Thunder Ranch build thread

I've head plenty of days like that recently with my wifey's coupe build. It's taken me three months to finally get a hard brake pedal. Really? Three months? It ultimately came down to replacing the entire front disc brake kit (EMPI was the first kit - yes, I know about EMPI brand, but that is what Greg gave me and what he will be getting back). Once I switched it out, I had to make two new hard lines (which I've mastered doing) and FINALLY - it worked.

There were several beers and Jameson involved the past three months...

The wiper motor works and I'm only two or three wires from sorting it to the switch. What a pia though.

Took a break from that and dry fit my windshield. Drilled the holes, cinched it up loose without the tensioning rod and started CAD-ing up the side screens.

Question: are there rubber gaskets or something to fit under the windshield posts? Looks like there ought to be and I'd rather buy than make 'em if they're not NLA. Someone chime in please.

Also, excellent news today from SMS: a UPS tracking number for my interior material. Supposedly it's coming tomorrow, a mere six months after I ordered it. 

Motor: Low High Part and Ground...tap the wires quickly with low amp setting from a battery charger and see how it moves 

From memory ..I think,

  52a low   53b  high   53 to 12v hot ( for park )    31b 12v in    31 ground

Windshield posts, in the past I made rubber gaskets, now I just squeeze a ring of black latex caulk around the post hole in the body, secure the post and wipe away the excess caulk

I recognize those side curtains templates from Merklin Motor Works:~)

Here's what VS does:

Stoddard has this for six bucks (per).

That may be the cheapest thing you can order from Stoddard. Using it would allow you to casually slip into conversation the fact that some of the parts for your build are sourced from Stoddard.

Something to think about.

Fender welt works to.

I think Greg from Vintage motorcars uses some edge trim for the windshield posts, same stuff he uses for the license light, headrest/fairing, and engine grilles. It's about a 5/16" or 3/8" U shape.

Thanks, guys.

Alan: my wiper motor has no markings for 52a, etc. Just wires that went into a plug you're supposed to plug into the one on you Super beetle. hence the hassle. I got high and low power, and the ground, and I have to ground the body again. There's also a blue wire that kind of goes off somewhere. probably for a washer motor? And then two in the bundle that don't seem to do anything. I can ground them, leave them loose, twist them together or touch them to the + battery terminal. Nothing happens whatever I do with them...

But I'll sort it. It's just a dang wiper!

Per the template: I just made those. I should have looked in my pile of Merklin Magic (TM). 

New blog to catch up on a lot of not-posting.

Alan is right, Low, High, Park, and ground. I'll get the colors for you.

Beetles didn't have a washer motor, remember? Hose from spare tire to washer reservoir. Washer "switch" is actually a valve!

Does this help?

This is basic half but this is what I do with wiper motors when there are no terminal numbers . 

Using the lowest amp setting on a battery charger I clamp charger negative to the wiper motor housing .....stay with me. 

Then I very quickly tap against one wire at a time until I get movement, if I do then go to another wire until I find the one that moves then stops ( mark that as your constant 12v for the park position. Now go back to find two wires that will energize the motor..One will move it faster than the other  ( mark low and high wires)    REmove the black off the motor housing. Lastly keep your red from the battery charger to either the high or low wire and then take the battery charger black and tap that against one of the couple remaining wires until you get motor movement ( this is your ground wire)........ It's now beer thirty ~

I have received five yards of "Barberpole" vinyl from SMS. Just under six months after I ordered it.

This is the stuff that was in Spyders in the day. Called my upholsterer for a long-delayed appointment & hope to get the seats, seat heaters and material over to him this week if possible. 

Also handed off my gas tank to a machinist buddy. He couldn't drill the stainless welds either so he plans to cut the whole thing out and mill a plug/flange to fit the hole. So, fingers crossed that'll get it.

Cut my shorty Troy-inspired cruisin'/Ralleye side windows tonight.

I've got the hardware to make them fit and now just have to get the gaskets from McMaster Carr. Thinking this should do it. But would like advice.

I've got more Lexan to make the taller side windows but I'll wait until I have a top before I cut those.

I'll finish up the wiper system this weekend I think. Gonna go with the super skinny early wipers to make them look more like they might have come with the car. 

Other inspiration btw:

Sorry I haven't been updating. The lift broke last week. Got a seal kit for the hydraulic cylinder and just pulled that heavy bugger out of the lift.

Meanwhile I got my gas tank filler sorted, I think. The guy I sold Bridget's old engine to a few years ago thinks I gave him such a great deal that he owes me some work. And he's a machinist. I said "naw, man" but he insisted and so I felt cornered into letting him solve my problem.

(BTW this is the guy who built the fake Lambo I posted here a few weeks ago. He also made parts for police and Coast Guard helicopters).

I think we're ready for final welding on this. Then I can finally Por-15 the tank and be done with that little adventure.

That filler looks REALLY NICE!

Yeah. Nicest thing on the car, so far!

I assume that that flange is designed to accept your fuel gauge ? If so, I'm sure you have already thought about making the fuel sender float lever a little longer ?...Bruce

The sender goes in the stock location, Bruce. The new flange is for the filler neck and cap. Same bolt pattern, six inches higher up on the tank—closer to the spot Ferry intended. 

Here's the barber pole vinyl that Ed and I are both using (there are multiple colors, I'm using tan). There's a picture of the original car, and then my seats. 

Anand, love it.  Who is the  vinyl vender?

@arajani

SMS in Oregon, @Marty Grzynkowicz

they've got the original tooling, I’m told!

I thought I recognized that, Anand!

It's the same pattern Teby had his blazer made from for last year's Henley Regatta:

@arajani  @Teby S

aaaaand... I shot decaf out my nose.

Yep, that's what I'm shooting for, Anand. I hop you don't mind if I steal those pics for my upholsterer.

In other news, I got my lift cylinder out and apart, and I'm pretty pissed off. I noticed something odd last night when I set the thing in the vices:

That's the spot the fluid has been leaking from, right at the top of the tube. The hole faces up so it's out of sight, about a quarter inch from the bottom of the ramp. You can't see it without removing the cylinder.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Hey. Ed, that's just a threaded hole. Shouldn't there be some kind of one-way check valve screwed into it?" At least, that's what I was thinking.

I set that thought aside while figuring out how to get the thing apart. Managed that feat about a half hour ago, and

Wow. Kinda gunky innit? Let's clean off that gunk and see what we have here....

Rust. How about that? Kind of surprising given how young this thing is, and it's never been wet and...oh but wait. It's had a hole in it the whole time I've owned it. Plenty opportunity for some lovely condensation—to say nothing of the shop dust I've been making—to get in there.

I checked the innerwebs and guess what? Turns out there is supposed to be a pressure relief valve. Something like this.

I know what you're thinking though. You're thinking "well, that rust isn't gonna hurt nothing. Now, if the cylinder walls were pitted, THEN you'd have some problems." Right? 

So why don't we shine a light in this ol' tube here and see, shall we?

Yep.

So now I've got something of a dilemma. I could rinse the cylinder out with a mild acid, make a big copper wool Q-tip out of PVC and clean it with that, flush it out with water, hose it down with WD 40, put new seals on it and see what I got.

OR I could raise holy Hell with Derek Weaver on Monday because this **** is bullshit.

What would youse guys do?

Sorry, Ed, I don't remember the details- did you buy it new? If you did I think you should be on the phone first thing tomorrow morning...

Ed;

Who is the manufacture again?  

Ed,

I would give the manufacturer a chance to make it right before I mustered my righteous indignation.  Keep that powder dry in case you need it later on.  Your pics present a compelling case.

Thanks guys. Yeah, Derek Weaver, Direct Lift Pro Park 8, purchased new just about two years ago. They were good on my first call. The unit shipped missing a one or two of the big hanger bolts for the ramps. I was able to assemble it with the almost-as-long bolts that shipped with the steel "crate" they used to ship it, and swapping those out for the right ones a week later was painless. 

When it leaked the first time a few months ago I called them and was told it could be normal. A little juice often gets past the seals when you first assemble it, yadda yadda. I wanted good news so I cleared it (raise it to the max with no load) and carried on.

The bad leaks a couple weeks ago were much worse than the first one, and the ramps weren't very high. That's when I called again. This time they're like "you need new seals." I was all like "Fair enough, you should give them to me." They answered, "your warranty on the hydraulics is one year."

So I paid $110 or something for the seal kit, grudgingly, thinking why should the seals fail so quickly on a little-used lift that seldom has much weight on it?

And now I know. 

The old seals are very clearly abraided flat where they ran along the now rusted bottom of the tube. 

