'73 Beetle chassis swapped w/ a '90 Miata - seemed like a good idea at first

I’m really not following you on the height. 

If the tires are hitting the wheel arches, who cares?  You are adding fender flares. Cut the arches. 

The “rightness”  of the height has to do with the relationship between the rockers and the wheel hubs, and how the wheels fill the wheel wells (but the wheel wells are irrelevant right now, because you are adding flares).

I’m pretty sure you’ve got the look already, but you haven’t posted a picture with a decent side view (straight on). Show us a picture and get some feedback. 

OK, just went back and read that the Miata might be lowered already. I would make it a priority to figure out if it is.  Pretty sure that with some pics of the shock/springs some of the guys here could tell you what is up or down. 

How is your line of sight out the window when you are in the seat?

And what dash are you planing on using? The Miata dash is going to  fill in a lot of that door aperture.

Pete

TurnerX19 said:

Consider raising the seat position relative to the Miata. Pete has headroom issues with the Molvo that do not exist within the Volkswagen wrapper.

I have and I will :)

Problem is that the Miata steering wheel is not adjustable up or down. Which wouldn't be an issue if I made a custom dashboard. I wonder how hard it would be to add an adjustable steering column?

SVreX said:

I’m really not following you on the height. 

If the tires are hitting the wheel arches, who cares?  You are adding fender flares. Cut the arches. 

The “rightness”  of the height has to do with the relationship between the rockers and the wheel hubs, and how the wheels fill the wheel wells (but the wheel wells are irrelevant right now, because you are adding flares).

I’m pretty sure you’ve got the look already, but you haven’t posted a picture with a decent side view (straight on). Show us a picture and get some feedback. 

This is the best I got, you'll have to use your imagination a little. I wouldn't rather not add fender flares if I don't have to. I might do something like this though. 

[edit] But you can watch the video! That will surely help visualize the problem. :) https://youtu.be/3dNXEARo6bo

NOHOME said:

OK, just went back and read that the Miata might be lowered already. I would make it a priority to figure out if it is.  Pretty sure that with some pics of the shock/springs some of the guys here could tell you what is up or down. 

How is your line of sight out the window when you are in the seat?

And what dash are you planing on using? The Miata dash is going to  fill in a lot of that door aperture.

Pete

If I can't use the Miata dashbaord, I'll at least use it as a starting point for something custom. Yeah, it will cover the window cranks, Joe_Mama ran into that problem too. He put in electric windows, problem solved! I might have to do the same.

Here's the shocks and springs:

Here's the MX5 the day I brought it home:

So it's gotta be lowered, right? Just a little, not a lot. Yeah?

The suspension is horribly stiff for the street. Maybe I can swap in some stock struts? IF it needs to be raised and I don't know yet.

[edit] Ok I did a little reading and I need to replace the struts asap. They're the cause of the horrible ride quality, not the track tires aired up to 50psi like I thought. Rockauto to the rescue!

I of all people hear you on wanting to leave the body envelope stock. To me its the main course for the project and I am on a very fine line when it comes to getting away with it. Wel see once I hit the road.

The thing that come from doing this is that once you have done a chassis swap, the audacious bar gets raised to where nothing seems like its too hard.

IF you must augment the space for tires, you have a huge advantage in that both the front and rear fenders are single layer tin. If you make a vertical slice at the top of the arch, and a long horizontal one along the body line, you can stich in some tin along the body line that will give you a nice coke-bottle sweep. No real fancy metal shaping, just welding and filler to smooth it at the end.

In reply to NOHOME :

Plus One on the fender mods

Remind me again why I need the fenders to cover the wheels?

Nothing wrong with this if you ask me:

Or this

Ok ok I'm mostly kidding... mostly.

mannydantyla said:

Remind me again why I need the fenders to cover the wheels?

Nothing wrong with this if you ask me:

 

This thing gives me wood 

I'm just entertaining myself with all of this talk about stance and wheels. This is the fun part, this is the part where I get to design a car. 

It seems to me that I have a few options:

1. fender flares
2. lifted and/or cut fenders
3. tiny wheels
4. wicked camber #stanceiseverything

So I used some of the skills I learned in elementary school and made this collage. 

