The Fake Jaguar Thread

Ulu · Jul 18, 2024

Squaring everything up again, with string, long rulers, big squares, little plumb bobs, and tape.

I had to trim things twice before I could line it up well enough to tell anything.

Looks like this 3/8” “sliver” trim will get things square. It might all still need to get a bit shorter.

I believe that I calculated the steel tunnel at the crossmember will need 1/2” trimmed off, But I can’t recall if that was from the long end or the short end of the floor, because it’s not square.

Ulu · Jul 20, 2024

Today I am down to the part of my chassis mods that I have dreaded.

In order to trim the floorboards I have to assemble the weldment and then mark the interference points and then disassemble it and then trim.

Then I have to do the whole thing again and again: disassembling and trimming, and assembling and marking, until I get the whole thing to fit.

The good news is that after several rounds of this it is almost in alignment.

Just a few more trims and it will be ok.

Ulu · Jul 21, 2024

Well after five more trims, I figure I still only have about 10 to go now.

I’m at that point where I’m chasing dimensions in a circle, trying to make everything come out all at once.

A tiny little deviation at one point in the floor pan can throw the rail off a whole inch at the back end.

Everything is difficult to measure and I was planning to build myself a trammel to help take care of that. It hasn’t happened yet however.

Ulu · Jul 23, 2024

I am having great difficulty making the cross corner measurements on my chassis. I need to get this car square.

So I have decided I could build a trammel and I did. Over 12 feet long.

It’s difficult to photograph. Also crude. No micrometer adjustments. A sliding pointer:

I find that My car is off over 1/2” from corner to corner. (I thought it would be much worse!)

I need to take some more diagonal measurements, but everything thing else is pretty much possible with a tape measure.

Then, Back to the marking and trimming.

GeePig · Jul 23, 2024

!/2" is not bad, many production cars used to be within 1".

I remember when I built my 3-wheel Lomax, once I got the chassis square it was then a problem to fit the fibreglass body...

Ulu · Jul 23, 2024

GeePig said:
!/2" is not bad, many production cars used to be within 1".

I remember when I built my 3-wheel Lomax, once I got the chassis square it was then a problem to fit the fibreglass body...

I do think this might be a problem that the body has taken a set over the years and will be slightly twisted and banana shaped.

Maybe I will have an excuse to cut the whole car through the passenger compartment and add 2 inches to the wheelbase.

This car steered pretty straight & when I originally measured it out it was only off about a half inch then. But it wasn’t stiff.

Ulu · Jul 23, 2024

BTW, still assembling and disassembling.

I forgot to take the rear heater control tubes out of the tunnel. So today I have strip it down in order to get in there. Plus, I decided it was time to finish cleaning inside of the tunnel and shoot some paint in there.

Ulu · Jul 25, 2024

I had to back off from my chassis setup, to address several minor chores, which I have foolishly neglected.

I dressed off the ragged end of my clutch cable guide tube & patched it out with solvent and paper patches. It took about 3doz times before it was clean enough.

There you can see the raggedness around the accelerator cable guide, which still needs dressing.

The VW tunnel has a rat nest of shift rod, fuel line, and 10 control cable guides. I only need the parking brake, clutch, gas & fuel. The six heater cable guides needed to go. In the photos, two are already cut out.

There is a notch at the arrow, where I have nearly cut these 2 tubes loose at the welds.

The same bracket holds the parking brake cables you see, so I had to to go carefully.

I used my Pakistani Sawzall to reach in and cut these 4 tubes loose.

By hand. This was tedious, but accurate. The genuine Milwaukee blade made it happen.

The other tube ends were welded thru the tunnel & I have one drilled free. One I have cut loose from the other end of the tunnel, by reaching inside, with a mini tubing cutter.

It was about 112F in the boatyard, and I had to quit before those 4 tubes were all removed.

Ulu · Jul 25, 2024

I got all 4 remaining tubes out of the tunnel. I was glad to see them go. They didn’t leave willingly.

