Well, I finally caught the car on fire.  Who is the idiot who sprayed expanding foam up into the c-pillar?  I love trying to dig out foam in hidden cavities.  I have to believe it was some jack ass body shop guy who did it.

 I *thought* I got all of it out where I was going to weld in a new patch panel.  I was wrong.  All of a sudden I see a bunch of white smoke and think “smoke… maybe I should stop welding and see what’s wrong,” yep… the car is on fire.  Holy crap!  I bet some welding sparks jumped up in there and started that shit a blazin’.

I did however get some good news this morning.  Scott (of the famous Izzy’s Cages) got my rear control arms finished.  w00t!  We can now slam the bug into a snow bank or dirt burm and not have the arms bend.

Mark and I worked on patching holes in the frame where the heater channels were at. I’m not an expert in working metal, so they don’t look great, but they work just fine.

View the photos of the work.

Since many people are interested in the rally bug build-up, I decided to start up this web page to share with everybody. Feel free to post comments about the teardown, repair, and build-up of our historic 1970 VW bug.

View all of the photos for the bug under the “Photos” page.

View the list of items that needs to be done to our VW bug.

It’s time for another Bug update. John and I got the front axle beam adjusters installed in the last couple of weeks. It was a big pain cleaning out a 30 year old beam with 30 year old crappy grease in it. Yuck! Yet the beam didn’t stand a chance against our super human twin powers. (Twin powers *activate*… create a cutoff wheel).

As always, a photo gallery has been created.

• Beam Painted
• Axle Beam Seam Welded
• Axle Beam Seam Welded 2
• Beam Adjuster TIG 2
• Beam Adjuster TIG

Scott, of Izzy’s cages, TIG welded the adjusters in the beam and MIG welded the seams. I’m very pleased with his work. (Can’t wait til the cage goes in)

We also cleaned under the heater channels and both the front and rear frame heads. (We have a very clean 30+ year old car)

• Heater Channel

This weekend we cleaned the underside of the frame & pans and then painted it all with some silver rust encapsulator paint.

• Paint
• New Steering Box Painted
• Spindles Painted

Ohh and I had a fun time cleaning the rear control arms. Mmmmm… brake fluid mixed with axle grease is delicious.

• Old Rear Control Arm

Scott has the rear arms at his shop to weld in some gussets and box it for strength. Most of these improvements come straight from my buggy book that was printed in ‘77.

Cheers,
Mark

P.S. MJ and Kim, good luck at S*D

Ahhh…. I love the sweet crackle from my mig welder but hate the ringing in my ears from my 4” grinder. I both love and hate seam sealer on the bug. It certainly did its job in saving the metal from rust but it takes so damn long in removing the crap. I finally got the rear parcel deck cleaned so I could do a bit of seam welding. Hopefully John and I can get the front foot wells cleaned so I can weld those seams up as well.

• Rear Shelf
• Rear Wheel Well
• Weld

Another update…

After working on my parent’s room addition to the house we finally got some free time to work on the rally bug. Photos of the bug update are posted.

Front frame all cleaned up. Some seam welding has already begun.

• front frame cleaned

Front suspension cleaned up and ready for paint and new bearings. Springs have been removed and cleaned.

• front suspension cleaned.jpg

Parts off of the front suspension all cleaned up and ready for paint and reinstallation.

• front suspension parts.jpg

Engine and transmission have been removed. We took the engine to the car wash last night and got most of the junk off of it. We’ll be tearing it down and rebuilding it just so the car can drive around. A race engine will come later.

• old engine
• old transmission
• bags of bolts

About 1/2 of the interior has been cleaned down to metal. We’ll be seam welding a lot of the important areas. BTW, I hate seam sealer! (but it did do the job as there is almost no rust)

• inside rear body cleaned
• inside cleaned

With the engine and transmission removed, the rear frame can be cleaned.

• mark cleaning frame1
• mark cleaning frame2

A previous fix. We’ll grind that down and make a proper repair to the area. I can only assume that they got into a rear accident and the right frame broke/bent, thus the need for a plate and tons of weld.

• rear frame existing hack job

More fun to come!!!