It’s been a whole year

[Ulu]

We now have a windshield and wipers!


A hood prop rod is really important & yet seems like such a simple thing. But it has to work easily, be the right length, be sturdy enough for it’s necessary length, stay hooked when you need it hooked, unhook readily when you don’t, and stay clipped in its storage place without falling loose when you go over a bump.

This was accomplished with a brite-plated steel rod from my old washing machine, a bit of another formed into a hook, plus a little bent plate from a D ring, a re-formed cable clamp and some heat shrink tubing.

I knew those items wouldn’t go to waste when I set them aside in my collection of car building junk.

I have yet to attach the rear fenders or runningboards to the car, install carpets, or seats, or doors, or finish the wiring, switches, and tail lights.

After that, I just have to set up the fuel system and install the battery and I should have a running car!

 

[Ulu]

I decided I needed some temporary front floor boards. I got the first one cut, bent, and installed.



That’s very thin metal but the embossments make it very strong for its weight. This will support a battery tray after the flange is bolted to the body.

If this piece of galvanized metal looks like it came from the back of a Maytag washing machine you would not be wrong. Tomorrow I will cut a piece for the other side and install it.

This is how I bent the flange up, since I don’t have a brake: Some angle iron, a vise, a couple relief notches, and lots of clamps.

I bent it right along an existing crease so everything came out pretty straight.

 

[Ulu]

I finished the other temporary floor board, which was a lot more work because of the fiberglass battery box and the brake master cylinder which get in the way. Anyhow it’s not airtight enough to keep out spiders but it will keep out cats.

We now have the gas tank mounted and batteries and some
cables located, and all new fuel lines from the tank to the fuel pump & carb.

I had to make a custom adapter to get this American fuel tank fitting system to work with Volkswagen fuel hose but I did it. We’ll see if it all leaks because it leaked like hell when I got it.

I never did re-install the electric fuel pump because I don’t think I want it.

My theory is they put this fuel pump in because the Volkswagen pump seemed weak. The reason it seemed weak was there were air leaks in their crappy fuel setup.

I have eliminated all the unnecessary fittings and bypassed the Volkswagen fuel lines and removed the death-on-wheels plastic fuel filter from the engine compartment.

Hopefully now there will be no air leaks, and if the original Volkswagen fuel pump is still a skookum choocher, we might have a running engine in a day or two.

Otherwise I’ll be ordering a new fuel pump.

 

[Ulu]

See those cloth ratchet straps on my fuel tank?

I couldn’t sleep at night, so now I have made some nice steel straps to replace them.


I also trimmed off the too-long battery bolts, installed a ground strap, and started to mold the firewall to the cowl with epoxy.

 

[esoxlucius]

I was wondering ulu. If you're building a house from scratch, there are hundreds of building regulations you have to follow to ensure the thing is going to be safe to live in. In the UK I believe at various stages of the build inspectors come round to ensure you are following the guidelines to the letter.

Bearing in mind you will eventually be driving that car on a potentially very dangerous highway, putting yourself, and others, in possible danger, are their similar guidelines that someone building a car in their garage, as you are, have to follow?

Surely not anyone who thinks they are good at welding and knows how to hold a spanner can build a car from scratch and then just drive it on a public road? Or do you just build it, with no one checking at all, and then just rely on one big check at the end by the ministry of transport before you can licence it and drive it legally?

 

[Ulu]

As it happens, I watch The Skid Factory and sometimes Mighty Car Mods, and a couple other shows produced Down Under, so I know the laws are quite different regarding construction and licensing of vehicles. Almost every state in the United States follows a model set of laws (“the compact”) for this business.

But in the case of home built vehicles, some things depend on the state in which you live. Some states have yearly safety checks, and some states have special requirements for custom built (special construction) cars. Some states have emissions testing, and some states don’t have any of that.

To trigger any special inspections by certified and licensed authorities, you must either be arrested by a peace officer for obvious equipment violations, or be attempting to put a “salvaged” vehicle back on the road. Any car which has been written off by an insurance company as a total loss is deemed a “salvaged vehicle” regardless of its physical condition.

Where I live, for a car of this age, there are no regular inspections required*, except that the car must appear as described on the title when it enters the state. This was my problem when I showed it to the DMV.

But no government engineer is ever going to inspect this car to make sure that it has good brakes a solid chassis and suspension that’s not made out of paper mache’ and old chicken wire. At the most they might have me get the lights inspected and adjusted, since they know I disassembled the car.

