Thread: '63 V8 Notchback

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I bought this car and had it delivered up from Arizona. (Is it bad when you buy a car and open the trunk and find a gas can, fire extenguisher and a tow rope?) Since all I really wanted was the body, I was looking for one that was solid. Other than a little wreckage in the very front, there is very little damage to this otherwise solid car. I drove it around town for a little and it turned a lot of heads. BTW, I insisted that the color was fucia and not pink. When the headlight switch was sizzling and smoking while rolling down the highway and after it sprung a major fuel leak I decided it was time to begin the work.

Here's what the car looked like before I started taking it apart.

Here's a few pics of the teardown.






Here's the chassis rolled out from undernieth the car. It was sold on Craigslist.




Nothing makes a dad more proud than to watch his son working on a hotrod with power tools!



Here's where I made the initial cut to pull out the engine bay metal. I will need to trim this up later. The first side took me a couple of hours, a plasma cutter, a cutting torch, hammers, chisels and bloody knuckles. The other side took me ten minutes and a 10" sawzall blade. That was the best $8 I ever spent!!

I love this body style ... it screams "I want a V8!"

What about a water cooler german inline??

I'll be watch'n.

REGS

I had a 63 & a 65 Notchback back in the mid 80's.
Loved those cars & always wanted to do a V8 swap in one.....joe


here's our 65 S model

I custom built a frame table for the project.

12' x 58" table made from 3" x 3" x 3/16" square tubing

2" x 3/16" round tubing legs with 3/4" bolts to level the table. It has six legs. The center two legs will make up for any deflection. According to my calculations, a 500 lb point load in the center of a 10' span will cause a 0.2183" deflection. This is not near the yield for 3" square tubing, but I'm not going to take any chances.

Each corner leg has a mounted piece of 1 1/2" tubing to hold a heavy duty 8" scaffolding castor. This will allow the table to be moved with ease. Once the table is in place, it will be jacked up and I can remove the wheels.

The 12' length of the table has 1 1/2" x 1 1/2" x 3/16" angle iron welded at 2" from the top of the 3" x 3". This will allow for 2" x 2" x 3/16" cross members to be placed anywhere along the length that is deamed necessary as the build progresses. These cross members can be clamped or welded into place.



In retrospect, I used the round tubing for the legs because I had that tubing on hand. If I ever do this again I will use square tubing to eliminate the need to notch all the supports. It did however give me some practice using the tubing notcher!



Here you can see the angles that support the crossmember peices.



Here's the car being mocked up for ride height. I chose the rims and tires based on the radius of the rear wheel well opening, etc. I played with the ride height quite a bit before finally deciding.



Here are a couple of pics of the body finally mounted at ride height. The wheels are removable and I have welded threaded plates on the bottom of the legs to accept 3/4" levelling bolts.




From the rear



Body mounts detail

I plan on going with a small block Chevy with a blower. I want the engine sticking out of the hood as far as possible. The fenders of the notchback bolt on just like beetle fenders do. In order to make more room under the hood, I am going to cut all that out and make a one peice tilt up front end.

I bounced around the idea of making the front end out of the original metal peices, but the apron has been wrecked (and filled with bondo) so I will either need to deal with that or buy a new apron. Also, I will need to figure out how to deal with the gap between the hood and fender peices and how to make it look good from the top and bottom once all put together. I measured the gap at 3/8". Another problem is making a way for air to get into the radiator.


So, I've just about convinced myself to go for the $500 fiberglass front end and be done with it. The gaps will already be accounted for. Cutting air slots in fiberglass seems a lot less daunting than cutting them into the sheet metal. An all-metal front end is certainly not impossible but I can see it taking a lot of time and energy.

By far, the hardest part so far was lining up the front suspension to be in the center of the wheel wells and center on the car side to side.

NOTE for future builds - Looking back I would have spent a lot more time on making sure the center of the car was centered on the frame table side to side. At the time I didn't think it was critical because it's the center of the car is what's important. And I was by myself when I was mounting it to the frame table and was afraid it would fall or something. However, finding the center of the car when it's not perfectly centered on the frame table is a huge hassle.

