The rest of the story

With the front suspension back together, I could get  the front end buttoned up.  With this kind of thing, where surface finish isn't an issue, I paint it with Rustolium.  I paint it on with a brush, so it goes on very thick.  It can take over a month to fully cure when it's that thick, but once it does, it's nearly as tough as powdercoating.  While I was at it, I replaced most of the brake system.  Most of the lines were replaced, along with hoses, wheel cylinders, and the master cylinder.  I also replumbed my line lock so that it locks both front wheels instead of just the front right(which makes for much better burnouts).  Part of the reason for replacing so much of the system is that I wanted to switch to DOT 5 brake fluid.  Unlike standard brake fluid, DOT 5 brake fluid doesn't absorb moisture.  That means the brake system won't rust from the inside out so I will never again have to replace the metal parts of the system.  It's a much better choice for an older car that doesn't get driven all that much.

That doesn't look safe. That doesn't look safe at all.

I've had my VW for a very long time.  Hard to believe, but for a number of years it was my ONLY car.  Because of that, it got driven all year round, and soldiered on through many WI winters.  It is actually the best winter car I've ever had.  I NEVER got stuck with it, not once.  Even the Mighty Caprice™ gets stuck occasionally.  As a consequence of winter driving, it got pretty rusty(not to mention that it what already pretty rusty when I got it).  When I first put it in storage, the front suspension was "questionable."  I had previously roughly and sloppily welded some 1/4" plate steel under the frame head(the part of the floor pan that the whole front suspension bolts on to).  When I got it out this time, fixing the front suspension was at the very top of the priority list.  Driving it from the storage unit to my house, I was nervous that it might actually break.  Here's the area we're fixing.  It's easily accessable after the gas tank is removed.

The front axle is the large tube running across the bottom of the pic, the triangle piece is the frame head(the piece we'll be working on).  Since it's a unibody, the whole pan is made from stamped sheetmetal of varying thicknesses, including the frame head.  Doesn't look too bad, right?  Lets take a look at it from the bottom...

Now you understand my concern.
I didn't want to replace the whole frame head.  Because it's where the whole front suspension attaches, it's absolutely critical that it be aligned perfectly.  I didn't want to mess around with all that, so I decided to replace just the lower piece.  Conveniently, VWs are popular enough that almost everything is available as a reproduction.  I was going to make my own bottom plate, but it was actually cheaper to buy the actual correct part.  This particular part was stamped in Denmark too, and is a quality reproduction.  After cutting off what was left of the bottom plate, you can see just how little metal was actually holding up the front of the car.

Here's a view of what was left on the car with the really rusty bits removed.  Just that little bit of sheetmetal was holding up the whole front of the car.  

After grinding the rust back to good metal, I sprayed the areas to be welded with weld-thru primer.  Weld-thru primer is typically almost pure zinc.  It gets sprayed on before the metal is welded together.  It's meant to be welded over, giving you some rust protection between the panels, acting like galvanized metal.  After careful measuring, I welded the new panel into place, putting welds where ever I could.

From the bottom, it's easy to see where my welds are.  The new panel is about 1/8" thick, so I could crank the welder up and get full penitration on my welds.  As you can see, there wasn't all that much good metal left to weld to. 

There wasn't enough welded area along the bottom of the frame head for my comfort.  For the most part, the sides and top of the frame head, never having snow and water standing on them, were still perfectly good and thick metal.  To give the frame head more strength and help tie everything together, I made some more plates out of 1/8" steel.  Here are all the pieces I added, in the location they're placed on the car.

Finally we have everything welded together.  You can see I also added some vertical straps that go well up the firewall for added support.  Once again, everything is backed with weld-thru primer.  With all the reinforcement welded on, while not the prettiest, my front suspension is now stronger than it was when it was new.

Project One

Many many years ago, I got my first car.  It was a little foreign car, and not very glamorous.  My little car needed paint.  So, my little foreign car got painted with some big American colors.  Since it's been in storage for so long, most of the people I currently associate with have never seen it.  Many don't even know I have it.  Now that it's out of storage, people who didn't know I had it started asking if I bought it because it matched the Viper.  They're always surprised to learn that it's the actually the Viper that matches the Beetle.  My Beetle's been painted like this since just a few months after the Viper was even built :)  As it happens though, they're both painted after the original Shelby Cobra.

More CADventures

If you don't know, I work as a Tool and Die maker/CNC programmer.  I make the tools that go into the machines that form the parts.  A while back, I made some palm sized versions of the tooling we make for some co-workers to keep on their desks.  Talking to another coworker he said in jest "Make me a Millennium Falcon."  Haha, big funny, everybody laugh.  Then I got to wondering if I actually could.  So I took it as a challenge, partly to make a birthday present for my coworker, but mostly to see if I actually could.

To do any CNC machining, you first need to have a 3D model of the object you want to machine.  While there are many programs that you can use, Solidworks is the industry standard.  Through some very complicated magic, I ended up with a solid model of the Falcon that I could then program.  Here's the model as a work in progress:

With the solid model complete, I programmed and ran the model on the CNC mill.  I cut it out of a synthetic wood material called Renshape, the material we use at work for sample molds.  It cuts almost as easily as air, so it can be machined at incredible speeds and is very easy on the tooling.  I don't have any pictures of the machining in progress, so you'll have to use your imaginations.  More magic was involved.  Here's what I ended up with.  The quarter in the pic is for size reference.

There are some things about it I'm not happy with, but overall it turned out pretty good.  It certainly looks neat sitting on my coworker's desk :)