Here’s the thing. There are people all over the United States building custom cars in the garage every day. It’s a very common hobby here. Some of them are good at it and some of them are terrible.

But by and large those cars are not a cause of accidents and mayhem on the open road. The people causing those incidents are middle class phone users, poor drunks, and wealthy mental cases.

Legally, I did not build this car. I only did repairs. It was a complete, titled, registered car when I imported it. Now, it was registered under the laws of South Carolina, which are somewhat different, but the attention for that matter only extends forward from about 1974, And in general is all a relates to smog equipment and safety equipment like windshields and headlights.

My car has all the necessary safety equipment. The state wants to know that the safety equipment is there and it works but they likely will not require an inspection of that, unless it obviously appears some law has been violated. Mostly they want to inspect the serial numbers and determine that the car is as described on the title.

Also I am not the manufacturer of cars for sale. This is just one single car. The laws are completely different.

So, you might ask, what happens to nice looking cars that are too rusty, smokey, worn out to repair, or too damaged to economically put back on the road?

Somehow they mostly wind up in Mexico.

*After five years of ownership, a new car must have an emissions inspection. There after, it will need an emissions inspection every two years. Certain cars with a troublesome history of emissions are required to have additional inspections on a random basis. This law applied to cars less than 30 years old, but when Arnold Schwarzenegger became governor they changed that law. I believe now that every car manufactured after 1974 is required to have regular emissions inspections in California.

 

[Ulu]

When I got this car it had quite a bit of cowl shake, and that was because the cowl was not really reinforced by the firewall. While they were both attached to the floor, at the top they were only attached to each other by a tiny clip of steel with 4 little screws.

It was sloppy but when I removed that clip, I could grab the top of the windshield and move it sideways a half inch each way. With no effort at all. There is simply no restraint.

So now I have added six tubes of epoxy putty to the underside, to permanently attach these parts together. This is a huge deal in how quiet and solid the body is right now.
But this is only the base of the repair.

You can see on the right, in the photo, where I have added some little white PVC ducts to run the wiring thru. This will make it much easier to seal all the wiring to the firewall against leaks.

Eventually this will get lots more epoxy putty at the edges, then I will sand this and apply fiberglass cloth and resin over the putty in several layers. This really needs to be the sturdiest part of the whole body, because so much depends on it.
I had to do this part before I continue with the wiring because it needs to be secure where the loom penetrates the body. I will of course have the same problem at the rear firewall. It’s not it’s secure at all to the sides of the body and we’re supposed to have a couple of steel angles with quarter inch carriage bolts.

Those parts seem to have never been installed and I am going to ignore it and glue it all up solid and forever.

Well as forever as plastic can be I guess.

 

[Ulu]

Adding extra lightness, to the steering column bracket at the instrument panel.

I lopped off the corners, radiused the corners, shaved it and drilled it full of holes.

This is hardly an essential step of the assembly but this bracket was too large and sharp and in the way as I’m working under the dash. You can’t see when it is installed, but I still cleaned it up and gave it a coat of self priming paint.

 

[Ulu]

I got under the SS with a grinder today, and started shaving off the many too-long screws and bolts, and removing these ugly flanges from the bottom of the hood sides.



These used to protrude below the front fenders, where the VW pan also showed thru.



Now the sides are shaved flush.

 

[Ulu]

I’ve spent some more time working on the wiring but I still have to install switches and gauges. The fuse panel is almost finished. All the lighting wires are in but the tail lights are not yet attached.

I spent yesterday working on a cage to protect the catalytic converter on my daughters car. Catalytic converter thefts went up 10 times in 2021 over what they were previously, where she lives.

Right now this is all just assembled with self tapping screws. It has to come off the car and be welded completely, then go back on with rivets.

I decided not to use heavy solid barstock on this, but instead light tubing. I will All the ends of the tubes to look solid, add a few bars, and then paint it all in a real obvious glowing color.

If someone looks under this car with a flashlight they will just turn around and walk away.

I tried to make it tight to preserve ground clearance but I made it a little too tight and it needs some extra clearance so it doesn’t clatter on the exhaust under full throttle.

You can buy devices to go under the converter of a Prius or a Tacoma (several hundred dollars) but I could not find one for sale online to fit her van. So I just decided to build this.