So yeah DW gets a pleasant call tomorrow and they will be given the opportunity to send me, at no charge, a new cylinder. 

But if they decline I'm not sure what I can do. It's maybe a $600-$800 part retail, I guess (so far I can't find the exact one for sale), so there's no way I win with a lawsuit. 

I suppose I could just clean it out best I can, buy a proper one-way pressure relief valve (also not apparently available on the DW site), muddle on and bad-mouth the company forever but that's not a real palatable option either. 

Guess we'll see how they do. 

Ed,

In your case, Maryland Small Claims Court would be a viable option, with its $5000 limitations.  You may want to mention to the maker that you hope you can avoid the above, but you will exercise all legal options if you can't work out a deal that is satisfactory to you.

Suing a corp. has some specific conditions, but nothing you can't overcome.  PM me for more info if needed.

I find a lot of companies with the proper picture proof and a bit of persistent will come good for you. Patients and persistance is all you need...   You can say the same thing nicely and persistently  

I have an old brake cylinder hone - fits on a hand egg beater hand drill or slow speed drill.

Yeah, like my wise old aunt used to say, you catch more flies with honey and intimations of looming legal action than with vinegar.

Thanks, all. Jim, as a function of my current job I visit four different courthouses every weekday. I know I could file but I'd hate to have to; never yet sued anyone or been sued and I like it that way. I will be contacting you however if this goes wrong. Ray: yes, me too. I've written many a persuasive letter over the years, and so far almost everyone I've had to contact has been reasonable. Greg: thanks very much for your kind offer. Don't dig that thing out just yet; instead please use the time to attach parts to your Speedster and wait for my contact.

I just emailed DW my illustrated story. I'll follow-up by phone tomorrow and hopefully we can sort it.

P.S.: Mitch: your barberpole vinyl sport coat is art. Thank you for classing up my build thread with it.

Ed, thanks for a million little details that most of us probably never even suspected about the 550.

Barber....whaaa?

Mitch, nice photoshop!

Ed, that sucks about your lift. Mine has two cylinders(Harbor Freight). I hope mine doesn't do that!

Update from Derek Weaver: The hole is as it should be: a single-action cylinder needs to let air in when it relaxes, so on one-way valve would work. They say they're going to forward my issue to the mfg anyway to see if they'll treat it as warranty.

I'm gonna start making my giant copper wool Q-tip though & see about @WOLFGANG's hone.

@edsnova Let me know if you need any more info -- I'll send you as many pictures as you'll tolerate!

@chines1 has done a really nice job with these seats. We've put a slightly thicker cushion like the speedster on the bottom (it isn't as thick as it looks in this photo). Carey's in house upholsterer, Bill, is unreal. He's got an original Pfaff sewing machine too. It's pretty cool. 

THose industrial machines are cool, it has a walking foot that moves the material... which is a must to do that stuff. 

@edsnova  I wonder if it would convert to an oxide with a rust chelator and save you some work.   Just saying

Arjani, thanks. I wonder how they made the back panel on it. My guy suggested using carpet & I figured that's fine, but what've you got going?

All: Derek Weaver says Direct Lift (the mfg) is not gonna give me anything: "If you would like to replace your cylinder the part # is

YG02-9100G                  633.40

@edsnova -- No carpet on Spyder seats. the backs were barber pole vinyl too. 

Interesting. So that's gotta be hand-stitched to finish, yeah?

Update: Jimmy brought my tank to me after work. Now I just gotta POR 15 it this weekend & we'll be all done.

--Well, that's not quite true. The filler cap will need some attention and fettling, and I've still got to file away a little more 'glass around the hole. But still.

Sure a lot of messing around to get some things right and be pleasing to the eye when finished !  Good job  !  Sr. Ed

Update: The lift broke and I ended up honing out the hydraulic cylinder before replacing the seals, plugging the breather port on top and tapping a new port underneath which is now plumbed back into the oil tank so that any future leaks just return to the source and any air getting into the tube is from the tank, five feet off the floor, instead of two inches from the concrete. PITA, as they say, but it seems to work now.

Gas tank is sealed with POR 15, the few pinholes in the exterior welds (which did not leak) were epoxied, and the tank is primed and painted matte black for now

Interesting fix, does it drain by gravity to the tank. Any pictures,  of that cylinder fix..  

Yes.

Here's the cylinder back in, with the hydraulic line reattached.

