I now have both seat mounting brackets built and bolted to the Vw bug seats. I carefully measured everything to make sure that the seats were in the correct locations as well as square. I can now re-fit the assembly back into the passenger compartment.
I am finishing up the mounting location brackets for the VW bug’s fuel cell. I have also fine tuned the seat locations and taken the critical measurments so I can start building the seat mounting brackets. After the brackets are bolted to the seats I can fit the entire assembly back in the car to fine tune their locations.
With the VW bug’s floor plate tacked in place, I need to start installing the fuel cell. I know that it must sit as far back as possible to accommodate the seats. I will build a box around this tank later, for now I will tack in the front lower support.
I will use whats left of the VW bug’s rear support box to create a engine and tranny stand so I can remove the frame. I need to flip the frame over to be able to finish all the welding so I will have to remove everything.
The VW bug’s MR2 steering rack is now tacked in place. The unit works great and the u-joint on the steering shaft clears the frame fine. I rolls and it steers, what more can you want?
My first attempt at making the MR2 steering rack bracket came up a bit short. I made the bracket a bit too large. I remade the bracket and it fits great now. Now that I have the drivers side bracket in place I need to plan out the passenger side. I believe I will make this bracket from some 1.5″x1.5″ square tubing with a piece of hard rubber sheeting in between.
I cut a steel plate the same size as my foam template and then determined where the MR2 steering rack should be located. I then cut a hole in the steel plate for the MR2 power steering pump. I went ahead and mounted the pump to the plate. I will now align everything and create the brackets for the rack itself.
I can now cut out the front VW bug strut link with my cut-off wheel. The video stops for some reason during the first cut, but I finally get it all cut out. I have to expand the tubing a bit on the ends so that the MR2 spherical strut mounts will fit. But a little bit more grinding and drilling and it should fit fine.
With my MR2 front strut link template created, I can trace the profile to the steel tubing. The template is made from 1/4″ foam board and the link itself is 1.5″x1.5″ steel tubing. I will now cut the steel tubing a bit longer and slowly grind it down to fit.
Now that I have everything lined up and all my measurements, I need to construct the VW bug’s top strut link from 1.5″x1.5″ steel tubing. I slowly cut a 1×2 board down to the correct length and clamped it to the MR2 strut mounts off setting it a bit so I can place the foam template. The foam template will be 1.5″ wide and will fit the front profile of the link.