The welds were larger on the 2nd set. I made an improved saw which eased the cutting somewhat.

The top welds were solid, but the bottoms were very weak or just plain missing.

They were solidly welded in pairs, and so they will remain.

Once I broke them loose, I had to hook them with a heavy wire.

Then I drew the pairs out with a small slide hammer.

It took a little knocking, because they had to straighten up somewhat to clear the tunnel.

Wow…..look at that room! Now I can finally clean this mess up.

Eventually I must get the brake line and new fuel line in here, but first some serious rust abatement.

Ulu · Jul 26, 2024

Today I finally got the accursed shifter rod out of the VW tunnel.

The rod was shortened with a steel slug welded in. On one side only. ;(

Clearly this was done while the rod was inside the car, perhaps because they had already assembled it all too far. The whole front suspension suspension adapter would have had to come off to get to the access port on the front of the VW frame.

Or maybe they made it too long and had to mod it so the car would shift correctly. Who knows?

The good news is that I have a new bushing and this good German rubber coupler assembly.

Once the shift rod has been removed you can see even more clearance inside the tunnel.

Also you see this little gun site which is where the plastic shifter bushing is supposed to remain. Because of the lumpy welding arrangement it simply could not happen and that was that.

Looking inside from the back of the chassis I can see that there really is very little rust on the bottom of the tunnel floor.

It is only superficial rust because of this drain hole that let the water run out back here. This is looking really good.

After all of the vacuuming and hose washing and air hose blowing and more vacuuming and turning this thing practically on its head, I was very surprised to see that there are still some remains of mice nests inside the car.

This is probably stuff that was caught in the seams, and I vibrated it loose when I took a pneumatic muffler chisel to the steel.

Ulu · Jul 26, 2024

Here you can see how much more I had to saw off of the left side of this bracket. The right side was very easy by comparison, and the improved design saw made a great difference in the amount of time and effort required to do the left.

I didn’t clean out the parking brake cable guides yet. This is my best time, as they are clearly filthy, and only to get dirtier as I clean the tunnel for paint.

Once I paint this and flip it over there will still be some welding on the tunnel so there will be touchup paint at some point.

I will not have to put any of this back together for a long time.

Ulu · Jul 27, 2024

The plastic bushing is like a grommet with a wire clip. About $3 each. I bought a new one last year. This clip was too tight & the plastic was split long years ago.

The area under the bushing was pretty rough. Here I have burnished it mercilessly.

It will be OK with some grease.

Not only was this welding awful, it didn’t make the rod strong. It was quite crooked here and yet it straightened up way too easily. That’s what happens when you put all the welding on one side.

I ground off the blob neatly, straightened it in the vise, and drilled for 8 plug welds into the slug.

Much straighter now and 20x stronger.

Ulu · Jul 28, 2024

I made that shifter rod as straight as I could. Then I saw a photograph of a stock one which has a dog leg or joggle in it.

Somebody said the joggle is to clear the parking brake mounts.

But this isn’t a shortened pan. My shifter moved back but the brake lever did not. My brake is forward of the shifter, and it will stay there. (It’s getting a custom lever.)

However, maybe to generate clearance, it seems the brake cable guides have been mashed in a bit. The yellow arrow shows the dent. Red circles some random saw scratches I made.

Anyhow, the cables cannot be removed, currently, unless I cut the ends.

I was planning to swab out the inside of the tunnel today, but I can’t find my giant rubber gloves.

I did spend some time cleaning up this coupler. It is still nice.

While I was burnishing it I noticed a couple of MIG welding strikes, which lead me further to believe this rod was only welded on one side because it was shortened & installed too late, and they welded it together inside the car.

I found the new bushing.

Ulu · Jul 30, 2024

Boring day scrubbing rust out of the tunnel. It’s not thick, but it is hard to reach. Maybe in 2 days I will paint it.

