Altering the rake of the windscreen angle.

15th April 2006.
I did not know exactly how the windscreen fitted onto the car and initially fastened it to the dashboard , I was not aware that it need to go over the bonnet and fasten the back end down. However fitting the screen to the car allowed me to see how the screen fitted to the car and how the dash board and the steering wheel interacted with each other. It was quite lucky that I did this and took some pictures as my local Beach Buggy Group at http://www.beachbuggy.org.uk/ commented on the suggesting the rake of the windscreen looked the wrong angle. This was odd as the bolt holes where already in place in the dashboard. This was further clear to me when the distance from the steering wheel was measured to the screen . There was only an inch between the edge of the wheel and the glass , this was clearly not satisfactory.

I removed the screen and looked at the dash frame. It had been made out what looked like metal right angle brackets this had been welded onto the dash frame to bring it forward . I placed the bonnet on the car and checked the bonnet holes . Funny enough there was holes in the right place for the bonnet to fix. It looked as if I had picked the wrong holes. Whilst having the bonnet on the car It was noticeable how difficult it was going to be to do nuts up in the inside of the dashboard to bolt on the screen and bonnet. I decided that I would have to make a solution to hold the nuts in place. My initial idea was to use my Nut insertion kit to place a nut in the hole. It was soon clear that because the frame was made from two strips of metal that this would not work as one of the holes went between the two pieces of metal. The only solution was to make up a backing plate that had nuts welded onto it. Once in place a third bolt would hold the plate with the nuts in place securely so that the bonnet and the screen could be fitted and a screw driver through the hole would position the backing plate with the nuts on so that a bolt could be inserted.

The procedure was a good one and by the end of afternoon I had the bonnet and windscreen on the buggy. As the sun went down I was very pleased with my work. My SWB Rat started to look like a car for the first time and was actually driveable although I still had a lot to do. I had purchased some GP side pods from ebay and wanted to fit them. I also wanted to get the car running properly as it was still backfiring and not running correctly.

Wiring Re-Visited Part One

14th April 2006
I managed to start looking at the wiring that had so far been heavily neglected due to its complexity. During the preliminary work on the car I had wired up the Alternator and starter motor loop through to the battery. I had also taken my wiring loom that I had purchased and placed the ignition coil leads and a small fuse box into the loom. This looked awful and to be honest nothing liked I thought it would. Even the fuse box although a new blade type was too small to take all of the connections. An interesting thing to pass on here is to get the largest fuse box that you can. The stock VW one is the absolute minimum needed and don't be conned by over zealous electrical companies stating 10 ways is enough.

I had downloaded wiring diagrams from http://www.vintagebus.com/wiring/ and had been pouring over the circuits during the Christmas period when it was to cold to get near the garage. I had decided that the wiring that I had in the loom was not enough to complete a wiring solution to reach the rear lights and the front lights. It seemed that the best solution for this was to go to my friendly Beetle breakers and buy two lighting wiring harnesses. These where fairly easy to extract and came with a short run of cabling for the brake switch. I also purchased a VW fuse box at the same time and decided that as this had the mountings for the relays built in that I was going to use it to rewire the car. I wired the lighting circuit in to the fuse box relatively easily. The wiring diagrams where very good as they were colour coded. I managed to buy different colours of wires that matched the wiring colours in the diagrams. This I felt would make the process easier. My helpful beetle braking friend Rob was also able to supply the connector blocks that VW used to connect multiple wires together making a neat job.

The next wiring needed was to hook up the power to my array of dials and the lighting circuits to them. This was to take a while to make them as I had to solder two wires into each spade connector and ensure a clear cover was on each before starting the next. The power wires had six connectors and a seventh to connect onto the circuit on the fuse box or the light switch. This repeated for the earths and again twice more for the instruments lights. The wiring was soon in and connected up. I had decided to stick with the VW switches as these Lent authenticity to the project build. It wasn't long before I had instrument lights working from the button.

I had kept the ignition switch wiring and was able to connect this onto the fuse box to provide a basic ignition system through the key. The rest of the front circuits to the car where connected up as described in the wiring diagram. There was a lot of little wires that linked the circuits together and soon I had front indicators, front lights and hazards all working on the front circuit.

The rear original wiring loom was still in place and as I had the front of the wiring completed I needed to strip the extra wiring out of the harness. This was simply a job of ensuring that I left the wiring colour coded wires in for the rear lights number plate, indicators, brake lights and a reversing light. The resulting bundle was re-wound with tape and laid through the cockpit on the passenger side.

I installed a stereo system in the whole that I had constructed in the dash the wiring was fairly simple and I ran a power amp wire alongside the wiring harness.

I would have to wait until I managed to buy the rear lights before I could start the wiring of the rear lights although I had enough wire to run out to the back of the car and supply the lights when eventually had them fitted. It would not know that it would be until the 11 Sep 2006 until I found some lights that would fit and would be what I wanted for my buggy.

Cleaning Up and Rebuilding the windscreen.

13th april 2006
The windscreen for the buggy is a aluminium frame with a glass panel held in with a rail and right angle brackets. Although simple in design it is a complicated item not to be underestimated.

My screen surround had seen better days and I wanted to take it apart so that I could get the holes in the frame welded up and the hole frame polished and chromed. The rubbers had also seen better days and would need replacing.

