modified strut assembly

i decided to have the adaptor made by a professional to save some time...here's the final dimensions:

machined from W-1 tool steel, they should have good corrosion resistance and toughness. the larger diameter on the bottom is for the bump stop, and the male threads on top are deliberately long to make assembly easier and will be ground down once installed in the car to prevent them from denting the hood. below are the stubs with the Delrin prototype i made:

the male threads of the damper shafts had to be shortened to fit the stubs, using an angle grinder & 6" bench grinder:

both stubs installed (with red loctite):

since the total length is now 1.25" shorter, i decided to preserve the original spring preload by relocating the lower spring perch the same amount (1.25" lower, i.e. closer to the ball joint). i scribed a line and MIG welded it:

not too pretty, but considering i hadnt used a MIG welder in a couple years and didnt even practice first i think it turned out great. im sure it didnt hurt to be using a quality Lincoln 220V machine, either.

assembly took a while... too many small bits to line up and once again, the coils had to be compressed a whopping 7-9 inches; i thought the spring compressor might break. i dont think i will ever do it this way again, its just too complicated and im not convinced its worth it. finished:

another issue i found was that the aftermarket boots were too short to fully cover everything and the lower opening was also too big to be zip-tied onto the strut body, so for now they are just floating in place. it looks like i could add a second boot in there, maybe tied or glued together, but they were $21 each and i'm broke, so i might have to just leave it. not sure yet...

the next major step was modifying the strut towers to accept the new mount. the newer style needs a larger diameter hole in the body (nearly 1") and a different, asymmetrical bolt pattern. this meant spending some quality time with an angle grinder and a least a couple pep talks in front of a mirror. to make sure the new hole was concentric with the existing one i used the lid from a metal tin of the approximate size held in place with the old strut mount; it sort of snapped into place, centered by the three nuts. since the fit was i little loose, i twisted the mount so it would center on the bolt holes and used a sharpee to mark the line:

grinding that much material was a good hour of messy, sweaty work, but the second one only took 15 minutes or so once i got the hang of it:

getting it to be a tidy circle was tricky with nothing but a bulky 4" angle grinder, but not impossibe:

finally...

i used the old (newer style) mounts as a template for the new bolt pattern after removing its studs:

drilled:

and finally, with strut bolted in:

above is not quite the finished product as i still need to figure out the boot situation and possibly modify the stub, which means disassembling again, but you get the idea.

meanwhile, the ball joints, steering knuckles, and splash guards all get fresh paint. i used boots for a transporter (thanks Always Vdub) on the ball joints... they're a little oversize, but some safety wire fixed that:

before i can get everything back on the car i need to sort out a couple minor issues with the fuel plumbing while the subframe is out, and once of the captured nuts for the subframe mount needs repairing; it was damaged when its bolt was removed. i just hope i dont have to replace it, they're inside a cavity of the body and would need to be cut out, then welded back in place. (!)

steering box overhaul

  i almost skipped this part just because i dont have a proper solvent tank and i wasnt going to disassemble it anyway, but once everything else was super clean and painted my conscience wouldnt let me ignore such a grimy mess. 

  after an hour or two of this, an $80 solvent tank sounds like a bargain. trying to flush out the insides was more of a pain in the ass since i couldnt open it up, just fill, shake, empty, repeat. no matter how many times i did it i couldnt get all the funk out. the original rubber plugs broke apart when i removed them, so i had to make my own out of some .5" aluminum, as well as an adapter for a grease nipple:

  the grease nipple was just temporary for pumping it full, then to be replaced with the permanent aluminum plug:

  i used a white, food-grade, non-tacky, Teflon grease called Super Lube... its sold basically everywhere, but i had to go to McGuire Bearing for a full-size tube for the grease gun:

  i loosened the four bolts that hold the halves of the box together, then pumped nearly 2 full tubes into it while the old lube oozed out the seams:

  the fit of my aluminum plugs wasnt quite as tight as i would like, so just to be sure i painted a bead of Permatex around the edge:

  fresh paint:

  thats it...the only thing left (for the front end) is the struts...still searching for short lengths of O-1 drill rod...

