Buggy project status

[ChgrSteve67]

I thought I posted pictures of the lastest project on her but I can't find the post if it exists.

Through a trade my Uncle aquired our latest project, a 1967 Buggy with a 1500cc VW motor.



Its a pretty rough right now.
We are still determining its true condition.
It has been sitting for the last 18 years so you can imagine the list of work that will be needed to make it road worth again.

As it stands now the motor does run after rebuilding the carb, fuel lines are rusted through, take needs to be cleaned out and sealed.
We have not gotten the wheels off it yet to see the inside of the drums although we are pretty sure they will need to be completely rebuilt.

The wiring is a mess so we will probably make a complete new harness from scratch.

Body came off this weekend so we could get to the chassis. Will be much easier to work on now.

Whoever made this buggy took a lot of short cuts and did not pay much attention to details.
Most of the front end was not welded correctly and center tunnel was the only thing holding it all together. I'm not really sure why the front end did not break off but it was close. The chassis is about 1 1/2 inches longer than the body so we will have to make an adapter of some kind to mate the two back together. Fiberglass is in pretty good shape and there is only about a dozen or so holes will will need to fill in.







This summer we will take the body outside and paint it.
Definately won't be green when we are done with it.

-Steve

[Magnumcharger]

Cool BUG-GY! Do you know what brand the body/kit was? There were quite a few companies pounding those out in the late 1960's/early 1970's.

[PocketThunder]

Is that a VW Bug chassis that had the body cut off for the fiberglass buggy body?  Is that how they were made back in the 1970's?   

[ChgrSteve67]

I don't know what the kit was that was used to make this car, who made it or where the chassis came from.
I will look at the tags on the body and chassis a little closer next time to see if it has any info other than a serical number and VIN.  The chassis does have to tags attached to the center tunnel hump but they are really dirty and we have not cleaned them up yet, we only checked the VIN to make sure it matched the title.

I have heard more than a few people say you could buy kits like this that consisted of the chassis and body, everything else you had to buy somewhere else.

It looks like everything was welded and assembled in someones garage. 
I don't see anything that looks like a factory weld for mount.
If they made VW Bugs like this I would be very scared and never get in on ever again.

Hell the roll bar has a single bolt in the bottom of each leg into the floor pan, about half way up the bar is a U-bolt that goes into the fiberglass body. This bar either should come out or have more support added.

[restoman]

Cool Buggy!
Most of those buggies were sold as bodies and accessories only, you had to supply your own chassis and running gear. There were some companies that sold complete, ready-to-plate buggies, but I believe they retained the VW Beetle VIN and registration. Most of the chassis's were shortened to match the 'glass body mount points.
I had a Manx look-a-like back in '81/'82. It was a ton of fun.
Try looking on thesamba.com for some info.