Really OT Kit Kar Build

This is a build that is really just starting. I bought this little Volkswagen-based replicar over a year ago, right during the hurricane season.

It came across from South Carolina the same week there were 13 tornadoes in Louisiana and across the south, and everything was flooded out. It took four weeks to get coast to coast. In the end both the dealer and the carrier turned out to be scoundrels, and I was lucky to get the car at all.

This car was damaged by the shipper and the seller both, and it was misrepresented in a couple of material ways.

I fought with them for almost a year before finally giving up and telling the DMV, “Ummm. . . I own this illegal car.”

$1500 worth of taxes and fees and penalties later I am legal, and I have an official application on file.

I only drove this thing one block to my house. I parked it in the garage and immediately I started tearing it apart. Those big wet spots in the carpet are 91 octane Filling the seat wells.


Lots of the gas leaked out of the tank and into everything during shipment. The colors literally washed off of the wiring As I wiped it, and gasoline had turned all the wires white under the front hood.

As I tore down the car further, I realized that the original build was done by someone of very limited abilities. Or maybe they didn’t care.


They had bent the tube subframe in the rear when backing it off of the truck. (In fact the whole chassis is warped/twisted from collision damage and weld draw.) Gasoline had destroyed all of the carpet and padding, the upholstery panels, and wiring.
Only the seats and doors were savable and untouched.

It was otherwise very clean when I got it, And particularly when considering it was built in 1981; but at some point in its life it had been in the rain and there was considerable rust in the front toeboard area.


This is what it looks like after I put a pick and chisel through all the pinholes, Then gave up and just cut it all off with a grinder and a hammer. I also removed some floorboard that will get replaced.

There were patches on top of patches with lots of rust sandwiched in between the layers. Most of this frame head will be cut off and thrown away.

OK, I realize that when a guy from California buys a 50 year old car from South Carolina he has to expect some rust. Well the rust was there, and it was concealed with globs of body sealer and black paint. An unforgivable amount of both. I had a buddy look at this car and and he said it has “just a little rust.” No 1973 chassis from South Carolina has just a little rust, So I was pretty much expecting what I got.

As I stripped it out I realized that the car was built on a chassis that had been repaired extensively Before the car was kitted out. The difference was obvious when I looked at the welding that was done then, and the welding done by the kit owner.

The body is currently split so that I can measure and align and create internal reinforcement where is needed.

To be continued….

 

Looks like a fun project; what engine is in it?

 

Please tell me your wife is the kind of girl that doesn't like Dalmatians!

 

She’s a dog owner.And she can’t drive stick any better than Cruella Deville.

 

Always wanted the VW 41 Willys kit car. Looks like fun!

 

It’s a Volkswagen 1600 dual port 1970s vintage.

 

Nice - looks super clean.


Make sure you put a digital calendar on your Christmas list so you can track your 0-60 & quarter-mile times!

 

You mean to tell me that thing has a hood long enough to be a runway and they stuffed the motor in the back!?

 

Yes but it’s deceptively tiny. Watch me try to get a tire inside there.

 

That angle iron frame held a 12 gallon gas tank, which took up most of the under hood space. They set it up so you pretty much have to remove the gas tank to get to the battery. That is undoubtedly why the gas was leaking when I got it. They put a new battery in it and in the process caused a gas leak.

 

Damn that sucks, this would be a pretty cool sled to do an electric conversion kit on if you're not set on the flat four.

 

This is the interior before I ripped up the carpeting & side panels.

 

Very cool project... What have you got planned for it?

 

This will stay a VW for now. I may re-power it later, but it drives ok, except the suspension & chassis.

I am going to re-frame it first. This is a very flexible machine with some stiff front springs. I need to drop the nose.

The body sits inside the VW pan, and it’s an odd mess under the fenders. With the fender removed it is quite visible.


Water under the fender can sit in that protruding pan and be trapped there until it leaks inside the body.

 

Here I remove the gauges & wiring.

With the running board off, you can see that the pan edge will channel water all along the edge. That just had to go!


Most of the body is off here. The red bin-like thing up front is the fiberglass battery box. It used to drop thru that big hole in the floor.

This is the original location.

I bobbed off the pan flush to the inside of the body. Part of the scrap:

 

I’m really, really loving this

 

It is difficult to tell what’s going on here so far from the pictures I have posted, but this car is about 13.5 inches longer in the wheelbase than a Volkswagen bug.

Most of that is accomplished by unbolting the Volkswagen beam axle from the frame, and bolting in a fabricated adapter which replaces it, and then bolting the beam back to the adapter.

Sideview of that adapter weldment seen from under the passenger fender.


You can see how the body panels are not sealed to the floor pan. Lots of water can come into the car like this.

These are some off-cuts from the trimming up operations. That piece of floorboard represents the piece opposite side of where the battery box was let in. The entire forward floor will be replaced.

The triangle with the holes in it represents the toeboard where the master cylinder bolts through. Both sides were almost completely rusted away from the floor and did not require much chiseling to remove, but I sawed them away from the tunnel because I’m not ready to destroy that part yet.

 

This car was from a company called Antique and Classic Automotive. Nothing about their products was antique or classic except the look. This was 1980s fiberglass with 1970s components underneath.
Evidently they produced about 800 of this kit and (I don’t know how many of) some other fiberglass kits. I was fortunate to get a full assembly manual & a two Volkswagen manuals when I purchased this car.

More photographs of offensive rust on the chassis and ugly weld repairs. I was able to stick a cold chisel through this rust hole with my bare hand. This is all hidden inside that rusty bracket that holds the master cylinder to the car.


From my professional forensic analysis (LOL) I have determined that this car was wrecked then repaired then turned into a fiberglass kit and then allowed to get rusty.

Inside the frame: layers of thin rusty steel under thick patches. That once was a sleeve that kept the frame from crushing when tightening down the body bolts.


Rust has just been dripping out of this rusted thru hole in the frame head.


This car was kitted about 1981. Eventually it was cleaned up and put on display for a long time and nobody drove it. Finally it was sold to me.

 

Here’s a lo Rez picture of the car on the first day that I purchased it. The only picture of it outdoors.

You can see how high the front fenders sit above the tires. This car is very light in the front and the spring rate has never been reduced. This is basically topped out in front.

On the other hand, this body is heavier in the rear then a Volkswagen beetle body and the rear suspension is drooping.

Here I am hoisting the body off the chassis with my engine hoist. I built this monster for my father when I was 18. We got all the steel free so it’s pretty heavy duty.