My Towdster Build

[Big Bus]

Thought it was about time that i put a thread up about my Meyers Towdster .
I saw this car for the first time in about 1996 when at a car show here in Oz and at the time even had to ask what the hell it was put one thing was for shore i was instantly wanting one !!
Over the next 6 years we became good freinds with the then owner ( Kevin ) of the Towdster and did many trips together ,myself and my wife in my then Manx and Kevin and his wife in the Towdster including Cape York which is approx a 4000 klm round trip to the most northern tip of Australia , mostly on gravel roads and tracks .
Come 2002 and Kevin had had his time with the Towd and it was seldom used as they had upgraded to a Sharpbuilt GS Limo which had a lot more room for camping gear etc , well as you can imagine i couldn't get my money to him quick enough and make the Towd mine .

How it looked then


And my Manx i also still had then


At this point the car was showing signs of some hard offroading but was still quite capable of anything we could point it at .
Its running gear at the time was as such
Stock IRS rear end
2lt Type 4 with 1800 heads and 1700 rocker gear
1600 002 gearbox
A modified but basicully stock king and link pin front end
Late beetle discs on the front and type 3 wagon drums on the rear
And as you have probabley noticed from the pic Dragway mags ( 15 X10 on the rear and 14 X 6 on the front with modified fibreglass guards to suit .

Well come late 2004 it was certainly not looking any fresher but i had given the type 4 a top end freshen up , but still the rest of the car had not been really gone over since 1996 apart from the odd part replacement and maintinance etc , and to top it of i had an accident in it when brushing the side of a Baja while holidaying on Fraser island .

So i had this grand plan that was to involve 12 months of the road for the Towdster and a quick rebuild .................................................... well what can i say its been over 7 years now and quite a few ups and downs , and probabley just a lot of lazyness .

As well as the above a couple of my other rides have also taken there fair share of my time as pictured below is our Subaru EG33 powered Baja Kombi , and my 62 Rat Beetle







Stepping back and forth a few steps as we do with these builds over a long period and different items become available ,the final build of the car is finally making head way again and is planned out as such and most items are either in shelves or getting made at present or are already done
So here's the plan
A full roll cage and all new barwork tieing the hole car together
2387cc Type 1 with Oval port heads , a engle 120 cam or similar and twin 44 IDF's
002 1800 Bus Box with albins or weddle gears and a syncro locking diff
3 x 3 rear trailing arms from Avery's air cooled
930 cv's
Saco Magnum steering rack
L/ Rage 6" wider X 10" towers front beam
Tweed 2 1/4" X 1" trailing arms
Tweed 3" raised combo stub axles
Fox 10" emulsion 2.0 front shocks with torsion bars
Fox 12" emulsion 2.0 rear shocks with 24mm type 3 torsion bars
Bruce Meyers wide 5 signature wheels 15 X 8 & 15 x 6
Tatum motorsport 4 wheel disc brakes 2 piston fronts and 4 piston rears
31 X 10.5 X15 rear tyres and 205/80/15 front tyres all in the Yokohama Geolanda AT Pattern

So here's a few pics of the car , some a couple of years old now but ya get that .









And here's a few more recent shots and if you boys keep at me they may well keep getting updated

[Ol'fogasaurus]

I missed on getting a Tow'd and I still regret it. Cool looking toys.

Lee

[Devastator]

Years ago, my uncle had 2 Towd's. One of them had a 1600 VW with a gear redux trans, a rear rollbar hoop and 2 roll bars going to the front end. The other had a Corvair, a 002 trans, and only a hoop roll bar behind the seats. I always felt so "exposed" when I'd ride in either of them. It felt like we were riding around in a bathtub. There just wasn't much roll over protection. Glad to see yours is much safer than that.

[birddog1148]

Nice, I like the bus too! (Since I just got one)

[matberry]

Nice thread Andrew, Towd looking great, so good to see some progress again........now get back to the shed , and act like a turtle

[Big Bus]

Yes i am still crawling along at snails pace with this but after a recent beach trip with the manx club australia and getting my kidneys pounded again in the Cruiser it has given me some insperation to get things moving again
Since the last post i have received the 3 x 3 trailing arms and as such have been preping all the surounding components to give the arms there best possible travel which should be around 300 - 325mm at the wheel.

So first on the cutting list was to open up the pivot boxs , which i have still got to fuse weld back together where they meet to frame horns



Then the stock shock towers where deemed to be unusable as the arms would hit them anyway and limit the full travel . New upper bump stops will be built into the barwork bracing the rear side of the struts and downtravel will be by limiting straps



And as many of my mates have commented on over the years the U bolts that hold the torsion bar in place were a little bit of a worry , there gone and have been replaced by some custom made clamps (The bottom half of the clamp is the same as the tacked in top half and will hold to said top half with 4 x 8.8 grade m8 bolts



With how the struts were built originally in the towd frame and how my new barwork joins into them it was only good engineering to fill in the outsides of the struts so as to stop them flexing etc which also helps with giving the clamps a second second arc to weld into .



And finally for now a mock up of the trailing arm s mounted

[Ol'fogasaurus]

Very cool! One of the things I didn't care for on most of the Tow's I have seen was that they were swing axle so the suspension travel was limited. A very cool switch over and one I would strongly consider if I had a Tow'd. what is the wheel base of a stock Tow'd anyway?

Lee

[matberry]

Nice seeing those arms in Andrew

[Leatherneck]

That Towd is going to look badass. Like the torsion mount and arms, nice!

[Iguana]

Wow is that real progress or are you in Photo Shop !!!!

Good to see it moving forward, I can't wait to see WTF the guards are going to look like in an attempt to cover that, you maybe better over moving state side where they don't care at all

[Big Bus]

Well i must be feeling sick or something lately as i'mm making progress on both my rides .
Have been on the Tow'd for the day today and have got the new rear end all bolted in for the first time mainly due to the fact that i need to get it rolling again to get it over to Paul at Steel Art to make a few components up that i can't make easily at home plus pipe fabrication and bending etc .
Anyway here's a couple of pics ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, and it has to be asked , will my bum look big in this .



Have also fitted up one of the rear calipers this afternoon to make sure it clears the rims and all was good , and all genuine Tow'd parts used of coarse , NOT



And a few weeks back , i also fitted up the 74 beetle steering column which Paul will hook to my Saco centre steer rack

[Iguana]

you really think you will get away with driving this on the road ? Man your guards are going to be HUGE ...

[bens collision]

that thing is cool, ive never seen one before

[RyanB]

I am no fan of a towd.. but dang that looks impressive with those extended arms!

[Big Bus]

you really think you will get away with driving this on the road ? Man your guards are going to be HUGE ...

Not really going to be as bad as you all think as it looks decievingly wide due to the narrow tub i think as the rears only need extending approx 120mm from outside to outside and the fronts approx 80mm each as they were pretty wide guards already from when Kevin modified them for the old Dragway mags which had large offsets .
In comparison Steve B's max FX is only about 30mm narrower in the rear than the Tow'd .
Yes the back and front guards are going to need extending but i'mm not going to just extend the arches , we are going to just cut the arches off and position them where they need to be over the wheels and join in the gaps back to the centre section of the rears and and inner section of the fronts then clean them , take some molds and flop out a couple of sets .