Its been awhile but I have started on my Speedster. It's stripped and I had to recut the tunnel because it wasn't straight and the motor was right up by the hood. However. In squaring everything up I've found that the subframe dips down in the front left corner by 7mm where it bolts to the pan. Is there a reason for this as in it helps the car to sit square or is it bent and needs a an adjustment.
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The CMC subframe? - I guess it could be twisted but it is pretty substantial 2x4" steel box frame. The fiberglass body is riveted and glued to it so you'd see deformation on the fiberglass I'd think. The 2 bolts each side in front and the one each side in back lined up perfectly on my build. I was surprised as I used wood 2x4" for a frame jib. Or is the VW pan maybe bent from a wreck?
7mm is only 1/4” so I believe it should even out when you put it all together.
I never really checked either of my two builds for flatness of the sub-frame and they turned out OK. The pan will pull towards the sub-frame as the bolts are tightened, not the other way around, but the two surfaces will tend to even out. The front corners of the footwell are part of the “Napolean’s Hat” front reinforcement of the pan (it is shaped like his hat) and are pretty rugged, so I would assume that they’re close to being straight unless the car has been hit some time. For a delta of 7mm I would just assemble it and let the bolts pull it together. Unless you have a way of flexing that corner while holding the rest of the frame true to pull it 1/4”, I would just leave it alone.
Assume you have ran a straight edge across the bottom of the 2 x 4 frame to confirm... On some builds after setting the body with sub fame onto the VW chassis I will " bump" the body left or right moving it slightly at the “Napolean’s Hat”..you could do the same to resolve some of the 7mm. Second method would be to cut 3/4 of the way through the 2 x 4 frame , heat, bend and reweld.
I herd and then checked out about rear wheel arch clearance. and yes as everyone said the gap was not even from one side to the other. So i fixed that and squared the frame to the rear and level'd it all up. The problem stated when I got to the front end and the frame dipped in the left corner. I don't want to weld the tunnel up until I know more. I'll have to put the body back on and check for level. My concern is if I adjust the frame, will the body got back on nicely and keep it's gaps nice around the LHS door.
Is this a CMC? The 2x2 box from does flex a little (on mine). As Alan said, check all runs with a straight edge to confirm.
Yes Alan, that is exactly what I'm thinking of doing. If I don't do it the car won't track well as the car will pivot on the RH rear and LH front. I know it's not alot we're talking about but when your coming into a corner hot you you want it do what you want and not the other way around.
It's a 2x4 frame and soild
@Don Harrison- What year pan did you go with?
It's the US LHD IRS with ball joint front. WE didn't get that configuration in NZ unless you bought an automatic. I now have a RHD beam with disk brakes as that was factory in NZ. SO I have the best of all worlds now. IT should handle quite nicely.
I don't know if I mentioned this in your thread before, but did you know you can narrow irs arms for wider tires/better brakes?
I've wide 5 drums of a Thing that take the 40mm shoes and i got a set of rims that I'm going to cut the centre out of and adjust the backset to suit.
Update. Subframe back on the pan and the body trial fitted. Back guard clearance. 35mm on both sides. Yes. Now the bad news. The 7mm dip in the frame required a packer under the body to get the door gap right so it look like the frame is going to get the treatment. All in all I'm pretty happy.
Glad you got if figured out!
You'll like the Thing brakes in the back. I've run type 3 rear brakes (never compared them to the Thing rear drums but I'd bet they're similar- the type 3 shoes are also wider) on a Cal Look beetle (135's on 4 1/2" chrome Sprintstars/ Karmann Ghia discs on the front and 185/70's on 4 1/2" Sprintstars widened 1 1/2" on the insides). With the type 1 brakes still on the back the front discs would lock up easily, even on dry pavement (it was really scary if it was wet out or there was a light dusting of dirt on the road!). The type 3 rear brakes really balanced the car.
