Shawn shows off his handiwork on DS-1’s hood
We met at sCary’s place today to continue work on the body and front suspension. Skid was off in some desert paradise sipping mojitos, leaving sCary, Shawn (who still owes me a team bio) and me to do the heavy lifting.
sCary focused on gussets for the front suspension spindles – a tip passed along by Eric Solorzano, who we’re still talking about, starting sentences with “Well, Eric says…”
Before we headed out to sCary’s workspace, we watched Charlie’s 14-minute uncut video of our trip to Mexico. I’ll post a brief, expurgated clip next time.
Anyway, sCary worked on gussets. He’d already reinforced welds on other parts of the front suspension and is preparing to make some precision cuts that will allow him to adjust the front springs and buy us some front end ground clearance.
Shawn, who is already practicing for the Baja 1000 by taking his high-performance Corvette into Santa Clara County hill country, focused on sanding down the hood. His technique is amazing. He was pointing out variations in paint height that I couldn’t sense with my fingertips.
I got the coolest job – hammering out the curved lips on three of the four fenders. The issue with standard VW fenders is that, at the factory, they bend the metal under the fender. That’s all well and good for highway driving, but in a desert environment, the additional up and down tire travel means the tire can get gouged if it scrapes against the rough inside lip of the curved metal.
The inside curve of a VW fender is a perfect resonator and I spent 20-30 minutes apiece hammering down the rough edge on each fender. My ears are still ringing.
Here are a few shots from today’s efforts.