The line between really cool and total abomination is not very thick.

Ok I've had my fun, play time is over, I'll get some 24" wheels (23" is too small IMO) and add fender flares as needed. Something sensible, for once in my life. I guess that was the original plan, after all.

This is what I'm really after:

New video is up on the tube: https://youtu.be/3dNXEARo6bo

Been watching the vids and have to say thanks for posting those. You have no idea how good it feels to be the guy watching rather than the guy trying to figure this out on the fly.

Regarding the dash mounts. Mine had to go also. You can see the mounts I made welded on to the a-pillar

The arow shows the path for the cable driven wipers. The wipers were a major PITA with this build since everything had to clear the HVAC tower.

Ended up with a cable driven system.

Sorta mounted in the same hole where the factory one mounted, but turned 90 degrees. If I had more ambition, I would do some machining and adapt the kit to use the Miata wiper motor so that the wires were plug and play.

Man... I disappear for a while, and now body swaps seem to be the norm. LOL 

Subbed to your YouTube channel as, like Pete, I find it much more amusing to watch other people stuggle through this part. 

I think I'm starting to realize exactly how lucky I got with how closely my 2 donors floor pans were. 

So what is this, like the 5th/6th wagon body swaps on the forum? 

Contrary to our colleagues, I totally agree with you about it being too low. Mostly, because it's going to drop more as it's still missing several hundred pounds of parts that will undoubtedly squat it further. 

I remember rolling my bare donor chassis around with like 10+" ground clearance, now that the wagon body is on it it sits lower than what is practical for a rural Texas street car. LOL

In reply to Crackers :

But if it squats due to weight, he can always use stiffer springs to bring it back. Remember that what is "low" at this point is only the body. The chassis still has full suspension travel and full ground clearance.

And by the way....where you at with your project?

Pete

NOHOME said:

The arrow shows the path for the cable driven wipers. The wipers were a major PITA with this build since everything had to clear the HVAC tower.

Ended up with a cable driven system.

Sorta mounted in the same hole where the factory one mounted, but turned 90 degrees. If I had more ambition, I would do some machining and adapt the kit to use the Miata wiper motor so that the wires were plug and play.

And you used the kit from Specialty Power Windows, right? Which kit did you get?

I wonder if I should do the wipers now while I still have easy access. I really need to hurry though. I'm budgeting myself 6 weeks MAX to work on the project before I have to shelve it for a while. And I really really want to get it driveable before then. Certainly not daily driveable, just driveable. At least enough to drive it up onto a trailer... with all the body parts attached...

Crackers said:

Man... I disappear for a while,......

Where, and how you been?  I'd love an update on "Uncle Ben"  & Welcome back

In reply to NOHOME :

It's probably a little of both.

Uncle Ben hasn't been touched since I reworked the wiper mechanism in like May. I've been a bit of an unmotivated sad sack since my work trailer was smashed by a hit-and-run driver that same month. 

Plus, my accountant warned me I probably won't fair well under our new tax code so I'm in a spending freeze until I meet a stranger in the Alps. 

Even though I put in over 20 hours consistently on this project every week, sometimes it feels agonizingly slow. Like this week. I've been cleaning up all the edges, treating all the rust, stripping paint and rust from where things will get welded together, everything I need to do now while the two bodies are separated and I have access to them. I've coated much of the bottom 12" of the Type 3 body with POR-15 (after treating the rust). Patched some rust holes, patched shut the large engine-cooling-air vents in the rear, sprayed everything with weld through primer, seam sealer, etc. 

One interesting repair was to fix the passengers' side lower door hinge mounting plate.

It was completely rusted and broken, it actually wasn't supporting the passenger side door at all. I cut it out, welded in some 16-gauge steel with lazy lap welds, then made a new door hinge mounting plate out of ~12 gauge steel that was cut off of an old bed frame (I've heard that bed frames are made out of the worst steel, but I had no problem welding it). There's no caged nut-strip like what the other three have, so the door will have to be put on before the passenger side fender. I don't think that should be a problem. 

Yeah I know the welds aren't pretty but this is a git-er-done type of affair. 

