Professor Braaap

Crap. Has it really be a year since I’ve updated? I have done some work, though not as much as I wanted. I moved to the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle last August, then spent several months dealing with problems with the Beetle, my daily driver. First I had the super shimmies, which required replacing almost the whole front end, then as soon as that was done, some lady hit me in an intersection 2 blocks from my house, bending my trailing arm, and breaking a CV joint. My insurance said she was 100% at fault, and her’s said I was 75% at fault, which was BS. Basically, they wanted to total out my car, and give me $750 for it, or total it, let me keep the car, and give me $150. I spent less than $150 fixing it myself, so I just said “screw it” and blew them off. It wasn’t worth dealing with. That’s done. On to the Ghia.

Started working on the floor pan yesterday. A PO had patched the rust holes by cutting them out, and riveting plates where the holes were. Part of an aluminum street sign on one side, and what looks like some sheet metal from a van or something on the other, and sealing it up with bondo.

Cut off the rivets, popped them out with a punch, and smacked the patches out with a hammer. Then I ground the bondo off with a wire wheel.

Hadn’t sat in my car for so long that I had to get the driver’s seat down from the shelving and slide it on the rails.

Couldn’t find my steering wheel though.

Time to get some POR15 and welding clamps, and weld my new floors in.

Got my rotisserie just about done this weekend. All that’s left is to figure out wheels for it. I welded the cross members between the two supports a bit too close to the ends to be able to put the casters at the end, so they are about 3 or 4 inches in, which isn’t working out because then it changes the center of gravity, making the rotisserie a bit less stable than it was without wheels. Plus, the base of the casters aren’t strong enough, and they warp when I bolt them on, so I’m working on plan “B” with some bigger wheels that will attach to the ends of the T supports.

A month and a half ago, I quit my job. It sucked, and I had to get out of there, and I was in a situation that I could afford to do it.

I could afford to quit, but not much else until I found a new job.

So last week, I finally started a new job. I’m a sales assistant for a local tool company (which means I get a really steep discount on them :-), and I’m getting payed a lot more than I was at my last job, and it’s closer to where I want to move to by the end of summer. But best of all, I can afford to by Ghia parts again.

A week and a half ago I got a message from Clint. He had a new job at my favorite Ghia house, and he and the boss were coming up for the OSGTG: did I need anything? Hell yea, but, no job = no money.

Two days later, I got the job, so I pm-ed him and put in my order. I got all the floor pans I needed, and the outer rockers. All the big pieces that I will need for a while. (Once I get to work on the body, I’ll need some more pieces, but that will be a bit yet.) So when I got to the GTG, Mike was sitting there with my pile of parts. No shipping, and good thick sheet metal. I’m going to be a happy welder here in a couple weeks. I hung out at the GTG for a while, but I don’t really know anyone there, and I needed a beer, so I went home and got to work on my rotisserie. I had started a couple weeks ago with a bracket that went across the rear arch, but I’ve decided on a much simpler approach like this post so I started cutting steel for a bracket.

My chop saw is okay for making straight cuts, but as soon as you start cutting angles, they start going off kilter. Sill, it went together pretty well, and my welding is getting a lot better. I’ve gone through a lot of welding rod though, so I’ll have to pick some more up soon. I hope to have the body up on it by next weekend.

There will be tubing welding on top of these stands, wheels on the bottoms, and a bar connecting the two. The mounts on the body with have tubes with a smaller inner diameter to fit into the tubes on the stands.

Not really nice, but not too shabby at all.

I good welder really helps (TIG baby!)

Here’s the other thing that sidetracked me over the last month. I got two CB400F Supersports for free. They will make one sweet cafe racer 😉

I haven’t updated any of my blogs in a while, but I have been working on my Ghia. At around this time last month, I accomplished the landmark step of getting the body and the pan separated. I had been waiting for some help to do it, since an easy way is to just have a few people over for beers, and have each grab a corner and lift it off. Since I couldn’t get enough people for that, I built a couple saw horses, jacked the car up as high as I could get it, and slipped boards in between the wheel wells and the pan. Propped up with the saw horses, I was able to lower the pan out from under the body until it was sitting on the ground.

Once the two parts were separate, I was able to see that there was minor rusting in the heater channel, which I should be able to repair but cutting out the bad metal and welding in patches. The rust is in an area that will be impossible to see when the pan and body are bolted back together.

I then took about a week break from working on the car while dad finished insulating and sheeting the inside of the shop. We also got things cleaned up a lot, and there’s a ton more room in there now.

Last week, I decided to tear into the long block that I bought in January. There was a lot of grime in it since it had been sitting outside for a while, but it seems like everything was in pretty good shape. There’s some definite wear, so it will have to be align bored, but the case is only on the first oversize bearings, so it should have plenty of life left.

When I finished tearing mine apart, dad put his up on the work bench. As soon as he popped the valve covers off, we noticed a big problem. One of the push rods was inside the case. After getting everything off and the case apart, we found that a connecting rod had snapped, throwing itself at the lifter, snapping it out of it’s housing in the case. His case was toast, so we have been breaking little bits off and lighting them on fire. On of the unique aspects of the VW case being made of magnesium alloy, is that you can get it to burn pretty easily. It burns with a very hot, very bright white flame. You definitely don’t want to stare at it while it’s burning.

Today, made a simple roller for the front part of the pan, and removed the beam. I got the right side of the beam mostly disassembled. It’s really worn, and I wonder if I’ll be able to re-sleeve the parts I have, or if there too far gone. Goal for this week is to get the beam completely torn down and cleaned up. I don’t know yet what I’ll do for finish. Probably just paint it with POR 15.

I dropped the pan out from under the body today! I had the whole thing up on jack stands, and got boards through the fender wells, then built saw horses to support the boards. Then I just lowered the pan. Probably a lot slower than having 6 friends over to help me lift, but it took a lot less beer. (not that I wouldn’t share or anything…)

Now I have to figure out where to put the body while I work on the pan. I still may need a few people for beer and body moving 🙂

I just got finished welding up the door openings so that when I start cutting apart the rockers, it doesn’t collapse in on itself.

I also have to remove the steering column. There are 4 bolts, but they have pins that don’t want to come out.

These last two are for Zach to show how the tunnel splits, and the transaxle is cradled between the forks.

The engine is only attached by four bolts on the transaxle. There are no other engine mounts.

I hung driver’s side door today. I was kind of worried about it, because there was a possibility that my lock pillar was way out or whack, but the door hangs pretty straight, so I think I’m okay.

Dad and I went to Auburn tonight and picked up some goodies. I got a dual port dual oil relief 1600 engine, a bit of tin, fan shroud, and a generator, and my dad got a single port dual oil relief engine and oil bath air filter for a total of $80.