Here are some pics I found

Yee ha

damn, your giving me the "bug" now....

Here we go http://www.thesamba.com/vw/

Now just gotta find one close to me that is not all rusted up..



Hmmm these are cheap enough a guy could buy 6 and start a dune/desert tour/rental thing?

I had one years ago, never tried a jump that big though, parted it out when I noticed the title had a different vin than the pan (and I bought it from a friend).

This is what I'm working on for the wife, she wants it speedbuggy yellow, has a bus swing axle and reduction boxes for about 4 inches more clearance too.

We just took it into the shop for a full cage yesterday. Oh, we got it off thesamba too.

Post some pics of your when you get a chance.

I am looking for a dual use Bug I want something to drive when I don't need a truck or suburban to haul people or cargo, something to run up town in or back and forth to work, something that gets better mpg than my truck or suburban, also something I can take off road if I get the itch, I figure a Bug would probably work just fine, a Baja Bug or even a ex-race bug I can easily make street legal again, seems all the good stuff is in your area of the world so now I need to think about the shipping thing or take a road trip and maybe buy two, one for parts or to sell to recover transporation cost

Yeah, the wife is going to use it around town since it gets around 30 mpg and only use the suburban when she's dropping off or picking up the kids. It will also be used in the desert so even the 3 year old can come along on the trail now (all I have to do now is explain to the wife that it WON'T be able to keep up with the pilots.....).

The cage will be complete including the sides and the back seat going all the way to the Engine cage.

So far we've put PRP suspension seats in the front and a PRP Manx seat insert in the back, all new wiring (some of it was fried as per the sop for vw's), brand new genuine Meyer's Manx dashboard (Bruce Meyers lives ten minutes away, lucky me), all new gauges and switches and a completely rebuilt '71 Thing speedo unit, new front wheel bearings and speedo cable (old bearings had NO grease and the old BALL bearing cages were split in half), had to replace the driver's side spindle because someone had trashed the threads and used a cotter pin to hold the lock-nuts on......

Engine is in excellent condition, I rebuilt the solex carb for peace of mind and the pan is rust free (gotta love California for that).

I'll post some more pics when it gets back from the cage shop.

We're also thinking about self applying the plastic bedliner inside, anyone have personal experiences on that?

Are you going to mod the suspension any, I heard you can get 15" front and back pretty easy/cheap.

What travel you guess the racers are using on the pics I post?

Might put some longer arms on the front, but the rear is great the way that it is, I can crawl around under the rear no problem at all, easily 12-14 inches of travel. It's a swingarm transaxle so it's not going to give up much more than that and at least 4 inches of that is because of the bus reduction boxes.

Some of those you posted looked like they had around 15 maybe more on one of em, but the one jumping I would guess had some issues when it landed.

One thing I do remember about the bugs is that you want the front end with the headlights in the nose not in or on the fenders since the fenders will start to fatigue pretty quickly.

We've got a '71 super pan and drivetrain that the wife wants to eventually put a full length manx body on, but the front section will have to be replaced with the front of a beam car pan, which we also have from a '67 ghia I was going to restore, but have since parted out.

Note, i have seen a manx body like you have, it was fully tube chassis, no stock pan, but had fiberglass pan that resembled stock vw, pans are available from berrien buggy, the point being if you were going to build another, and add full cage, great way to tube the frame, as the vw frames are usually shortened to fit the body, and welded back together...

Yeah there's at least four companies making them within 10 minutes of me and they all have a long travel tube chassis version of one sort or another.

Try and get one of those registered for the street though........ and if you do make sure it's labeled as an SPCN (special construction), otherwise the CHP and/or the insurance company will have some bad news for you if you ever have an accident.

Not to mention the new smog law in Calif which requires newly built SPCN's to be smog legal for the year they're constructed..... That's going to hurt!

oh yeah, cali i forgot, im in mich, and easy here to do for state, i had a manx 10 yrs or so ago, i built a square tube chasis for mine, it didnt have a full cage on it, was fun for sure..looks like your having fun putting them together as well, that's what counts...

Anybody ever put a A arm front suspension under a bug??

i have never seen one, but surely someone has, tho in my opinion, with the right arms shocks etc, the bug link suspension far better than a arms...i debated shortening the front beam, or actually making the beams to put on my car, and using the arms from a bug, almost wish i would have, the suspension would have been a no brainer then..

here is my manx in 95, and its replacement in 98, i built both of them. well the berrirn was boughten chassis, and the manx body i bought used...

I've seen the super bettle type arms used, but they're kind of problematic and the long travel cars are almost all a-arm fronts, but not all.

You'd like this one, especially with a 2.5 subie in it.

http://www.meyersmanx.com/manxter-ds.shtml

off topic, but here is another of mine yrs ago...

Get the cage done yet?

Nope, not finished yet, went by to check it out last week, he's making origress, but it's fill-in work for him,not a priority so it may be another week or two.

Wife is getting antsy too.

YEE HAA





http://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/ ... ?id=391479

HOSER Here is one right near you!!!

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/ ... ?id=391557

Yup seen that one, need to call him, their is one by Drakman I like better for 2000 bux but I don't have time to go pick it up before I go to Florida... their site is not working right now so cant give the link.

If you do talk to him let him know the ball joint front end can't be replaced by a link-pin beam because the torsion tubes don't have the same spacing.

Good point thanks for the info...

The site is working now so here is the other one I was talking about.

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/ ... ?id=391177

here is the one I like!!!
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/ ... ?id=392066