Stripped Naked
So I finished stripping the oval today, the doors didn't want to come off, half of the bolts came out with a little persuasion from the rattle gun, but the rest had to be drilled out. the keeper plates will have to be cleaned up and re-tapped before refitting. Fortunately, door hinge screws seem to be something I have an excess of.
With everything off of the car I had a good nose around and was pleased to see that the shell is a solid as expected, with the only rust present in the rear footwells - probably from sitting in water from the missing rear window.
The front valence, hood and offside wing have sufferend from a shunt at some point in the distant past, the wheel well panel needs to be replaced, and ideally the outer panel does too, but i will have a go at beating it out before resorting to a complete new clip. The rear valence has suffered a similar fate although not as bad, my guess is that someone levered the body up over the engine with a bit of 2x4" when it was removed.
Next plans are to roll the pan out, replace the pan halves, and fit the IRS. Then the front beam can be swapped out. I got a price from classic vee dub for a 2" narrowed beam with adjusters fitted, 2" dropped link pin spindles and a wide 5 disc brake kit at $1200 - not too bad in my books. The beam needs to be fitted up with the trailing arms and springs from the existing beam, and the tie rods need to be shortened + there's all of the small items like new seals to consider, but at least it will provide a good solid front end. They also offer a rear disc conversion for IRS in wide 5 pattern too at $770. Whilst this is all relatively cheap - it all ends up adding up, so I might buy the end plates and adjusters and cut and shut the beam myself, it's not a big job and will probably save $400-500. The front brake kit with dropped spindles is $700 on it's own.
I was offered a rebuilt late IRS pan - which is tempting, but seems a little sacrilegeous as it feels like cheating - it does however save some dollah's. and I will consider this as an option (please feel free to talk me out of this / encourage me to do this).
So - next stage is to go buy some more axle stands as the four I have are holding the Ghia up, and get the body off of the pan. Also need to decide on what i want to do with the pan / brakes / suspsnsion etc then go and either buy the late pan or buy the stuff to fix this one.
I need to source a boot hinge as the offside one had broken off of the hood and unfortunately isnt with the car - so if anyone can help me out - shoot me a message.
There's some more images in the gallery that I've uploaded. - you can view them here - http://www.vdubber.com/photo/gallery_tag/vdubber
Comments 4
sounds like things went well. i'm assuming that the lack of rust is a nice change after uk cars.
if you were doing a resto i'd say try wolfparts panels ( http://www.wolfparts.com/ ) for the front end as they are supposedly the best on the market at the moment though as it will be a racecar it probably isn't that important.
the pan is a difficult thing. as i am a bit of a geek when it comes to period correctness i want to say don't do it. common sense though says dry store the og pan and fit the later one. to my knowledge the only mod needed to the body is to raise the rear shock mount bracket, easily reversable if you weld. you end up saving money which will keep the better half happy, you get the safety of later suspension and it doesn't matter if you hack the crap out of it to fit the 915, big fuel lines, belly pans etc etc.
if you ever decide to go back to stock you still have the og pan there. re modifying the rear brackets is a lot easier than reconverting back from a 915 install and irs on the og pan.
as a bonus if you ever decide that you want to do something fun in the off season, bj/irs is a lot easier to tune up for motorkhana or simple fast street use. plus there are heaps of nice unusual 4 lug rims and they aren't as expensive as their wide 5 counterparts if you want to show off a little in the off season.
just my 2c.
if you were doing a resto i'd say try wolfparts panels ( http://www.wolfparts.com/ ) for the front end as they are supposedly the best on the market at the moment though as it will be a racecar it probably isn't that important.
the pan is a difficult thing. as i am a bit of a geek when it comes to period correctness i want to say don't do it. common sense though says dry store the og pan and fit the later one. to my knowledge the only mod needed to the body is to raise the rear shock mount bracket, easily reversable if you weld. you end up saving money which will keep the better half happy, you get the safety of later suspension and it doesn't matter if you hack the crap out of it to fit the 915, big fuel lines, belly pans etc etc.
if you ever decide to go back to stock you still have the og pan there. re modifying the rear brackets is a lot easier than reconverting back from a 915 install and irs on the og pan.
as a bonus if you ever decide that you want to do something fun in the off season, bj/irs is a lot easier to tune up for motorkhana or simple fast street use. plus there are heaps of nice unusual 4 lug rims and they aren't as expensive as their wide 5 counterparts if you want to show off a little in the off season.
just my 2c.
Yeah, the ball joint setup is arguably better, and storing the pan makes sense if it get's restored at a later date - I'm thinking it could end up as Lockies first car in about 16 years time. Only problem is that I don't really have anywhere to store a pan for 16 years, and it would be a real shame to sell it on. The other issue is that with a non-stock pan, road registering it will be an issue, especially if the IRS pan is currently recorded.
I will probably go and take a look at the IRS pan, as the same guy also has some early pan halves for sale too, so if I don't take one, I will take the other. To tell you the truth, even though the IRS pan comes in a little cheaper than restoring and rebuilding the ovals pan, it's still a bit spendy for a stock IRS pan IMHO - that is unless it is 100% restored with new parts throughout. For only a few hundred dollars more the ovals pan will practically be brand spanking - with new wide five discs front and rear.