Anyway, I finally got the rotors mounted at ride height, minus 1/4" for tire squish. Got them centered in the wheel wells. Got the rotors equal distances from the cars' center. I kept the distance between rotors true by attaching the lower control arms to the crossmember at mocking up the crossmember so that the lower control arms were level to the ground. Once it was all centered and in place, I welded the rotor mounts to the frame table.




The front suspension is a Heidt's Mustang II IFS with chrome manual steering, GM 11" rotors and disc brakes, tubular control arms, and chrome coil overs

Now that the front rotors are placed correctly in relationship to the body, I cut the front clip from the car's body.




Once the front clip was out of the way, I mocked up the front end. I tack welded 1x1 tubing to the bottom of the crossmember with the ride height determined by the lower control arms being level side to side. Once I got the crossmember centered on the spindles, I tack welded the bottom of the 1x1 to one of the 2x2 frame table crossmembers, which in turn was welded to the frame table.



I cut the crossmember so that the 2x3 tubing frame rails will sit as low as possible in relationship to the crossmember. This way I can mount the engine as high as possible to make sure there is plenty of room for the headers. I plan on using (or making) a set of fender well headers and routing the exhaust down the outside of the frame rails and then mount some nice side pipes...Corvette style.

The main frame rails will have the body mounts attached to the top side of the rail. With the main frame rails lower than the body mounts, I can maximize the headroom in an already small car. However, by doing this, it exposes the frame rails as seen from the side of the car. Instead of extending the rocker panels down to hide the frame rails, I can simply mount the exhaust pipes down each side of the car and in turn hide the lowered frame rails in the process. My greatest fear is finding a set of pipes that make the car look good.

If I didn't have to worry about hiding the frame rails along the sides of the car, I could run the pipes down the center of the car down either side of the drive shaft. But this creates another problem in that the center hump will be larger and therefore take up more interior space. This car is already pretty cramped so anything I can do to increase the interior space will make the car more comfortable. ( I am 6'1" and weigh 250lbs so any room I can gain or keep the better!)

The next step is purchasing and mounting the rear suspension clip squared with the front suspension. Then I can build the frame rails in between the suspension componants. I will not be able to buy the rear suspension until after tax time so I guess I'll do some body work until then. I still need to trim up the trunk area and box in the rear bumper area, and fill in the rear air vents, and re-do the bottom of the rear apron, etc, etc.

I am considering going with an Auto Weld built rear suspension. It's the best I've seen so far for the money. Here's a couple of representative photos at what I'm looking at. If anyone knows of a better deal, please let me know.

I'm going with a narrowed Ford 9" with a four link set up and adjustable coil over shocks.





I figured on making the rear end "almost" as narrow as possible. The tires look really big in this picture. They don't look that big under the car. But it definately has a pro street vibe to it.



I don't have my notebook with me today. The next time I think about, I'll post the details like rim and tire sizes and stuff like that.

Bet you remember to center car next time..... It is a pain moving numbers around trying to get things square and streight, been there done that. Good looking project

Again - kewl build.

What size are the rear skins?? Also what size wheel are you using?

Thanks.

REGS

By the end of the run in 2002 when the Mexican Beetle plant stopped building them, fire extinguishers were factory installed..

I like my Beetle, but I think I'd like a type 3 better... sure is a cool project

cffisher, it's only about 1/4" to 3/8" off, but that's enough to screw up a build!

Thanks Matt and Reg, I'll grab my notebook at lunch and post some more details.

I went with the Weld Racing Pro Star Wheels. They're cheap and classic. I'm also using Mickey Tompson Sportsman radials.

Front
15x5 with 3.5 backspace and GM 4.75 bolt pattern
26x6x15, section width 6.5, tread width 5.7

Rear
15x14 with 3.5 backspace and GM 4.75 bolt pattern
29x18x15, section width 17.6, treadwidth 15.8

This leaves about 23" between the rear tires allowing 1 to 1.5" for clearance on the wheel well sides.

I have to wait for the money to catch up with my plans. I need to buy the steel for the frame rails and purchase the rear frame clip and rearend.

Meanwhile, I'm going to do some work on the sheet metal. First I am going to cover the air vent slots in the front and rear, and I need to cover over the old oil fill tube hole in the rear trunk section. I need to stop and get some card-board to make some patterns. I hope to get some work done this weekend. I'll post some pictures of the progress soon