I also welded on a strip of 22-gauge below the windshield to have something to bolt/weld/fasten to. What that will be I'm not sure yet, I'll cross that bridge when I get there, but this was 1000x easier to weld in place now because I was able to access it from below. And it will leave me with enough room to install some wiper linkage.

I'm almost out of sheet metal, but I still have enough to do the rockers in 18 gauge. Several months ago I bought one 3'x6' sheet of 18 gauge and one 3'x6' sheet of 22 gauge. Maybe next time I should get all 19 or 20 gauge. What do you think?

Almost ready to perminantly weld the two chunks of metal together.

Been thinking a lot lately about wheel fitment and fender flares. Here's some motivation:

I like 20ga for body. 18 is pretty heavy and I always blow through 22.

mannydantyla said:

Almost ready to perminantly weld the two chunks of metal together.

Been thinking a lot lately about wheel fitment and fender flares. Here's some motivation:

 

I’m going to need a room to myself and a few hours.  

A little photoshop fun. Normal on top, chopped and raised fenders on bottom

Just going to leave this here...

so it could look really good or really bad, depending on the application and wheels.

Steel gauge really depends on how you're working it.  

If you're mostly doing simple bending or shrinking 20ga will work, but it gets too thin if it needs to be stretched or EW'd a lot. 

19ga is what I prefer if you can get your hands on it (no one around me will even order it for me.) but I usually opt for 18ga over 20ga. 

Perfect metal is 19 gauge for old cars. Good luck finding it. I use 18 cause it holds it shape in the face of welding and makes for solid panels.

Cant recall off hand which kit I ordered, it was a universal from what I recall. If you are a penny pincher, keep in mind that all brit cars used this kind of mechanism from the factory. I installed it after the shell was welded on, but before I buttoned up the cowl.

There are similar style kits on ebay for much less than I paid for the kit I bought but since I took an endorsement from JumperK (if I recall) and went with the more expensive kit from Specialty Power Windows.

Pete

Thanks again Pete and everyone else as well, you guys are great!

I'll have pics soon, but I have the two chunks of metal welded together now. The rear wheels stick out 0.75" and the front about 0.25" (not able to bolt the front fender on yet so it's just eyeballed). The tires on there now are 195/60r14 so fairly wide. With a set of the MINI cooper 7-hole "holies" that are 15x5.5 and +48ET, I can run a set of 165/70r15 tires [edit: that tire size only exists in fantasy] for an overall I would gain 18mm (0.7") of extra fender clearance [edit: 13mm or 0.5" with 175/65r15 tires which actually exist]. Which might be just enough clearance with a little fender rolling!

Does anybody know if these cheap ebay fender rollers are any good? https://www.ebay.com/itm/Fender-Roller-Tool-Reforming-Extending-Wheel-Arch-Roller-Flaring-Heavy-Duty-Blue/152903323646?_trkparms=aid%3D555018%26algo%3DPL.SIM%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D56426%26meid%3D90094da6feb7442d8a50aeddae644b70%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D3%26rkt%3D12%26mehot%3Dpp%26sd%3D183519615391%26itm%3D152903323646&_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851

$40 instead of $200 for the one from Eastwood

As for the rims, I can dig the look of the MINI cooper holies, especially if they're painted black. 

The computer I'm on now doesn't have photoshop, but they would look a little like the below image which are of Porcshe 928 Teledials. 15" in the front and 16" in the rear.

But I'm also exploring the option of steel rims, baby moon hubcaps, and white wall tires. It might be tricky to pull off the right look, though. The old Miata 14" steel rims look exactly like the 15" VW rims, with those rally-style slots in them. But all modern steel rims have holes and the shape isn't quite the same, plus it would be hard to fit the hubcaps.

Would not want it to look like this:

However, with hub cap clips, the right set of hub caps, and a set of smoothie rings from Deano's Smoothies, it could work. But it would be trial and error to see if the smoothie rings could fit on modern import steel rims. 

It's really a shame that the offset on these are +15ET: https://www.wheelvintiques.com/fiat-500-smoothie.html. And I called them and asked if they could build a custom wheel like that with more offset but they said that was the maximum offset. 

Or I could go for the tuner look with the 16x5 Scion rims: