Varg In Jeep's Clothing

That's better. Looks better too, and less stress on the components.

 

In the above pic, you can sorta see how the power booster sits proud of the floor a little. I addressed that with a hole in an 1/8" plate that got welded from the box and spans up to the bend in the sheetmetal. This will give the box a ton more support. I covered the hole with a bubble made out of a section of 3"OD tubing.

 

You joke...

 

One on the clutch for a safety interlock might be a good idea.

 

As we tell our kids, "Ya get what ya get, and ya don't throw a fit."

 

I think that's one feature I wouldn't want on that!

 

This is getting hard to see due to how tight things are getting in here...
I needed to alter the fender to fit the power brake booster and master cylinder. I moved the angled section of the inner fender forward by 5". Even with that, I still needed to make a little doghouse around the tip of the MC. (My steel supplies are so low, I had to reuse sections of the fender I cut out.)





I wanted to get the fenders and MC in place so I know where I can go with the rest of the engine bay cage.

 

I was thinking it's starting to look Mad Max-ish!

 

Beautiful job on the pedal box! Yours looks a lot like a pedal box from a BMW 2002. I'm more into borrowing parts from other cars and making them fit, rather than fabricating from scratch as you do. That way, I can replace parts if ever needed a instead of fabricating. I think you're having more fun!
How hard is the Varg going to be to work on with everything packed in? For instance, how much disassembly is needed to replace the brake booster?
Beautiful work!
-Donny

 

Thanks Donny. I'm making a concerted effort to make everything easy to get to and removable. All nuts are welded in, so everything is one-tool removal.

Fender comes off with seven(?) bolts, booster slides out after pulling one pin and four nuts. This might get a little more complicated after I put the other cage tie-ins in place, but even pulling the fenders, grill, and whole cage out of the engine bay should be a 10-minute ordeal.

 

In recent years I have become a big fan of welded in nuts and one tool removal of things. I look at things I built years ago and I rework them in my head constantly. I'm really enjoying this thread. I have only had time for non fun money jobs in the shop after the regular job.

 

Fender is done. Not pretty, not perfect, not caring. Painted it black to hide the uglies. There's a golf ball-sized glob in the middle that I left on purpose. Someone took the time to fill a giant hole with weld. It was there from a previous owner and deserved to be memorialized.



Because the brake system and fender were done, I could then finish the engine bay cage. It still needed two more vertical sections behind the sway bar; they needed to match, but squeeze in next to the brakes on the DS and follow the line of the fender on the PS.

I finally got to use the last four plates I made a few weeks/months ago. This crazy cope took longer to get right than I'd like to admit.



The far side dropped down on the inside of the frame to contact the crossmember.



I got the tubes bent and fit last night. As usual, first one took an hour, second one took 5 minutes.

Pass. side follows the fender.



Driver's side fits nicely around the MC and where the brake lines will exit.



Looking directly down from above...



Now looking directly down with the air horn connected to the intake. Intake will get plumbed through the firewall and up under the cowl. It's all fitting together like it was meant to be.



I'm waiting to weld everything until the steering shaft is in, juuuust in case it's in the way. It should clear, but it'll be close.

Front view:



This is getting put on hold for a week or three while I tackle a few small jobs in the shop. It's gonna be hard to ignore...

 

If I had a nickle for every time I said the same. Glad to see I'm not the only one! Great work as always.

A quick question if you don't mind... How much droop/compression of the front axle can you have before the center of your sway bar rotates into the valve cover? I was sitting here trying to visualize the suspension travel, estimating the angular math, etc... and my head started to hurt. Given the length of the "legs" on the sway bar I wouldn't expect too much rotation per say inch of travel. Just curiosity on my part is all. I love your design and attention to detail, but was curious how much total travel was available.

 

It'll actually hit the throttle cable mechanism before anything else, but the suspension bottoms before contact. I'll zip the links off and get a quick video of its range in a little bit.