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'59 Beetle Project
Jeremy:
I've been lurking around this site for about a year and a half know and thought I would give a proper intro. My name is Jeremy but I am logged on under the name Brodie. Thats my oldest boys name. I tried to use my real name but was denied so I just went with that.
These are a few pics of a '59 project beetle I have been working on for quite a while. I bought the car when I was nineteen and started a pan off resto/custom. Then lost interest for about 12 years and finally after buying a house in Coquitlam with a garage I had Liquid towing tow the car from my parents house to casa Kent. From there realized my welding and fabrication skills have matured since then (ticketed steel fabricator now) and I was going to have to fix most of my prior work. So I've stripped the body off and stripped the pan and started again. I wanted to go with an IRS set up so I cut in some trailing arm brackets and bought a used built up SSC trans from Samba. I've tried to keep the cost down buy doing all the work myself and buying swap meet parts. I left my fab job to stay home full time with kids (we had 3 kids in 18 months, a single and twins) so it's hard to talk the wife into letting me buy shiny new stuff but the odd swap meet/samba/airspeed classifieds deal she can live with. I bought an IRS rear end from a guy up the street and took the trailing arms cut the axle housing out and narrowed the arms an 1\" each side. I also readjusted the angle of the housing by 2 deg. to take some of the negative camber out of the tires when the car is lowered. This was a little tricky with getting the angles right but it turned out pretty well. I went with Thing stub axles to run bus CV's. From there I had to cut pockets in the frame horns to clear the Thing drive flanges. I fabbed my own torque bar set up with tabs that bolt directly to the shock towers. Clevis one end heim on the other. I added a couple stress bars that are probably over kill but what the hell. I also had the modify the spring plates so a wider tire wouldn't rub on the adjusters. No point of narrowing the trainling arms if I'm going to run spacers for the wheels. Other than that. 2\" narrowed front end, dropped spindles, disc barkes front and back, drilled for a 5 x 130 bolt pattern, self made trans mid mount with soft mounts, 28mm SAW torsion bars and SAW 15-5/8 axles. I thought I was done but now I saw a cool fuel line install in Hot VWs so I've got some more chassis work to do.
Chris:
Seems so familiar!
Looking good Jeremy
Russ:
looks good comming along nicely
Matt:
Whats with all the round tube?
Jeremy:
Ya, I went I little overboard with the frame horn bracing. The cross bar is to tie the shock towers together. The other four I figured would just stiffen things up more. I have never seen this done but figured it's not in the way of anything and only added a couple pounds. Not that I'm worried about the weight. If I was I would give up the beer and cheeseburgers to compensate. :blush:
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