More Wartburg progress

Adrian_Thompson wrote:

JThw8 wrote:

DeadSkunk wrote: Jumping ahead a little,,,, are you going to use the stock seats? They look kinda cool with that checkerboard pattern in the upholstery.

I do love the stock seats but for a 3000 mile trek they will not be user friendly (I have a messed up back) and for racing at lemons and autocrossing at GRM they will provide no support. I have an old set of Jetta buckets we will throw in for the BABE rally and a Cobra racing seat for Lemons/GRM When all is said and done I may put them back in for cruising but Im not sure they'll even fit with the center tunnel in there now (didnt have one stock)

How about stripping the material off the stock seats and re-covering hte center of the race seat with it for that pimpy old school charm?

Not a bad idea :)

A weak point of the VW setup is the engine and trans hang of a set of suspension forks which must bear all the weight of the setup. Under hard use these can flex and will cause transmission and CV joint problems. The accepted fix for this is known as a Kafer bar (from the Kafer cup racing in germany) It ties together the shock towers and then ties the frame forks to that to prevent flex. A cheap one is $150, a good one is about double. None of that was in our budget so $15 at the hardware store, a little cutting, welding and head scratching and our budget version of a kafer bar. The top bolts can be used to adjust preload on the frame forks. All hardware is grade 8 so it should hold up.

JThw8 wrote:

Adrian_Thompson wrote:

JThw8 wrote:

DeadSkunk wrote: Jumping ahead a little,,,, are you going to use the stock seats? They look kinda cool with that checkerboard pattern in the upholstery.

I do love the stock seats but for a 3000 mile trek they will not be user friendly (I have a messed up back) and for racing at lemons and autocrossing at GRM they will provide no support. I have an old set of Jetta buckets we will throw in for the BABE rally and a Cobra racing seat for Lemons/GRM When all is said and done I may put them back in for cruising but Im not sure they'll even fit with the center tunnel in there now (didnt have one stock)

How about stripping the material off the stock seats and re-covering hte center of the race seat with it for that pimpy old school charm?

Not a bad idea :)

That is a really good idea!

Congrats on the legal news as well!

Sorry for the lack of interesting updates. Most of the progress lately is of the not photo worthy, who cares variety. Or its a buncha cheatonium stuff I cant post pictures of.....just kidding, you'll see it all as it happens.

Mostly just trying to get parts from 4 years across 4 decades to meld together which requires alot of head scratching and parts finding.

For instance, I needed 14mm x 1.5 pitch LEFT hand threaded weldable tube ends....

Get yer googlers ready and let me know what ya find.

I finally got them, from the UK.

The really funny part is even with shipping they were cheaper than the 5/8 right hand thread weldable tube ends I got in the US.

Body goes back on saturday come hell or high water. Absolutely noooo frigging clue where Im gonna put the fuel cell but Im hoping to find some mystery real estate when the body goes on.

Still finalizing steering. Then its on to a cooling system, wiring, engine install, the rest of the fuel system, and bodywork....oh and a cage....yeah, we've got plenty of time......stresss

JThw8 wrote: Still finalizing steering. Then its on to a cooling system, wiring, engine install, the rest of the fuel system, and bodywork....oh and a cage....yeah, we've got plenty of time......*stresss*

Well, you've got all the important stuff done already then. I mean, steering, cooling system, wiring, fuel...those are all minor details.

Just doggin' ya. Keep it up, I'm excited to see this thing come to life (but probably not nearly as excited as you).

Bryce

In reply to JThw8:

sounds like you could use some extra hands still?

bluej wrote: In reply to JThw8: sounds like you could use some extra hands still?

Always could. The whole crew is bustin butt on it but the fact that folks are between an hour and 2 away and we all still have lives makes it difficult.

Everyone's trying to take away "homework" but we're kind of reaching a point where things need to be done on car.

Honesly if it was just a matter of assembling it all I wouldn't stress as much but there are still a few things to figure out and fabricate.

Looks like we are having a good turnout Saturday for body on day. A few GRMers, some BABE rally folks and a large chunk of my local VW club are stopping by so we may get more accomplished than we planned.