After the Cal look bug I drove a baja bug for a few years as transportation and the 28 or 29" off road tires on the back were way too much for the type 1 rear drums and shoes. A panic stop at 70mph on a local freeway where the brakes just "disappeared" at 35 or 40mph (2 idiot stoned kids were picking magic mushrooms on the side of the highway and 1 of them got up and decided to check out the grass in the median at rush hour- just walked straight into traffic. A miracle he wasn't hit) pointed out the need for better brakes and again, type 3 rears did the trick.
The info I have- early type 1 rear shoes are 1 3/16" (36mm) wide, later ('68 and newer) 1 5/8" (40mm) and drum diameter (early and late) 9 1/8" (232mm). Type 3 rear shoes are 1 3/4" (44mm) wide with 9 13/16" (250mm) diameter drums.
For those running type 1 5x205 rear drums and wanting better brakes- I've read that you can machine the drums 1/4" deeper and the later type 1 rear shoes will fit. Type 1 rear wheel cylinders are 17mm, while the 19mm 924 wheel cylinders are an upgrade, again giving more braking force. And again, I haven't tried this (only read it on the Samba). Al
Al, before I put discs all around I had wide 5 drums on the back. I did upgrade the wheel cylinders and shoes to later ones. Wheel cylinders are indeed 19mm and shoes are a bit wider. The drums I had did not require machining, they were cut deep enough. Everything bolted OK to the backing plates I had and I did notice some improvement in rear braking.
These are now on the back of LennyC Spyder, along with my CSP front discs, he converted to wide5 and added the Vintage 190 aluminum wheels. Car looks and runs GREAT!
Yeah, Danny, while it's an improvement, it's not disc brake level, but it's low budget and better than stock type 1 rear brakes (especially in a light cars such as a Spyder). I wonder if my dune buggy friends know of this- hhmmm...
PS- while I have your attention- did you call me the other day? I have a message on the answering machine
Another PS- does anybody know the id of Thing rear drums?
4 wheel disc are the way to go.
Bill Prout posted:4 wheel disc are the way to go.
Yeah, Bill, I agree, discs are the way to go, especially if you're building from scratch, but as a very low cost improvement, being able to put the wider shoes and bigger wheel cylinders on the back (the cost of the shoes, cylinders and turning the drums- $100?) is a pretty simple upgrade for the guy with 5x205 brakes and it doesn't even mess with the rear track. Type 3 rear drums, if you have room for or can deal with the track increase (5/8"? per side) is even better as the shoes are not only wider than the late type 1 but bigger diameter as well (for even more friction area and more heat sink area in the drums) and can be picked up at very reasonable prices (I got mine complete with new shoes, cylinders and iIrc drums for $160 at a swap meet- they'd been on a guy's show car for all of a week or 2 and he decided he wanted discs on it). Yeah, drum brakes have to be adjusted occasionally to work their best, but it's a trade off.
I bought the type 3 rear drum assemblies because they were a steal for the price, they work, and I'm familiar with them, putting them on 2 cars in the past and having very good success both times. Had I not found them I would probably be considering rear discs (I know from experience that with different front and rear tire/rim sizes something definitely will be needed for optimal braking-hell, even a stock bug could use bigger rear brakes!) but with disc brake kit prices being 4? 5? $600 (and that's the cheap stuff- I love going to the Mendeola/Coolstop webpage and drooling over their brake kits- functional and light!) and that's in U.S. dollars (don't forget to add 20% for conversion to Canadian funds) you can see why I think type 3 rear brakes are such a good deal.
Again, for most guys, discs as the better braking option is a no brainer. I don't dispute that. Al
Yes Kevin's set up is outstanding!
It wasn't me calling you, Al.
DannyP posted:It wasn't me calling you, Al.
It was your last message then. I guess nobody here's cleared the messages in a while...
Al: Front 9.6" x 1.7", rear 9.1" x 1.7" That's a late 73-74 thing.
Update. The frame is now straight and back on the pan. Looking at connecting the front of the pan to the back. With the suspension at full height and with the 2 1/2 inch drop spindles i needed to drop another 65mm to get the ride height right. I had to calculate the arch on the arms and for that extra 65mm the ball joints moves back 25mm. With that in mind I shall have a wheelbase of 2102mm. with out the spindles the wheel would move back 50mm and that would just look sad.
