As a complete aside - I wonder how light an outlaw replica could be made without any door openings (pretty light, would be my guess). I'll bet you could do it without anything but the pan and a decently thick body.
there was a guy up in Malibu that made one piece Speedster bodies back in the 80s
my friend had one with a Formula Vee type chassis under it .
I used Rivnuts in about half a dozen places on my car, usually places that were just hard to get at. They're terrific if you have the installation tool (which I borrowed from work). We used a lot of Rivnuts to hold computer cabinets together. Cabinets arrived knocked down as a pallet of parts at the final assembly site and were assembled on site. Rivnuts everywhere and they held like welds.
@Panhandle Bob posted:ALB:
Send him data on where he can drill some holes.
When Al suggested aluminum I was waiting for the hole joke 
More on the build … we could have our new friend spend a lot more Time and energy here by adding pie cuts to allow bigger back tires, a new dash with real 356 gauges from Beck … wider sills etc etc.
I would say worthwhile while your at it .
ps. Center the front wheels in the holes too
@Steven Montz posted:So you think I should consider fabricating the new subframe for the body structure out of I beam instead of the original box tube? What are your thoughts on aluminum opposed to steel? What about fastening the body to the frame! I assume I would have to weld side plates to the I beam! The original body used rivets! I plan on using riv nuts and bolts like we use on aircraft!
Stay with the original box tube design- don't even consider the I beam idea As Michael said, he was only using it as a comparison. My thoughts on aluminum- HELL YEAH!!! If you have the resources you'll be able to drop so much weight off the car (and have one of the lightest Speedsters around- again, a lighter car is faster EVERYWHERE!). I'm known here for lightening things by reworking (drilling and profiling by grinding) parts and can tell you that on average I can reduce something's weight by 20- 25% by what I do. Think of it- to take 40 lbs off of a car this way you'd have to rework 150-200 lbs of stuff! I've now spent 100? 150? 200? (I have no idea- I didn't keep track) hours drilling, grinding and filing for a little more than 30 lbs (and then you've got to get rid of it- that's a couple of 5 gal buckets full of swarf! I'm lucky I live close to the municipal recycling center). Being able to eliminate 120-140 pounds simply by a material (aluminum weighs less than 40% of steel/iron) change on 1 component is huge. I've (very briefly- I'm not THAT CRAZY!) considered it, but it would take sooo much work to pull the sub-frame out of my older IM body. Still...
A few lightened pieces- the throwout shaft is drilled through and went from 522- 377 g, the t.o. shaft arm on the lower right went from 155- 93 g, the bowden tube bracket went from 91-52 and the handbrake ratchet, originally at 81g, is now 53 g. It was harder than normal to rework because it's hardened to a depth of .030 or .040" on both sides, and along with most of the trans parts required carbide drill bits (HSS wouldn't even leave a mark). These examples of weight drop were the exception, not the norm.
And a few more parts I've massaged/drilled https://www.speedsterowners.com/member/alb
Face it Al, you just like drilling holes, no matter what the justification. 
I know I'm hijacking Steven's thread, and nothing I'm going to say is directed towards him, other than this - your project is ambitious in a way I don't think anybody has adequately addressed on this thread. Having part of a body (no deck-lid, frunk lid, or doors), a rotten subframe, and an unusable pan doesn't seem like a realistic starting point to me, but what do I know? Good luck. The "found it in the mud" story is great, but it takes a lot to get where you're headed. Like, "a lot" a lot.
... and in that vein... the conversation and @LI-Rick and @imperial bringing up one-piece Speedster drag bodies has me headed into more of a rabbit-hole than I ever thought it could. I keep coming back to those one piece bodies. My worry would be that they would be flimsy, outer-skin only affairs which offer no real "dune buggy"-like attachment to the pan.
What I am imagining is a body kind of as a cross between the pan-based bodies from various places and a Meyers Manx dune-buggy - something that bonded/bolted to a shortened VW pan, which creates its own "tub" - with no door openings to require a sub-frame for strength. For a human to drive this thing, he'd need to climb over the "door" top, which would be really, really difficult. The body would need an engine deck-lid but the frunk would probably have to be sealed, or again - a subframe would be required. It would be possible to retain a frunk without a subframe- but that piece of fiberglass would be shallow and complex, and having a frunk wouldn't really fit the ethos of the thing. If you are climbing over the door to get it, what would you need a trunk for?
The body would be a Monocoque - a fiberglass unibody. This was the genius of the Meyers Manx.
Al's eyes are glazing over with the possibility of an aluminum subframe. But what if there were no subframe at all, and the structure was still stiff enough to jack off of the body and lift the entire car off the ground. I don't think this is dreaming because (again) - Meyers Manx.
