Yes for sure
Well it can flip up on its side with no engine tranny 
You da man, Alan. Talk about taking it easy in 'retirement'.
Luv it.
I should offer to transport all of Alan's out of state purchases and sales.
Get to see the country (a lot of it) and OD on Lovey's and T/A Truckstop food (not to mention "Slim Jims" and "Fronions").
Borrow the Five Cent Racing hauler, get me a decent pickup with dual 30 gallon saddle tanks like my F250 had, and maybe another dog (like "Fred" in Smokey and the Bandit) and be on my way, delivering happiness all over North 'Murica.
In the meantime, I wonder if Kevin is delivering anything to the Greater West Virginia area and could slip in onto his hauler? He could even get to see the National Headquarters of the Merklin Magic and Itty-Bitty Pickup Shop.
I listed the VW chassis move on U Ship, quoted ran from $1,320 to $550. I found a driver that claims to be able to pick it up tomorrow AM and have it here 12 hours later tomorrow night...Lombard, Illinois ( west of Chicago) to Elkins, West Virginia I wonder just how late me and the neighbors will be kept awake until …...
I should offer to transport all of Alan's out of state purchases and sales.
Between he and Rich D - you'd see a lot of the country!
Places I have been dragging projects home ... N,J NY, NYC, PA, CT, MASS, VT, VA, WV, NC, SC, GA, KS, TN, WI, IN, KY, KS, GA, OH, IL,MI, AL …. I thankfully have forgotten the rest.
I’ve been everywhere man.... repeat
You never know what you get anymore
I lived up north where GM has a cold weather testing center and one week it was the official public health week so the newspaper published a large announcement but the copy editor did not pay attention and the notice read
PUBIC HEALTH WEEK
knowing the editor he had a hard time living it down
Just heard from the transport driver, the chassis etc will be here 730 AM....so he say's :~)
The trucker did show up at 8:30 AM with my chassis, motor, trans combo. Out of the truck comes this moose of a dog takes pee on the evergreen then promptly shyts on the next one...all in 30 seconds, nice way to start the day. The driver glances at me and just shrugs his shoulders. I then notice that both front wheels of the chassis are turned inward to the steering stops , the right tie rod is ...gone ! I am on the back end of the trailer so that the driver can screw with both front wheels as we roll the chassis off the trailer , I stuff a floor jack under the front beam and whip it into the garage. The bill is $550 COD, I count out fives big ones and tell him I charge $50 for the asteroid size lump of shyt he felt was no big deal and I have to clean up. The chassis had minor rust issue where the '67 Beetle battery went so I wire brushed that only to discover it's sorta thin in a 5" area but the rest of the pans are perfect. Being curious I looked over the rebuilt 1835 and things do look fresh as well as the trans and I can see a new clutch in the starter opening that I had just removed. It's a new Bosch starter it would spin but the Bendix drive would not engage the flywheel. Off to Auto Zone I go to get a Beetle starter that always have in stock, come back home and bench tested it's a ^$#@!! dud. Back I go only to be told they don't have another it and it might here Saturday or Monday. It took 15 minutes for Auto Zone to process a cash sale refund. Then I called the good guys at NAPA , the parts guy say's it will be there 8AM tomorrow ...yippee-ki-yeah! Back in the garage ( it's now 88 degrees with the sun baking the garage.) Checked over everything else on the chassis and all looks great what a bargain that was! So tomorrow I'll crank NAPA starter and check out the motor and trans op. Then I have to decide will it be another Speedster Project 49 ( It the guy that has a new body will accept my offer) or do a Dune Buggy before the SMYTY Beetle truck kit gets here late this month.
If I start doing a dune buggy, if there is interest.. I'll start another thread.
BTW if I go with the dune buggy , I'll have a set of like new polished aluminum Fuch's look a likes with new Continental 195 65 15's available.
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The VW seats sure look pristine!
WOLFGANG posted:The VW seats sure look pristine!
The '67 seats are perfect and appear to have all the original horsehair padding too. I need to find out what they are worth. The polished 15" Fuchs and four new 195 65 15 ( 26" tall) Continental tires will be sold too
Just a head's up-- those are not Fuchs. They're EMPI 5-Spoke Torque Thrust replicas. They're one of my favorite wheels.
Stan Galat posted:Just a head's up-- those are not Fuchs. They're EMPI 5-Spoke Torque Thrust replicas. They're one of my favorite wheels.
" Old Timers" moment ….. tnx for the heads up !
Alan:
And here you thought you were going to spend your days in West Virginieioio drinkin' coffee all day and lookin' at the mountains (and maybe learnin' to play the banjo?).
Good for you.
Bob: IM S6 posted:Alan:
And here you thought you were going to spend your days in West Virginieioio drinkin' coffee all day and lookin' at the mountains (and maybe learnin' to play the banjo?).
Good for you.
