Projekt Hoopty photos -- INTERIOR AT LAST!

They're in the file, but not labeled just yet. I'll add descriptions later today. There are about 20 new ones. Items in use were a bead-roller, a metal break and lots and lots of Kleekoes. Looks like a cross between a Model T and an old biplane.
I'll add more pictures to this thread later, too.

"Looks like a cross between a Model T and an old biplane. "

It looks like my younger sister's "Easy Bake Oven" did when we were kids.

Have you ever tried driving an open car with a tanning booth for an interior? Betcha gonna broil . . . . and when the sun hits just right . . . .

"Blinded by the light . . . "

"The future's so bright, I gotta wear shades."

Lookin good!

Sweeeeet! Great pics for documenting your build.

Thanks, fellas. I've been waiting on this stuff for a very long time now, and I could care less if I look like George Hamilton after a ten minute cruise; it's almost ready for powdercoat!
But you're right. Sunglasses will be the order of the day, and the reflective metal surface will probably make a cold day even colder.
I'll burn that bridge when the enemy are on it, though. Right now, it's just a matter of finishing the footwell and installing the door skins, making the engine box tins and closing the tonneau gap, and then she's off for blasting and the orange powder.
Other photos; the torsion that tore in Carlisle has a solid tack back on it for now, and since finish-welding is coming up Monday, I've opted to leave it alone for the moment. That was really tough trying to bring the thing back withit in an unnatural squatting position, and you'd think I would have learned my lesson ... but we will not be trailering it anywhere again, ever (hopefully).

I'm not being a smart arse but are you going to seal the sheet metal to the frame? If so, what with? Seam sealer? Or something else.

Cory, I love the diamond plate --- but heed the warnings -- I can see it getting hot to the touch on a warm sunny day...

I'm not riveting that down yet. I'll be taking the Kleekoes out for the powdercoating and then using fender beading for the gaps. Since it's an open car, I'm not concerned about keeping any moisture out, but I don't want the tires to kick a bunch of road grime into the car if I can avoid it.
And I know it's going to be hot. Unavoidable. I may put some mats in it, or wooden slat-boards. We'll see. Suggestions? I would like to find the old drainboard type from a Kubelwagen, or find someone who can make them for me. I do metal, not so much wood ...

Cory, I am ever so disappointed that you gave up on putting in a lexan floor. The idea of being able to watch the pavement rip by just inches below your butt is certainly attrractive. Sigh...

Seriously, it's really looking good. I got my car yesterday, so next year we can exchange that seat time we were talking about.

If you wear shorts on a hot day you calves will have nice Outback steak sear marks. Good thing it doesn't get hot in Wash DC! If you leave it uncovered and polished it will also promote a good George Hamilton tan. Is there a chemical you can put on aluminium to age it and make it dull (like it were anodized)?

Lane, you bet!
Wolf, I actually chose the polished plate on purpose. I have GOT to have style, my man! But we'll see. Quoting George, it'll be "MMMMMM ... Toasty!"

I was wondering if you would squirt a bead of seam seal (available at auto body suppliers)
then rivet. Securing it while "wet". No dust,moisture or noise from movement between surfaces and the seam seal is paintable unlike silicone sealant.

Hoopty-man, I have a question: How did you adapt the rack and pinion unit given that the tie-rod arms on the spindles are of different length? Did you somehow make them equal length (as I would assume)? I was told that these arms (part of each spindle) must be different length for the normal VW steering to keep the geometry correct since the off-center location of the steering box makes the tie-rods asymetrical. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Seam-seal question first; is there a brand that's better than another? I'm two weeks away from needing it, I think. My other alternative is clear silicone, since I'm not painting anything on the frame. The powdercoat should be fine for what I need.

Lane's question; Nope. You're right, of course. There are usually three arms coming off the VW steering assembly; two tie-rods and the steering dampener. I don't want a steering dampener, and I didn't want to keep the steering in the same place, so it's all straight outta my warped imagination.
I couldn't keep it on the driver's side of the frame head.
Jimmy flipped. I stuck to my guns. He wanted to use an off-road rack if we were gonna move it and not dampen the steering, so we compromised and I'm happy as I can be with the results; proportionate steering that gives me more angle the more I turn the wheel. I now turn the wheels from stopper to stopper in 1/2 of a rotation of the steering wheel.
The old steering unit used to live under the driver's side support for the fuel cell. It had to go, since the cell is huge. We had to make a plate big enough to hold the Baja rack that's in there now, and we had to put it right in the middle in order to use a sector-shaft linkage to the steering column. It goes right up the middle and only makes two turns; one to the right and the other is to return it to parallel with the longitudinal axis of the car.
The rack was modified also. The bungs on the bottom that the tie-rods grow out of had to be cut off, and a section of chrome molly steering shaft was put back in its place. The tie-rod Heim joints were TIG welded into that section of steering shaft, and it was then welded back onto the rack in place of the bungs.
The two tie-rods were shortened to a uniform length, and bolted back in place. We used stock tie-rods because they were of better quality than others we considered.
Hope that answers the mail for you; photos below. ...

