Franz, the thunder pumpkin! - SOLD

[namelesswonder]

Yeah...I wasn't home when they finally made it off the car and parts were separated...so I don't think anything is going to match up. =/ A lovely bummer for me. Maybe the baggies have labels, but I doubt it. Time to soak things!

Also, hooray for razor blades on sticks, makes scraping rust and paint off the axles SO much easier.

*edit* The baggies are labeled, will let them soak one at a time so I don't lose track of which is which! Don't know if they're marked as they should be (alignment and all that), will find out when I can see past the grease. Hopefully fusername will stop being MIA soon and I can tell him we're not driving to New Jersey on the 27th (punk show) and could we please weld my floor panel in?

[namelesswonder]

Blah, Fusername claims the axles and joints were labeled for alignment, lies I say! I saw nothing of the sort. Well, it's gone now anyway, axles are cleaned and painted, and joints are cleaned too! That was fun, put the inner part in wrong after cleaning on one of them, but hammers with rubber covered handles are a blessing.


Just a headlight glistening in the fading sunlight? NO, it works now! Not on in the picture, obviously, but my dad and I tested the lights in the front...couldn't get the turn signals to work, but we'll mess with that later this week. Both headlights work! And that one was easiest to get hooked up, so we got to actually turn it on (and I learned how to turn on the high beams heh, can you tell I don't drive much?) Oh, question: how do you get headlight trims to stay on? There's just that one hole for a screw...but I put them on and they just fall forward. Is it because my fenders are stock? Or is there some trick?


New tranny mounts...missing a stupid bolt, but it will be found! Or a new one will be bought. Cleaning out the garage again this week.


Floor panel is in! Fusername welded it in place today, the blinding white thing is a space heater, drying some spray paint over the welds and wire-wheeled metal. The rust on the panel is just dust, no worries. Oh yeah, and nice cleaned and painted pedal assembly, in temporarily so it's out of the way and I feel like we're making more progress.


My dad. He was cleaning out the lock mechanisms in his car ('90 or '91 Ecodiesel jetta), with a plan to dip them in antifreeze. Doors are still really difficult to open.

Plans for the week: clean the garage, organize and find things. Cut up the seat mount (whatever you want to call it), substitute sections with sheet metal and weld in place. Sand floor of car, clean thoroughly and paint. Figure out why we don't get any readings from the turn signal lights, buy some yellow female spade connectors. Test wiring in back of car.

Not in any particular order.^

I can't tell you how excited I was to see that headlight turn on! And the little light on the speedometer that shows the high beams are on. And some red light for the regulator...or generator...or something. But yay! Things work!

[Class 11 streeter]

Oh, question: how do you get headlight trims to stay on? There's just that one hole for a screw...but I put them on and they just fall forward. Is it because my fenders are stock? Or is there some trick?

I can explain what's going on, but a fix will depend on what you want to do. The stock bug metal fender has a lip under the top that the trim ring catches on, and the screw keeps the bottom of the ring in place. I can snap a pic tomorrow in daylight to show what I mean.

Edit: It's tomorrow! Pics:




Your (non-stock) baja fenders don't have that lip to hang the trim ring onto, so you can either:
1. Do nothing, run the lights as is without the trim
2. Drill holes for additional screws holding the trim into the fiberglass
3. Glue the trim rings into place with some kind of RTV (sleezy).......and hope the headlights won't need changing for a while
4. Mount the headlights a different way with buggy style buckets on tabs welded to the beam
5. Fabricate something like the stock setup
6. Sell the baja (most desperate option)

BTW I am probably the last one to say it, but welcome to the board!

[namelesswonder]

Hahha thanks for the welcome and the suggestions. My thought was hooking a wire (not the electrical kind) around the top and then somewhere on the headlight assembly or the "inside" of the fender. Just want something to sort of seal it off.