Woodburn VW show

  aside from the ocean of beetles and transporters, there was an impressive T3 showing, including at least a dozen notchbacks. some highlights:

  one of the several "rat rod" beetles... this was the most radical of them to me, like whoever put it together just did whatever came to mind on the pot that morning; suicide doors, NOS, and a split front window? fuck it, bro:

  once again, OE wheels on a lowered chassis...nice. this one didnt appear to have been driven there; the front shocks were missing, no windsheild etc. i really liked the look of it, though:

  check out the spikes...this car was the cleanest 'rod... and a ragtop:

 this guy wasnt actually part of the show, he was just in the parking lot area, but there was something i liked about it. i guess i'm weird, i like stock wheels on a lowered chassis...

  this was one of the many notchbacks on display. not the nicest, but i like the ones that actually get used. and Porsche wheels:

 

another notch', very clean. gotta love EMPI 5-spokes:

  the T3 row... there were more elsewhere, but the highest concentration was along the fence. that orange late-model squareback had a full-length ragtop:

this single-cab was in the parking lot, too, and should have been in the show. behind those bitchin' 5-spokes are drilled, slotted, ventilated disks with Wilwood calipers (!):

and finally, in the back corner, i found a type 4. a '74 412, actually, and when i saw the $300 price on the window i did get a little excited until i saw the engine compartment:

  not only was everything melted, but the whole cargo area was covered in shattered safety glass, even though the rear window was intact... i guess it figures that the only type 4 there would be a burned up wreck on a trailer:

  in fact, it was inspiring. next year I'll be there with my kick-ass 4-speed lowered '73...

idler arm bushing

  the idler arm bushing was the worst of the bunch...  i shopped around for bearing bronze for weeks, trying to find anyone selling small quantities, but i never found anything less than 3', and all i needed was less than six inches. copper and its alloys are also really expensive right now, so it was likely to cost at least $50 just for the materials. instead i used what was left of my Delrin:

  the through bolt needed some light sanding to clean off what was left of the old bushing and some rust and make it pretty... the bushing is done, sitting on top of the headstock:

  i used the BMX cup press again to install the bushing in the idler bracket along with some Delrin scraps for spacers:

  i decided to modify the threaded end of the bolt to accept a cotter pin to keep it from loosening, a common problem on this model & super beetles. my car's bolt had actually been double-nutted by somebody to try and keep it tight. with the castle nut and a cotter pin i wont have to worry about it:

  

control arm bushings

  once the subframe was removed the level of wear on the entire suspension/steering was clear: totally fracked. both control arms made a shrieking noise when moved through their travel and the radius arms just clanked around inside the through holes at the tail of the subframe. i couldnt even see any bushing material at the pivot:

  the OE bushings were a rubber sleeve bonded to a knurled steel insert that was pressed into the arm:

  the axle hammered out, but the rubber had to be cut out with a hacksaw:

  leaving the bare steel sleeve inside the arm:

  that was the easy part. unfortunately, years of driving with worn bushings had ovaled-out the ends of the opening, giving a range of diameters depending on where it was measured, so 4 individually-sized bushings (two per arm) had to be made. i took two measurements at 9oº to eachother at each opening and used the average to size the OD of the bushing. 

  the bushings were made from 1.5" Delrin rod. my first attempt was made by turning down the outside where the press fit into the arm is, center drilling the end, then parting it off and drilling/boring the hole last. after parting, the piece was flipped around, the chuck jaws changed from external to internal, then drilled and bored from the backside. i didnt think it would make much difference, but it did, and i ended up with a bored hole that was not concentric with the OD. this pic is in between turning and boring operations...the bushing is on top of the compound rest and the parting blade can be seen against the stock:

  this method also resulted in dramatically tapered ID, for some reason. the only reason i could come up with is that the work was held in the chuck by the small OD (for surface area) and i think the clamping pressure of the jaws compressed the material enough that when the boring bar passed through it, more material was removed due to the compression, and once it was removed from the chuck, it sprung back to normal and effectively enlarged the inner diameter. 

  for the second bushing i tried a different approach that worked well enough to use it for the rest; i did all turning, drilling, and boring in a single set up, then parted at the very end. this gave a much more concentric result, but i still had a frustrating taper on both the OD and ID...

  the next step was to press the bushing onto its axle, using it as a mandrel, then make the final cut on the OD to the press fit dimension. this ensured they were concentric:

 

  the very last step was to press them into the arm then run a reamer through... i found a 20mm used reamer on ebay for $17 that was still good enough for plastic... i tried doing it by hand at first, then used the slowest speed on the lathe...

it actually fed itself and gave a really good finish... i would have never tried something like this if i wasnt able to gradually start the motor from a dead stop thanks to the variable speed...

  the axles for each side had to be cleaned up and polished before they would slide in, so i made a simple mandrel for them for sanding:

  once i got my method sorted out things went pretty quick; i think the first bushing took me a couple days to make, the second one took most of one day, and the last two i made in just a couple hours. 

  nice...

  i also replaced the radius arm centering rings with custom made Delrin ones... i'm not sure it was absolutely necessary, but it seemed like i was on a roll...

  i've been painting for the last couple days and its finally all ready to go back together...