First is the left-to-do list. It's getting shorter. Second is the brake on the passenger's side in the back. You can see the wear-mark on the spring for the E-brake where the rear section of the car sat down on it when the torsion weld failed at Carlisle. That's not a whole lot of damage, considering what could have happened.
The third is from several months ago, just for comparison's sake.
Thanks, Theron, for the gobs and gobs of space my stuff has to be taking up.

I was told that the arms on the spindles to which the tie rods attach are also of slightly different length. On your pictues they look the same, but that can be deceiving. Are they, in fact, the same length?

Side note first, Lane -- all the photos in the folder have captions now. (A public service message from the Hoopty Consortium.)

So ... to answer your question, they had to be the same length in this case because the mounting plate is directly over the center of the top of the tunnel. We almost screwed up and forgot to center out the left-to-right on the rack before we hacked the tie-rods, but we caught the error in progress and fixed it.
The rack was brought to center and the Heim joints were welded to the center steering shaft section based on measurements in from the Heim joints at the wheels to the exact middle of the car - minus half the length of the steering shaft section and the Heims on it.
Clear as mud, right? It was the cutting off of the chunky hole thingies (first photo, below) on the bottom (the brass hoobeedoos sticking up are really the bottom of the rack -- that's what we cut off and replaced with the steering shaft) that allowed us to place this on the elevated rack at the middle of the car. We hacked that, elevated the bottom of the rack to the height of the ends of the tie-rods at the wheel, and cut the rest to fit that math.
It took an entire day, with all the other junk out of the picture. Everything that could come off did, except the suspension pieces. We also very carefully measured and set the alignment, although we could have done that afterward with an approximation for our original measurements.

I am very, very happy that the ends of the car are detachable. That makes all of this exponentially easier to reach and fiddle with.

Seam seal=no. the benefit to seam seal is its paintable. Silicone is great for your purposes.

Thanks, Bruce. Saves me some research time. I need to have that thing on the streets -- or at least out of that garage -- by 17 June. Jim's garage won't be his anymore and he's going to have to relocate all his stuff to the new digs.
(My homeless, non-working car may be living under a bridge somewhere.)

Cory wrote;
"now turn the wheels from stopper to stopper in 1/2 of a rotation of the steering wheel."

You two are doing one hell of a fabrication but I have to think that this will be like a dirt/clay track racer a bear to drive ?

Unfortunately, Alan, I really won't know until the frigging engine starts for the first time! AUUUGH!
Most likely, though, the proportionate steering thing will help me, rather than hurt. If you've driven anything with a proportionate rack in the past, you'll know what I mean. Ambulances and other trucks with the same kind of setup (International makes a commonly used chassis) generally turn more when the wheel is farther from center, but when they're tracking in a straight line little bumps and holes in the road don't affect trajectory.
If I'm right -- and it's not been tested yet -- the light weight of the front of the car should make this thing pretty easy to turn when it's in motion, and the rack is tight enough that steering from a stop should be the only tough part. I'm banking on the wider tires to hold the track and keep it from skipping around. There isn't a dampener.
Again, I don't know yet. Never done this before. Wish me luck!

Cory, I doubt that the lack of a dampener will be much of an issue. I've owned a couple of MG Midgets that have a very direct rack-and-pinion setup with only 2.5 turns lock-to-lock, and they certainly didn't use a dampener. Your ultra-fast setup may make my comparison inappropriate, but I would think you'd be ok.

Lane and Alan, I took some more photos yesterday after we got the door skins in and the emergency brake cables and their tubes taken care of, so I made sure to take a few of the steering box assembly. It's a complete modification of the steering, but you should be able to see what we did.
It took some doing, but it's done and it's tight. WOO-HOO! (I'll be adding some shots in this thread of the steering box, and the others will be in another Hoopty update post.)

These are the ones I took for you guys. They're captioned.

Hey Cory!

Looks like you're getting closer to final assembly - full speed ahead!

Just a couple of suggestions;

1. Test drive (sit) your diamond-plate floor - roll your car outside into the afternoon sun and sit in it for 15 minutes or so (Speedy chair, lawn-chair, whatever) and see how much heat & glare is actually generated with you inside your all-metal interior.

2. Maybe consider cutting some of these clear floor runners (like our parents used to use on the carpets) to fit your floor board. You'll still be able to see the diamond-plate beneath, but the clear runners should reduce the ant-under-the-magnifying-glass heat effect!

OK, I'll admit this is some impressive stuff, .........but it's no coil replacement.

Okay, Tom. But if you look at the thread from this morning (brakes and more interior stuff), you'll see my old Chevy's shifter ball installed in the Hoopty. That's GOT to be a close second! LOL