Building custom cars in my backyard

I am now building a re-enforcement plate for the dash board. This plate will help stiffen up the dash-board/steering-column support. I will first build a template from poster board and then transfer the profile to steel. I will cut the steel and fit it in place.

The VW bug's hood is now on and it closes OK. Once I drilled out the hinges, I mounted the hood on the car and slowly ground down both the dash support and the hinges themselves until they fit just right. They seem to be plenty strong and for now everything clears fine.

With the dash-board/steering-column support constructed, I need to insure that the VW bug hood will close. I have constructed new hood hinges and also cut a bit of the dash support out for everything to clear. All I need to do now is finish drilling out the mount holes and test fit the hood.

With everything aligned on the VW bug's dash-board/steering-column support I can tack it all in place. Once I had a few tack welds holding it all together, I removed everything from the car and finished welding the barckets and all of the nuts on.

After trimming a bit of steel from the Toyota MR2's steering support brackets, I can now continue to strengthen the assembly. I am creating a few angle members to stiffen the unit from side to side. These small brackets will be welded to the angle iron and bolted to the side supports. I have also [...]

After assembling the dash support, I need to adjust it a bit to support the MR2 steering column. I need to have the 2x2 angle a bit closer to the front of the VW bug's nose. I will trim up the side brackets to accomplish this. Using paint I am marking the edges of the [...]

I have decided on the plan to mount the MR2's steering wheel in the VW bug. I will build a support that is attached from one side of the interior sheetmetal to the other. This support will be made of a piece of 2x2 angle iron and two pieces of 10 gauge flat steel. It [...]

The VW bug pedal placement continues. I now have a plywood template to hold both the brake and clutch pedels in place. After a ton of measurments the pedals are very close to their final positions. All in all everything is fitting fairly well.

This is getting fairly tough. The placement of the MR2 pedals and their associated master cylinders is critical. I have to take into account where the pedals with be in the foot-box as well as how all the hardware will clear the existing custom framing. Oh yeah, it also has to fit inside the VW [...]

With the seats in their final locations I can now try and fit the pedals and steering column. I am starting to cut away the internal sheetmetal around the firewall to give me room to position everything. It looks like I can fit the new firewall straight up from the original.