[mrgizmow]

On my Baja, I purchased some "piano" wire at the local hardware store. The "wire" I am referring to will likely be in a display with foot long sections of small diameter copper, brass, and aluminium tubing (both round and square). I think the stuff is generally used for small hobby projects like train sets and model stuff. Anyway the "wire" is kind of springy and can be bent to form tabs that the headlite trim can catch on. I bent some up and slid them beneath the headlite buckets before I tightened them down. Once in place, I hook the trim over them and secure with the bottom screw. A couple of thousand miles of rought offroad and chrome trim still in place. Good luck and enjoy your project.
Gerry

[namelesswonder]

On my Baja, I purchased some "piano" wire at the local hardware store. The "wire" I am referring to will likely be in a display with foot long sections of small diameter copper, brass, and aluminium tubing (both round and square). I think the stuff is generally used for small hobby projects like train sets and model stuff. Anyway the "wire" is kind of springy and can be bent to form tabs that the headlite trim can catch on. I bent some up and slid them beneath the headlite buckets before I tightened them down. Once in place, I hook the trim over them and secure with the bottom screw. A couple of thousand miles of rought offroad and chrome trim still in place. Good luck and enjoy your project.
Gerry

Ooo wonderful, thank you, I will look into doing that I'm sure. Even though this is a Baja, I want to keep a lot of the classic Bug look. So headlight trims are preferred heh

[namelesswonder]

Lack of resources and various other stresses have gotten me down about Franz recently, especially this evening. I am sure I will feel better soon, once something gets done (test rear electrical tomorrow until my dad's crap battery dies).

So as you've seen, front driver's side just got a new floor panel. Rear drivers is fine. probably best condition of the entire floor panel the car came with. I am very concerned about the passenger's side floor however. There are a lot of little holes all over (and one bigger one that we made bigger with straight edges for patching), though the floor is actually pretty sturdy. Originally, we were just going to patch up that one tear (as in rip)-like hole with some sheet metal (and welding) and then use some sort of fiberglass to patch around the patch. Because we're not perfect and our patches will never fit the holes, and you can't really fill it in with welds.

But where would I find something like that? I don't even know what to call it. Also looking into something that will make my fiberglass (hood and fenders) sturdier. They are very flimsy.

I will put up pictures tomorrow so you can see the extent of the damage to the passenger side floor, but I would really like to hear advice on what is the most cost effective AND long-lasting solution. At this point, I'm willing to forgo purchases for a couple weeks so that I can afford new floor panels.

Another thing. Some sort of seal is needed between the body and the new floor panel. I mean, it's held in by those bolds and some welds...do we need to weld all the way around? Would some sort of caulking be acceptable? I feel like I read that somewhere recently.
*edit* Epoxy weld? Seam sealer? Doing as much research as I can, these are words that have come up. Would a place like Autozone have this?

Tar on the floor? Are you serious? Is that seriously an acceptable thing to stick on your floor panels? I think this is what somebody put on mine, we were scraping it off for a while after we got the car, it locked in moisture something awful. (and didn't seem to preserve the floor panels). Tar?

[mrgizmow]

I think the most straight forward way to strengthen the fiberglass would be to add additional layers. If you just want to stiffen some sections like the wheel wells, I have soaked cotton rope in fiberglass resin and placed it behind the lip of the wheel wells. This has worked fine to minimize the flex but adds little strength because it's just resin that "glues" the rope to the fiberglass. The advantage of the rope is the ease in following the contours of the fender/hood. Good luck Gerry
P.S. All these kind of projects have their good and bad days

[vw505]

Just hange in there, i get burned out on stuff all the time. i got a kit car that i havent seen yet and i'm thinking of reselling it . my rail needs to be done first.
try and get the car to a point where you can drive it around the block a few times. that will get you back in the game.

[namelesswonder]

Okay, feeling better. Still wondering about that tar though, better way to dampen sound? I don't mind having it loud, but it would be nice to be able to hear my music.

More wire testing today, maybe we'll put in the radio, that would be fun (AM radio from fusername's bus, he got an 8 track radio). Maybe starting to cut off the nose. No real science to it, is there. Except, the usual for cutting things: cut less than you think you want. This'll be interesting. Will have to find a new place to mount the horn that doesn't get inthe way of the wheels.

http://www.shopmaninc.com/mat.html I'm a dummy, didn't know what to call it. Can anyone recommend a good place to get some fiberglass matting? I know you guys don't like fiberglass, but I need a way to better seal off those patches than recutting holes and repatching. Pictures of the messy rear passenger side later.

