Making an 82 Rabbit pick-up not suck at moving

I Appreciate all the kind words guys, every time I mess something up I start second guessing my abilities so it's nice to get the confidence boost!

I bought a new shift knob, some assembly required:

You know what that means,

After cutting it down and facing it, I needed to put a large radius on the top. So I had to make the right size cutting tool.

I spent a while trying to shape the tool by hand before realizing that the curve I wanted was the same diameter as a dremel tool sanding disk. 

I flipped it around again and cut it down at 22.5 deg, Then drilled and tapped. 

And the finished product is... large. 

It's 2" across, which seemed like the right diameter at the time, and I don't know, I might keep it this size, I like the extra weight and heft. I'll have to drive it a bit and see how I like it. 

Now it's back to the difficult part, getting my wife to help me with the sowing.

Progress is slow since I am allowing myself to be distracted by two sports/race cars. But I did get some more done on the interior. 

I'm quite happy with the bottom of the shifter cover.

After that, I conned my wife into helping with the boot. 

She did a damn fine job, especially because the sewing machine is way under sized.

Now, I needed to get it to sit still somehow. 

First I tried just snaps.  which kind of worked...

I made a second attempt with a steel ring inside the boot. 

This improved things but also made two things clear...
The boot is too big, especially near the top. And 2, I need a trim ring that covers the base of the boot. Right now it just looks like a huge under inflated volley ball. 

So now I'm stuck in mediocrity and indecision. I want to make a molded, 'pan-shaped' cover that goes down on top of the boot and tucks it in neatly the way many stock center consoles look. But I'm really not sure how to do that. If I make it out of ABS plastic I think it will be far too wrinkly, and if I make it out of steel, I feel it's going to be a 12 step process to get the shape right. 

I'm looking for something this shape, preferably black plastic.

Any Ideas ?

Hmmm, I may have something that would work for you, if I can find it.  It's the black plastic inner shift boot rectangle thing for a 944 Turbo...

Very nice.  But I would like to point out one thing about your shift knob.  

It is going to be really cold in the winter.  And really hot in the summertime.

An how about if your shift boot goes from the knob all the way to the floor?

docwyte said:

Hmmm, I may have something that would work for you, if I can find it.  It's the black plastic inner shift boot rectangle thing for a 944 Turbo...

don't know if it's exactly the same but I have a 944 NA just sitting on the lift next to it to test out, I'll check the sizing. 

 

Very nice.  But I would like to point out one thing about your shift knob.  

It is going to be really cold in the winter.  And really hot in the summertime.

The aluminum hasn't been too cold so far, but we will see, If it gets annoying I can sow up some leather to wrap it on the sides. 

An how about if your shift boot goes from the knob all the way to the floor?

I'm trying to make it look less "big ol truck" like, since this is a lil' tiny sport-truck

I'll just leave this here...

https://jalopnik.com/rubber-accordion-shifter-boots-are-better-than-leather-1831258632

Love the build!

Sew is the word you are looking for to describe joining two pieces of fabric with thread. Sow is like planting seeds.

AWSX1686 said:

I'll just leave this here...

https://jalopnik.com/rubber-accordion-shifter-boots-are-better-than-leather-1831258632

I'm willing to agree that rubber boots are 'better', much the same way that a prius is 'better' than a 240Z

BirgerBuilder said:

AWSX1686 said:

I'll just leave this here...

https://jalopnik.com/rubber-accordion-shifter-boots-are-better-than-leather-1831258632

I'm willing to agree that rubber boots are 'better', much the same way that a prius is 'better' than a 240Z

Not sure how to respond to that. lol

The custom leather shift boot will be sweet too.

I spent much of my interrupted morning getting caught up on all your progress- very nice work!

Out of curiosity where did your carpet kit come from?  I’ve been trying to figure out what to do for my not-a-pickup Rabbit.

In reply to paranoid_android :

I ordered it from Stockinteriors.com. It said on the website that they are made to order so I was very surprised when it only took a few days to arrive.

Well it's been a while and the project is in full stall mode. On the up side I have been using it as a super-duper-light-duty work truck. 

Carries a quad just perfectly. 

And some firewood a little less perfectly...