This thing would be silly stiff and weigh nothing. You'd put gas in it like a Spyder. It'd be crying for a lexan windshield, no wipers, no top of any kind, and two bomber seats sitting in a truck-bed liner interior. If you did it right, you could hang A-arms off the front part of the Monocoque and forgo any part of the frame in front of the Napoleon's hat. Thinking about it, perhaps you'd want a tiny subframe connecting the Napoleon's hat to the A-arm mounts, but it wouldn't strictly be needed.
Bolt on some big brakes, light wheels, and a killer motor and transaxle, and you'd have a <1200 lb canyon-carving monster.
The mind reels with possibility, though not any kind of actual probability. Such things spring from the mind of the left knee rehab patient.
My Lotus Europa had no steel frame at the outer sides. It was all fiberglass sides and floor hung over a steel spine down the center. And, it had doors and a frunk. It weighed about 1200 pounds. Getting in was like climbing into a golf bag. But, once in, it was comfortable in the semi-reclining seats. At 42" it was 10" lower than a Corvette.
@Bob: IM S6 posted:Face it Al, you just like drilling holes, no matter what the justification.
How about I ride to Carlisle with you- I'll bring along my Dewalt drill and a couple of batteries and we could see how much weight that beast could shed before we get to Danny's scales?
I just read this on another forum that applies to the Hurricane " if you’re gonna design a new one answer as many problems as possible"
@Michael McKelvey posted:My Lotus Europa had no steel frame at the outer sides. It was all fiberglass sides and floor hung over a steel spine down the center. And, it had doors and a frunk. It weighed about 1200 pounds. Getting in was like climbing into a golf bag. But, once in, it was comfortable in the semi-reclining seats. At 42" it was 10" lower than a Corvette.
The Europa had a top as well to provide rigidity.
The one piece bodies were with no opening doors or hoods…..
I guess you could make them thicker in certain areas if you wanted ,
but there is no firewall , rear seat area , inner rockers etc , wheel wells etc
I would think the plan is to take a tube frame VW off-road rail buggy chassis And drop the body over it…. Which is a little like what Lloyd Mossier did …..
@Stan Galat posted:I know I'm hijacking Steven's thread, and nothing I'm going to say is directed towards him, other than this - your project is ambitious in a way I don't think anybody has adequately addressed on this thread. Having part of a body (no deck-lid, frunk lid, or doors), a rotten subframe, and an unusable pan doesn't seem like a realistic starting point to me, but what do I know? Good luck. The "found it in the mud" story is great, but it takes a lot to get where you're headed. Like, "a lot" a lot.
... and in that vein... the conversation and @LI-Rick and @imperial bringing up one-piece Speedster drag bodies has me headed into more of a rabbit-hole than I ever thought it could. I keep coming back to those one piece bodies. My worry would be that they would be flimsy, outer-skin only affairs which offer no real "dune buggy"-like attachment to the pan.
What I am imagining is a body kind of as a cross between the pan-based bodies from various places and a Meyers Manx dune-buggy - something that bonded/bolted to a shortened VW pan, which creates its own "tub" - with no door openings to require a sub-frame for strength. For a human to drive this thing, he'd need to climb over the "door" top, which would be really, really difficult. The body would need an engine deck-lid but the frunk would probably have to be sealed, or again - a subframe would be required. It would be possible to retain a frunk without a subframe- but that piece of fiberglass would be shallow and complex, and having a frunk wouldn't really fit the ethos of the thing. If you are climbing over the door to get it, what would you need a trunk for?
The body would be a Monocoque - a fiberglass unibody. This was the genius of the Meyers Manx.
Al's eyes are glazing over with the possibility of an aluminum subframe. But what if there were no subframe at all, and the structure was still stiff enough to jack off of the body and lift the entire car off the ground. I don't think this is dreaming because (again) - Meyers Manx.
This thing would be silly stiff and weigh nothing. You'd put gas in it like a Spyder. It'd be crying for a lexan windshield, no wipers, no top of any kind, and two bomber seats sitting in a truck-bed liner interior. If you did it right, you could hang A-arms off the front part of the Monocoque and forgo any part of the frame in front of the Napoleon's hat. Thinking about it, perhaps you'd want a tiny subframe connecting the Napoleon's hat to the A-arm mounts, but it wouldn't strictly be needed.
Bolt on some big brakes, light wheels, and a killer motor and transaxle, and you'd have a <1200 lb canyon-carving monster.
The mind reels with possibility, though not any kind of actual probability. Such things spring from the mind of the left knee rehab patient.
Kind of sounds like an Elan, but that had a folded steel spine and a light glass body. The steel spine might weigh 100 pounds. My friend Mike is rebuilding one. I think it will weigh less than 1500 pounds, but it does have an iron block inline 4.
He replaced the crash-damaged spine and is doing some phenomenally clean glass repair. He does nice work no matter what he does.
