I finally got my hands on some split window Beetles again. I wanted to do something in reverse of what I did last time with the off road Bug so i put my new found Channeling skills to work on this one. I’m pretty pleased with the results so I wanted to share how to do this mod with others.
I started with with the thought of dropping the bug to basically skate on the ground. I wanted it to still roll but be as low as possible. The front was already low but the back end was raked high. It would take some thinking to get only the rear half lowered.
(Above: Left car was before channeling and the right car is after)
I thought it would be as simple as changing out the rear wheels for smaller wheels. looking at other customs of this cast I was surprised non had smaller wheels on the rear. I quickly swapped it and it still didn’t sit on the ground like I wanted. I had to channel the car from the windshield back if I was going to get the stance I wanted out of her.
Her is a little cut away of what needs to be done if you’d like to do it yourself. You have to grind a notch where the door begins on the chassis so you can bend the rear half up. once it is bent you have to grind down the rear rivet peg so it does’t stop the chassis from sinking up into the body of the bug. The exhaust on the chassis will have to be cut off as well. to get the front end even lower I made a new front axle that will sit above the old one.
I cut new axles out of .032 brass tube rod You will have to do this because the wheels will no longer fit in the wheel wells of the body. The new axles are sitting on top of the old ones so that the car rides even lower. I had to cut parts of the interior out that would have stopped the body from sitting right... That means everything behind the roll bar.
You can take the wheels on and off till you get it the way you want.
Kind of looks like the Moon Buggy to me. We need to get Hot Wheels to make that one.
I painted the chassis just to clean up the car and get rid of the brass axle color.
Just throw the car together when your happy with it and epoxy it all together. Take photos, roll it around and enjoy. For filling in the sunroof just go to my last LaLD Workshop.
I love this shot!
I like this one so much I’m already working on making another out of my second.