Hi Alistair, Good to see things are ticking over and it looks like you've found good value beam there.
When it comes to choosing your Front suspension, I'd suggest that you go for the through-rods and coil over route.
I found getting the correct spring-rate & ride height using the VW torsion leaves to be tricky on my first car, I ended up with torsion bars alongside coil-over 'boosters'. Not great.
Good luck with it mate
Cheers Dave! It'll be a while before it actually gets used. I've still to finish the chassis. Still, it's a life long bug that I caught back in the '70's when I first saw a Nova. Was lucky to get mine (already built) in 1986. Drove it till 1991, tucked it up in the garage from 1994, and then started pulling it apart in August 2016. .... Surely I'll get her back on the road before we hit the 2020's?!?
Thanks Steve,
You may remember I 'highjacked' your rebuild thread recently to discuss coilovers after you showed photos of the progress with your chassis. I've been making enquiries about the 'through rods' and have a couple of potential suppliers. Wish my chassis was looking like yours right now btw!!
Alistair
Some of you will remember my thread in the chassis section last year when I was looking for advice on 'whether to weld myself or pay someone to do it for me'. Well, after a winter of relative inactivity (other than continuing to buy nice new bits & pieces for my Nova) I finally got back in the garage this weekend.
I'd been practising my welding on and off during the winter. Setting the clutch and tensioner correctly on my new Sealey took many attempts to get right, and I created lots of 'birds nests' in the process. Also, Sealey don't provide a table of voltage/line speed/metal thickness settings inside the cover (for newby's like me!) so after many youtube videos I finally managed to start frying bacon .... and it sounds great!
So whilst progress has been slow, I've almost completed the repairs to the frame head this weekend. A couple more patches, and then it's on to the Napolean's Hat, front framehead bottom plate, and floor pans. Hopefully progress will start to accelerate with the better weather ... those easterly winds whipping off the North Sea don't encourage me to venture out to the garage! It would be great to be able to completely finish the chassis by the end of the summer, but I'll not beat myself up if it takes longer. Main thing is that I'm really enjoying the project and I'm so pleased that I took your advice and got my own welder.
(The names of the photos explain what you're looking at) ....
Front RHS of tunnel.jpg Front RHS of tunnel flange repairs.jpg
Preparing to weld flange.jpg Rot cut out of front face (2).jpg
Making good progress on front face.jpg
Cheers, Alistair
Last edited by BlueNova; 15-04-2018 at 11:26 PM.
Great progress, welding is really satisfying when you get the hang of it - and having a decent machine takes one of the potential glitches out of the loop!
It's a 52 year old car and everything works, just not always at the same time.......and it's probably about to get jealous!
*Donate to Euro-Nova today!*
Well done Alistair - you're making progress. Some neat work there with the welding. I wish I had the ability (and equipment) to do my own.
There is nothing more satisfying than the sound of a good sizzle when welding. I bought myself a Sealy last year too to replace my old SIP Mig after all the discussion in your thread. All I can say is what a difference it made to the quality of my welds!
Nice looking welds, I know you must feel ecstatic after each job is done