@Stan Galat, yeah, there is that. But, I think the Elan of that time had similar construction.
Yeah, Colin liked that method. It was light and agile, but fragile. I missed your post above, Michael.
@DannyP, fragile is right. My Europa was rear-ended when I was stopped at a light and was totaled. I replaced it with an Elan +2. I feel a little pang when I see a picture of one.
@Stan Galat posted:The Europa had a top as well to provide rigidity.
I remember that car when I was in high school. I couldn’t get in it then even less today but I saw one for sale on some site that needed quite a bit of repairs. I always thought they were cool.
@Michael McKelvey posted:My Lotus Europa had no steel frame at the outer sides. It was all fiberglass sides and floor hung over a steel spine down the center. And, it had doors and a frunk. It weighed about 1200 pounds. Getting in was like climbing into a golf bag. But, once in, it was comfortable in the semi-reclining seats. At 42" it was 10" lower than a Corvette.
AFAIK, TVRs are the same way, with a simple framework to support the door sills.
@Stan Galat posted:Al's eyes are glazing over with the possibility of an aluminum subframe. But what if there were no subframe at all, and the structure was still stiff enough to jack off of the body and lift the entire car off the ground. I don't think this is dreaming because (again) - Meyers Manx.
This thing would be silly stiff and weigh nothing. You'd put gas in it like a Spyder. It'd be crying for a lexan windshield, no wipers, no top of any kind, and two bomber seats sitting in a truck-bed liner interior. If you did it right, you could hang A-arms off the front part of the Monocoque and forgo any part of the frame in front of the Napoleon's hat. Thinking about it, perhaps you'd want a tiny subframe connecting the Napoleon's hat to the A-arm mounts, but it wouldn't strictly be needed.
Bolt on some big brakes, light wheels, and a killer motor and transaxle, and you'd have a <1200 lb canyon-carving monster.
The mind reels with possibility, though not any kind of actual probability. Such things spring from the mind of the left knee rehab patient.
Don't you know it! And you'd be tickled as well, Stan, if you could cut 120 pounds out of your car in 1 fell swoop. As for the super duper lightweight shell, with no doors neither your wife nor mine would ever get in it. Mind you, that might not be a bad thing...
@Stan Galat posted:...
The body would be a Monocoque - a fiberglass unibody. This was the genius of the Meyers Manx.
... If you did it right, you could hang A-arms off the front part of the Monocoque and forgo any part of the frame in front of the Napoleon's hat. Thinking about it, perhaps you'd want a tiny subframe connecting the Napoleon's hat to the A-arm mounts, but it wouldn't strictly be needed.
...The mind reels with possibility, though not any kind of actual probability. Such things spring from the mind of the left knee rehab patient.
Using a fiberglass body shell to anchor the front suspension and steering of a road-going automobile? I don't think so.
Not unless its intended use is strictly as a garden cart.
Lots of interesting conversation, and speculation. But I think in the reality of time, effort, and cost (and likelihood of a successful final result) you'd be better off scrapping what you have and starting with something like this: https://kitmanmotors.com/price-list/
Just sayin
@edsnova posted:Using a fiberglass body shell to anchor the front suspension and steering of a road-going automobile? I don't think so.
Not unless its intended use is strictly as a garden cart.
Yeah, that part was a bridge too far, for sure.
Chevy actually did something like that once. They built a concept car (nice looking 2-seater IIRC designated XP-898) that had a plastic foam-filled structure and no metal frame. there were separate metal (of course) sub-frames for corn and rear suspension as well as the drivetrain mounts. All those were basically glued to the plastic structure.
Found the article: https://www.caranddriver.com/r...pt-archived-feature/
Key phrase: “separate metal subframes”
there were separate metal (of course) sub-frames for corn and rear..." should of course be "There were separate metal (of course) sub-frames for front and rear...".
If I could type I'd be dangerous.
@Lane Anderson posted:there were separate metal (of course) sub-frames for corn and rear..." should of course be "There were separate metal (of course) sub-frames for front and rear...".
If I could type I'd be dangerous.
Yes, yes you would be.
.
"If I could type, I'd be dangerous."
It's sobering to consider that a hundred monkeys typing randomly at a hundred keyboards would eventually order an online pizza from Papa Murphy's.
.
There is ample evidence that Lane is pretty dangerous even when he is away from his keyboard.
Great story; I am an adopted New Orleanian; lived there about 8 years and love the place. I also started working there as a consultant for FEMA back in 2007. I love the photos with the bayou style houses in the background. This poor little car definitely got hit but the great thing about fiberglass is that it can be brought back. Re the steel frame I have seen some outfits that sell them. I've even seen them along with the pan if so desired. Might be Kitman out of Texas if I remember correctly. Good luck on this build; wishing you the best and looking forward to being witness to this adventure.
