2014

JANUARY 10

JANUARY 29

JANUARY-JUNE

  • Hood emblem = Corvair hubcap center badge - sorta
  • Horn badge = Corvair horn badge
  • Tail light lens = C2 Corvette lens
  • Tail light bezels = '62 Olds F-85 tail light bezel
  • Side name emblem appears to be custom-made
  • Trunk name letters = Corvair trunk name letter



JUNE 1-16

Pursue buying Porsche 914 engine. Engine turns out to be wrong version.


JUNE 14-15

Remove fenders and dash.


JUNE 16-20

Decide to buy engine from VRBA's and have it rebuilt by Original Custom. Rebuilt engine will increase from 67 HP to 127 HP. Decide to install Porsche 914 5-speed transmission.


JUNE 21-22

Remove hood, trunk, windows, gas tank. Cut off off body down to chassis. Decide to use Corvair front suspension unit.


JUNE 23-29

Begin removing transmission



JULY 3

Front struts 12 inches too tall so get front end from '74 Opel Manta in junkyard (double wishbones and shocks inside coils.


JULY 4-23

Research transmissions. Decide to spend the bucks and get a Porsche 915 rebuilt tranny instead of a Porsche 901. That simplifies the shifter adaptation problem and eliminates the tempermental shifting and adjustments of the 914 901 tranny. Will have it rebuilt after it is pulled.


JULY 24

Buy 915 transmission and order rebuild from Poudre Sports Cars (fun guys who like fast cars). Finalize details for T4 engine from a '76 bus. Vrba will start stripping it down to the core to ship to Custom Originals.



AUGUST 2-3

Back to work on the 412. Remove old 4-speed transmission (For Sale - any taker??), the gas heater above it, and the front end. Then after a couple hours test positioning the Manta front end, decide how to cut down around the front frame. Also trimmed off extra sheet metal here and there and the cut out the rusted floorboards.
Next stop... mount the front end. But first, some family events.


AUGUST 11

Remove heater lines from engine compartment to chassis side channels.


AUGUST 12-29

I tried removing the coil springs from the Manta front end. As it turned out, even with a spring compressor, I still had to pry it out the last little bit. But most of this time I was trying to figure out what to replace the coils with. I had three choices: find a lighter duty coil and shocks, use a coil-over, or use a torsion bar. The cheapest approach is to find another coil, but to get the right diameter, the compressed height under load does not match the original. Complicating all that is determining where the front end will sit under a normal load. My drawing says the wheel centers should sit six inches above the bottom of the chassis pan. Unloaded, the rear wheels sit right at the bottom of the pan. A coilover is not cheep, but is compact and somewhat adjustable in height. But will it be enough? A torsion bar allows much more adjustment in height, but adding one to the exising front end by welding on attachment parts might risk breaking under use. The Porsche 914 and 911 used torsion bars, but they also used struts - both of which were too tall. The Beetle uses torsion bars, and maybe I could make it work, but I already have a front end at about the right track. I end up undecided for the time being.


AUGUST 30-SEPTEMBER 1

At long last, my neighbor and I got to do major surgery on the chassis. Over Labor Day weekend, on Saturday we cut and shortened the chassis ten inches. On Sunday we planned and began cutting the chassis to add the Manta front end. On Monday we actually began welding it is place. It is done enough to lift the chassis with the front end. We discovered in the process that the frame halves needed to be recut to level them out - they slightly arched up in the middle. But by the time we quit, the wheelbase was leveled out and 88 inches long.
Next stop... make the rear wheel shafts fit the 13 inch wheels.



SEPTEMBER 6-7

Now that the front end is on, I am wondering if it will sit at the right height. The photo of the frame shows the rear wheel at full extension, held only by the shock. But photos of the VW412 sitting normally have the wheel centerline an inch or so below the door sill. Given the wheel centerline of the Monza and the fact of the 412 at-rest centerline, that placed the top of the frame, i.e., the sill, at the sill line of the Monza. THAT is much higher than I first planned!
But it can work... I think. It will be a matter of carefully choosing a coilover for the front, given that the rear is already dialed in about right with the engine/tranny. It also means that the floor pan must now be lowered about 3-1/2 inches so the seat will be down enough. But there is a sticking point. The front half of the pan, in front of a frame cross member, which was under the original 412 front seat, is an inch or so higher then the original rear pan half. Which means the driver's feet will rest higher than the base of the seat. Which means the driver will be in a greater reclining position. I will have to test that one out, human factorially.
Two steps forward and one step back... or one problem solved and two created. Aargh.

SEPTEMBER 13-16

With the start of the school year, it has been very busy as activities recommence and I have had little time for the car, or anything else. What's more, the weather is changing, which puts pressure on getting this chassis on its wheels.

I am still agonizing over determining how much wheel travel I actually have in the front... and how high the frame must sit in the body. I removed a cover over the steering joint to accurately position photographically the lower arm pivot bolt and took new photos. I had to because my drawings from the old photos resulted in the wheel rotating outward at the top of its travel, which could not be!!
And indeed it did not. I jacked the wheel up and it remained perpendicular to the ground with no apparent change of verticality. My new drawing on the new photo confirmed that fact (refer to the replaced front end photo on the right), now that I had accurately placed centers of rotation of the arms. And I could now predict how much travel I could expect: 5 inches.
And I could now get an close idea what length coilovers to look for: 13.25 at the extended position or shorter if I drill a new hole at the top. I still can call upon more extension/length if I need.
And the track looks to work out perfectly matching the original at 53.5 inches.
Now to get the rear wheels redrilled for new studs at 4x100mm.

