just picked up this 68 Baja this weekend, pretty solid in terms of rust (only 1 license plate on the floorboard!) and a freshly built 1600, stock except for a mild cam.
It's the last year of the swing able rear suspension, has a 1 piece front clip, and standard Baja rear fenders.
Plan so far is to:
1) make it as comfortable to drive as possible
2) make it look a bit better
3) take it on some dirt
4) turbo?
first job was making a shift knob out of delrin during my lunch break today, as it didn't come with one that fits
although I like the red, the wife has decided that I will paint it baja blast teal. I don't mind that
4 lug fronts, 5 lug rears? Interesting - better carry 2 spares. Speaking of lugs, right front is missing one. Replace tires with something more off-road oriented. Camber compensator for the rear swing axles if it doesn't already have one. Nix on the turbo, 1600cc is plenty for hooning around in the dirt, plus it'll just add heat and complexity.
lugs are on the way already, definitely going to put on some AT tires at some point, but these will do for the immediate future. good call on the compensator
it'll do. have a nice chunk of brass I might use eventually
Super cool little bug!
Couple of things I always had :
A steering brake and a skid plate under the trans and motor ,
and the 5 lug rims in the back are probably Chevy/Ford with adapters, a nice cheap way to get wider rims ,
Have Fun :)
Nice! Cool project car
If you turbo it.. will that mean you're baja blastin'?
Cool car! Looking forward to seeing where you go with it
I definitely want different seats, but I'm trying to keep my investment low on this. Anyone have recommendations for what model car I should try to get seats from? Gonna look on marketplace and junkyards. Would want them to have the folding forward mechanism that most coupes have, prefer manual adjust instead of electric and prefer (p)leather if possible
new beetle seats seem like they would work well, but every time I see them they seem pricier than expected
local pull-a-part has a few new beetles on the lot, according to their price list its $33 a seat, that may be the way to go. Plus, they're advertising free hot dogs this saturday. Can't beat that
I love it. I passed on a baja bug for $150 (a LONG time ago) because it wouldn't start. I have been meaning to right that wrong ever since. One of these days I'll fall into one. Yours is the perfect amount of imperfection as it sits!
E30 coupes have nice flat bases for easy adapting to other cars.
MK4 New Beetle or Golf could get what you're looking for but look a little harder to adapt to a Type 1 floorpan
E30 seats would be cool, but they're expensive on marketplace and I'm probably not gonna find them at pull-a-part
maybe I'll just wander around at pull-a-part and see what I can see
new lug bolts arrived
resupplied with pay by the pound grade 8 hardware at tractor supply and some more rivet nuts from Amazon, then installed one of the mirrors that came from the previous owner
exhaust is rubbing on itself a bit. I'll probably need to cut, turn, and weld the swan neck portion
found some nice louvers in the back seat, definitely gonna paint them and reinstall
In reply to earlybroncoguy1 :
already has a camber compensator too, just didn't notice it because it's the same shade of dirt as everything else under there
Probably also gonna swap the the muffler for something that counts as a spark arrester so it's legal for use in state parks and stuff
I like those mirrors!
I can already see that my main issue with this build is going to be how cheap the parts are. Looking at stuff I need on JBugs or whatever, and I keep getting tempted to add new valve covers becaues they're $20 and mine are a bit ratty, then a new air cleaner because its $15 and the chrome on mine isn't perfect. If I don't keep myself in check it'll be death by a thousand cuts
I assume someone here will know: do NA or NB Miata seats fold forward? If so they'd be great
Not as much as the stock seats, but they do folt.
apparently if you're registering a car on a bill of sale in Georgia, you still have to get the VIN checked by the police if the car wasn't registered in GA before. I thought it was just if the last registered owner wasn't the one who sold it to you, and they could look up the out of state registration. Oh well, I'll have to come back to the tag office another day
Good ol licensing and theft inspection. In NC it's for any car older than 35 regardless of prior registration or title status.
got some seats, from a 2008 mini. Manual adjust, they flop forwards, and have l completely flat sliders
Stopped at a couple of dealers to look for cars for my wife on the way home, and had two separate people think I had the seats bolted into the back of my truck like a Subaru brat lol.
You'll need to log in to post.