Using some acrylic and silicone caulking for seam sealer, seems good enough, warm enough to do it today also! Paintable, so when I get around to it, I can paint over it.

*edit* Snowing tomorrow? Damn. Well maybe a space heater in the car & caulking. We'll see how I feel, think I'm getting sick.


Yeah...like that lovely patch? Obviously getting redone, but you can sort of see the rest of the holes on the floor panel...easier to just replace with a new one? I've got plenty of sheet metal, but the rusty metal seems to not do well with the welder.


fortunately, front passenger side panel only has that one hole


and the driver's side seat mount needs help. like i said, i've got plenty of sheet metal, we could cut out that side (mostly) and just put in new sheet metal, not sure how well it'd be attached though.

[namelesswonder]

http://www.shoptalkforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=115693
for front nose stuff, don't want to post the pics again. Those pictures are not actually of after everything is bolted, but that's how it looks now, rainy today so I don't feel like taking pics again.

But here's another pic just for the hell of it.

fusername admiring the view

oh umm...the seat mount, fusername and a friend cleaned it up, painted it, welded on a better bottom section to weld it to the floor, the driver's side is now temporarily covered in black rustoleum. No pics 'cause I ran out of paint so it's a bit spotty and the flash would definitely pick that up.

Here's that friend taking out brakelines back in October. She's a cutie. =)

[namelesswonder]

No updates for a while, second semester has started and I don't plan on going home on the weekends quite as frequently.

Fusername gave me a shiny gift that had to be returned: his streetrail's engine. Unfortunately, the exhaust on that engine does not agree with my car, so it it doesn't fit. Anyway, the CVs are back in, with fresh grease and a few stripped bolts. The new clutch cable got stuck going in (made it out the back, stuck inthe bowdoin tube, tried to push it back towards the front of the car and now it's hooked on something under the gas tank), that'll be messed with when fusername gets bored and drops by my house. He keeps threatening to get my car running. I've even got pistons & cylinders now!

Franz is so near completion...er, running, I mean. My dad still hasn't gotten the title in to the dmv/rmv I gotta start bugging him about that, I got the car in September.

[Leatherneck]

Your doing great, appreciate the pictures and work done, oh and pics of girls getting dirty are always appreciated. You know what I mean.

[vw505]

bump, we need updates

[namelesswonder]

Sorry, wish I had updates. Getting hold of fusername is near impossible, he gets back to you when he wants to, makes me sad 'cause he's my best friend and I haven't talked to him in a couple weeks. I'm at school right now, and not going home every weekend anymore (need to try more at school...plus I work on Sundays now). So Franz is chilling, half covered in a tarp, under the snow.

Anyway, things that need to be done, in a list that needs to be compiled better:
-engine (fusername said not to worry about it, that's his domain...still need cylinder heads though)
-engine cage (have an exercise machine to be disassembled, probably need more pipes though)
-pass side floor patch (have a sheet metal patch that needs to be put in
-buy fiberglass mat (found out how much I want and how much resin I need, should order that soon I suppose, fusername has no idea how to do fiberglass stuff either)
-use fiberglass inside on floor patches
-use fiberglass to fix hood and fenders (need reinforcement, hood is really flimsy which isn't good, metal bit attached to springs to raise/lower hood are hardly attached to hood, need to figure that out)
-figure out how/where rear lights are getting attached
-attach rear lights & hook them up
-tuck away wires in front fenders (turn signals & headlights)
-permanently attach driver's side headlight wires (female spades
that are on the wires are too small, not sure what size I need or how to do this otherwise)
-radio/radio antenna
-headliner? (my dad bought me some for Xmas, not sure if I'll do that myself or not, or when)
-repatch/stuff front seats (duct tape!)

First week of March should see some work done and I will post pictures if there's anything decent happening.

General running question: do I need to tarp my car once it has an engine if its going to snow/rain?