Thread: New at this, need HELP!

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Newbie to your group, so try to and forgive.
I am building a hot rod with my 11 year old son, which will be his first car. Bought a kit for a 66 VW buy, gives it a hi-boy look. The problem is assembling the straight axel fron end. I have a 4" drop axel but need to run it with a behind the axel spring. Is it possible to put the tie rod to the front side of the axel, as there is limited room behind and steering linkage has to clear the top of the hump in the pan. Any suggestions, will try and port pic's of the parts I have . Thanks all.

Well I can't be of much help without a picture or two of your kit. All I remember is that the whole front end with torsion bars unbolts from the unibody (four bolts as I remember), but I definitely replaced the whole front end on a '66 and it came off as a single unit after removing the gas tank and disconnecting the brake lines. Since the hump is the spine of the pan and the main strength, it is not a good idea to cut it although in my other VW dune buggy the pan was cut across the floor of the back seat area and rewelded. Send a picture or a copy of the kit instructions. If your pan is rusted (usually in the back seat battery area) you can buy square steel bars that fit into the groove around the outer edge of the pan to strengthen it and then weld in a patch panel in the battery area. It sounds like a neat project but that is all I can say without a picture.

In edit mode I checked several pictures of front ends in the Speedway catalog and there are a number of "spring behind" front end kits and of course a number of T-buckets run with the tie rod in the front of the axle. The question is what was intended by the kit you bought? If you are trying to adapt a hot rod front end yourself I can only "imagine" a flat plate that would bolt to the holes where the torsion bar unit used to be with a spring perch welded (and braced strongly with angle reinforcement) for a spring-behind front end. Maybe the tie rod will be low enough to clear the bottom of the pan??? The flat plate would spread the load and maybe fit the old holes easily. On the other hand maybe your kit was intended for a certain installation and so you could call the people who designed the kit. In any case I would need a picture to comment further.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientis/teen rodder

It is done, but not very often, mainly because it becomes very vulnerable to damage hangin' out there. I'm assuming you also know that you need to have a drag link style steering system rather than a cross steer.

You will need spindles made for the front mount, or at least steering arms that will give you the proper angles so you don't end up with squirelly steering. Probably the best source for these is an advertiser on this site, Total Performance Inc. Click their link at either the top of the page, or in the left banner ads (constantly rotating ads, so if you don't see it immediately, wait a few seconds). They make the parts as their T buckets have run the front mounted tie rods for years.

Again, I'm assuming you're doing what is sometimes called the "SoCal" look. Here's how someone else has done it with a top mount spring and cross steer. Personally, if I were interested in one of these I'd do it this way. http://www.socalook.com/construction.shtml
I just don't like the tie rod hangin in the wind, and drag link setups are more prone to bump steer.

Bob,

Great picture! Spring over, cross steer and dropped axle! While we are here, '66 was the only year for the 1300 cc engine but it will take the later 1500/1600/1700 blocks with only a change in the starter if you want to keep the 6 volt battery. I went through four (4) engines in a '66 over about 220K miles and finally sold it when the trans went by jumping out of high gear. This can be a really neat car and it should be easy to upgrade a 1300 or later engine case to 1800 cc or at least 1600 with drop in barrels and pistons. The next thing to worry about is egg-shaped bearing webs in the case but they can be bored oversize and thicker bearings put in after making the holes round again. The side-to-side piston action tends to make the main bearing webs egg shaped because after all the case is Al-Mg alloy, so a rebuild requires reboring the bearing webs. The heads are fun to port since they are aluminum and can be rapidly ported with a rotary file. If you change the cam, please get the lifters that are recommended for that cam, I tried using stock lifters with a regrind cam that had no champher on the edges of the cam lobes and the lifters were rotated and "machined" to the nubbins in about 3000 miles, so check the edges of the cam lobes for flash or sharp 90 degree edges and use hardened lifters. Today it ought to be easy to get dual port heads and with a Holley Bug Spray or even better a single two-throat Weber carb and a chopped flywheel you could have a pretty quick car AND still get over 20 mpg! It should be easy today to get 100 H.P. or more from large pistons, a cam, headers and dual port heads. Makes me wish I had seen this kit, but I am committed to the SBC driveline now.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

This is what I am doing, have had the kit for several years, but moving a couple of years ago put eyerything on a back burner till now. My son is bugging me to do it now. Will try and post the pic's tonight of the pieces I have. Thanks for all the info. I have a 1776 dual port motor to put in it, with dual carb set up and headers.
Again many thanks.

Sounds good and that front end Bob showed looks great except for the lack of front brakes, I would want to have front brakes. I predict Streets will eventually contact you about the "1776" engine. Just tell him it was built by George Washington! Of course I think you just let a misunderstanding slip in and the engine is really a 1776 cc displacement engine? Again it has been almost ten years since I worked on a VW and I recall some claims of up to 140 H.P. Then of course if you can find a Corvair engine, Crown used to make an adapter for a a Corvair 6-cyl. The cheap and easy way to do that is to just flip over the ring gear in the transaxle but the right way is to buy parts that reverse the rotation of the engine using a "reverse cam". My younger brother used the simple "flip the ring gear" method to put a 140 H.P. Corvair engine in an early Porsche S-90 fastback coupe and upon "launch" his only problem was that the contents of the glove compartment would always fly back into the rear seat! Good Luck!

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

I have a 11" front disk brake set up, I know a lot of brake for such a small car. I'll have to install a proportioning valve to keep from putting it on it's nose incase of a panic stop.
Went to the link mentioned. I have shortened the old torsion bar tubes like they show, but need the brackets. They want $800. for their set up. Too much for my blood. Will look through my Speedway catalog and see if I can find parts I can use.

Well if you have a picture of the bracket maybe you can get a local welder to fabricate a duplicate. I am not a certified welder myself and I would not want to trust my own welding on a structural member, BUT, I have a lot of experience drawing sketches of what I want and having a machinist or welder make it. Most welders can do this if you give them a sketch with the dimensions and maybe you have to drill a few holes yourself. Maybe that $800 barrier is what is holding up a flood of high boy VWs because that is a lot more interesting than the old V-rod style (in my humble opinion). I am slow in getting a picture of my project online too but I would like to see a picture of yours when you get around to it.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder