Steering Column Part III

The column came back from the welder.  Yeah!!

He welded and installed a set bolt through the top U-joint.  You can see this below.

That's the 7/8 column going to a 3/4 steering shaft. Both were smooth and had no set screws whatsoever. Since I had the thing out of the car, I thought now would be a good time to sand it down and paint it gray, instead of that ugly 30 year old black.

Looks much better.  I also painted the steering wheel middle gray as well.  Of course I needed my wife to make the connection was in place while I was lining it up from the driver's seat.  I also used longer screws with large washers so I could get the steering column to screw in a lot easier than before.

Even though it looks good, there's a lot of clunking because the U joint is right where the fire wall hole is.  When I cut away some more of the fiberglass the steering shaft tends to move around.  I'm looking at getting an adapter/weight from a VW catalog to smooth it out.  Of course, the good news is it works!!

Converting to Disc Brakes

I started this adventure with the intention to hold off on converting to disc brakes until it was absolutely necessary.  I figured I'd get the drums turned and buy new shoes.  Previously I had taken out the transaxle and needed to clean up the rear brakes from the oil that came out the axles and pretty much coated the entire brake drum area.  So...the bad news was they couldn't turn the drums because they were already beyond the safety specs allowed.  New drums would cost $60 a pop.  Add the cost of shoes and other misc items and now we're just over half the cost of upgrading to disc brakes.  I thought long and hard and my wife, Lord love her, she said my "safety was more important than a couple hundred dollars.  Get the new brakes!"

The rear brakes were ordered and I started to take the drums apart.  When I got to the front brakes, wow!!! And I thought the back brakes were bad.  Talk about a bucket of rust!  BTW, I bought the BugMeVideo for brakes which did a great job of pointing out that the front driver's side threads are backwards.  Righty is loosey and lefty is tighty.  Good thing I watched that video first.

Here's the rear passenger side.  You'll need a 14mm to take off the four backing plate bolts.  The new brakes comes with a new seal kit so the old gaskets get replaced along with the o rings.

The backing plate had a 11mm bolt that took off the brake line connection.  Did I mention the kit comes with new brake lines too?

You'll also need to replace the grease seal.  Here's what it looks like after you pound out the old with a screwdriver.  Make sure you clean out the little hole at the bottom with a pipe cleaner.  You can use the old seal and a block of wood in a press to put the new seal in.

The only way to mount this new bracket is at the 9 o'clock position or the 12 o'clock position.  I went with the nine.  I checked the new brake line and it seems to stretch OK to this position. What you didn't see was the effort to get everything together - new bracket, o ring, spacer, new gasket, four plate screws, etc..

Bright and shiney!  Now it's time to put on the caliper.

Two bolts and it's on, easy enough.  Notice the bleeder is on top.  THIS IS IMPORTANT.  There is a guy with a video on Youtube saying EMPI brakes are awful.  Read the fine print which says he solved the problem on the samba site.  After 15 pages I got to the part where he "solved the problem."  He installed the calibers the wrong way.  If he would have read the directions..... The only hang up at this point is the top bolt of the caliper unscrews so you can slide in the brake pads.  If the bolt washer isn't lined up right, the caliper won't close.  You won't notice this unless you are looking from the backside of the rotor.  There should only be a slight amount of resistance to close the caliper with the new brake shoes.

Finally, the adapter nut goes in the caliper before the new brake line attaches.  Failure to do this will strip the caliper.

OK, now comes the emergency brake.  Good thing I have a wire puller. : )

Lift'em Up Part WHATEVER!

The three inch lift created several problems.  One of which was the way the front body attaches to the king pin frame.  The three inch lift created a space and what once was in sync is no longer.  But I have a solution.

When I was in the hardware store looking at U bolts for my butt sag bar, I saw square U bolts.  Hmmmm... Looking at the misalignment again I noticed that the square U bolt would wrap around the bottom but also sit flat on the braces.

I drilled a hole that was about 2 1/4 inches inches above the original hole.  Now instead of two bolts that wrap around the pipes, I have three.

Here's one side....

And the other side.  Problem solved! (And the crowd goes wild....)

Installing the Electric Motor

Finally!  After all this time I get to install the electric motor.  The transaxle is back in place, the Butt Sag Bar has been refurbished with 3 inch blocks to accommodate the 3 inch body lift that was added.
WARNING: An electric motor is heavy!!
I think mine weighs somewhere around 100 lbs.  Most folks will use an engine hoist to install their motors and there are many examples of this on the web.  I'm cheap and on a budget so I thought I would try using the motorcycle jack.  I had to lift the motor on the jack and then figure how to get it level with the transaxle.

