ProVolks Official Shop-Car Build Thread. . .

[gearheadgreg]

This is like watching one of my Dasher/Audi Fox projects progress to the level where I wanted it - total fab instead of small fab. Good inspiration. Need to head out to the garage and fire up the welder again...

[Jadewombat]

Don't know if you've seen this, similar beast:

http://www.germanlook.net/forums/showth ... 20&page=15

[aircooledtechguy]

Don't know if you've seen this, similar beast:

http://www.germanlook.net/forums/showth ... 20&page=15

Wow! Thanks for the link. Lots of good stuff!!

Good to know I'm not the only sick bastard out there.

[aircooledtechguy]

Work on the Squarsche has been painfully slow the past 2 weeks with little time for me to make meaningful progress. But progress has been made.

I removed the rear seat assembly and sent that to the upholsterer for similar treatment as the front seats. I’m really looking forward to unveiling that when it’s finished.

I’m trying to make careful choices on parts to save weight on the rear half of the car in order to get the rear weight bias under control. I don’t want to have to just rely on wide, sticky tires to do it all. I’m working on drastically lightening up the heavy, metal rear seat back. I have a close friend who does infusion fiberglass molding and we’ve come up with a plan to make it really light while retaining all the strength of the stock seat back.


I’ve found a battery that will fit nicely between the front tire and the nose skin, so one of those is on the menu to shift weight fwd.

I’m hoping to use Sunday to make some serious progress on the front suspension

[aircooledtechguy]

Made a ton of progress this weekend. Here are the highlights:

- Finished the main front-end support.
- Welded said support to the frame head.
- Located front mounts on body and cut recesses for them.
- Fabricated and welded front mount supports that box them in and tie them to the front-end.

I started off with the main support. I had that basically made (all the hard stuff anyway), I really needed to make the relief cuts on the fwd corners so it didn’t interfere with the movement of the A-arms. With that finished, I decided that I could no longer put off mounting this piece to the car.



Everything else depends on this piece, so I really took my time to get it aligned with the center line of the car and to immovable points on the pan; Points that I knew would have to have been very accurate when the pan was bade on the jig at the factory. With it all spot-on, double-checked, triple-checked and one more check for good luck, I tacked it into place and then made another check. With it still good, I began laying beads of weld to make it all permanent.

After that was in place, I attached the main support beam and slipped in the A-arms so I could then locate where those would mount. On the under side of the sheet metal, I carefully measured for center line and then measured out from there. The torsion tubes are just less than 26” apart (center to center), so I marked out the centers for those and began marking the rear edge of the relief that would need to be cut in order for them to sit straight and level on the multi-curved surface. I also had to cut a relief so that I could use a 2.5” piece of tube cut in half so that the tops of the torsion bars could pass through the bottom edge of the front apron.




Once all that was done, I needed to make the fwd sheet metal that would box-in the front of the mounts. Rather than begin with sheet metal, it’s a lot easier and quicker to make a template out of cardboard. After some careful measurements, I was able to make this cardboard template in about 15 minutes and it fit pretty well.




The next step was to transfer this to my metal and fabricate a pair. The metal I used was pretty thick; .065” mild steel. I need these mounts to be extra heavy duty and at least as thick as the metal that the mounts themselves are make from. This is how they turned out.



Once I got them placed exactly where they needed to be, I used the hole puncher and made a series of holes in the mounting flanges. This way I could not only weld the out side but get some rosette welds inside. These cannot come loose!! Then I welded them in place one at a time indexing off my center line mark.




Happily, they are exactly the same distance apart at the front as they are at the main support tube. So far, I believe it should align and track straight since everything is done exactly as planned (whew!!).

I didn’t have time to box-in the inside of the front since I ran out of welding gas.



No big deal since I was out of time and tired!! I did bolt everything on since it’s not going anywhere at this point. Here’s the first look from underneath.



It was a good weekend!!

[gearheadgreg]

Damn, and I didn't even get that torn CV boot replaced... Heh. Nice.

[aircooledtechguy]

This weekend I turned my attention to the steering since I’m awaiting a set of camber plates assemblies from Tangerine Racing (www.tangerineracing.com). The goal was to finish the welding on the front mounts from last weekend (since I ran out of welding gas) and get the front-end ready to accept the Porsche rack & pinion steering gear. I fell a bit short, but made fine progress nonetheless. It is surprising even to me just how much time this stuff takes to do.

Since I’m going all Porsche on the front suspension, it’s only natural to upgrade to a Porsche R&P set-up. So I acquired a nice factory unit and upgraded it with Porsche 930 turbo tie rods which is a popular upgrade to add a more positive feel and preciseness to the steering.



The column chosen is from a '73-on Super Beetle. I want to have a modern dual stalk column so I can get the wiper switch off the dash and onto the column and have a steering lock. This is also a dual bearing column which uses a similar intermediate shaft as the Porsche unit in the photo. Of course the column mounting will have to be heavily modified for the type3 as well as shortened considerably along with the intermediate shaft in order to work in the Squarsche.

Since the lay-out of the car and pedals prevents me from installing the R&P unit in the same location as a Porsche, I had to mount it above the master cylinder. This, actually, is a good thing since it will enable me to attach the tie rods from the top of the pitman arms rather than from the bottom and thus avoid bump-steer issues. To attach them, I will be modifying them with a VW Super Beetle bump-steer kit. As luck would have it, the Super Beetle tie rods have the same length and taper as the Porsche tie rods, so a cheap $15 kit is all that’s required.

I began by locating the center and where the steering shaft assembly would pass through the fwd firewall. Then I used a 4” hole saw to make the hole.




