Ken and Dereks project

[ken48442]

I recently purchased a 1970 bug as a project for my son and me to turn into a Baja. Here's the progress so far.

[ken48442]

More Pictures.

[ken48442]

We cut the pans off last weekend and are in the process of cleaning everything up to put new pans on. In the process of cleaning, we found the tunnel is rusted through where it meets the pan so it will need to be patched before the new pans go in. I am also planning on replacing the ball joints, tie rods, and bushings in the front. I will probably replace the bushings on the arms in the rear too. I have never worked on the suspensions of these things before so I have no idea what I am doing. I guess it will be a learning process.

I am thinking about putting shorter torsion bars on the rear to eliminate that little stub that sticks out so I have clearance for larger tires. How large of tire can I go without rubbing?

Once we get the pan done we will start working on the body. It looks like I need a heater cahnnel on the drivers side. The back part of it is rotted away. I think I will do the passenger side too just so I dont have to pull the body off again for a while.

I'll throw some more pictures up when I get them loaded. Let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions, please let me know what they are. I would hate to get everything done and have someone say "You should have done ...." and think to myself "dang, I wish I would have thought of that".

[MadMike]

Hey K&D,Is this an off road Baja or more on road? the reason I ask is the King/Ling pin front end are stronger stock and can be beefed up,with a diff front pan piece (65 and earlyer) as for the rear tires you don't want to go too big or you will lose the gearing=4th gear will be un-useable unless you build a Torque Monster motor 8-)madmike

[ken48442]

It will be mostly on road and two tracks up north. No off road racing or jumping. Maybe a couple of trips to the sand dunes. How big of tires in the rear can you go before you lose 4th?

[vw1s]

Looks like fun!
My buddy has 31 X 10.50's on the back of his IRS rail, no rubbing issues. To install shorter torsion bars, you have to source the proper spring plates also, $$$. As for the gearing, we've only gotten into 4th once, it was barely usable. I wouldn't go larger than a 29" tire if you plan to drive it, that's about 10% larger than stock which should result in about a 10% drop in RPM in 4th gear compared to stock tires at the same speed.
As for the front end, you can buy longer arms for ball joint front, if you ever want to increase travel, but, the king pin front end is stronger.

[ken48442]

Heres some updated pictures of the project. Cut the old pans out. Wasn't too hard because they were kind of rusty.



Took the front end apart and welded the shock towers. I took the picture in low resolution so our welds didn't look so bad. They arent pretty but they will work.


Heres a couple of spots on the front and tunnel that we had to weld patches.






Front end going back together with new ball joints, tie rods, grease seals, and steering dampner.






Reindexing the rear suspension. It was sagging a bit so we brought it up a few degrees on both sides.

[dubfreak1]

WOW! Looks like you're jumping in with both feet, or all four feet. Looking good!

[yankeyspeed]

looks great. Your a lucky dog, I have to go to white paint and you started with it. Doing the windshield will be easy. Me and my 8 year old did mine.

[ken48442]

Heres a couple more pictures of the chassis. Since we have rust issues to deal with, I treated the entire chassis with rust converter and then rust encapsulator. Even used a special can of stuff made for doing inside the tunnel. Once I get the floorpans on I think I will hit the entire underside with truck bed liner.

[bren]

Nov 28, 2010 7:56:29 GMT -5 ken48442 said:

Even used a special can of stuff made for doing inside the tunnel.

What is this special stuff? I was thinking of doing something similar inside my heater channels.

[ken48442]

Bren. The stuff is from Eastwood and it's called Internal Frame Coating. Sounds like it should work real well. Here's the link to their site. www.eastwood.com/internal-frame-coating-w-spray-nozzle.html


If you do use it, use it in a well ventilated area. I sprayed my chassis while it was in the garage and the heat on. About 5 minutes after I was done spraying I had to open the door and leave the garage for a bit. It was burning my eyes and nose.

www.eastwood.com/internal-frame-coating-w-spray-nozzle.html

I'm going to coat my heater channels with it too. When you go to Eastwoods page and look at the sample pics, they used a VW tunnel for the before and after pics.

[bren]

Awesome, thanks for the info. I will check it out.

[ken48442]

Looks like I need to put a few more pictures up. We have done a lot since my last post. Its getting close to being done. Here are a couple of pics with the tires we just put on today.


I'll grab some in between shots when I get a chance.

[Project13]

I dont really like BAJAS to much but man this is one sharp beetle
Great job guys

Troy