The trunk area is pretty tight and even with the motorcycle jack it was lift, move forward, lift, move forward, etc...

Yeah, that's not gonna work.  Looks like I need to add a board in the back.

So, here's the skinny board and it's still not level.  Hey, I have a steel plate around here somewhere.
And that was the best solution.  It actually made the motor easy to shift and adjust so the bolts would line up.  This went faster than what I expected - about 45 minutes.  Remember, keep it level, and once the clutch stem is lined up it just slides right in. : )

It's exciting to get to work on the actual conversion instead of fixing mechanical problems.

Transaxle Installation

So, it goes in the way it came out, right?
Since I am going to marry the transaxle to an electric motor, I needed to cap off the starter hole so rocks and dirt won't get in.  I took a paper towel and traced the  pattern then used a razor knife to cut out the plastic lid from a coffee can.

Here's with the cover in place.

Getting the transaxle on the jack was awkward.  Since I didn't have the car up 4 feet in the air like they did in the video, I had to push the transaxle under the car, open the trunk, and squat over the transaxle, lift, then  slide the jack underneath.  Now I forgot to mention I bought a new boot and replaced the one that looked like it was going to crack at any moment.  Now that the transaxle was up on the supports, I could see the axle with the new boot had rotated and was no where close to where it needed to be.
Long story short, if you loosen the boot, it will allow the axle to turn to the position you want it to go.

Reinstalling the axle means you need to have a good awareness of all three points that need to line up - right axle, left axle, and pointy end into the tunnel.  Not to mention mounting that forward transmission mount. (That's why I got into this mess to begin with!!)
The part that goes into the tunnel was difficult to remove so I decided to see what the problem was by slipping it on beforehand.  Wow, what a tight fit!  No wonder it didn't want to come off. A quick rub with some metal sanding paper then adding some grease made the connection much easier.

 

When you go to reinstall this shift linkage be ready for some frustration.  First, my three inch lift was in the way and I had to cut a little out.

Next, if you have big hands, you're not going to like this part at all. There is very little room to attach the Y part to the linkage that is laying in the tunnel.  It takes a lot of wiggling and giggling to get the sleeve in one side and through the linkage to the other side then you need to add the 8 mm screw and use that tool you made to stop the sleeve from turning while you tighten the screw.
The last part is screwing in the set screw.  You will more than likely drop the screw in the tunnel.  You'll need one of these..

This is a telescoping magnetic lighted picker-upper!  One of my favorite tools.  Looking for that set screw in the dark tunnel can be a real search and rescue mission, but with this tool you have a chance.

Steering Column Part II

Previously, I needed to alter my steering column because I added a 3 inch lift kit to the body.  This is one of the the several problems that one needs to solve.  The VW steering column is a straight shot, no u-joints.  I had to cut away about 12 inches and look for a shaft, and two u-joints to connect the column to the steering box.  What I ended up doing was buying three u-joints: 7/8 smooth to 5/8-36 spline; 3/4 48 spline to 3/4 48 spline; 3/4 smooth to 3/4 smooth.  I took two apart to get what I needed: 7/8 smooth to 3/4 smooth.

If you've never taken a U-joint apart before, you use a vise to push one side out. You'll notice these have little allen screws to keep the joints from coming apart. I used a 2.5 allen wrench to get the screws off.  Next I put a small nut on one side and the open end of a socket on the other side.  Now start pressing, I usually go slow so the pressure doesn't build up too much. Use a pair of pliers and take off the cap - careful, this has tiny bearings inside.  Now press in the opposite direction to remove the other side.  It's not necessary to take all four caps off.  A screw driver can pry the two joints apart.

Here's what I ended up with.  Starting with the column, then the first u-joint: a 7/8 smooth to a 3/4 smooth, a 12 inch 3/4 shaft with 48 spline on the end; the second u-joint is a 3/4 48 spline to a 3/4 48 spline.  This connects to the steering box spline by tightening the allen screw.  The original spline on the steering box is difficult to match.  The nice thing is I have a left over joint that is a 5/8 36 spline which will marry to a rack and pinion.

Now I need to install temporarily so I can make sure the measurement of the 12 inch shaft isn't too long.  If it is, I'll cut it.  The final step before final installation is to get the smooth joints spot-welded to the shaft and column.