Satan's "Lady Bug"

[454bug]

Hey Ray, any updates at all?

I'm interested too!!

Hey guys,

Thanks for checking in. Not much to update today. My sheet metal guy says he has finished the firewall but hasn’t sent pictures. He said he needs a couple of weeks to finish the shortened list of areas to work on. Hopefully, I’ll be bringing the car home within the month.

When I know more, I’ll definitely post an update!

I hope everyone’s projects have been going better than mine!! Take care.

[Bugzilla]

Ray - your Bug is moving in a better direction then mine. I currently have no engine once again.... Maybe next year.

[454bug]

Hey guys and gals,

It's been a long time since I've checked in with y'all! I hope everyone's projects have been moving forward and have been enjoying them! It's been a LONG dry spell with mine... But, hopefully the time is right to move on to the next level of completion. Over the last 1-1/2 years I have FINALLY got my sheetmetal guy to be motivated enough to find a stopping point so I could pick up the car and move forward. My biggest concern pertained to stopping his work at a point that would have an incomplete portion of the car. I didn’t want someone else or myself to try and match his work. His attention to detail and quality work would have been very difficult to duplicate.

So, even though I envisioned him performing a number of other tasks, we felt it was appropriate to finish the obvious sheetmetal work that needed completion to produce the symmetry in the engine bay and in the interior. So, this update will have pictures that have occurred over the last 1-1/2 years. They include the following:

As previously discussed, we replaced a couple of the roll cage bars to accommodate the clutch pedal. Along with the added space to the left side of my feet, it didn't seem to have a natural pedal depth with a flat firewall. Therefore, we decided to construct a bump-out for the pedal throw.








Now the motion feels appropriate:

[454bug]

Previously, we had installed a 16" center-to-center "Steer Clear" to step the steering from waist-height to right along the frame rail. This made it a straight shot from the firewall to the rack-and-pinion avoiding the headers. With the newly installed pedal kick out panel, we needed to re-route the steering shaft setup. Wizard Fabrication was VERY gracious to swap out my 16" Steer Clear for an 8" model. To miss the kick out panel, we needed to index it further to the driver's side. In addition, since we were dealing with more severe angles, we needed to add a double u-joint as well as a couple of fixed mount bearings to keep the assembly from binding up.

[454bug]

After we finished the pedal kick-out panel and re-vamped the steering linkage, we moved on to finishing out the hood hinge installation. After we finished the hinge and gas strut setups, we finished out the decorative second firewall as well as the dress-up inner front fenders:





The decorative second firewall is doing a few things for me. First, it dresses up the firewall area by hiding the Steer Clear and the extended pedal box. Secondly, it gives me about a 1" thick space between the inner and outer panels so I can install some type of sound deadening and heat resistant material between the two panels.


And here's the final product:

[454bug]

To finish out the sheetmetal work in the interior, we moved the brake/clutch reservoirs to the side so they could be accessed after I get the dash covered:



And here we have the finished sheetmetal interior!



As previously mentioned, the entire body is removable so I can get the frame/roll cage powder coated. After the body is dropped back on the car, we needed to tie everything together with some nice door sills. Here's how they came out:



To get a feel for the finished product, my sheetmetal guy pulled the protective covering off of one of the inner fenders to reveal the beauty of his craftmanship:



As previously mentioned, I will powdercoat all of the aluminum panels a certain color. The jury is still out on the final color of the car as well as the powdercoated aluminum panels. The underside of the inner fenders will also receive a coating of some sort of Rhino Liner to protect the somewhat soft aluminum from road rash.

[454bug]

So, now the car is ready to be picked up... But, with the current "Shelter at Home" requirement, I don't have any friends local to help me go pick the car up! When our company decided to have everyone work from home, my work buddies that care about cars actually traveled back to Louisiana to be closer to their families. It will be one more month before they will even consider letting us get back to some level of normalcy. My garage is waiting anxiously for that moment in time!

I hope everyone is keeping themselves and their families safe in these crazy times! Take care!

[Motown 454]

Hi Ray! great to see you post this progress. The metal work came out beautiful. The extra room for your feet was a good idea, you don't want to miss one of those pedals in a race.
I know what you mean about not being able to pick up the car, mine is getting the wiring done in the next state over (RI) and they have check points and stop all out of state vehicles and see if what your doing is a necessity. I don't know what they would say when I tell them I'm going to check on my classic car.
Stay safe !
Wayne

[Martin71RS]

Nice to see some progress Ray....and it looks good! :-)

[Alwhite00]

I just found this thread. Awesome craftsmanship on everything. Keep it up man.