But there's also alot that just doesnt require manpower just brainpower, research and parts finding, those seem to be the delays right now.

It will definitely be ready for GRM, its just the June deadline for BABE and Lemons that has me stressed.

Sorry, the mechanical fastener guy is confused - did you say grade 10? That doesn't really exist. Is that someone's marketing jargon for a harder than grade eight bolt? If so, be careful. Harder isn't necessarily better. The primary reason to get a better grade bolt is so you can tighten it more, and put more preload on the joint. Harder than grade eight can get too brittle, plus, I have no idea where you'd find the correct torque for a strange grading like that. Are those metric, maybe? If so, they are 10.9 probably.

Sorry - I'm an engineer and bolts are near and dear to my heart.

tuna55 wrote: Are those metric, maybe? If so, they are 10.9 probably. Sorry - I'm an engineer and bolts are near and dear to my heart.

Yes, sorry, you are correct, metric 10.9 not grade 10. Too many fumes in the garage too little sleep and I just start mixing my terms around too much.

My apologies :)

JThw8 wrote:

tuna55 wrote: Are those metric, maybe? If so, they are 10.9 probably. Sorry - I'm an engineer and bolts are near and dear to my heart.

Yes, sorry, you are correct, metric 10.9 not grade 10. Too many fumes in the garage too little sleep and I just start mixing my terms around too much. My apologies :)

Gotcha - and yes, a class 10.9 is very close to a grade 8. Atta boy, just tighten those things to something close to their proof load now you you're golden. Also, make sure you're not using any silly coatings on the bolts that could cause hydrogen embrittlement. I have seen bolts improperly made at well over 1" shank break from leaning on them because of that wonderful side effect. Black oxide would be my choice, but isn't always available.

I gotta give you guys something so how about a little peek at the front suspension :)

busy day burned hand...just pretty pictures instead

Congrats on a huge step! It's all downhill from here right?

I wish, we just opened up a whole new can of worms. But at least the can is open so we can start to sort it out.

sitting to high IMO

There is a lot of weight still to be added, but we had that same thought. Re-indexing the torsion bars of the rear suspension isn't a fun time, though. We'll see how high it is once we get most of the parts in it and see how tall it is. THe front is good, the control arms will probably end up near level, but the rear is the issue.

Suspension tweaks will wait until the rest of the body is on and the cage is in, no point in messing with it until its seen fully weighted down.

Besides this car still has to survive SR32, so some height will be required.

edit SR32 for those that don't know is a road we take on BABE to get to deals gap. Think of it as Deals Gap dirt stage, just as twisty, more hilly and all dirt and gravel, usually heavily washed out from rain. Much hoonage abounds.

JThw8 wrote:

soooooooo hot....want to touch the hiney

Words cannot describe how cool this thing is. 944 bits and Wartburg bits, it's like two red-headed step children from either side of the wall got together and had a juvenile delinquent.

How much trouble would you get into if you registered it on the same number as your DDR plates and then just drove around with those on the car?

Jay wrote: How much trouble would you get into if you registered it on the same number as your DDR plates and then just drove around with those on the car?

Sadly I dont think they'd even fit the format for our plates in NJ, but its worth considering.

Im keeping the plates on there and just hanging the NJ plates in front when I take it out.

Wow guys, that is REALLY coming along nicely! You guys are doing some amazing work!

Jay wrote: Words cannot describe how cool this thing is. 944 bits and Wartburg bits, it's like two red-headed step children from either side of the wall got together and had a juvenile delinquent.

We actually sat down and figured it out and we have parts from 5 cars across 5 decades in this now

1958 Wartburg 1969 Porsche 911 (steering rack) 1972 VW beetle 1983 Porsche 944 1993 Subaru

And yet somehow most of them fit together quite well, seems the germans all stick to a fairly similar spec.

Video link of the glorious moment

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BES9TGSof6Q

I laughed when I saw the pic of cutting out the floor.....note: the prerequisite bottle of 'fuel' in the corner(the green one)! Looks like you have plenty of "supervision" also.

Awesome, keep the updates coming!