Cabriolets vs tintop structure...

Change my mind...

I hear this all the time, and what makes you think that you can get away with saying that Cabriolet bodies are not as strong as tintop, non sunroof mk1 golfs or rabbits?  Have you ever taken either apart?  Have you ever cut a roof off a rabbit and realized its a 2 man job to move the roof around cuz its so incredibly flimsy?  This is not a 60s or 70s American convertible twisting on top of the same frame as its hardtop counterpart, this is Karmann learning their lessons from the Beetle and building a purpose-built convertible.  How be you sit back and get educated;

Firstly, the cabby has a thicker guage second skin that stretches from behind the headlight, all the way to just ahead of the tailight, passing all suspension top hardpoints.  

Its twice the thickness of any of the rest of the unibody sheet metal, doubles the inner fender panel across the shock tower, gussets the A pillar from just below the windshield down to the inner rocker which is the most evident difference from a rabbit as you can see the reinforcing rocker extend below the car.  Its basically square structural tube, the outer rocker is just for show now, to hold on the clipper kit, that's it.  Then there's a gusset at the B pillar that hoops across the headroom under the roof;  this is what makes the cabby more rigid, the tintops have no link across the B pillar at all, other than a pair of stamped cross members glued to the roof sheet metal, just to keep the roof sheet from flapping.  How many GTI have you scrapped and noticed a little kink in the inner rocker panel (that usually rots out from all the paint flexing off too) just ahead of the B pillar.  Imagine the sides of the rabbit or golf twisting in relation to each other, as they are only held together by a cross member above the rear hatch and across the top of the windshield.  The door latch is doing work it shouldn't be.  If you tell me that the gasketted windshield is aiding structure, then you really don't know these cars at all.  VW even added metal grip tabs under the rubber, to mk1s in 1984, cuz the windshield tended to pop out in a roll over.

front inner fender thru shock tower (Yellow is extra cabby gusset, not present on reg rabbits or jettas)

front inner fender btwn shock tower and firewall (Yellow is extra cabby gusset)

rocker cut just ahead of B pillar (Yellow is extra cabby gusset) Red dotted line is regular rabbit/jetta section

A pillar cut just below top hinge (yellow is extra cabby gusset)

B pillar cut just below striker (Yellow is extra cabby gusset)

"Oh but the Cabby has no hoops around the doors, quarter windows or rear hatch"  Yeah ok, the rear hatch is behind the rear suspension mounts, so it does nothing to overall rear rigidity other than hold the bumper up, with twisting action occurring ahead of it in the susp area.  In addition to the looped B pillar,  the cabby has a hoop across the rear shock towers where the roof attaches too, and um yeah its pretty robust to hold the 6 M10 bolts for the roof attachment.  The hoops around the doors do nothing to the lateral rigidity of the car, same goes for the lack of, on the cabriolet.

Lets move back to the rear shock towers where there's a heavy guage second skin from the floor up to the shock top mount, (you know, the area that separates due to rust from the fender on regular rabbits and jettas) oh and that giant trangular cross bulkhead between the towers, try cutting one of those with a sawzall...its a blade snapper.  Um yeah, the rabbit doesn't have that...it relies on the floor and spare tire well to fight the rear suspension twist.  Rear stress bar?  Cabbys don't need it.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that behind the back seat door panels is an even thicker piece of steel that mounts the rear window winder gear, but also triangulates the B pillar, cross bulkhead and roof mount.

How about the Jack test?  Put a jack under the rocker, mid point of the door of your rabbit and Jack it up!  What happens?  Hmmm, yeah, ouch.... Jack up the cabby same spot....wow, different result.  Which rocker is twisting under load?  How many cabbies have you seen with frame failures due to gravity?  Doors unable to close, even due to excessive rust?  C'mon, tell me its a number other than zero.

This is a purpose built convertible, and shares very little inner body panels in common with the tintop brethren.  In a perfect world, with Project Rabby, I was thinking about melding the inner structure to a rabbit outer skin to make a wicked track car, but garage space came premium when the old bug came home.

Still not convinced?  Then drive one HARD, corner it as hard as you can.  Feel that?  The outside tires are digging in harder.  That's good structure that your tiptop doesn't have without significant upgrading with stress bars, roll bars and inner rocker reinforcement.  No? Not convinced?  Then prove me wrong with facts, not conjecture based on an assumption that Cabbys are for women and therefore not masculine enough to be structurally superior...

Nothing gets wasted!