But perhaps the first biggest change to my plans is the discovery that the chassis must move up so that the top of the frame is sitting at the sill position of the Monza SS door. That means the engine sits higher (less topside clearance but better muffler clearance) and the pan must be made lower. I am planning on using VW bus seat frames and rails since they have a smaller width and thickness and position to the rails. They sat right on the wheel well and I need to just about sit right on the floor.

Next up, it looks like more cutting and welding. The gearshift position needs to come back nearly a foot and the safety brake will have to be displaced to the side or made a foot brake. And the middle cross frame member should be moved forward to where the front end is welded to the pan.


SEPTEMBER 21-22

Since the gearshift needs to move back 14.5 inches and my measurements say I need to lower the floor pan 3-1/2 inches below the frame, I made the decision to cut out the rest of the rusty floor pan and the frame members up to the rear of the front end member.


SEPTEMBER 27

We welded in a rectangular channel piece to act as a frame member to weld the rear of the front end to. Then we bent and welded the side "rails" to extend down the floor pan. We will weld on rails to the new front channel and to the rear panel where the gear shift rod goes thru, and then weld in a new floor panel. I had thought of using the old roof or hood, but their compound curves make them difficult to flatten. Then we will weld in the old gearshift segment of the center tunnel and add extensions to the new floor. That should be pretty strong when we are done.

SEPTEMBER 28

I got in some paint remover, deruster, and undercoat remover and began testing them today. I will report the results later. I am looking for products that don't make me a pariah cuz of the fumes.


SEPTEMBER 29

NOT! The undercoat remover I ordered did not work at all. I think the problem was that the undercoat was painted over.
YES (sort of) The DEKOTE paint remover does work, softening the paint. But keeping it wet enough is a problem here in Colorado. And when it is soft, it still requires a lot of tedious, little-by-little scraping to begin to get it off. I have decided it is not time effective to do so. I will deal with the rust and then paint it using paint that neutralizes the rust.
YES Rust-B-Gone rust remover does indeed work. I did not give it more than an hour to do its job, but that took care of the medium to light rust. I will have to experiment with overnight on the harder stuff.

YES! Green cleaner degreaser mixed about 1:10 with water in an ultrasonic cleaner takes care of a lot of the gunk. So much so that I have not needed to use anything more potent. It did take from one to two hours for most items. Also, I removed what caked on stuff and as much old grease as I could. I also discovered that I needed to rotate parts. The down side gets cleaner than the up side. Might be gravity, or the proximity to the transducer.



OCTOBER 7

After much brainstorming, I decided to use the floor bed of a pickup for the new floor pan. It is strong yet light weight. So off to the junk yard today to find one, and I found one at a price I was happy with. I cut out the piece I needed as soon as I got home.
I also found some seats in good shape. I think they will work. They are the front seats of a '92 Celica convertible. But if they don't, they too were very affordable.


OCTOBER 11

We got busy this morning and bent and welded in the front and rear floor pan rails. The new pan was trimmed down. The underside support U-channels were cut down from 2" to 1" in height. The top 1" was inserted in the bottom 1" and welded down. That saved an inch in clearance underneath, while making it even stronger. Then the new pan was positioned and welded down. It is heavier than the original, but is sturdy and rust-free.
It sure feels good to see something going back together.

BTW - I put in one of the seats and it sits well with me in it. My feet just rest on the front pan rail.



DECEMBER 14

I spoke too soon. I ran into my first speed bump - the fancy rebuilt Porshce 915 transaxle! It was not cheap, but it had five gears and could handle lots of horsepower. When I compared the old 412 transaxle to the 915, my worst suspicion became convincing. It would not fit without major structural cutting and welding.

The nose piece is the major problem. The 412 was a unique design in which the nose has a rubber bumper collar that inserts into the structural beam on which the rear suspension hangs. In addition, the transaxle and engine suspension points are 1) the nose collar, 2) the bell housing, and 3) the rear of the engine. Did I want to cut into the suspension beam to adapt it? Not really. What's more, I also suspect the relationship of the CV to the mainshaft is different, which could have a serious impact on the half-axle driveshafts, specifically, changing their angle. It is an odd thing with the 412, but the driveshafts actually angle back and down from the differential. I wanted out-of-the-box solutions and not custom ones. Better think this over. It looks like I will need to use the 412 transaxle, but will it handle the horsepower? And will it let me even go fast enough?

After some research, the horsepower issue may be just within the design limit of, say, 50% overengineered. As far as top speed, that looks to be as high as 95 mph - on 15 inch wheels. I'll be using 13 inch wheels. Hmmm... it is not so much a function of the wheel as of the tire, but the two are related. Maybe a top speed of only 82 mph?!?! That was all my 1958 Beetle could do... downhill! But do I have any other choice? I will use the 412.





Check out 2015 for more progress!