Here we go again. The rear cradle is out to get corrected before final welding. I was always going to drop it to weld it up...but I WASN'T planning on having to redo the entire thing. So to recap - the cradle was welded in the car with the diff perpendicular to the car. To get this to happen, it had to be shifted about 3/16" to the rear. This caused a shift in the wheelbase side to side by the same amount and was causing all sorts of problems getting my suspension to work. Turns out you can't just shift this stuff like you would a live rear axle. Who knew?

So after much thought and a little swearing, I just undid my "fix" of the tube that I had done after waiting 2 years on the fence. Well sometimes it takes momentum to just do it properly. Now I don't have to account for a bunch of stuff that isn't right...like the rear cross member that I built and installed into the car out of square because of the shift in the cradle. Time to get this all squared up and done right.

The subframe has been mocked up on my welding table and I've used some 2 X 4" steel tube as reference rails. Everything is being squared to this reference plane. So off with the tube fix and refit the tube.



Tack the bushing holder back in place square and level. This takes a lot of time when the garage is over 30 C.



I'm also having issues with all the suspension mounts (lower) - they are so tight that when the subframe gets powder coated, there is no way the arms will fit. The torque rod mounts needed to go as they were too tight and not deep enough to accommodate the bushing. Not sure how I missed this detail - but the inside weld was fouling the bushing. So new ones were fabricated and placed in precisely the same location.



Old left - new right.



Jigged - dead perfect.



Done.



I also cut the tacks holding the two differential cross members in place and got the pinion dead square to the frame. No pics. Next will be getting the rest of the errors out of this subframe. I'm still not sure how I could have worked out the location of the pick-up points from the original without my jig...but I sure could have built this frame more accurately without the not so accurate jig. It's not really that bad - just a 1/16" here and there. I will get it to be much better than that.

Well, after another week of work, we're just about ready to wrap up the rear cross member and get it welded. I have to be away next week for work and this coming week won't see much progress, but after I get home, I should be ready to roll.

The next part that had to go was my fabricated cross member that held the differential snout. The one that I built didn't locate the toe arms correctly and I really wanted it gone as it just couldn't be fixed and not have it look like I hacked it.

So here's the start.

I had cut the brackets off in the hope that I could salvage the part - but you can see the bottom plane is not level and was off 1/2" side to side. So off it came.





Then I started to make this.



Join a few more tubes to handled both the toe brackets and the torque of the pinion trying to climb the ring gear.



And we have this. The bracket mount surface is perfectly level now.



The proverbial K member. The tube ends will be cut and capped when welding. Mounts are 1/4" steel with TIG welded captured nuts.



That's a day worth of tube fitting.



Toe brackets were fun to build as the two legs of the K are different lengths due to the offset of the pinion.



I built them longer then trimmed to fit. Hole saw came in handy for fitting and getting it all tight.



This bracket is mostly controlling motion to the outside/inside in an effort to keep the tire from toeing in or out. The way I had to fabricate it wasn't the way I wanted to do it, but there wasn't any other way to do this and still have things clean and free of areas that will collect dirt and moisture and if welded all the way around, it should be fine.



I left a mostly open corner on both sides of the bracket as that way I can get good penetration from one side.

Backside is notched for clearance.





Next up - fixing the coil over mounts.

More good work, so much stuff to figure out and then make it all fit. I scrolled up and down 3 times just trying to follow along.

Buckminster Fuller has nothing on this subframe.

Are you coating the inside of the box/tube sections with anything?

Thanks Jim - it took a lot of head scratching to figure out this part that's for sure.




It's all going to be sealed up so it won't rust. The outside is getting powder coated for the best chance of never doing this again.

Absolutely love finding updates on your build Craig - your attention to detail is just staggering and very much appreciated.

Such a PITA to redo work I realize - but the fact you can't abide by "good enough" is more than a little inspiring.

Rabin

Little update. The weather has been great, so some parts got primed even though they're not going to get welded right away...not very often you can paint outside in November!







See, you can get the primer over the entire part this way.



Now for the colour problem - not sure of black for this car. So I'm trying out a few blues. Still not happy - but I'm working on it.

This was the closest emoji for confused I could find. I thought you were going with a titanium grey for a color? I like that blue though, looks like a 60's Volvo color.

ETA: Duh, just realized that was 2 different blues. I think the lighter one because it's more 60's Volvo if that's what you're going for. Noticed on the FB group you are going to keep the red interior. The obvious choice for contrast then is black, but for euro weirdness the blue with a red interior wins. That light blue is getting close to what my OG color was.

Good stuff Craig. Now having seen the two blues side by side, I would have to say I prefer the first blue, but I do wonder if the second one looks more period correct?

I think the first, darker, blue looks better.

It depends how it looks in sunlight though. Often garage lighting gives a weird sheen on blues.

The struggle is to get some sunlight...I know this colour is not right. It's getting closer to what I want, but we're not home yet.

A little light streaming in this AM.



Grabbed the leather for the interior - goes better with darker colours (black is still in the mix folks).

The interior colour is for sure not changing as I have door panels, and three full hides for the seats. Paint is cheap by comparison.



Been thinking about this:



Under hood is a bit better colour rendering.

Just thinking out loud - I think the Singer car is more green. Now I know it won't go with the red interior either, but I do believe that a darker version of this colour will work great.

Excellent results Craig!

I have to vote for the lighter of the blue colours as I do not prefer a high contrast between the interior and exterior.

I'm a real fan of Azure / Capri / Dove / Gulf blue(s) from the vintage VW palette, very much in the spirit of that Singer.

I'm going to be trying two new colours this weekend (I have to razor blade the already applied paint off the panel first!). If Greg or Chad or anyone wants to swing by and have a look, the more eyes the merrier.

Sure, thanks for the invite! Shoot me a text when you're accepting visitors