Here's the new drain line on the other end. It's 180 degrees and about two inches inboard from the old one, which was drilled into the rough iron "cap" that's welded to the end of the pipe and carries the big holding pin (not visible) that anchors the unit to the ramp.

I tried to do this one the same way at first, but trying to drill an L-shaped hole into that stuff cost me a few drill bits. After the second one broke off below the hole I just called it a day, filled it with epoxy and started over.

I tapped the new hole just at the outside edge of that weldment, and had to dig around for adaptors to get the elbow with that quarter-inch hose to screw in with a low profile so the ramp won't land on it when it goes to the floor.

strung the hose to a spot near the main hose and drilled a hole, added a grommet, and...

Taped (and then zip-tied) the two hoses together, and drilled another little hole in the top of the oil tank. The drain hose extends in like an inch or so. You don't want it down in the oil, or the cylinder will suck oil into the "air" side when the lift is lowered.

Lift is back as good as new. Better, probably—except there's some pitting inside the cylinder I couldn't do anything much about.

Decided to get after the front inner fenders today. Smoothed out the "lip" where the body meets it and skimmed the rough fiberglass mesh and chopped areas.

Another skim coat or two, a bit of sandpaper and this part will be ready to prime. Still pondering whether to close off the inners around the shock mounts like Arjani did. Leaning toward not.

So here is a pro tip I discovered serendipitously that you-all probably already know—but maybe not?

If you want the tail sides of pop rivets to look like regular rivets, just hit them with the flapper wheel on your grinder. Et voila:

Final stuff on the firewall today: wire harness clips and fuel line clips.

Again, comparing:

Scrubbed-out the tub pretty good and hit all the bare metal with some etching primer:

Ed,

I'm impressed , mentioned the Spyder to my painter today.  PM when paint is in the near future . BTW black in not on the menu ~

If that's the color you're going with, Ed, I'm on board.  Are you painting it yourself, then?

Tip on the e-brake mount:

After you figure out the angle you want the lever to sit at, drill a hole through the clamp and the mount for a set-screw. There is no way that the clamp will squeeze tight enough to stop the lever from rotating. Ask me how I know LOL!

Thanks for the tip, Danny. Will do. 

Lane: I'm gonna paint some of it—mostly insides and underneaths—and then look at it very carefully and consider my options. The smart money is on me getting a real painter to do it in the places people are likely to notice.

Next up: inside of the wheel wells.

I have some truck bed liner.

Pretty sure originals were smooth in the wheel wells and body color.

Yep. Plan to do the 2k liner smooth, if/as possible, then paint it blue afterwards. We'll see how it lays down. 

...Ed,  Today,  used a good quality black chip guard rattle can in the trunk of a speedster , it came out great  and could be painted over.

Stuff I got is branded "Custom Coat." It's a urethane 2-part and the hardener is from UPol. It's got some texture and I plan to at least get it inside the tops of the fenders to keep any rock chips from spider cracking it. There will be some in the frunk too and inside the body voids along both sides behind the seats but in front of the clam shell. 

We'll see how it lays down then figure how much to put where. 

It's also gonna be tinted silver, the idea being that anywhere that is not covered with French Blue paint will reflect light in a manner similar to aluminum. 

Inside of front fender (per Spyder Factory):

Looks to me like a little roughness in there is "period-correct."

Fuel tank is very big and made of hammered steel.Hammer-tone paint is a start...

...but we'll see if there's something that can be made to make it look better.

I like how they painted the gear ratios on the trans so the pit crew would always know what was what. That's an easy one!

Nice!

Blog post.

Spraying primer tomorrow in the fender wells, and then maybe truck bed liner if things go OK. Will post after.

Broke out the old-school spray gun for the primer and bed liner. Got it done but, in retrospect, a modern ultra-cheep HPLV gun from Harbor Freight or somewhere probably would have worked better. The #30 tip on the '60s-era Devilbiss seemed a bit miserly with the coverage.... 

But anyway.

It's hard to see the silver color of the bed liner in some of these pics, and the texture is very slight—it's a bit like 120-grit sandpaper.

My rough finish is very apparent in the driver's fender well, where these wheel marks look like hammer marks. You can't even see the silver in this shot, let alone the roughness of the coating, but my tastefully-sloppy body work shines right through!

