Bagged bunny

Been pretty busy lately and with tomorrows "REBUILD" show on (charity event for the Philippines) I had to get the civic ready today for it.

Anyway always wanted to do it just haven't had the time or idea how to pull it off. What I'm talking about is a Miracle X bar. I'll have a small half cage, but thought it would be pretty cool to have one of these in there, and no mk1 has had one before so I had to design it all first. Its all just for bling bling and whatt ever extra structural strength is added .. I guess.

What I started out with




Brackets




Sorry for the crappy photo







Sitting it nicely, I have to go over all the welds, make sure everything is smooth and perfect - will get close up pics when its finished for anyone interested :S




Whats been taking up my day today, hopefully for a good cause and plenty money of raised to donate!

Bit of an update, taking baby steps, but steps none the less.

Trying to tackle the rust on the passenger side, but its a fair bit and is really testing my skills. I've cut most of it out and now just trying to see which way I should attack it.




welded up one bit of it, the engine bay side didnt turn out as i'd hoped so body filler will have to do its job on that side haha




Also tried my hand at blocking off the chassis leg section. I know a lot of people really plate up the entire leg but I wanted to keep the original lines and shape to some degree. What I never understood was when people welded in the plate, how did they do rust treatment underneath? So i set about using POR15 (first timer with this stuff) and followed the instructions. Its a chemical that creates a zinc/phosphate cover over the metal stopping oxidization I believe.

Was pretty easy stuff to use, apart for when they said 'wash out with water'. Wait what? I'm trying to avoid rust fellas.... anyway once washed out with water I used a heat gun heaps to make sure there's no water left.




Hit it up with POR15 rust preventative paint




Now this is the bit that killed me. I know that when welding, it heaps up the paint and creates a burnt carbon leftover, and this is the part that I dont understand.. how does get it? I have a peak under, and there was definitely a pealing paint that I couldnt do anything about. I just snuck in a can of primer and went crazy... any tips or experience?




Because I removed the orignal bracket for the steering rack, I had to make a support bracket for it. Pretty simple really, and does the job pretty well it seams. Finally finished the pedal box and steering issues (apart from accel pedal).






The old man was home and he gave me a hand with some fibre glassing. I bought the dash pretty cheap and there was a few issues with it. There are bits that have let go and the wood starting to flex. I thought I would re glue it all, and fibreglass it just for some support, only had time for this much today.




And lastly for today, the tanks I bought. 3 Gal each I think. Will be running them both in the wheel well with the 2 compressors.




George

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA duuuuuuuuude ... I fucking made sure to turn over all the bolts (temp bolts to get an idea) and must have forgotten that one..... Well this is awkward.

I'll just cut it off haha, good spotting

[LukeyBabes]

Oi thats my pedal box picture! lol. Yours looks good for sure! Interested to know how you are going to get tat long bot out now that you have welded it though lol.

Didnt have much on tonight and thought I'd try my hand at this pedal assembly business. Had an idea to build a second foundation over the first foundation using 25mm tubing.

It took hours and hours of measuring, cutting, bending, tacking, grounding and so forth to get it perfect.




Both little brackets



Measured, drilled and angled brackets for the pedals




Annnndd here's the result. Its all been tacked only as it is late and I've got a big day at work. Its all pretty snug in there, but it fits and the steering coloumn clears it. The clutch hits the column when fully down, so I will work to adjust that. I will weld everything up tomorrow and finish off the rest of the brackets to support it - I'll go a little crazy with brackets just to be sure it doesn't move. Got a really good accomplishment feel, as this was pretty hard to do personally. More tomorrow

Fantastic progress man, im starting work on my Mk1 Jetta soon, this is getting me more excited!

Haha glad I could help somehow and I love Jettas dude, got a thread going?

check out eastwood. they make spray cans with this stuff called internal frame coat. it comes with a nozzle you fish into the frame rail and spray as you pull out. it will keep the rust away.

Hmmm I will have to have a look into that, is it like fish oil sort of thing? The nozzle sounds ideal!! Thanks for that

Got a little progress past few days. Managed to make a template to block off the chassis leg part, looks really easy but had me thinking for days a way to get a proper flush look.

Also really need some opinions on this, I've gotten some 2.5mm 100mm wide sheet and bent (it was a fucking mission to bend) it to shape around firewall, as much as I could. Plan is to use this as a base to frame up the pedal box. Do you guys reckon there will be much movement? Im scared if I body fill in the bay and firewall, that it may crack under pressure if there is movement. I doubt it, but am fishing for opinions/experience.










Also, may have just purchased the air tanks I need! Thats all for now, got work work in the morning ....

[Minty_Fresh]

check out eastwood. they make spray cans with this stuff called internal frame coat. it comes with a nozzle you fish into the frame rail and spray as you pull out. it will keep the rust away.

[Dwob]

Fantastic progress man, im starting work on my Mk1 Jetta soon, this is getting me more excited!

With yesterday being a public holiday here in Vic and being super sunny i got to work. Welded up some more holes for the old brake system, and finished the other side of the chassis notch too.

I really strived to get the C notch as clean as possible, and im shocked with myself haha it looks just about OEM from the visable side. Ive decided to leave the other side chunky to keep the strength and rigidity.
















Also picked up a dash and steering coloumn as i didnt have any from Matt (hiho). Will need to find the dash vents and other goodies, but i needed a dash to see where i could mount the m/c reservoir. It will be tucked under the driver side air vent.





Oh and also ground down the chassis leg mo-hawk thingo. Will be welding in plates to block that off soon
I noticed if you weld it straight away it seams to burn through. So what i did was go very low AC and put blobs of welds all over it. Then grind it down, so its a bit thicker than it was before and weld with higher AC over that now thicker platform of small blobs.

Finished up some more in the garage, plugged up the brake booster hole, and plugged up the clutch cable hole too. Shaped it and it turned out pretty damn good, i surprise myself some times.

I have a lot more rust repair and plugging to do. Anyway this weekend is a public holiday in Vic, so i'll be doing a bit more work - so i thought i would treat the golfie with a pedal box Will be looking into some ways to hold it up firmly.

[Oxer]

wd40 keeps rust away, just have to make sure you clean it all off 100% before paint.

So today i had a few hours after work, and thought i would finally try and finish off the driver side turret/strut tower. Where the rain tray was, there has been water gathering for years and slowly the rust has bit quite hard. So i just attacked it with the grinder and cut it out.





Heres the culprit, you can see the buildup of rust.




Mimicked the shape and welded in a new bit. Gave it a clean and ground it down, seams to have come up ok but un even at some points. Nothing filler cant fix. I've completed this side, having ground all the welds down, all i'll do when the time comes is apply the filler to smooth over everything. My biggest issue is having slight rust patches build up until it comes to paint, so i've hit it with a coat of primer hoping it will slow/stop it until it comes time to paint - in which case i will pretty much POR 15 the whole car.

No idea of that song dude ! ^ haha

Finished the rest on one side. Also pretty proud of the way the C notch came up, really clean and tidy. Will shave it down completely on the visible side at a later stage.

Ive had the biggest issue so far that when i have the bay bare metal in the places i am working on, the other bits keep gathering surface rust in the mean time. Im a little worried that it may grip harder in the humid weather now and it will come back at a later stage. Do i have to keep putting a coat of paint everytime, or is there something i can do to wipe the surface rust away?

[TheTynosaur]

Nice work

The word swallowtail makes me think of a song called the swallowtail jig, so I had Celtic music stuck in my head through this whole thread

Sent from my HTC 3D using Tapatalk 2

Yeah dude you'd be surprised, considering 3 people can lift the shell hahaha