 One of the things you find when you are in an automotive 'circle' is the turnover of people who buy a certain type of car (in our case a VW) but after a few years get out of the hobby, mostly thru external life changes.  In reality, their love for certain era VWs has been thru a need for cheap transportation, that evolves into something more.  But by the time they can afford something better, they move on.  Most of them do.

In my case, it's been a doctrine since birth, having come home from the hospital in a customized '66 beetle

and you can blame me of alot of things, but VWs have been woven into my DNA. 

There have been many people come and go, and Shawn B was one particular guru in the VW scene of the late 90s and early 2000s, he's out of it now.  A couple summers ago I picked up one of his many wayward VWs for a basic part out.

The US rabbit chassis I affectionately called Rabby, cuz for a while I was thinking I could put the hardtop body onto a cabby chassis... it never happened due to the Superbeetle coming back.  So I cut out pretty well every usable part; the front clip went to Andrew for his red Caddy;

The rear quarters went to my brother for his 84 GTI build;

The roof has gone onto the GLI build;

And the list goes on, H&R springs sold, hubs sold, and the doors are in my hoard for now (still can't decide which doors are best for the GLI)  Nothing gets wasted!

So to go back to the original thread about the turnover of VW fans of the mk1s (or beetles) it is definitely waning.  Because both the classic bugs and mk1s are no longer cheap transportation, its only a matter of time before they move into obscure practical classics.

In my case, the purchase of a house in 2005 (with a garage) was the catalyst to keep my VW collection-ing alive.  It makes it very difficult to keep these old cars alive without a means to work on them, like a garage.  If you are living this hobby out of a self storage locker, it doesn't take long when the rent eclipses the value of these vehicles, in fact if left long enough, rent could obliterate a Ferrari's value!

I know, what's my point...well I'll be 50 in 2 years, and can see myself waning in this hobby as well.  The push of finishing these 2 projects is well on their way and I hope to have them done by then.  There will be a massive dump of parts, and I'm contemplating to even move to a house with a smaller garage and definitely a smaller driveway!  I know that if I am left with alot of extra room in my driveway and garage I'll bring another wayward VW home.  Its in my DNA...

Getting a lot done!

 There's been beaucoup movement on both fronts.  Firstly, on the GLI I filled in alot of the hack-n-slash holes in the firewall and raintray.  Take a look at the 'questionable' hydro clutch hinge point.  'Mount Weld'  Ahem... it was just blobbed to the bottom of the raintray to the left of the column.  Should have been a bolted in bracket with a sheer plate and some bushings.  Looks like something Rick Sanchez would clone!  Into the scrap bin with ya!

The engine is back in!  It's been awhile and I forgot is goes in from the bottom! (note paint chips on bumper strut)

The other holes patched, need to reweld in the fuse block mount as it was removed.  A pillars still not done yet. (to get access to raintray)

On the Superbeetle front, lots of progress!  Chassis painted, rack bracket welded in, brakes plumbed and bled, and just waiting on some 1/4" fuel line and front chassis parts to hopefully go back on 4 wheels by October!!  

Found an old progress photo from 1993! (there weren't many)

Event Horizon

 e·vent ho·ri·zon

/əˈvent,ēˈvent həˈrīzən/

Learn to pronounce

noun

1. • a point of no return.

     
     

   
   

This is where I am with the bug.  The point where there is more metal than rust.  It has been a good summer in basicly covid self-imposed lockdown to get alot done!

All the rot is now cut out, the firewall didn't fit worth a damn as it looks like klokkerholm took a shortcut and welded a standard beetle 2nd skin to a superbeetle firewall sheet.

Just a bit of needlegunning and wirewheeling on the pan and we should be able to get the pan back in PERMANENTLY!

And to my surprise, Canadian Tire actually had Chevy Bright Aqua colour match!  It's a 25 year old colour! Was so stoked to find it!

No movement on the GLI front, but I hope to have the beetle back on at least it's back tires so I can finish the front steering and welding in the spring and jump back on the GLI next year.  Looking to move in 2025ish so she has to be done by then!  That's it for now!

GLI Neglect...

 Ok, where did the GLI go?

It's still patiently waiting for finishing the A pillars in the garage.  The Superbeetle is much closer to getting completed, as it needs no interior or bodywork/paint.  Just structural frame body work.

Here's a look at the old...NASTY framehead rot....here's an example of where the reinforcing piece that bolts to the front is actually doing its job!

Firewall is garbo....drivers pan is gonzo...

So, brace it up and cut it out!

