The DUNGBTL Build

[DUNGBTL]

Doing restomod on ‘72 SB…The DUNGBTL. Long time hobbyist car builder/restomodder and have done many cars in the past…’64 AH Sprite, ‘63 KG, ‘69 912, ‘84 911 Carrera, ‘90 LX 5.0L Notch, ‘91 300ZX TT, ‘06 Lotus Elise, ‘86 CRX Si, 87 Civic Si, to list a few.

Hands down the Porsche marque (356/911/912’s) cars are my all time favorites. And all my past builds have been all performance orientated (track, i.e., driver’s training, and local AX)…however I did concours the 912 and 911 w/the local PCA club, so there’s that. The plan for the DUNGBTL is the same, make it suitable for a ‘casual’ track day or local AX session and be presentable to take to car shows and cars ‘n coffees. I mention the love affair w/vintage Porsches because that’s the styling and “form follows function” slant I will be going for.

Searched for few months for a suitable candidate. Decided on a flat windshield SB because they still have the ‘classic dash’ under the fugly pad, more room in the frunk for the activities I have planned, and they’re less money to procure. After looking at half a dozen, I found the perfect candidate sitting in a field in Colfax CA. The owner had passed away and the property owner was looking to clear his property of the deceased's junk! After several weeks of phone negotiations (very stubborn seller) I rented an UHAUL truck and trailer (lots of spares went with the car) and traveled from Ashland OR down to Grass Valley (Colfax) CA to pick it up.

The perfect candidate for my project because it was cheap and had zero structural rust. Engine was out of the car (came with) but was a roller.

Originally I was planning a T4 914 motor in keeping with the vintage Porsche theme, however with more R&D into that and alternative engines…didn’t want to do a T1 due to unfavorable $/HP ratios…I found the T4 choice had even higher $/HP ratios. I decided on a 165 HP Subaru EJ25 as the engine (hence the larger Frunk and AC ‘grill’ of the 1302 SB!). A reliable 165 HP right outta the box, new millennium FI and engine management, plentiful and cheap! What’s not to like! Yea, yea, it not AC and so much for the Porsche theme, but hey, at least it’s still a flat 4!

Anyway…will be documenting the build here. I’m already a year & a half into it so, I’ll be posting what I’ve already done (I have lots of pics).

BTW, if any of you were into gen 3 Civics back in the day, I was KAKABOX on RedPepperRacing.com!

[MajorPIle]

Sounds like it will be a cool build. I am working on a 73 standard myself, but I am trying to develop the same build philosophy related to Porsches. I particularly love the 911/912s with steelies. I just went to Rennsport 7 last month and that really inspired me.

I don't know how to describe the look I want other than "street stock", but "‘casual’ track day or local AX session and be presentable to take to car shows and cars ‘n coffees" is pretty darn close.

I really want to have the same width and diameter front and rear tires and lowered just over the wheels to get something different from the slammed look and narrowed front beam look.

What are you plans for spindles/beam and wheel tire combos? And for the casual AX plan, what are you going with for shocks and sway bars?

Looking forward to following this build!

[Buggeee]

Looking forward to the pictures of what you've been up to with this bug. I built a flatscreen Super too, but went mild with a 1600cc and an AMR 500 for boost. Still lots of fun though, and these Supers corner really nice with some drop and sway bars. I noticed your Sprite reference as I'm distracted by a Midget at the moment, it's a fun little car like a true go-cart.


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1966 Sportsmobile Camper https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=...mp;start=0
72 Super Duper http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=672387
(adopted out) 61 Turkis Pile https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=728764

[DUNGBTL]

[vamram]

Love me a Gentian Blue '72 Super Save!

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[DUNGBTL]

Nice! That’s a good looking SB!

Unfortunately the DUNGBTL exterior paint is not the original Enzian or Gentian Blue (a one year only color for ‘72 beetles) but an old repaint (only one!). Car does have some very cool patina, esp the roof, which I have enhanced. The interior is all original paint and in very good condition.