Some other options are convert the oval pan to ball joint front end - this way I could either use stock discs or the 4 pot brembo Porsche calipers that I currently have on the Ghia, or I could leave it as king and link pin and just replace everything with brand new stock parts - this is real cheap but obviously drum brakes may not be up to the job.
Technically drum brakes are fine - discs are more widespread due to cost of manufacture, ease of maintenance, improved cooling and cleaner running. Perhaps the discs will simply be a waste of cash?
I will probably go and take a look at the IRS pan, as the same guy also has some early pan halves for sale too, so if I don't take one, I will take the other. To tell you the truth, even though the IRS pan comes in a little cheaper than restoring and rebuilding the ovals pan, it's still a bit spendy for a stock IRS pan IMHO - that is unless it is 100% restored with new parts throughout. For only a few hundred dollars more the ovals pan will practically be brand spanking - with new wide five discs front and rear.
Some other options are convert the oval pan to ball joint front end - this way I could either use stock discs or the 4 pot brembo Porsche calipers that I currently have on the Ghia, or I could leave it as king and link pin and just replace everything with brand new stock parts - this is real cheap but obviously drum brakes may not be up to the job.
Technically drum brakes are fine - discs are more widespread due to cost of manufacture, ease of maintenance, improved cooling and cleaner running. Perhaps the discs will simply be a waste of cash?
if worst comes to the worst, by the time you cut out the pan halves and unbolt everything you could hang a pan from the rafters. that said i am a bit of a geek for period correctness.
for fast street use you would definetly (sp) want disks but for the salt you wont be repeatedly cycling the brakes so you don't need the fade resistance of disks plus with the small contact patch of LSR tyres and the salt surface you may not have enough grip to be able to use big brakes. i had 145 XZX's on the front of my ragtop with shermans disks (which aren't the best stopping on the market) and i could lock them up at any speed on tarmac (fyi stock twin circuit master cyl, nothing fancy). the bias was way too far forward with stock rears but i never ended up fixing that before i took it off the road. i had the matching disks on the back for a while but then the bias was way too far back.
it just depends on what you think the likelyhood is that you will run the oval on the street.
if you need to rebuild the pedal assembly, i have one in bits in the shed i could photograph if it would help, it's a bit grotty as i never got around to cleaning it and putting it back together, but it will give you an idea of what to expect.
for fast street use you would definetly (sp) want disks but for the salt you wont be repeatedly cycling the brakes so you don't need the fade resistance of disks plus with the small contact patch of LSR tyres and the salt surface you may not have enough grip to be able to use big brakes. i had 145 XZX's on the front of my ragtop with shermans disks (which aren't the best stopping on the market) and i could lock them up at any speed on tarmac (fyi stock twin circuit master cyl, nothing fancy). the bias was way too far forward with stock rears but i never ended up fixing that before i took it off the road. i had the matching disks on the back for a while but then the bias was way too far back.
it just depends on what you think the likelyhood is that you will run the oval on the street.
if you need to rebuild the pedal assembly, i have one in bits in the shed i could photograph if it would help, it's a bit grotty as i never got around to cleaning it and putting it back together, but it will give you an idea of what to expect.
Now you mention it, on my old Ghia running stock discs with 185's I could lock up the front with a bit of a heavy foot, there's simply not enough weight up front - even with the weight transference to the front under braking, perhaps I should save my dollars and go for the stock drum rebuild.
I went to have a look at the pan today - it was pretty clean, and a good doner, but not 100%. There was no pedal assembly, the tunnel had been cut (will likely have to do this anyhow to fit the saco hydraulic clutch kit) and both the pan and beam could have done with a repaint. I would have been tempted if it was ready to roll, but if i have to strip it to repaint it, I might as well use the oval pan. Unfortunately the pan halves were not available, but I will order a set of repro's from George at classic veedub. I know that these are just the Autocraft versions, and not 100% correct, but if it ever gets restored there will be plenty of other things to put right, plus hopefully by then classic fab are pumping out oval parts.
So I guess this now sets the plans...
I will order some adjusters and beam plates so that i can narrow the beam, some dropped spindles and a complete brake overhaul kit - new drums, cylinders, master cylinder, brake lines, hoses, shoes etc. I will add a disc kit at a later date if necessary. New pan halves for the oval pan and at this stage i will see if I can straighten the front and rear valences - I will likely remove them from the car to do this - perhaps this is the right time to go and buy / build that english wheel I've always wanted.
I went to have a look at the pan today - it was pretty clean, and a good doner, but not 100%. There was no pedal assembly, the tunnel had been cut (will likely have to do this anyhow to fit the saco hydraulic clutch kit) and both the pan and beam could have done with a repaint. I would have been tempted if it was ready to roll, but if i have to strip it to repaint it, I might as well use the oval pan. Unfortunately the pan halves were not available, but I will order a set of repro's from George at classic veedub. I know that these are just the Autocraft versions, and not 100% correct, but if it ever gets restored there will be plenty of other things to put right, plus hopefully by then classic fab are pumping out oval parts.
So I guess this now sets the plans...
I will order some adjusters and beam plates so that i can narrow the beam, some dropped spindles and a complete brake overhaul kit - new drums, cylinders, master cylinder, brake lines, hoses, shoes etc. I will add a disc kit at a later date if necessary. New pan halves for the oval pan and at this stage i will see if I can straighten the front and rear valences - I will likely remove them from the car to do this - perhaps this is the right time to go and buy / build that english wheel I've always wanted.