A few pics of the projects, Rick wanted to see Options

[r_towle]

Just one for now, more as the week progresses.
The famous "beatster" is on the left with no headlight buckets.
The car on the right is a clients car that I am doing all the metal work on.
The car on the right I already did the front and rear fender, just finishing up the door bottom and door skin to get the rest all lined up and completed.
Then I get to move to the drivers side...
First I will go patch up a dozen or so holes...I am sick of the door gymnastics...on,,off,,on,,off...it gets old.
Once I finish up the skin I hope to keep the damn door on for a while...doubt it though.
That is a cool car, midnight blue with tan interior...cool rare color combo, and all the parts are there...numbers matching super 90.

My car is the beatster...on left.
I was gonna complete the job of making it a convertible, but a few things happened.
I took off all the crappy work that was done by the previous owner and I was about to start over.
Wife told me she would rather ride in a car with a roof and AC...hmmm
Then I found a roof clip, and when I layed it on top, it was so close it took about two hours to line it all up and tack it in place...
It was to easy to get it back to a coupe...
The rear deck lid took one hour to get back all lined up and tacked.
So, off we go with the coupe.
I admit I have loads of butt welding ahead, but I enjoy that part of it.
I may go with a 901 IRS tranny, I have a few...but I am still up in the air.
I will be looking for a 912 rear tube soon...if I can locate the parts I will probably go that route.
The nice part is the 901 and the 914 share alot of the same internal gears etc...and I have a few spares.
The previous owner had the idea of placing this convertible/project/abortion on a VW pan...so he cut out the front torsion tubes (they are welded in on a 356) and he cut out the rear torsion tube...
Thankfully I snagged those parts when I got the body...

I just completed installing the floors on the beatster so I can support the body and get it square and level..
Then I will do the front and rear tubes with the body bolted to the floor.
The hardest part was figuring out where to start...
I used straight edges in a grid to get the floors parallel to the longitudinals...
From there, as I level up and support the car from the inner longs, the rest of the body can now be moved back into place and welded back using the factory measurements..

Its backwards, but I could not build a jig to support the body from the front and rear tubes cause they are not in the car.
I could not figure out how to place these tubes without some way to hold the body still, so I needed to start with the floors to have a stable platform to begin the structural work...
Overall, not a huge effort once I finally got started...I think I spent more time thinking about it and planning then I did actually doing the work.
I will take a few pics, but suffice it to say that I installed an entire inner long structure with a lower lip to support the floors.
I am also adding a few key structural pieces to aid the original design and make it a bit stronger...
Funny thing, the weak spot is right where the hell hole is on a 914, but it gets filled with crud from below...then the drain holes get plugged up and it starts rotting away. The added rot is up at the top of the rear inner fender structure...once you get a hole there, It really filles up the long with sand and crap...so it makes it worse.
I used all 16 and 18 gauge galv steel for these places,...It does smell and smoke, but a good mask and milk makes it ok.

Rich