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Good morning

Looking good..back in the day, I had a young arc welder working with me on a job and he let me try my hand with his rig, and to this day I remember what he told me about my weld. As I was the one approving his time card, he was very diplomatic when he said i arc welded like a gas welder..lol keep up the good work, S.R.
 
No welding today, but I got the steering back together on the kit car.

It was amazing that this has been kicking around in my shop, but I didn’t notice the damage to the steering shaft until I burnished all the rusty dirty paint off on the wire wheel.


Was this an accidental oversight? Did the builder use a piece of damaged material? Did he damage it himself and then just ignore the fact? Or was this an attempt at sabotage?!?

The steering shaft extension is a piece of steel tubing, And this is required because the wheel base of this car has been extended 13.5”, and the steering wheel has also been moved to the rear seat position.

But this mark was obviously made with a tubing cutter.
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If you look closely is this gash goes 2/3 of the way around the tube & on one side it nearly penetrates the wall.A656DCBF-42AA-47EC-B913-E82BACB6BD13.jpeg

Temporarily, I put a larger piece of tube as a sleeve over this and bolted it together on both sides of the cut. This will all come apart later and be changed, but I had to do something to get this car to inspection.

Anyhow, the SS replica now has the steering functional again.

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Today I tightened up the steering column and added a few more “safety bolts.” These are just 1/4-20 bolts but I have riveted the ends over the nuts with a hammer so they cannot come apart.

The entire steering system on his car is going to change in the future and it is my hope to also put rack and pinion steering on it.

I took out the windshield wiper motor and figured out which wires it needed and installed them so I could put it in the car.

I got tired of a rope holding my hood open, so today the hood got a custom prop rod and hardware. The center of the front hood has sagged a little bit, and I am going to have to shore it up, with some steel most likely.

I also discovered the rear body was off-center by over 1/4”, so I pulled the bolts and re-drilled the body.

Actually I knew this was going on, which is why I have not finished mounting the rear fenders. I finally fixed the cowl to the firewall, so the front of the car is plumb and rigid.

After, I strung out the center line of the car and I don’t think I’m going to get it much straighter than it is today.

So tomorrow it is fenders for sure.
 
Thought for the Day

“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague.” Cicero
 
The entire steering system on his car is going to change in the future and it is my hope to also put rack and pinion steering on it.

What about a front clip from a Super Beetle? I know they have struts but don't they also have R&P? I'm not up on my air-cooled VW so I don't know for sure...
 
"The traitor is the plague.” Cicero

Unfortunately, our traitors are brazen and bold, and are no longer hiding. :( I'm hoping fate, karma, kismet, divine intervention or whatever you want to call it starts deservedly dropping bodies... :D
 
What about a front clip from a Super Beetle? I know they have struts but don't they also have R&P? I'm not up on my air-cooled VW so I don't know for sure...

This car has its own custom clip that adds on to the Volkswagen, but it won’t fit a super.

It’s designed to work with beam axle Volkswagens only.
 
Good morning Mossberg Owners.

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So there’s a picture of my little prop rod, made from the plated tub hanger rod of my old washing machine. Quite a number of the anticorrosion screws from that washing machine are now in this car as well.

I feel so much nicer not having a rope to hold up the hood of his car when I work on it. That just looked so ghetto.

Quite a number of parts I have put on this car (and intend to put on) I’ve saved from other uses.

I have been cleaning aquariums today but I will get back on my car soon, and I expect to make some patterns for metal to patch up the front floorboards, temporarily.

I have some lovely thin embossed galvanized steel, which will be nice because I’m not going to do any welding on it. It’s just going to be attached with (mostly the existing) body screws.

This assumes I can make it work, but I haven’t made the patterns yet, so we will see what I end up doing here. I have other metal to work with as I have been saving up various pieces of sheet metal.

Now they are predicting a big heavy rain to come Sunday but I just got a tiny preview of it: while I was outside watering my trees it started to sprinkle.
Things are desperate here for water right now and all the reservoirs in the southwest are drying up quickly.

But now they expect to get 3 feet of snow in one night in the mountains and flooding here in some parts of the valley.

Fortunately we are 100 feet above the dangerous places.
 
Lots of welcome rain in the boatyard today.
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I got the gas tank plumbed in, and new fittings and line all the way back to the pump. I just bypassed all the stock tubing.
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Batteries located and some cables in.
 
I need extra batteries for ballast. There is not much weight on the front end.

If I get a smaller tank I could put in the big batteries. Right now that is what fits without a fuss.
 
Saw some nasty, California-style road rage this morning while I was driving my little brother to school before heading to the shop. When we pulled up to the stop sign the lady next to us got out of her car and started screaming in the window of the guy behind her before taking off doing 70 in a 45. She was in a Mercedes-Benz too. While this situation didn't turn violent it very easily could have, and it got me thinking. I've had several similar situations happen to friends this year, many of which would have ended differently if I had not been present and armed. I talked to my brother about it for a bit, but this was my big takeaway from it:

"I wish we lived in a world where I only owned guns for recreation."

Edited because It didn't sound how I meant it at all. Sounded a bit whiny actually and that's not me.
I understand bad situations happen but what I was more concerned with is the frequency they seem to be happening recently. Also note this comes in the wake of the riots last year several of which took place in my city. Needless to say I'm a little shaken up as of late.
 
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Good evening Mossberg Owners.

I got out in the garage today and decided that I could not have cloth straps holding my gas tank down.

I made some custom fit steel straps from some old bits of a security door.
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I also decided that I did not want the front stabilizer bar on the car, so I removed it and it’s associated hardware and rubbers.

Considering that this car is much longer and lower than the Volkswagen sedan, and it’s lighter in the front, I don’t think I’m going to miss the anti-sway bar.

I had to take my battery loose and trim off the holddown bolts because they were a mile too long. In the process I discovered I could easily get a Group 29 battery in its place. I got as far as cleaning and selecting a battery but I didn’t change it yet. I’ll have to get a ground strap to make it work, one way or the other.
 
Good morning Mossberg Owners.

Last night, I squared up the cowl and firewall as well as I could and started to stitch them together permanently with epoxy putty.

I had a nice cable left over from the electric boat prototype and so the Volkswagen has a ground, a starter cable, ignition wire and a solenoid wire, which (except for fuel) is enough to make it run!

:jester::jester::jester:

I kicked it over in the garage for about 30 seconds, and it spun over freely, but I did not put any gas in to actually try to start it. For one thing it doesn’t have a seat and the rear fenders are just held on by clamps. Also,I need to purge the fuel system and change the oil, which has two quarts of gasoline in it.
 
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