Father & Son Build - First Drive & Finishing Touches

OK, so the touches are minor and the Baja Bug isn't "done" but it's ready enough to take for it's first drive, which was short lived. The clogged chassis fuel line that Sam & Nate thought they had cleaned out well enough, wasn't. So after barely driving and eventually pushing the VW back to the garage, they cleaned out the dirty fuel line some more, and took the Baja for a longer drive through all 4 gears! With it's road worthiness confirmed, the father and son team put a few more pieces of the puzzle in place. The front of the one piece front end is mounted to the front bumper along with some headlight buckets. Then to wrap up all the work that happened way back in April the EMPI rear Baja Bumper was mounted in place. 

Video Transcript

All right, ladies and gentlemen, it is official.

We got a plate, we have insurance, we have registration. This thing is now legal. Now we can align it and then go drive it. So let's do that real quick.

We don't need these on to go driving unless we want to lose them. Let's get this thing driving somewhat straight. Do you want to get a piece of duct tape for me? Duct or just roll of tape? Yeah, here. How about tape? Does that work? Yeah.

All right, so we're looking at 60 and 1/4 up here, we have 60. We have 60, so we got a bigger—so actually, we have some toe in. We have some toe in; it just doesn't look like it.

Well, check underneath your car, especially when it's big and you can't see. I'm like, what the heck is that noise?

Our clogged fuel line that we cleaned out is now clogged again, so we got to disconnect this fuel line and try and clean it out some more. Yeah, the same way we did before, but unfortunately, now we have to do it with an entire tank of gas, the tank of fuel on the way. Yep, should I go grab the other tank and just pour back in? Nope, I'm just going to plug off the line.

I don't know how well you can see. Maybe when I hit the drill, I've got our accelerator cable, my old one, run through the tunnel. It took some work. I actually had to feed it from the back forward because I could only get it about three feet in at the front. So I pushed it from the back to the front, and I attached the drill and ran it through a couple of times. Doing the same thing here at the front, now we'll pull it out and then we're going to blow it out again. Wow, that's a pretty good wind right there. Yeah, that's what we've come to, to hopefully get this stock fuel line unclogged and cleaned out.

So run some more brake cleaner through this line. I mean, I figured gasoline would have done a decent job of flushing this thing out, but apparently not. Why don't you go back to the back and see what's coming out of our line in the bucket in the back? Oh, not good. Oh, wow, yeah, that's what's in there. So that's what we were pulling through our line into the engine. Yeah, I mean, it's a bit better now. Now it's just air. All right, let me get some more brake cleaner in there. Yeah, there we go. It's a bit cleaner now. Okay, yeah, now it's basically just cleaning the bucket a bit. I mean, there's still some dirt in there. Oh yeah.

How's it looking? It's good. Dad, you know what the hole in the fender is really good for? What's that? Somewhere to put the camera through. Awesome, because I can just let that sit there and you can see the bucket sort of.

Are we getting fuel? Yep, looks like fuel and not like dirt, so that's good. Yeah, we got plenty of gas now. Let's see, let's try not to spill out all over our gas. Hold on, just leave it there. I just want to hook up our fuel line again. All right, and let's reattach our fuel pump. All right, let's see how we look now. I mean, it should run now, huh? Yeah, look at all that. That is some pure junk, yuckiness. Like when the bucket is flat, it just looks like there's an endless void. It's a black hole. It's a black hole going straight through the floor here.

Boom, it started again. Or not started, I mean, there we go. It runs again, like properly this time, but now with all the junk and the gunk and the run. Yeah, we don't really have—it runs. It's an actual working operating car, and wow, that front end just sagged a whole lot with us on there, but whatever. Now we got the fuel line clean. Took it for a spin, first through fourth, down the main street, no problems. Transmission's a little loud. I don't know if that's because it's solid-mounted or if it's because there's something wrong with this transmission, perhaps a worn ring and pinion or something like that.

But with that being the case, now we can work on the front end, just trying to get the front end of this mounted more securely. And then I just got some light tabs in. Once I get the front securely mounted, then we can put some headlight buckets in since I finally got the headlight tabs. So we're going to work on that the next couple of days, just try to get the front of this thing buttoned up, at least looking the part of a Baja Bug, even though it's not going to have turn signals or tail lights. We don't even have a rear bumper at this point. Yeah, our crate full of bumpers and roll cages and whatnots that we can't ship because they're too large, it's just all piled together and it's a pain in the butt to get all that stuff out. I was lucky that this was one of the bumpers that was up on top when I grabbed this bumper, but let's get to work.

