"Andrea" my bagged and body dropped 71 super beetle

im a good way into my project. im assuming this is where i need to put my build log. so ill start from the beginning. i bought the car off craigs list for 500. no motor but had a transmission and was mostly all complete. my original plan was a fenderless volksrod. but after researching i found out supers are not really all that good for that look.. so i decided to go for a clean custom.. with a twist. im going to convert the car to a full electric beetle. im obsessed with ev's. i want a tesla more then i want my next breath lol. ive body dropped my super 2 inches and am about to start my floor board fab and suspension modifications.

Welcome to the site. Sounds like you have a great build project. Post up lots of pics!

nomercy811 wrote:im going to convert the car to a full electric beetle. im obsessed with ev's. i want a tesla more then i want my next breath lol.

Check out this video I saw on CNN the other day about electric conversions... I would love to do this to my Ghia.

http://money.cnn.com/2014/07/17/autos/zelectric-bug-electric-vw-beetle/

Can you explain the body drop? Not sure how one would go about that on a beetle.

ill be posting pictures shortly. basically the term body drop comes from mini truckers. its when you move the floorboards up effectively moving the body down on the frame. this tucks the frame under the body so that when the air ride is air'd all the way out the body is able to lay flat on the ground. i have done the necessary mods to lower the body i just need to build new floors and modify the suspension

ok this is what i started with. a $500 roller from craig's list

ok skipping to some of the dis assembly and prep work for the body drop...

removing the body...




sand blasting and restoring the rims..






seeing what the wheels will look like tucked inside the fender, with baby moons and beauty rings. on 165 50 15 tires..



and now prepping for the body drop...








spare tire well must go. itll hit not only the frame but the steering links as well.

And now the fun stuff. sawzall time...






and now to burn it back in... 2 inches higher in the body..










another shot of the amount of body drop




test fitting the body on its new home. 2 inches lower.






Ill be ordering metal for the floor this weekend and starting the mods on my suspension.

ok now for the suspension mods. i skipped the rear mods because most of us have taken torsion bars out before.

ok so i did some searching around and found some strut inserts that will fit. luckily vw made super beetle struts rebuild able so this was very easy to dis assemble.. the struts i found were inserts for a 1980 vw rabbit/jetta and were a full 4 inches shorter then factory super beetle struts.

heres the super bettle struts (red) and rabbit struts (black)



first thing i did after pulling the strut inserts out was cut the bottom mount off like so





i was going for a full 4 inches so i removed the very bottom 4 inches of the strut





now clean everything up and check your fit before welding back together



using the old (bad) strut insert as a guide to keep the strut strait up and centered i welded in back together



taking out as much as i did i had to remove the brake line bracket.. ill figure out something for that later on down the road. heres a shot of the modified strut next to the stock unmodified strut.



how Andrea sits in the front with a 2 inch body drop, 4 inch shorter struts and no springs. the way it will when its bagged.





and a couple shots of the whole car "laid out". to bad i didnt finsh with day light left lol

Looks good! That's gonna lay running board and fenders and aprons lol. Are you going with 2 inch dropped floors?

yea i dropped it 2 inches. well 1 15/16ths to be exact

Cool. How are you going to do the pedals? Keep them in the original spot of the tunnel and just raise the floor there a little or lower the floor of the tunnel roughly 2 in. I drove a kit car that had a 2 in dropped floor but the pedals were not moved and it was a pain, I finally just tossed a 2x4 on the floor to rest my feet on while I was working on it.

We'll.. Seeing as it's gonna be electric, I guess there may not really be a need for the original pedals lol....never mind hahaha

actually me and my friends had kicked around the idea of doin a hayabusa motor instead. as far as the pedals go. im gonna build the new floors and do a test fit in the factory location. set my seats ill be using in and set my seat location. and see how everything feels to me

and actually my floors will still techniquely be in the same space as stock relative to the pedals. im just moving where the body mounts down so the frame tucks under the body

I got ya on the floors. That would be a pretty cool drivetrain, Hudlow's axle in Chattanooga did a version of that and it's sick. I was doing business with them a while back and got to see their build from time to time. Here is a link to a short vid of it...if you havent already seen it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uxUB9h4A_k
Its on bags too. I'm sure it's a blast to drive. They build some cool stuff for sure.

yea i freakin love that car

most resent update i got my floor boards cut out of 1/8th plate and tacked in to the frame. ill be pulling the body off soon to make the side filler pieces that go from my floor down to the lowered body mounts which i also made from 1/8 plate steal...  

nearing the finish of my body drop

That's nuts man! Never seen something like that before. Coming along nicely. Keep the progress pics coming.

thanks. and oh btw i test fit my back seat to make sure it still fit... im 6'4" 310lbs. and here i am sitting in the back seat of my body dropped super

ok so its been a while since ive updated. i almost couldnt touch my car for a year. but im back on it now and slowly making progress. here are a few update pictures

Glad your back at it! Keep it up!

thanks. i was out there today making templates for my filler panels in the back seat area