The rack could have been installed as is, however, it would be too far fwd by about 1.5” so the tie rods would be swept too far back (more than stock) and cause more bump-steer issues. So I had to set it back. So I traced a pair of lines 3” apart and carefully cut a slot lengthwise in the front firewall so it would be in the correct position.





Then used half a 3” muffler pipe to box-in the section and make it all strong again.



The pipe actually intersects 3 pieces of metal since the bottom half is a double-wall.



This is actually stronger than stock now and will become stronger when I install the 4” piece of pipe to the center to make the pass-through for the steering shaft.

This is as far as I got this weekend. I was shocked at just how much time that took to get accomplished ; I burned the better part of a day getting the tube fitted and welded. . .

[aircooledtechguy]

Got some new tires for the Squarsche today via Tire Rack. This aught to piss off the purists. . . Staggered fitment; 205s in front, 235s out back. That should keep the rear-end under control. I just went with some cheap Sumitomos this time to get things going. We'll see how well they hold-up to the abuse and maybe upgrade to a better tire/compound in the future as funds allow.




I also took delivery of a set of camber plates from Tangerine racing. OMG are these things cool!! I'll be able to add up to 2.5 degrees of camber in the front if I want. So if I have a track day/auto-X, I can add more camber and improve the handling. So I'm in the process of making the shock tower templates now so I can get those fitted and get this beast back on it's feet.

[aircooledtechguy]

My attention today was the steering. I needed to fit the Porsche R&P steering unit, fabricate the bracket to mount it. Then shorten a Super Beetle steering column (yeah, Supers ARE good for some things )

I first had to modify my 4" hole that I cut earlier so that the tube would not be in the way and so that the input shaft would be in the right position when mounted. Then it was tacked.



The mount was next. Spent some time getting this made so it would be strong and fit right. I'm happy with how it came out.



Then I needed to shorten the Super Beetle steering column. I used a Super column for 2 reasons.

1. It has a bearing at both ends which I needed.
2. It is a dual stalk column, so I'll be able to move the wiper switch off the dash where it's a total PITA to use and right where it should be; within fingers reach. This will also enable me to use a delay wiper relay if I want to later.



This turned out to be a really easy job. I cut about 1 foot out of the outer tube. I then trued-up the ends on my 12" disc sander and removed the paint. Then I tacked it together and finished welded it.

Once that was made I could take measurements for the steering shaft to ensure it was the right length. I used a tubing cutter to cut it apart. This makes a nice clean and straight cut. Then on the disc sander, I beveled the ends at a 45degree angle since the metal is thick. This allows for proper penetration when it's welded. Then I clamped it into my vice tubing clamps to ensure it was held straight and tacked it. After verifying that it was straight and worked i the column, I finish-welded it together.




Another thing I got accomplished this week in preparation of today, was to remove the dash vents and get those back to working condition though they are still out. And I modified the wiper assembly so I could use the late wiper pivots and arms. I made some custom wiper arms out of late bus arms since the type3 units are harder to find.

[supaninja]

You're a madman Nate, keep up the good work!

[aircooledtechguy]

I’ve been slowly getting the camber boxes made that will house the front shocks and the mono-ball camber adjusters. This has been a painfully slow and tedious job to get these right and the extra time and measuring has really paid-off. I have one tower basically done and the second one about 70% completed.

Some factors that have to be taken into consideration are:

1. Expected finished ride height (and where the shock should be sitting in its travel).
2. Shock extension with suspension fully extended.
3. Fully compressed suspension position.
4. Basic caster adjustment.
5. Basic camber adjustment.

I’m using a set of camber plates from Tangerine Racing that allow up to 2.5 degrees of camber adjustment, but their boxes are made for a Porsche 914. So I asked Chris to sell me just the plate assemblies. They are amazing pieces. I got mine in Tangerine orange to highlight his awesome product.

The basic camber boxes fitted.




The finished camber box mocked in the car.



I also took delivery this week of a pair or Koni Yellow adjustable shocks for the front of the Squarsche. These are the same shocks I run in my Porsche and I just love ‘em, so the Square gets a set too.



I finally had to cut down the steering input shaft for the Porsche R&P assembly. The column was as short as I could go comfortably, but the input shaft needed to be cut about 4” in order to allow the intermediate steering shaft to articulate smoothly from the steering wheel to the R&P. I also replaced the super thick Porsche steering coupler with a thin coupler. As luck would have it, the ‘68-’79 VW bus has the same bolt pattern as the Porsche steering assembly. All told, I cut about 4+” out of the input shaft/coupler assembly. Now the custom intermediate shaft needs to be made to couple everything together.

[supaninja]

Loving the progress Nate! I should have mentioned that I'm running a little tiny moto battery in my daily driver, it's a AGM style battery and only weights 12lbs. I have it mounted under the passenger seat in my civic and it is coming up on it's 4th Texas summer, I haven't had any problems with it as long as I drive it at least once a week, or else it needs to be trickle charged. It only costed me $60 too.

[aircooledtechguy]

Thanks Nick.

I'm planning to run one of those between the spare tire and the nose skin. A friend of mine showed up with one recently and I knew that would be the one for the Square

[gearheadgreg]

I think some of the Vanagon Westy guys use them for camping batteries - I remember seeing lots of factory gel cels on sport bikes back when I was parting out bikes on ebay.

[aircooledtechguy]

I think I need to talk with someone more familiar with these batteries and nail down how many CCA I need . The prices on these things vary wildly depending on the CCA they put out. I think my normal battery puts out around 500 to 650 CCA, but whether I actually need that much is not known by me. Input anyone??