I removed the fenders (doing something different with those) and color sanded (1500) and polished the exterior to enhance the patina. I do not plan on painting the exterior (fenders yes, have plans for the fenders/bumpers). Doing a polished patina look using only color sanding, polish and wax, no ‘sauce’.

FWIW, I found that Euro color standard RAL 5010 is almost an exact match for my Gentian blue. It’s much cheaper to buy a standard color than a factory specific mix. I’ll be painting the some of the interior, touching up the frunk and engine bay with this.

The RAL 5010 ‘rectangle’ is on the left…Rustoleum ‘pure blue’ on the right.

J.

[vamram]

[DUNGBTL]

After removing the pile of personal belonging from the deceased owner, I stripped the car of interior, all glass (all original except for windshield), front suspension, gas tank and wiring rat’s nest.

It looks like the master cylinder was leaking so I cleaned that area up and treated it w/rust converter…

…then I went to the opposite end and cleaned the undercoating(?) from the eng bay to reveal the true Gentian Blue color!

While I was back there, to make installing the EJ25 Subie engine easier, I drilled out a few dozen spot welds (or so it seemed) and made the rear apron removable…

I cleaned up the apron (underside…this is a patina build, remember! )…undercoated (Wurth), and painted (using my favorite chassis paint: catalyzed Rustoleum Satin Black). Then packed it up for storage for install at a later date!

Of course this wasn’t done all in one day. I’ve been at this for a year and 1/2 and have hundreds of pics…I’m just trying to catch you guys up!

Cheers, J.

[MajorPIle]

[DUNGBTL]

Vamram: got the paint from https://everestautomotivemarket.com/?gclid=Cj0KCQi...SUEALw_wcB

$49/quart for single stage gloss alkyd enamel (which I can catalyze w/standard acrylic enamel catalyst). They sell it in a 2K urethane too.

MajorPIle: The young guy (Drew Hefner) that built the 912 restomod works for Rod Emory! The Magnus Walker OPP vid on it and him I thought was very good:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rmwvs3EKzbQ&t=35s[/quote]

Good luck on the body removal…that’s really the way to restore these cars!

Cheers,
J.

[DUNGBTL]

On with the show!

Suspensions typically work better when they’re attached to a structure that doesn’t deflect…a stiff chassis. To that end I started my attempts to add some chassis (read: pan & body) stiffness to the DUNGBTL. Started w/the front strut towers. Wire cup brushed (on angle grinder) away 50 yrs of dust and debris from the wheel well and used fire (propane torch) and a paint scrapper to remove the seam sealer from the strut tower doublers. LHS Prepped for stitch welding:

…LHS strut tower stitch welded…

….stitch welding penetration…I had shoved my car cover (old bed sheet) into the frunk prior to welding. Imagine my surprise when I smelled smoke and flipped my welding helmet up and saw flames! Yup…weld penetration set my ‘cover’ on fire! Good thing I was wearing thick welding gloves…clapped the flames out and continued. I did have an extinguisher 3’ away…

Etch primed the welds and wheel well, undercoated (Wurth undercoating) and top coated (catalyzed Rustoleum satin black: 10:4:1, paint:acetone:acrylic enamel hardener)…

…and etch primed the frunk side…

And rinse and repeat for the RHS…

Next up…custom strut tower brace fab/install…

Cheers,
J.

[Puppy67]

Good work. Looking forward to the updates.

[radstude]

Nicely Done!
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1971 VW Bug (Past)
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[Buggeee]

[Buggeee]

I put a Kafer bar in the rear and it stiffened up the back end between the shock towers like the strut tower does up front, plus securing the frame horns avoids wheel hop. I just used the readily available mass produced one and it does work.

C13-17-2975 - EMPI - REAR SUSPENSION ENGINE BRACE / TRUSS BAR KIT - ALSO KNOWN AS A KAFER-CUP BAR
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1966 Sportsmobile Camper https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=...mp;start=0
72 Super Duper http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=672387
(adopted out) 61 Turkis Pile https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=728764

[agramer1966]

Great mod. I have brand new panels will be doing the same.
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[DUNGBTL]

Buggeee:
Thanks for the info! I’ve read about the flipping tie-rods trick. I’ll keep this in mind when I get to the front suspension. I’ve checked out TL’s offerings and already have a ‘wish list’ on the site. Those parts you mention and others are in there!