The trout here are plentiful so Connie and I are finally going to get our Free Senior's Fishing License in the next week
I see them listed as EMPI Polished Vintage VW GT-5 rims. Assume with that size tire they are 5.5" (vs 4.5"). Specs: Offset: 20 mm/Backspace: 4" (CIP1 site says 3 3/4" but there are multiple manufacturers of wheel)/Manufacturer Part Number: 00-9687-0/Weight: 15#/Bolt pattern 5 x 205mm. Nice looking wide 5 tires!
Thanks for the specs Greg,
Dune Buggy builds gets a new Topic thread ~
Started on the beetle pick up truck conversion today, spent a few hours this afternoon gutting the interior, removing the hatchback and labeling wires.
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Oh yeah! Go man!
This will be fun to watch.
i see a sawzall in ur future, maybe a plasma cutter too.
I like those 4 1/2" thin metal cutoff blades from HF for cutting metal. You just have to watch out for sparks. They cut straight and clean.
This is going to be great!
Beetle pick up post cut photos . Making the first official cut was a bit daunting because this was a nice looking Beetle in good condition. I went through nine Sawzall blades (ends breaking) but did finish the cutting today. Now that I've done this I probably could do it again in half the time.
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Nice!
Are you going to reinforce the structure to maintain crash integrity?
Alan Merklin posted:Beetle pick up post cut photos . Making the first official cut was a bit daunting because this was a nice looking Beetle in good condition. I went through nine Sawzall blades (ends breaking) but did finish the cutting today. Now that I've done this I probably could do it again in half the time.
Remind me never to leave my car parked in your driveway...
Remind me never to leave my car parked in your driveway... This took me way back to '72 when I worked at a salvage yard in Davie, Florida.
Simplify, add lightness, Colin said. It'll be great, Colin said...
Lane Anderson posted:Are you going to reinforce the structure to maintain crash integrity?
I am confident with the structural integrity of the kit, it's very well engineered (Mark Smyth previous Factory Five co-owner) uses premium grade aluminum and extruded bed floor. The factory B pillars have heavy gauge aluminum gusset s added, the bed is bolted and bonded with " Corvette glue " aka 3M Panel Bond to the "cab" becomes part or the overall structure , it's under bed bracing and utilized multi factory tie in points to the bed assembly. The bed - fender sides are one continuous thick fiberglass section also utilized structural 3M Panel Bond. I've seen a photo of one that was rear ended at 45 mph and held up well to the point it was fixed.
Good to hear.
Today I made sense out a large wire harness , I had to split two 1" 20 wire sections and pull those two from the main harness...Opened it from the taillights to the seat back location to ID and relocate the factory amp and CD changer …. yeah old school but's part of a complex factory sound system. Then capped off the rear defrost, hatch release, hatch open warning switch and sorted out the taillights . Amazingly when I powered up the harness everything worked as intended. Tomorrow I'll assemble the aluminum bed sections .
Yeah, you get into "factory" wiring harnesses on cars, especially those optioned out and come away with "What the heck were they thinking?"
Gordon Nichols posted:Yeah, you get into "factory" wiring harnesses on cars, especially those optioned out and come away with "What the heck were they thinking?"
As you know, most of the time no one guy was thinking.
Somewhere in the Fatherland, there was a department tasked with the sound system, and they were in another building from the safety-system guys, who were in a different country than the lighting guys. They did 53 conference calls to get it all together... but in the end just let each department have their own wires. Production bundled it all and told the guy down on the line to put it in the car. The first shift union guy figured out how to do it fast and right... but it was too much work, so second and third shift just did it the way the foreman told him to, so none of the wires actually ended up in the retainers.
After a couple of years of production, the accountants decided that sourcing wire with soy-based insulation would be cheaper. Marketing got a hold of this factoid, and the ad guys touted their production methods as green. It turned out that soy insulated wires is delicious to rodents, and so the food supply of the woodland creatures was secured by the tens of thousands of cars with this particular harness.
After 5 years of production, the manufacturer stopped building that particular model, and started the whole process over. Aftermarket parts kept some harnesses on the shelf (at $1927 a pop) for masochists who were not content to see a $2000 used car go to the scrap yard. There were no takers, and after 5 years of being dead inventory, the harnesses were sold to a salvage company, who stored them outdoors and provided a food source for woodland creatures.
It's the circle of life.
@Alan Merklin Is there any issues with aluminum to metal reaction. Also what about drainage of the bed? My issue might be that the seat would not be able to rake enough to sit in the car I wonder how much seat track travel and rake is available in the beetle and wether there is more room in a Jetta. Great concept for doing stuff around the house etc. Now I can see the need to make a FG cover
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All hardware is stainless except for the female RivNuts From what other ppl that have built say 6' is about max and that with the seat against the back wall. Jetta kit appears to have more room. The is a company that is already doing a aluminum framed tonneau cover with the gas lift shocks . One guy has made a one off fiberglass full tonneau . Today I altered the glass sun roof track stops and made the rear drains.
Stan wrote: After a couple of years of production, the accountants decided that sourcing wire with soy-based insulation. The 01 - through 04 Beetles has carpet insulation that when hot in the car it has a very strong Crayola crayon wax smell so that has to go too.