(again, for reference, Spyder Factory's meticulous high-buck all-aluminum recreation):

As this product is a 2-part urethane, I believe it can be top-coated with my body-color paint directly, but will double-check before trying that. 

All-in-all a good learning day

Honestly, once you get a few miles on it, nobody will notice a dang thing. Road grime, tar, and rock chips will even it all out. Looks OK to me.

Updates.

Dropped off the seats at the upholsterer today after work. Getting after the last of the rocker boxes now.

Also:

Are those the 16's?

I don't think the Vintage 190s come in 16.

15s. 

There are no Vintage 203s as of yet.

I see what you did there!

edsnova posted:

15s. 

There are no Vintage 203s as of yet.

 Ed Ericson wins the Internet today.

This is going to be one fine piece of art.

I just gotta take a day, and drop in on Ol' Ed and get up close and personal with this build. Plus check out his cool but rusty lift.  Before it gets cold . . .

Still fettling those last couple of inner panels. Remade one of them today, testing to see if the clam latches can still be installed with them in place. drilling for wires and such to go through.

I also re-bent my middle fuel line to go inside the frame rail instead of outside. Turns out that's the correct routing on the original car.

These will be clamped to the tubing.

Kelly, come on by. I'll beer ya.

Wires now.

Gotta string them through the rocker boxes before riveting those in. Started with the grommets.

Got the passenger side—no wires—already done. This side will be all but hidden behind the Accusump, but I will touch it up before final assembly.

The dreaded wiring...................    

Should you run into wiring questions give me a call ...I am in my WV mountain campsite office this week.

I actually don't mind wiring in new stuff.

From figuring out what needs to be done electrically, through laying it out to be neat and unobtrusive, to the actual soldering and connecting, it can all be kind of satisfying and almost therapeutic in a way. Especially if it all lights up as intended when you finally throw the switch.

It's untangling and making sense of the mess that someone else has created that can bring tears to a grown man.

Hey Alan......   Looks like you left the garage door open....   

Ed....  I know you will have it wired up in no time......   I would like to suggest that you bond in extra ground points under the dash and paint over/seal them .....  The car is looking GOOOOD......

Ed, are you using cloth wire tape to wrap the wires .... it works great and is easy to peel off if you need to access the wires, provided of course you leave areas where the tape is cut.  

Thanks, guys. This is a complete wire harness from Thunder Ranch which came with the kit. It's supposedly tested good but also has some wonky switch gear I'll need to change out and of course the gauges I have are a little different and then there's the Accusump and some other details. So it's sort of half way between DIY and sorting-out the PO's mess. 

Ray I'm wrapping these with a nylon mesh loom that sort of snaps around the wire bundle and then stays put. Easily removable and similar to the OG stuff, though it's the wrong material and black instead of off-white—which I think will look better on my firewall and lashed to my frame rails anyway so I'm leaving it that color.

Also, zip ties. 

Once I get the back end roughed-in I'll get under the dash, and yeah, there will be redundant grounds and grounding lugs in the car. The - side of the battery is getting its own wire all the way back.

With the wires in I'll move on to final body work, placing the mirror, cinching up the windshield and testing the wipers, drilling for the emblems, block sanding, before taking it all apart for paint.

(There are one or two more WTF detail projects I'm planning to do before final-final reassembly, but both could as easily be done after paint, so...)

Sacto has nailed it wrt wiring.  Back in school us MEs had to take some EE classes and labs, and I was the only one on my team that could take the wiring sketches for the lab that we dreamed up, and actually hook the shyt up right.  As to the Speedster, I have lived the nightmare of having to deal with what JPS scrabbled together under my dash. Wires are either white or red, and that's about it. One time, Dealing with reworking my tach so it actually functioned like a tach, when putting all back, I switched the alternator light wire with the instrument illumination wire. Was a pretty big mystery for a while trying to figure out why the dashlights would dim and brighten when running at night and the battery would run down when driving during the day.  You figure it out.

Noticed just the slightest bit of slop in the homemade pedal action and the copper pipe bearing/bushings still had the tiny bit of swage on the end from the tubing cutter, which made me think they'd tend to get sloppier over time. So I bought these nylon bearings from McMaster-Carr and spent some of the weekend re-bushing my pedal set to make them better. 

Did some similar cleanup on the gas pedal action. Re-painted the left two, added a lil grease and popped the covers on, then installed them in the car. 

Ready for final adjustments.