Exhaust only hit the ground on the biggest of bumps...

A few issues though, largely, I drove it in a rainstorm. 

And ended up with a ton of water in it. All on the passenger side and luckily, I noticed it right away. 

I've been super distracted with other projects though so I have yet to track down the leak. 

A problem that was far harder to ignore though, It wouldn't start, or more accurately, stay running the other day. A puddle of what I first thought was oil, scared the crap out of me before I realized it was fuel. I had my wife crank it over while I checked what was going on and sure enough it was puking diesel from between the head and the injection pump. 

The replacement procedure is a bit fiddly since you DO NOT want to pull the head all the way off of the pump. Apparently, no god can save you if you do that. 

So essentially you loosen the bolts just enough to expose the o-ring. You can see the passage where it sat, in the picture above. After that, you pick the old one out and stretch the new one carefully around the whole head, then pull one bolt out at a time to let it fall into place. 

The kit came with these convenient caps to keep dirt out but I was more worried that the o-ring would get contaminated. After some serious cranking, over heating the starter, vacuuming the lines and cranking again, she sprung back to life with no leaks. SO FAR, SO GOOD! 

I did that procedure three times on my gf's TDI Golf because I kept knicking the seal at the bottom somehow. Coincidentally it needed a timing belt so when I had the belt off I unbolted the ip and did it off the car which solved my problem.

In reply to orthoxstice :

I nearly did the same thing but remembered to check the bottom with the endoscope. It was not seated at all and I had to tuck it into the channel. Probably a consequence of stretching it so far to get it over the head. 

I definitely wish I would have thought to do all of the seals while I was doing the timing belt, or the engine was out of the car!

Well despite being too busy to work on the Caddy, I spent the whole weekend on it. 

I wanted to just move my trailer which is now covered in brush from yard-work but I didn't have the big truck around so I thought, "brush is light, even patches could haul that." And that, I would put a hitch on it, "real quick"

Well, you know how that goes...

fold and weld...

Nice thing about work on a 'truck' is that it's a workbench too. 

two sides

Plates to weld to.

One side, pretty straight....

Other side... not so straight...

But, once it's on there. The bumper hides most of the damage. 

Wasn't sure it would be strong enough though.

Plus, more attractive. I just wish I'd done it first rather than having to patch it. 

Oh, well. his name ain't Patches for nothing. 

Added the aforementioned, hitch. 

And some paint, of course. Not bad in my worthless opinion. 

"real quick" HA!

Looks great though. There is one of these running around my neighborhood, some kid behind the wheel. I always want to flag dude down and talk to him about it since they are so rare these days. Party on.

and after reading my post you will cut the ends off to extend them out to protect the corners of the quarter panels...

AngryCorvair said:

and after reading my post you will cut the ends off to extend them out to protect the corners of the quarter panels...

Eh, probably not. You're right that I didn't even think of it, but the bumper is tucked in so close I'd have to move it out away from the truck as well. 

With the trailer hitch done, I had to try it out. 

This trailer might be a (bit) too large for the baby truck though...

lol.

The dump is only 2 miles away and I could keep it under 45 so I went for it. 

Also reasoning that it's only like... 100lbs of branches... on a 2400lb trailer. 

4600lbs all together, according to the dump scales.

It was significantly slower, of course, but the trailer does have a compression brake. Probably never do that again, though.

That's AMAZING. Also, you're my hero. I've done a LOT of towing over the years, and I definitely subscribe more to the European method of towing: if the tow vehicle has a hitch, then it can tow anything that fits on the hitch .

In reply to BirgerBuilder :

Just came about this thread. Hope you still have it, so glad to see all the work you put in and also love that you kept all the stickers I put on. I just bought another vw truck. I missed having one.

I miss BirgerBuilder and their threads. This post gave me irrational hope for fresh updates.

In reply to Mezzanine :

Same. :(

Yeah I really enjoyed the updates on this little rig.  It looks like he changed his screen name here to More Tools Than Sense and there is a reasonably successful looking youtube channel (15k subs) with the same name.  I'm going to poke around and see how the videos are.

In reply to SpScirocco :

Hey man, I lost your contact info so I'm glad to hear that you made it to the blog here, and that you're still in the VW truck game!