Donor gearbox removal...

Weekend spent removing the gearbox and drive shafts from the donor vehicle, lots of use of breaker bars and WD40 to ease the rusty bolts. 

Unfortunately it turns out the chassis donor which is 1972, and the buggy chassis which is 1971, have different gearbox mounts. 

The donor gearbox is also 1200 box not a 1300 which i first thought and even less ideal for top speed but will be used temporarily and will give good acceleration at least. A new mount will be needed to fit the gearbox to the earlier chassis.

A few more shiny stainless steel nuts and bolts purchased. The seat runners and steering coupling have been trial fitted together using them.

Not a very productive weekend but some work done at least.

Front Discs and steering box fitted...

Dodging the bad weather I managed to get the spindles re-fitted, brake discs on both sides as well as fitting the steering box to the beam and connecting it all up.

Cleaning things up...

Morning spent cleaning up the returned spindles and painting them up gloss black. Also cleaned up a few nuts and bolts and pedal parts ready to fit. Hopefully tomorrow will see brakes fitted to the front.

Spindles Part 2...

Had a call from the supplier today after sending the spindles back on an overnight delivery  for checking, They have re-threaded them and they went back in the post today! fantastic service from Cool Air! hopefully all back on track now for the weekend and getting front brakes fitted

Spindles...

Spindles now removed again and sent back to manufacturer for replacement or repair. Very good of them since they were purchased over a year ago.

Better weather but lots of problems...

The intention was to fit the front brakes but on fitting and greasing the bearings the axle nut refuses to fit the spindle! They came off the old spindles by hand and wont even turn at all on the new spindles????

A call to the supplier needed tomorrow.

Started fitting the hard brake lines front to back and the 2 front lines, also threaded the shortened Clutch cable and 2 handbrake cables (still to be shortened)

Front nudge bar fitted and also the rear cage temporarily to get some space in the spare room.

More chassis work...

Today I fitted the front spindles to the trailing arms and the 2 tie rods and steering damper that will attach to the new steering box.

The steering box from the old donor car was removed and the steering arm extracted for use on the new car, also removed from the donor car was the pedal cluster and frame horn bolts to be modified for the rear engine cage.

Rhino gearbox mount also fitted to the chassis and a new master cylinder was fitted with a stainless mounting kit from Flatlands. Where possible all nuts and bolts that could be replaced are now Marine grade Stainless items.

Seat runners and stainless mounting wedges bolted together and positioning on the chassis was looked at.

Weather put pay to any more progress today :-( fingers crossed for tomorrow.

Starting building the chassis...

The chassis was moved to the front drive as building in the garage was too restrictive being separate from the house.

It was bolted to the wall for security and covered when not in use by a tarpaulin.

The front beam was the first task and fitted to the chassis with new bolts and a caster shim kit purchased again from Flatlands Engineering.

The trailing arms were fitted along with front body supports to the top of the beam. These are there as extra support to the front of body once fitted.

The buggy seen alongside our other vehicles including the original beetle that was once to be used for the donor car.

The Build Pause...

After now having the nice new chassis and body plus all the other parts, we purchased our first property and the buggy project stopped for a while, only to be stopped again by the recent arrival of our first child...

After a few months it was decided that work should begin again to give me a bit of sanity among those sleepless nights...

Chassis collection form Flatlands...

I borrowed my father inlaws Renault Grand Espace and headed off to Norfolk again to collect the chassis and parts.

The chassis in the back of the car

Its amazing how short a VW chassis is once shortened for a buggy.

New beam and trailing arms plus a few stainless fitting kits

The chassis

Finding a new donor car...

It was now time to strip down the car and start work preparing the chassis to be shortened to fit the new buggy body. However, the beetle was not really in that bad a condition and even though it needed paintwork, the body was now solid and it ran well.

I decided that a new donor should be found.

on searching the Volkzone forum I came across a partially stripped 1972 chassis for sale at a reasonable price so after purchasing an A-Frame to tow it back and borrowing a car with a towhitch the car was collected.

After striping it down some more I realised that the Rust was worse than first imagined and quite a few new parts would be needed on top of the usual floorpan replacements. however the gearbox and engine plus general running gear were ok so it wasn't a total loss.

After a Call to Flatlands Engineering again, I booked in for a new chassis to be sourced, shortened and painted as well as ordering a new adjustable beam, trailing arms and various small parts.

Starting work on the shell...

I started work on the shell by removing the unwanted fibre glass where the fuel tank was to be fitted, using an angle grinder and file. The mess was huge.

The holes were drilled for the headlights.

headlights trial fitted with tank in position

Steering colomn support bar fitted to the underside of the nose cone/bonnet and mounts for the windscreen which allow them to be hidden from view when the screen is fitted.

screen trial fitted

Trial fitting of the screen and headlights together

Collection day...

I hired a van to collect the shell and set off early.

the shell outside Mel's workshop

into the back of the van

fits nicely

Off to Flatlands and then home...

Arrived home and shell moved to the garage

the dash

sidepods

the seats

Stainless rear cage from Flatlands Engineering

Stainless front nudge bar

Stanless rollbar with integrated fittings for 3 point seatbelts

Modified fuel tank for central filler

Aero type filler (lockable)

Rear body support and steering colomn support

Chrome on Brass headlights with integrated indicators