I've got a much bigger gap there than I have here. We got 3 and a quarter there and we have 2 in there. So that makes overall, we've got 5 and a quarter. Half of that would be 2 and 5/8, so I need to get something that's 2 and 5/8 of an inch thick to push that hood that far over, which is 5/8 of an inch thicker than it is currently. So it's not a horrible amount, but either way, I need to find something that's 2 and 5/8. All right, right there, boom.

All right, so that is 2 and 5/8, and that is 2 and 5/8. Boom, so we need to weld that right about there. Now we also have to cut these mounts first, but if nothing else, I want this front end to sit like this overnight, if possible. Yeah, just so that it kind of gets used to this shape. Yeah, it's like, okay, I can deal with this. And if I go over a bump with it welded, it's not going to—hopefully. All right, that's it. Stay there, just chill out there, dude. That's okay. Hey, hey, hey, look at that. A gap across the back actually pretty close to even now. Oh yeah, huh. I might as well come in and cut this and cut this to length, and that's that way I can grind these things out. So I've got these two brackets here cut to length, ground down, notched out a little bit so that they can sit on the top of that, and then I can put those under here like that and like that, and then I'll take this piece and I'll run it across the back like that. That'll give this hood a place to rest.

Eyes are the gateway to the soul or something like that, and just got empty eyes. Let's give it some eyes. Contact that son of a—dang it, I knew that was going to happen. It broke. Gosh darn it. Well, it's a good thing I have a couple more at work. All right, never mind the broken glass. Not going to bother putting the headlight in on that side.

Get a measurement left to right. You hold this right there. I mean, it's kind of holding itself on, so. Well, I want to make sure it doesn't move. 40 inches across. All right, so we need to measure 40 inches off that. 40 inches on this tube should do the trick. And there goes the camera. You're back, so hold that crossbar up against the tube or what? Against the tab, like where? Oh wait, so like this, right? Hold on, let me get this, I'll show you. Like that. Oh yeah, yep, that's what we'll do. Oh yeah, there we go. All right, are you flush to the end? It should be all good.

Looks good, huh? Got the headlights in, huh? Mhm. Just going to weld this one up, and then I'll break that one off and level it out.

Wait, look—oh, yep, that's good. Okay, all good now. Good enough. Good enough.

All right, now that we've got that, let's get a vertical measurement. Are we just going to run some of this, or what? 3 inches there, and this one's a little bit higher than that one. 3 and an eighth. Yeah, but you also tightened that one more. Now the headlight itself is still sitting at the same position. Oh, so you measured from the headlight, not the— I measured from the tube. Oh, so if I go 3 and an eighth, I can push that up, and I can try and pull this down. So I need a notch 1 inch, notch 1 inch, notch this way, and need an inch and a half notch, an inch and a half notch that way. This is just my notcher, so I can cut notches in tubes. Fancy, huh? And some quick work with the sanding disc on a grinder, and we've got our edges cleaned up. Now I'm going to measure 3 and 1/8 to right here, and then I'm going to cut these a 1 and a half inch hole saw this way. Okay, and that way it'll be able to mount on top of the bumper with the appropriate size notch there.

Just like that, still two pieces that are virtually identical. I'll clean these up, and then I can set them up in the car. I need to be able to turn the headlights to adjust them up, down, all around, so I need to set them far enough back from the body to be able to do that. And of course, like everything else on this front end, the headlight buckets aren't even to the bumper, so kind of find that happy medium between both of them, with the bracket being the same, because make sure that your metal's symmetrical even if your fiberglass is not.

But there we go, I'm going to get a couple more better tacks on those. I'm not going to bother taking the entire front end, but I want these tacks a little bit stronger than this so. Headlights ain't going nowhere, especially because there's actually no headlights at this point. Buddy, I think we're ready for a car wash.

Oh, this one might be something I really didn't show well in the last video. You can see our support frame for our headlights, a couple of upright tubes, our front end mount, these guys here. The front end actually sits on this, on the bottom lip of the front end. We got a bolt here and a bolt here. I'll show you on the front end what all that looks like. Oh yeah, plus we still need to finish welding all—yeah, we've got a lot of finished welding. This is stuff that we just kind of tacked in and then, yeah, just went to the shelf. Yep, we just wanted to have some headlights on there to finish those holes in the front end. Over here on the front end, you can see I notched here and here to sit down on that flat horizontal bar, and then our two uprights go in here and here. And I got a bolt there and a bolt there to hold the front end in place on the front.

