Nathan and Sam continue buttoning up loose ends as they attempt to get Nate's first car ready to go to it's first show. The one piece front end and the Double Tube Baja Bumper have been sitting on the car for weeks now, but they haven't been properly mounted so Sam and Nate weld the mounts for the front bumper to the front beam. They attach the one piece front end to the car with riv-nuts so hold it securely and they bolt in the front seats to the rusted out floor pan.

Video Transcript

Hi guys, I'm Sam, and I'm Nate. We're going to get to work on the front bumper and the front end, getting these things more securely mounted.

Starting with the front bumper. Last night we got the front disc brake kit on, we got a new master cylinder in, and we got everything bled there, so now we're going to try to wrap things up at the front of the car. Obviously, we got our fuel tank in; it's just sitting there for now. We're not going to bolt it up solidly until we have everything else ready to go and buttoned up. Anyway, we're going to start the front bumper, so I'm going to get to that.

That front up, I will roll the welder over here. I can come in here and clean that edge up with the front still on, but we're probably actually going to have to unbolt it, jack it up in place, keep going right about there. Let's get to play, looks good, huh? Yeah, I mean, that's super tight in there now, huh? That, yep, we have that area on both sides of the beam for that mounting plate from there to there. Let's uh, pull off the bumper, huh? Pull off the bumper. We can unbolt the front end and probably have a lot more access. What do you want to do? Yeah, it's fine. Can all right, you leave the front end, work around it. Yeah, take six screws off, and we can pull the front end off. You sure? Yeah, uh, you know what, I want the room, I want the room, and I want the light.

Yeah, all right now, you pull this 19 and that 19 off. Let's put the jack underneath that while you do that, though. Why? Because that beam or the car is only held up by the beam. Oh, those tires are in the way. Those tires aren't in the way anymore. I think we're good. Pull that one off and that one off. Here we go, so just do both sides, clean it up nice.

Woah, looks almost like brand new metal. I'm going to round off these guys' bottom just so they don't look all big and square and silly. Like, grab my grinder, big square edges look silly. Well, very, that's much much more aesthetically pleasing. I like that, yeah, a lot nicer, huh? All right, I'm going to pull those beam bolts out, throw that in, all right, pull the jack off the beam. There we go, all right, cover down, put the block on, jack it up underneath both tubes. Gap wise, I got about a quarter inch over here, jack it up a little bit more, be right about one more time, just a touch. Think right about there. I've got a nice even gap on both sides, that looks good to me. Let's get the old welder out.

The bumper off again, look at that.

Not quite a stack of dimes, but I'm not a welder. There we go, oh, look at that, huh? It's secure on that side, and just for aesthetics, here we go, boom, wow. So let's see, is it secure? That is really secure. I could put all my weight on that, and it's not bending down, perfect. Yeah, that looks good, that angle there, but I guess we'll just take that one straight from there, there down there, huh? To that corner, right, the grinder or the cutting wheel. Give me a cut-off wheel, yeah, that just gives me a nice perfect cut line right there, so when I take it off, I can cut that off. Do the same thing over here. Yank this guy off again.

Now we can see Nathan, what do we got here? We have the bumper bracket on, loaded on, and now it's super strong, and that, that's how the Baja bumpers are installed. Angle cut on that plate, cut at an angle instead of that big old square box coming down, and a big old square plate just looks much much cleaner. And also if there's like something going up like that, there's less edges to catch on. Yeah, yeah, all right now that we got this bumper solid mounted on, really solid, solid enough I can pick up the front end, yeah, with it.

Um, you want to grab the Phillips bit and the small impact driver? I will get this thing set up in place. Look at that, though, huh? Better look at this, nice. So, now we're going to take these washers, I guess we'll start over on this side because I've got much more viewing area to work with. I want to get an even spacing, ideally off that body line. However, that body line is short on that side, yeah, obviously at the bottom, I want to be pushing that in as far as possible. Should we get like a Sharpie mark? That will give me a nice even gap off the floor jam to have an even gap. It's probably realistically as low as we can get, that is right about there, right there. To have an even gap up, they want me to put a sharpie mark in the middle, circle it out, yep, that's our top edge, and where's my brass plate. There? Yep. All right now, now halfway between those two points, 16 and 3/8, so we're looking at 8 and 3/16 to the middle of that one. Marker 8 and 3/16, 3/16 which puts us right here to the center of this one, which means that we need to pull that screw out.

Yeah, well, I mean, there we go, we got all three even lines, huh, unlike the previous job. Yeah, are we just going, going to do that a time? Yeah, start with a small bit, there we go, boom, there we go, huh, got it. Well, boom, there we go, huh, that's that, figure out what size drill bit we need for these. In the age of 40 deuce, 42 drill bit, start with a 3 6, always make the hole bigger, not quite as easy making smaller. Yeah, I mean, there go, let me open that up with a step bit.

Should we get that thing and maybe like plug it in, put it that way? Yeah, you can get the air blower and open up the garage and blow all out, but alright, up, all right. How about now, brown cow? Just a little bit larger, all right, there you go, boom. Well, shouldn't we just take off the front end to put, nope, I'm going to do all this stuff on the same on other side.

I want to get some primer on those surfaces. All right, now going to thread that on, go that way in, push in, squeeze down.

Drop it down, there we go, way, me hold nut, so don't crank it too much, all right, boom, boom, there we go, really nice, huh? That worked out pretty darn well, yep.

All the remaining holes will just go in and fill in with some fiberglass and then still need to do some trimming on that bottom side there. I mean, the top line is super good, huh? Of course, it is, I did it by hand, mhm, with paper. I still wish that that sat in a little bit more; might be able to come in with some sort of bracket on the back side right here to pull that in and hold it in place to that, but other than that, that thing solid, it's really to come together. Yeah, now I'll just have to come up with a mount to hold the bottom edge of this front end up, but we'll get there. Almost looking like a proper Baja Bug. I mean, if we had wheels and tires on that front end, woo, that'd be looking styling, profiling. That bumper looks really good. I mean, there's barely really anything left that we really need to do until this thing's like finished, huh? Yeah, we got a lot to do before it's finished, but we have finished, but until it's, there's not much left to do except for everything on the back, plus we still got to bolt the seats in. That'll be next.

Now we're going to drill through these back mounts, through the floor pan on either side, we'll drill through so that we can run this bolt, we run that plate underneath the bottom, and then bolt straight down into that plate, mhm. So, let's get a drill, I'm sure that this bolt will slide through that hole; otherwise, we have to drill out these holes. Yeah, we got to drop, oh thank you, and thank you. Try to get it squared up, grab hold on that. I'll grab another one, all right, pull it out, lock washer that through. Oh wow, there we go, yeah, there go, right. All right, slide the seat back, then we'll do the same thing up front.

All right, grab that and I’ll grab a pair of pliers or something. All right, hit it. All right, and slide it forward, and I will get the back ones. Smells good, no feels good, it's like actually secure to the car, solid. So now when I get out of the car, I don't have to worry about the seat falling out, there bolted in there properly, noted it bolted in there underneath, we got those plates right there and right there. Got the opposite side bolted in as well, yeah, all nice and good. Floor could use a good vacuuming, but Nathan, what do you think? I think they're super good, they're super comfortable, they're like they're solid, of course, and yeah, they're super adjustable, like all the way forward is probably too much for me, maybe. And you're how tall? Uh like 5’1. There you go. So these bolt on to stock locations, everything's set in place, there you go, right about there. Pretty soon you'll be taking Mama out for a drive.

And we're going to call it a wrap right here. We've filmed so many videos of so much work on this car recently, including a little sneak preview of that wheel right there, uh, and him mounting all these beadlocks. Well, we didn't film all of that cuz that gets really boring, but anyway, it's April 17th, this video is coming out on April 18th, and on April 20th, of course, we'll be at the Desert Dubs Third Annual Vintage Volkswagen Car Show in Tempe, Arizona. We hope to see you guys there, and of course, life's full of good people. If you can't find one, be one. Later, guys.