Now they're smoove, baby! Back in the car so I can make the floating floor pattern and knock that chore off my to-do list.

Nice!

Love that rats' nest in upper left of pic.  Some more serious problems await you . . .

Hope those plastic bushings hold up.  Keep 'em greased, lithium based is the ticket, I think.

Floating floor pattern #1.

Looking good!

Thanks! It's close. Might need to shift the pattern about 3/8 to the left.

Frazoo (re the plastic bushing/bearings) These are McMaster-Carr PN 1281N19 rated at 110 pounds at 40 rpm "dynamic radial load capacity," which I have no idea what that means, but 110 pounds sounded like enough for this application.

I bought them to fill the very small gap between the ID of my copper pipe bush and the OD of the bolt/shaft that the pedal rides on, and they do that very nicely. They look a lot like the ones I pulled out of my '67 Nova's pedal set when I changed over from the Powerglide to a manual transmission, and those were vintage 1967 when I looked at them in 1982 and put them back (with a little grease), and they were still working fine in the car when I sold it in 2003.

The EMPI pedal set I scavenged to make these features a steel-on-steel pivot hinge—no bearing or bushing and no grease fitting. I thought my copper idea (plus grease) was an improvement on that, and the new nylon bushings would improve it still more.

And that's about all I know about that.... so:

If you or anyone here knows something relevant to this install and application about the forces a driver puts on brake and clutch pedals, please chime in publicly or privately. I'm keen to learn new things, and  if it's necessary, I'd much rather re-do this now than hear gripes two years from now from some dude who paid me a lot of money.

Re "rats nest:" That's a fresh wire harness with most (not all) of the wires already labeled. But you're right, it's still going to be a pita.

Well, my first thought was “Why not bronze bushings, drilled for grease fittings?  They would last Fo-Evah! 

But then you wrote that Chevy used Nylon bushings on their pedal pivots and those worked OK, so what the hey?  I remember some REALLY beefy clutch pedal effort in a lot of those old Chebys and if they survived, then your Spyder (oops....Can I call it that?) should be just fine.

Rave On, Spydah Man!

Oh, and don’t listen to ALB’s potential advice on that floating floor thingie-jingie.   He’ll try tah get’cha tah drill it fullah holes, fah sure.

(Sorry, Al...)

Gordon Nichols posted:

Well, my first thought was “Why not bronze bushings, drilled for grease fittings?  They would last Fo-Evah! 

That was my first thought as well. 

But then I thought, “you know, he’s out there building a car, and I struggle to wax mine”, so I let it pass. 

Floating floor.

Nicely done, Ed! Isn't it great having access to nice equipment?

And @Gordon Nichols- if you can- why not drill it full of holes?

Stan wrote:    But then I thought, “you know, he’s out there building a car, and I struggle to wax mine”, so I let it pass.    ...and that made me laugh, in a good way:~)

Upholsterer says the seats are coming along.

Meanwhile I've got the floating floor mostly assembled. That's just 1/4-inch birch ply so I stained it, painted the edges then sealed it on all sides with Pelucid

before gluing and screwing the purlins to it. They're seasoned, treated pine so all done shrinking. They got a coat of Pelucid as well, and then one of Minwax Helmsman's spar urethane. I also put a reinforcement "plate" of additional 1/4-inch plywood under the driver's heel. 

Hey!  

Where’d ya get the rubber floor mat material?

Looks superb!

Nicely done on the floating floor!

I made some mats for my car with that same ribbed rubber flooring. I got mine from Lowes.

Amazon. 

Rubber-Cal 03_167_W_FR_04 Fine Rib Corrugated Rubber Floor Mats, 1/8" Thick x 3' x 4' Runners, Black

(I know it's not exactly correct; the original cars had vinyl down there, basically the same as the barber pole stuff on most of the seats. But this is pretty close and it's made to have feet and shoes on it alla time so).

Installed. I still gotta rivet in a couple of little tabs on the front firewall for this to slide under, and I plan to drill a couple holes through the rear corners, tap through the floor with rivet-nuts and use black, allen-head furniture bolts to cinch it down. But...later.

It's not a perfect replica, but not a bad likeness—if I do say so my own self—for an amateur making stuff out of junk. Here's 550-0056's pedals (courtesy Type 550.com)

And mine:

Very nice. 

Ed your pedals look awesome compared to the others

Looks excellent Ed!

Wonderful work, Ed.