I Zee cut the framehead out at the spine, I wish the Colorado cutoff I got was 6" longer, as the joint underneath  is a bit thin with rust.  I cut it at the pedal cluster hole just for ease of not cutting any of the cable tubes inside the tunnel, and using the pedals themselves to help line things up.  I probably took the new framehead on and off 20 times just to make it all line up perfect.

With the pan out, in all honestly, it's not too bad panwise.  The pass side pan is actually in awesome shape.  I have a klokkerholm front pan section for the left side I got for $25 so in the heavy-budget-minded premise of this restoration, I'd rather fork that out than $700+ for new pans.  Maybe in the future, but who am I kidding.  I'm not that motivated....

When I moved into this house 11 years ago, I found 2 quarts of old formula grey Tremclad, so being so cheapass, decided to give them a good stir and pour it out on the pan.  That should work for the interior, I'll get some proper Eastwood chassis paint for underneath.

Now to turn my attention to my rather unorthodox idea for steering.  The steering box setup is shot, and I always thought it was the dumbest idea, (like most of the SB front susp geometry) an inner fender mounted box and idler with 6 balljoints of connection to the wheels. WTF VW?!?  If you look at the superior VW 411/412 front suspension in 1968, you will scratch your head as to why VW removed some components for the SB front susp design.  Anyway, I was looking at around $500 work of work to resurrect.  So I thought, may as well use some of my rabbit racks, and while the idea was cool, the rabbit is rear (of pivot) steer, and superbeetle is front steer.  SO that meant I couldn't use my racks, or even an Iltis rack I had on hand, cuz they were reversed.  So dismayed, I checked out RHD racks online for shits and giggles.  It turns out they are not rare in the UK, and relatively cheap. (one would argue cheaper than new LHD racks) so for around $180 to my door, I have a RHD rack that will mount (eventually) to the top of the frame head ahead of the wheels.  I will have to cut out some of the spare tire well, but who gives a f^ck about that on a weekend cruiser.

Now to flip it up on its side to needle gun the bottom...hope to have her back on the road for Sept.... fingers X'd.  There's the GLI in the back...waiting her turn!

Tach'y goodness!

 Cool or Tach'y'?

So I've been toying in my head the idea of using Rabbit parts to make up the front suspension in the superbeetle.  Mostly for economic means because I have all kinds of rabbit/jetta suspension parts in my hoard.  Disc brake conversions are $500+ and um, no.  With the replacement of the SB front control arms to post 1974 types, the balljoint will be situated just like that on a rabbit, pointing up (once you replace the stock SB balljoint with a 944 one from CSP)  But in doing all of this, the cable style speedo driver hole disappears, due to the tranny drive in the rabbit.  But with the myriad of GPS speedos available now, this shouldn't be as much of a problem as first thought, except that no one makes (an affordable) GPS speedo 4.5" in diameter to fit the beetles speedo hole, so there's a problem...except....

GPS speedos are typically 3.5" diameter, so it should go nicely to the left of the speedo now, and a couple 2" gauges to the right, like a BATT and OIL PRESS from, again, the Jetta parts hoard...see a trend here?

I've always liked the Porsche 914 centre tach, which is 4.5" in diameter, but for some reason, people have been pricing these used tachs like they're 911 parts, with unserviceable junk well over $100!  And that still doesn't solve the gas gauge which is absent on the 914 tach....so how 'bout we build our own using an old VW speedo?!

I have an old Equus 3.5" tach in the parts hoard, picked up gawd knows where, that might work.  Dissection shows that both the VW speedo guts and Equus tach guts have similar size and depths, that can easily be fixed with spacers/washers.  Ding!

Both pointer needles are press on, should be modifiable with styrene tube and wire size drill bits.... Ding Ding!

And the old Equus 3.5" face will nicely cover the old face screw and odometer holes on the VW face....Ding Ding Ding!  We have a winner!

Now you might be thinking, 'hey Einstein, you're not going to be one of those dorks that put vinyl stickers for numbers on your repainted face?'  Nope.  I have a small side hustle making waterslide decals, so coming up with the artwork and getting white printed decals is no sweat.

So this should get me all my idiot lights, turn sigs, and fuel gauge.  Font matches the GPS speedo, and the look is similar to the 914, but most importantly, I get my 4.5" tach for under $100!

Face is done, just need to get some longer screws and washers for the proper offset inside the enclosure...

Almost done!  Just put aside for a bit.  My 924 front spindles are stuck in the US until the covid BS is over with...