had in my Bay Window (not built for it though), only changes from 48 IDA's down to 44 IDF's with the update kits and from an 1-1/2" header to 1-5/8"....Thing is just responsive as hell in a Beetle and motors along nicely.

Drove it to Portland and back today with Dad...visited my Uncle down there...went great, better than I hoped for

Wind pushes it around a fair bit, probably toss a stock front swaybar on it and see if that helps...

I'm exhausted...but terribly happy.

Congratulations! How long was it undrivable? I can't wait to drive mine again...

Have you got your alignment nailed down pretty good? I like alignments . Bajas sure don't offer much for help with aerodynamics up front either. That's partly why I'm trying that spoiler on the arse end of my baja. Hopeing the drag back there will help keep me going straight, who knows?

Any audio of that exhaust. Really curious as to what 2 mufflers on a baja sounds like. Congrats on driving it.

Thanks guys...

Karl, the last time I remember being in this car I think I was five But then again, not much is left of 'that' car, just most of the body and some of the wiring harness really. I forgot to ask the licensing place the last time it had tags, but I bet it was about 18 years ago.

I did a quicky alignment on it a few months back, checking it is on the to-do list, I imagine it's pretty close...but I'll be tossing a pair of caster shims in there - she has no problem cruising 70-75 and I got it upto 80 so far and it was still fairly stable...As I get more comfortable and certain of its condition I'll be leaning on it a bit I'm sure, she has no problem doing 75 in third and I still have the throttle backed off, probably getting about ~75% (had a little more early on, but of course the bowden tube seated a bit as I drove it).

I'll see what I can do for exhaust audio after I adjust the valves, I've just got a little camera and I wouldn't say the audio is very life-like...Gets a lot of attention, sounds great, fairly quiet you could say, easy to hold a conversation at 60mph...maybe I'll drive it down that way for a get together one of these days. I'm also planning on doing something to quiet down the bark of the IDF's, think I might have screwed the pooch on the placement of my trailer receptacle for the intake system I have most of the way together. Oh, the 'cool' thing about the exhaust, the resonator can which is on top, never gets over ~100 degrees or so, I was worried as I'm sure my dare devil cat will be jumping on it from time to time...Can't see many exhaust burns in my future

How about a vid and why your at it put a shot of your father in there. Like to know what a walking talking VW manual looks like.

Took a couple short vids on the way home from helping my buddy at the local circle track...