1975 Super Beetle Project

[Baxsie]

For a long time, we have known that this car had the dreaded (foam of death) rust in the right rear quarter. Here is a pic just after the initial pressure washing:


We marked what we thought was a good margin around the rusty area, and used the cut-off disk to remove it:


The metal there is in such sad condition. Depressing really. We had already removed much of the death foam from this area, removing this panel exposed even more stubborn bits:


We had some donor quarters from a 1968 that was destined for the crusher. They are factory fresh inside, clean primer, no rust at all. And yes, they also have the foam, but it is the kind that tears like good french bread, not the crunchy kind. No rust even where the foam was in direct contact. So at this point, I think the kind of foam the factory installed is much more important than whether there is foam at all. Or maybe the donor car lived its life in the desert:


After triming, the panel fit nicely:


Here is where we discovered a bit of a problem. Even though we cut all the perforations out, the metal where we welded in the patch was still very thin, and tended to blow out badly, or get punctured by the body hammer. So we ended up with a lot of small weld patches, and the attendant warpage. In the end, I think it will be OK and the body filler is not at all thick, but If I had to do it over I would have gone for a significantly larger patch:


Inside the fender well, we transitioned to a lap seam, welded font and back:

[Baxsie]

The front quarter panel had suffered some collision in its history, and then perhaps suffered more as that damage was repaired. They had pulled the panel with one of those screw puller things, so the panel was perforated at many points. The original seam had been repaired with some brazing:


The trouble with this old repair was that the entire panel (and door post?) had been pressed in and then the panel had been brought out with a thick layer of bondo. This made the seam much shorter than it should have been. Some time ago we pulled the front quarter panel back to the original profile using the seam as a clamping point. This worked OK, but did more damage to the seam:


We cut a small strip of metal, clamped it in place and welded:


Then ground and sanded:


Here is a closer shot of the lower joint:


We then shot the bare metal with 2K epoxy primer, ready for sandable primer and filler as needed:

[Bad Bug Two]

[Baxsie]

The piece of tin that sits in front of the pulley had some small cracks in it. On top of that, we added a hole in it for the crank trigger sensor, which further weakened it:


We formed a welding rod to be reinforcement:


My son brazed it into place, then we bead blasted:


Hopefully that will stop any future cracking.

[Baxsie]

We tacked the tailpipe to the muffler:


And tacked a brace between the flange at the head and the muffler:


Then my neighbor welded them up nice:



The tailpipe loops around very close to the collector, so we welded a brace between them so they would not rattle:


Where the stainless steel pipe is welded into the flanges, there is some incontinuity:


We decided to use the TIG and stainless rod to fill that in. This is a picture of the second pass at the welding, the first has already been ground down:


We used a burr on a die grinder to smooth the welds inside the pipe, and a belt sander to flatten the flange. Then a quick bead blast:

[Doodoob]

Cant wait to see you all cruising around! Looking good.

[Baxsie]

We are trying to come up with a good way to mount the Sanden Scroll Air Conditioner compressor. About the only good, beefy mounts available are the generator stand studs. The front set of studs already has the MST belt tensioner under it.

Our plan is to make a bracket out of aluminum, generally simple shapes cut to fit together then welded.

We made a CAD model of the parts:

The green part represents the base of the MST tensioner bracket. The blue piece is a mirror of that bracket created to go on the front generator stand studs.

The bright red part is a "C" channel that will fit over two of the compressor's mounting bosses.

For prototyping, we printed plastic parts using PLA on the company's MakerGear M2 printer:


A quick mock-up of how the parts would go together:


Here is the way the belt would be routed, and the position of the compressor. The blue is tape used to hold the plastic parts in position:






The prototye let us find out that the bracket cannot be completely welded and then installed, there is no way to get it around the generator stand. So we will come up with a 2-piece design, and give that a try.

Our hope is that the beefy aluminum will be strong enough. After some practice welds on aluminum, I think we will want to hire out the welding to a pro.

If the bracket is not strong enough, we may have to grab the mounting ears on the other side and bring some strut down to the case. Maybe the distributor clamp stud. Not much in that area.

[Baxsie]

Went back to the drawing board and fixed up the design. Rather than several flat parts cut to interlock and be welded, we decided to go with a 2-piece CNC design. We used the MakerGear M2 to print out the prototype in red PLA:


Here is the prototype mounted to the block, still don't have the correct length studs:



The plastic model is not particularly strong, and the compressor weighs 15 pounds, so I was not sure if it would hold the weight. Surprisingly, the plastic held up very well:


Part of what allows this to work is not having a distibutor or mechanical fuel pump. I'm working with TheDubShop on getting an early version of their MiniCamSync. In theory it would fit in there:


The alignment looks good, with the belt one notch back on the compressor pulley.



There is some clearance between the fan shroud and the compressor:


Next up will be trying to find a CNC shop that can make it for a reasonable price.

[Baxsie]

I started to wonder if the orientation of the AC compressor was critical.

I was not able to find a definitive answer, but after poking around a bunch, I decided that we had better put the oil fill plug on the top!

Have a 3d model built:


The first of the new parts is printing now in fantastically sexy transparent green:


We will have to test fit these up and tweak them . . . then off to be machined from aluminum.

[project_dog]

wow. Great work. Plus nice 3d printer.

[Baxsie]

[project_dog]

what about your disturber?

[Baxsie]

[Bad Bug Two]

[Baxsie]