I took the pedals back out. They will need cleanup work, straightening & welding.

Ulu · Jul 31, 2024

Another round of rusty fun today. It’s pretty good save a few rusty corners.

The back end is pretty good too.

This device was essential.

And before you ask, Yes, I have seen at least 200 episodes of Red Green.

Other tools of destruction.

Also found in the tunnel. A VW throttle cable end, snapped off.

Ulu · Aug 3, 2024

Today I went into that tunnel with a 3”grinder disk chucked in a high speed pneumatic die grinder on a 30 inch rod.

It was a PITA to control but I managed to finish grinding down the last of the offensive internal welds waaaaay in there.

I spent some more time flap sanding and wire brushing, and I even went after it with a huge ball of steel wool in the corners, where you couldn’t really get anything else.

Putting steel wool on a spinning drill motor does a pretty good job, but the stuff shreds apart and makes a mess everywhere. It took me a while to clean it back out of the tunnel but she’s looking ready to paint now.

But I still have to flush these cables and lube them and cover them before I paint.

Ulu · Aug 4, 2024

Today I waited for prime painting temperatures, after 9:00 am, then shot a quart of rust-converting paint inside the tunnel, from these magnum spray cans. Small cans might have been easier.

By noon it was 100f so that paint is curing desert-style.

I was putting a lot of rust-converting paint into the pinch weld seam, with the nozzle & the red tube from a can of WD-40. There were strategic holes for seat belts etc that I used to work that in the middle of the tunnel.

Also I taped a can of paint to a long tube, with a trigger rigged using welding wire. I stuck this into the tube to get half the paint on.

I was finishing up the last can and I shot that red tube right thru a hole in to the tunnel. I decided to let it all dry in there before I try to stick my arm inside the tunnel.

I got 3 heavy coats of black paint in that tunnel, but it looks grey in some photos.

A fellow in our motorcycle forum shot the WD-40 red tube into the cylinder of his motorcycle. He recovered it with gum and wire, but his nickname foreverafter was Redtube.

So . . . Please do not even think of it. It’s already been taken.

Ulu · Aug 5, 2024

I got the shifter rod back in the tunnel, and the coupler on. Then I put in the new rear brake line.

This is a kit for a stock VW. You have to bend everything to fit.

My dad bought these tubing tools when we body-swapped the scout in 1974. They will come in handy.

I used the longest tube for the tunnel, and it will have a little leeway.

I drilled a 1/2” hole through the frame closure, just below the throttle cable housing.

Here you see where I cut the old tube.

I first made a bent wire model of this, then one from scrap tubing. Finally the full tube was installed and bent.

The frame is still upside down so I had to invert that photo.

I panicked when I first looked at it, because it appears that I have kinked the tubing, but this is not true at all. I just happen to shoot it from a funny angle.

Next I have to put in the new fuel line.

Ulu · Aug 6, 2024

I put in a fat 3/8” fuel line, and it comes out along the stock 3/16” line.

In the front it is just taped to the new brake line for now.

I had to bend the lines away from the clutch hook and cable.

The new tubes are currently secured to the chassis with zip ties to the clutch cable guide tube, which is solid and welded to the tunnel.

I used the best grade of zip tie, but later I will add some crimped steel clamps. That will be easier once I flip the chassis.

Ulu · Aug 7, 2024

I was tying down the new fuel line inside my VW tunnel and I realized that the shifter bushing was not seated properly.

It’s just a plastic snap in bushing but it has to snap in before the shifter rod goes through it, and it did not.

So I had to take the shift rod apart and take it back out, pull the bushing off, seat it properly, grease the shifter rod and then put it back in and reassemble the coupler.

I got the lines all tied down, and started reassembling the frame rails for more trimming and aligning. I did some more work on the floor pan, because it was oil-canning.

I set the big trammel back up. It’s going to be a pain in the butt to work with unless I can get my wife out there in the morning to help me.

The Fake Jaguar Thread

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