Most commercial stb’s (strut tower brace) leave a lot to be desired, imo. Most all are just a single tube/bars mechanically tied into some bracket mechanically (bolted) attached to the strut tower. Typically they have a pivot at either end which can only transfer axial loads. So, if you imagine the frunk as an open “U” btwn the struts, any side loads on the ‘tub’ reacted by the stb can still deflect the strut towers because the stb ends can pivot (tub taking the shape of a parallelogram).

Of course how much this actually occurs depends on the load level. And the stickier the tires, typically more the load transfer. DUNGBTL will use sticky tires, possibly ‘R’ compound. Ideally you want to triangulate the stb to react that pivot moment and stabilize the open “U” of the tub. That’s the kind of stb I designed…which is basically a copy of what’s been done countless times before. I essentially copied the design of the stb that vintage 911 race cars used back in the day. All in keeping with the vintage Porsche theme of the DUNGBTL!

I’ll post the write-up (w/countless pics ) of my stb in a day or two.

Cheers,
J.

[heimlich]

That's nice looking. Make sure to get the foam out from behind the crescents.
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[DUNGBTL]

Strut tower ‘truss’:

To both stabilize the strut tower and frame head, and in keeping w/the vintage Porsche theme, I made a ‘truss’ in the style of the 70’s 911 RSR race cars…

I wanted the brace to be welded directly to the tower structure. I started w/1x2x.120” rectangular tubing and whittled out the tower and frame head attachments…

…w/some fine fettling, I ended up w/these parts…

The frame head where the stabar attaches, appears to be cantilevered a bit from the one bolt attachment to the front body structure. IMO, this location of the frame head could benefit w/some stiffening. It appears to me that the stabar on the SB not only functions as a torsional spring (stabar), but also as the fore-aft load reaction member of the lower control arm (lca)! Imo, it’s attachment could use some reinforcement! To that end, I wanted to have a welded attachment to the strut truss to stiffen by triangulation the strut and frame head structure. Jeeez… …lots of words there…on with the slide show!

But first…lets weld a 1/8” doubler on the frame head to capture the stabar attachment inserts:

Then I set the strut tower braces insitu on the towers (after using threaded rod to check for squareness w/the opposite side) and I ‘burned them in’ (as all the cool kids say )…

After I had the truss reaction points located, I set about fabbing the bars (tubes). I used strings to represent the centerlines of the bars and measured the tube angles, printed out coping templates for said tubes, coped and fitting the truss together (photo montage time! )

Tubes tacked in place for welding on the bench…

Finished welded and bolted in place. Fits perfect, no threaded adjusters required!

The eagle eyed amongst you probably noticed the clevis attachment to the frame head doubler…

…this of course facilitated the truss attachment. The fitment of these clevises took a an inordinate amount of fiddling to position so that the truss ends fit tight in their slots but could allow the truss to be removed. In the end, all that time and fiddling was worth it as the truss fits “right and tight” but can be easily lifted out!

For the tube ends, I used hydraulic ram ends found on Amazon. This took seemly hours of checking dimensions to ensure that they would fit the ID of the tubes, have the width to fit my clevises/brackets and have a large enough hole for a structural fastener! Phewww…another run-on sentence! In the end, I did have to turn down the OD of the ends using my ‘drill lathe’ . I fined tuned the OD to be an interference fit w/the ID of the tubes. Froze the fitting and heated the tube ends to slip them in. Used 3 rosette welds (120* apart) to secure)…they’re not going anywhere!

So that’s the DUNGBTL strut tower/frame head truss! And yea, I cut a huge gapping hole in the frunk That’s for the water-pumper flat four’s cooling system (yes…it’s a Subaru EJ25 swap). I’ll cover that probably in the next post.

Cheers,
J

[stagewex]

Incredible work you are doing there.
Too bad you were not one of the VW Engineers 50-75 years ago. I'll bet your work would have withstood the passing of time.