LocostUSA.com

Leave a little play. Over tightening the adjustment screw can damage the gear.

What looks better depends on how it looks now. Post a pic.

Don't forget expansion space for the tank and a high vent if the vehicle will tilt when stopped.

On the steering box tightening, surely it has more wear in the center after 40 years of use, so I'll have to settle for a compromise unless I want to buy a new box (not). Water and/or other dirty liquid seeped out when the thing was inverted, so I know it was not properly oiled later in its life. Maybe never?

On the tank vent, I thought I'd use a vented cap, which will be centered 15 inches above the top of tank.

As for pics, I'll sharpen up my pencil working sketches one day soon and post some of them. They tend to change a bit as time goes on, looking better as all the details are worked out. Years ago I had some good (for the time) engineering software but at my age I found it more comfortable to go back to pencil and grid paper, so I haven't been able to create and rotate 3D images in a long time now.

Ive been doing a bit more on this odd machine lately. I got the frame welded by a friend; great job, flat table, square and plumb. I had all the cutting and fitting done already. The roll cage was bent by a couple of electricians, and then drawn & banged and squeezed into final shape by me.

I want to share the body-building today; I'm going very slowly because I never did it before. So far it is pretty good - you see that the frame is part of the set-up to make sure that the finished work fits. Those big flat sides will be trimmed even more than they are in the pics, and the corners will be rounded. You can see a bit of thin wood bent to show roughly where the opening behind the seats is. One more panel will close in the top.

After this form is finished as smooth as I can get it, I'll lay up some epoxy-glass on the outside to make a removable rear section. To be added is a wheel well in the center to keep the grit outside.

Also shown is the front pivot pin. It goes thru the VW front end and will have a crank all the way forward and a hydraulic cylinder to control tilt - 30 deg each way. The V-twin engine will mount to the right of the center beam in the forward-most open bay and connect to the driveshaft over on the left of the center piece with a chain. I very carefully cut a small groove around the drive half of the output U-joint, pressed on a weldable sprocket, so now I have offset drive to anywhere I want to put it. Driveshaft is covered by two 1 3/4 inch tubes with a bearing in between to control wild vibes if they tend to occur.

The front end will show later, and I'll keep up with body, engine, doors as they develop.

Anyone else having trouble seeing the pics?

All I get are large thumbnail pics that I can't double click on to enlarge.

I can prolly fix the pics later.

Lets see if I can improve the pics...

My wife and I both think you are building a boat!

Nope it's not a boat. But Spring is coming and its time to make do something useful.

I have some questions for the technically adept here.

The drive shaft is roughly 46 inches between end bearings. It has a center bearing to keep it from vibrating. It is made of 1 1/16 X 1 1/4 smooth steel tube, and I plan to put 25mm ~ .986" shaft in each end. The bearings are 25mm, and sprocket on the front end and U-joint at the back.

Now I have a problem. I have made a shim, tubular to take up the difference; it is tight, almost too tight to assemble, made of a tube with a slot. I am concerned that an assembly like this could cause enough off-center imbalance to screw up my nice smooth drive shaft operation. It won't be more than .001 off-center but that may be too much.

Maximum speed won't exceed 4000 rpm.

It may help to set it up so that the larger diameter runs in the bearings, but I can't see why.

If anybody knows about drive shaft construction in a home shop I'm all ears. I'll probably ask around and find a drive shaft guy here locally to help.

Looks like an interesting project.

I know nothing about driveshafts but......

I would think that any amount of gap cut longitudenally in the spilt-tube spacer may introduce an offset as the 25mm shaft may fall ev er-so slightly into that gap; or provide a non-circular ID as the gap collapses. If you spiral cut the gap, say 270 degress or more, then this will not occur.

Also, never underestimate the contribution of heat. You can gain .001" to .002" clearance by heating the tube and adapter and chilling the shaft. So basically, you can start with an line-on-line or slight interference fit, then heat/chill the aforementioned parts. They will literally drop together until things normalize in temperature. Then you will never be able to separate them without cutting. I did this with my control arm weld-bungs.

The local drive-shaft guy is going to look at it. I feel pretty safe now.

Local drive shaft guy did the job in an hour. Its the best I can do, so we now wait until I load it with some torque at speed to see if it folds up. I feel pretty confident about the design even though its my first; I used accepted formulas, and it will have some rigid tubing around it in case of failure.

Updates on this interesting project ?

Updates, yeah. I do spend a lot of time with my baby car drinking coffee and doing the details of the design.

The front end was done by a guy up the street who has some experience with VW parts. I had essentially everything from the junker, had welded up some rot on one of the spring hangers; it came out beautifully. After painting one could hardly tell it was a fix job; the damage was not bad enough to affect the alignment.

Wheels & tires are refurbished (tires are new) and wheels are in pretty good shape after a nice long session under the wheelie-buzzer, that sanding combination for electric drills, and some black paint.

The drive shaft is done, as I said, and the center bearing is now a small needle bearing slid on from one end. The bigger ball bearing was too fat; it is a close fit to get the shaft under the seat. I have set it up so I have a very small angle both up and down and sideways; this allows me to move the forward driven end further toward center; it was stuck out cramping my footroom. I raised it (the front sprocket) a little but it is still cutting into the main frame quite a bit. I figured I could patch and reinforce with some added steel and it would be almost as good.

I am trying to concentrate on getting the thing running first, but because the welder is a few miles away, I wanted to lay out the door frames soon. I have the windows and their cranking mechanisms; they must be fit into the doors, so it is quite a tailoring process. Everything has to be done just so or it won't work, especially since I decided that 1 1/2 inch thickness is enough. The original doors were thicker and heavier. These are aluminum and very light. So I must go at a snail's pace or do it more than once.

Of course there is the simple fact that everything has to fit together without big, or any gaps, because in winter it should be sort of airtight.

The windshield will be two flat pieces, sloping back on each side. The bonnet is straight (no curves) with louvers a la Morgan, but quite a bit shorter. The nose cone is about 2 ft. long and transitions from squarish mating with the bonnet to sloped back oval; the radiator grill is shaped very close to a Bugatti shape, because I love that shape. I got piece of heavy steel mesh to make the grill; there is no radiator (V-twin virago motor) but it will let the air in for cooling anyway.

I hope to make a decent drawing of the machine in finished trim soon. I just changed the basic front fender design so it is just as well I waited. After staring at some 1920's cars I decided that a single fixed narrow fender each side was perfect. I had planned to cover the suspension/springs but this is better; painting the parts I don't want seen dull black works fine. I'm wondering if that fender supplier mentioned around here can do an antique look for me.