The frame is held together by two screws that are underneath the rail that sits on the body. To get at them the body gasket rubber has to be removed and pulled out of its channel. Undoing these screws will allow the rail to be taken off and removed. This then allows access to the glass which should still have a rubber seal around it. The other side of the brackets can be undone by undoing the screws on the outside of the wind screen hoop. The windscreen glass can then removed from its frame by slightly pulling on the hoop to release the screen.

It is very important to take the screen and place it somewhere where it will not be disturbed. Getting replacement glass is very difficult and very expensive.

I collected up the rubber and bagged it so that I could take it to the rubber specialist at a later date.

The screen surround had seen better days and was riddled with different holes for mounting everything from a rear view mirror to a tax disc. I new that it was possible to weld Aluminium and I also new it wasn't for the light hearted so decided to ask some of my friends to see if they new anyone that had welded aluminium in the past. Luckily a good friend Martyn turned up a friend that could weld the aluminium. I took the frame over to him and left the frame with him for a week. In the mean time I decided that my time was better used locating replacement rubbers for the windscreen.

I Located a company called Baines in Tunbridge Wells who were a rubber extrusion manufacturing company. The trip to Baines was pretty successful, although the process of matching the rubber was an interesting one. The company used books of different profiles of rubber each with a number that located its stock. I spent the whole morning here and eventually managed to locate a match for the rubbers.

I got home and had been left a message saying that the frame had been welded and it was ready for collection the next day. The new rubbers fitted the glass but the overall size of the rubber glass combination seemed to be thicker. I presumed this was because the rubber had been compressed for along time in the frame and hoped it would not present a problem.

I picked up the screen surround the next day and took them into my polishers . He agreed to polish it up but was hesitant about chroming it. The process to chrome aluminium requires that the item needs to be cleaned , Zinc-8 coated and the chrome plated. Apparently there are not many companies who have large Zinc8 electroplating baths. I had to settle with my polisher cleaning up the frame. The cleaning process took several days, I picked up the frame and was very happy with the results the frame looked new.

The following afternoon I decided to try to install the glass back in the the frame. I had two sash cramps and hoped that this would squeeze in the glass. Plenty of washing up liquid frustration and black coated hands later it was apparent that this was not the process that go the glass in in the first place. My screen was in bits and I had no idea how to put it back together, my best efforts had be thwarted.

I decided that the windscreen had had to have been assembled and this meant that the only reason that I could not put it together was because I did not know the correct process. I started phoning around and eventually came across a custom car company that specialised in MG open top cars, these had a similar windscreen and It was clear by what the owner said that he could put it back together for £50.00 that he knew something that i didn't.

I left the parts with him and waited for his call.

A week later he called to say that the windscreen was complete. I went down to Eastbourne and collected it from him. I was curious how he had achieved to get it back together as my best efforts had failed. He explained that the secret was in how you assembled it. He went on to explain that he had placed the rubbers in position as I had done. He explained the reason that I had failed was that I needed a method of cranking the frame together. He said he had used four car luggage straps that have a cranking arm to tighten them. He slowly introduced pressure on all of these after using washing up solution as a lubricant over the period of the week he had tightened the straps slowly easing the glass and rubber into the frame. I was amazed that the solution was so simple, but happy my windscreen was back together looking fabulous.

Fixing In Seat Belt Mounts

1st April 2006

Fixing in the seat belt mounts seems to be one of the most unknown topics regarding beach buggies that is around. This may be to the multitude of different ways of fitting them. I decided that I needed 4 point fixings as I had bought one Willans Club 4x4 3" harness strap ,3" belt with a rotary buckle from eBay which was a steel at the price I paid for it. I had been searching eBay for the other for months and decided eventually that I would have to buy a new second belt from Demon Tweaks to match. I had purchased several different combinations of Willans belts during the search for the other matching belt , the problem is that many people do not advertise their belts correctly and the difference between Club and Saloon belts when the belts are called Willans Club complicates the purchase. I was devastated to buy two new Club Willans boxed belts only to find that the harness straps were for a Caterham and where to short for my installation.

Importantly I ended up with belts that had clip-on ends not bolt on as the fixings I was going to use were eyelets that I intended to fix through the base of the floor. I had originally intended to extend my roll bar backwards onto the rear seat area so that I could hook the belts backwards instead of through the floor behind the seat. I was not entirely happy with this fabrication as I wanted the rear seat area as clear as possible. The reason for this was that I wanted to build a speaker box that was removable on the rear seat area. The problem with this was that The speaker area would encroach on the harness diagonal and until the box area had been manufactured I could not easily gauge a height. With this in mind I settled for the floor mounting positions. The floor on the buggy is not very thick and the harness companies recommed using spreader plates to ensure that the eyelet cannot pull through. I intially purchased eight spreader plates with the intention of placing the spreader plates underneath the chassis. It was soon apparant that the eylets would still pull out as the area in contact with the chassis under the loop was minimal and I would have to buy speader plates to fit ontop as well as underneath the chassis. The rear mounts went in very easily and I placed the lap belts under the seat sub frame slightly back from the loops in the seats.

The belt mounts were pretty secure going through the floor and I was suprised by how firm the spreader plates made the fixings. The belts just clipped onto the eylets making removal for maintanance easy.