We have a rear bumper because we couldn't really find out a place to put the license plate, and it just looks more complete with a rear bumper. Yep, picked this thing up out of our pile of products that we can't ship just because they're too large. So we've had this sitting in the back of the warehouse for a couple of years now. Knocked some dust off of it, got some bruises and some cuts, but whatever. I don't know if this is going to clear our rear cross member that we have with our EMPI bus-to-bug transmission mount, but I'll clearance that as needed so we can get the lower mounts on.

The upper tubes will bolt onto the shock towers, which we still have the shock tower mounting positions. It's not being used right now because we don't have any rear shocks because they're not going to fit on our trailing arms in the stock locations. We'll get to that later. Wow, it actually looks pretty darn good with the exhaust cut those back just a touch so these brackets will come around the side. But first things first, front to back as far as space there, I think that's a good space. I mean, that top up, get closer. So the length of the bottom is good, seems to be pretty centered up. Notch that right there, would it overall just be easier to weld the mounts together? Not if you need to get it off and on easily enough. Well, no, like these—weld this to that, or is that not easily? Yeah, but then to get the bumper off, you have to pull off the transmission bolts to clearance that rear member. Now it might be easier to unbolt, but I don't know. Let me see what I can do with the grinder.

All right, where's the lower hangers? Probably also going to need the jack. Grab the green jack and slide it underneath the engine. Well, hi, how's it going? I'm Sam. Nice to meet you. The engine up a little bit. Never mind, that's right. Need to be jacked mine up some more, a bit out. I mean, should work though, right? Um, might have to do some more trimming. There we go. All right, let's try that. There we go. Now it should fit perfectly. There we go. Boom, perfect. All right, now we can work on the top. Set in that one only going as far as—well, no, I that one in there. And boom, here we go. Now we get to line up all four points, and then we can securely bolt them down. And then, perfect. So that's in. Right. Wow, beautiful.

All right, now I've got to drill a hole through here, through this tube, through the other side, through that. Uh, nope, not until we get everything drilled out and whatnot. You look even across the back or no? I mean, the exhaust—it exhausted. Yeah. All right, I'm going to run with that then. Don't get me wrong, these are not going to be the final bumpers on here, but it's a start. This one looks awesome. It's like the nice cage, you know. I mean, honestly though, the exhaust doesn't stick out too, too far. Honestly, it looks kind of good. Sticks out. That's the top tubes bolted in place.

That looks better. Well, almost.

And I—it almost looks like it was meant side right there. Look even. Nope, I'm just going to tack it in place, and then we'll unbolt the license plate. And from there, going to turn the welder on there quick, this before it melts the plastic. We'll buzz those guys in place real quick.

Welder brush. Oh yeah. Yeah, let's see. There's smoke coming out of the height. Yep, and the bumper seems relatively solid. Did you get all four of those bolts on the sides tightened? Yeah. Okay. Decent enough. I want to try to tweak this bumper a little bit on this side. Tweaking that bumper up on that side. All right, tighten it down. A bit better. I mean, it looks level across the exhaust at least. Close enough. Um, you got all four of those tight. So here we go. Bumper.

And with that, this is where we are today. We've got the body off sitting over there, got the pan here. We do have our front beam cleaned up. This is a beam off of a shell in the backyard, which I'm just trying to get into a rolling chassis. That's why I've got these spare wheels and tires over here. I've got some parts and pieces to make that shell roll. So yeah, we've got a lot of work to do. We've got a lot planned. First things first, obviously, we're going to have to get the floor pans out. I've got a bunch of measurements taken off of that. Plus we have new floor pans under the car. We've got measurements off of our beam because we are going to widen our beam. We're going to run AC lines through the tunnel as well as a larger fuel injection line through the tunnel in preparation for future plans. And then on the body itself, I'm going to build a roll cage as built into that car as I can using a tubing bender and a tubing roller. Try to get that thing just absolutely tight and give us as much room on the inside because there's not a lot of room inside of Bugs. They're small cars. Can sit on one side and touch the other side. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And when you're sitting side by side, somebody like I used to do in a race car with a full cage, you're like tucked in, especially if you have broad shoulders like I do, which is why I won't ever get back into a class 11 car, most likely. I don't know. I'm never going to say never because if you decide to race one, I guess I'll have to sit in the passenger seat while you drive. But yeah, I want to do that. We've got a lot of work to do, like I said, and that starts by pulling the body off, which will be probably in the next video. So stay tuned. Thanks for watching, and remember life’s full of good people. If you can’t find one, be good people. If you can't find one, be one. Later guys.