[jlcustomz]

Just looked through a few pages of this for the first time myself. I know it's taken a slight bit of time to get to where you're at now, but that's just the price of doing built not bought for us normal folk. My vehicle has been in progress for 27 years now, though drivable most of the time, and nowhere near completed, changing directions every few years. So I'm in there for the long haul with ya here.
I'm not in the bug club so to speak, but pulling up to a local bug meet in your project completed would be a hell of a good time.

[tonyuh60]

Ray,

just looked through a few of your pages, amazing fab work. I wish I had those skills. Look forward to the end state.

[454bug]

Ray - your Bug is moving in a better direction then mine. I currently have no engine once again.... Maybe next year.

Hey Sean,

It looks like I'm finally getting to bring the car home soon. Whenever we get a green light to get out of the "Shelter at Home" situation!

I see you have a stock engine for your Bug now. I'm looking forward to your progress report after you get the harness delivered!

[454bug]

Hi Ray! great to see you post this progress. The metal work came out beautiful. The extra room for your feet was a good idea, you don't want to miss one of those pedals in a race.
I know what you mean about not being able to pick up the car, mine is getting the wiring done in the next state over (RI) and they have check points and stop all out of state vehicles and see if what your doing is a necessity. I don't know what they would say when I tell them I'm going to check on my classic car.
Stay safe !
Wayne

Hey Wayne,

I hope you and your family are safe and sound with the craziness going on in New York/New Jersey area. Massachusetts isn't that far away...

It's great to hear you're getting real close on your car. Getting the wiring done is means your inching closer and closer to getting it on the road!

Thanks for checking in!

[454bug]

Nice to see some progress Ray....and it looks good! :-)

Thanks Martin! It has been a while!! That's a really nice list of upgrades on your car.

I saw you enjoying your Camaro on the track recently! I'm sure you enjoyed getting back out there. There's nothing like having fun on a road course. Watch out for those other cars!

Take care!

[454bug]

I just found this thread. Awesome craftsmanship on everything. Keep it up man.

Ray,

just looked through a few of your pages, amazing fab work. I wish I had those skills. Look forward to the end state.

Thanks guys!

[454bug]

Just looked through a few pages of this for the first time myself. I know it's taken a slight bit of time to get to where you're at now, but that's just the price of doing built not bought for us normal folk. My vehicle has been in progress for 27 years now, though drivable most of the time, and nowhere near completed, changing directions every few years. So I'm in there for the long haul with ya here.
I'm not in the bug club so to speak, but pulling up to a local bug meet in your project completed would be a hell of a good time.

Hey Joe,

Life has a crazy way of throwing constant curve balls at you! Since I started this build, I've changed employment, moved twice, went through two downturns in my profession's industry (oil & gas), had 2 children's weddings, had 3 grandchildren born, built a MEGA patio on the back of my house to appease the wife, etc., etc. I spent a lifetime of prioritizing other things but I eventually come back around to working on cars again and again. This project has been the most frustrating because of the sheer amount of custom work. Being a normal dude with a normal job, I can't afford the high end shop cost so I just have to exhibit patience and get things done when I can.

I'm sure others can relate. I'm not complaining. I love my life, family, and friends. I just wish I would hit the lottery so I could have these projects complete and enjoying them more!

I'm not getting any younger (59 years young!)

[Motown 454]

We're OK so far, We're in Mass pretty heavy positive cases here but thank God no one in the family. You stay safe too. It feels good making some progress.

[Backlash122]

Oh man, Of all the bug projects I've found on the internets this one is the most thorough. Hell, I even joined the forum to pick your brain on some stuff.

My big question - how is the body bolted to the frame? (I can kinda see some tabs in the pictures) More importantly, did you re-use the original body locations and heater channels, or did you make new steel sections?

Follow up - how sealed is the floor? Is there a gap under the custom sheet metal floor / sills?

I understand it is a track / nice weather car - so water isn't as big of a concern, but I wanted to get mine to sit pretty closed off from the elements. Also mine is pretty rusty where the channels are, so I'd have to make new channel sections. (or weld it all to flat plate.

I attached some pictures of the bug and the plans for the future for fun.

Thanks for taking the time!!

[Bugzilla]

Looking good Ray. Glad to see a lot of progress was made since the last big update!