DarkLighter Tuning Kamei Wabbit build! by T3Bunny

9 minute(s) of a 391 minute read

Time for an update! Progress has been slow... But there is progress. FalconFixer and I been super busy past couple weeks finishing up his truck. It should be rolling under its own power by the end of the month so we turned our attention back to the Bunny.

Got the steering colum and pedal assembly modified and back together. I needed a brake switch on th pedal to clean up the engine bay a little more, and also a second switch on the clutch pedal for flatshift setup. The pedal assembly we found earlier in the winter actualy had a broken off clutch cable holder, so I ended up using it for parts to modify the original '77 pedal assembly. And chopped up a corrado pedal cluster in my scrap pile for the clutch switch. A little cutting and then I handed the parts over to FalconFixer and he welded them up. Turned out really good!

I had thought there was a pedal assembly with a clutch switch. I swear I remeber seeing such a beast... But further investigation hasn't found one. And making one up was just a matter of chopping up another assembly or two for the bits needed.

Another issue was the steeing rack. I wanted to use my quaife quick ratio rack from my cabby in the bunny. But the newer racks don't bolt into the older cars. Installing the newer rack would involve finding a donor car to supply the passenger side mounting bracket.

But thinking about it I realized that the hard mounted early style rack probally won't make much differance over hard poly bushed later rack... Caerfull examination of the two racks brought me to the conclusion that the Quaife bits would likely fit in the earlier rack. So I pulled them apart and sure enough the parts fit! There were some minor issues, but it went together easirly enough.

So after reassembly, cleaning, and painting, the installed rack looks prety good! 

The brake booster and brackets are all painted up and ready for re-install once we source a few missing bits tomorrow.

Theres a lot of other bits finished up and waiting for reinstall too. We are hoping to also have the buny online by the end of the month. And at this point we are well on the way to accomplishing that too! 

May 20, 2009

The pictures immediately above are from Double0SevenGti that he took before I got my paws on he. Shes likely sitting on her tires in the pictures as he had snagged the struts and top mounts out of her.

The pictures earlier in the thread that I took, shes sitting on H&R coilovers. Or at least the front is. Back still has the OE stuff on there. I ran these coilovers on my Etienne Aigner for a few years and I SWEAR by H&R coilovers. They ride absolutely amazingly awesome! Firm but not bouncy or too harsh. But you gotta pay to play...

So theres been TONS of progress past couple days. Not really a lot to see for pictures, but here ya have it.

Interior has been "rust converted" and all sealed up then painted now. Not perfect, but doesn't really need to be either since she will be running carpet before too long anyways. 

Got the blower assembly back in there. Its actually starting to look like a real interior now! 

Of course I couldn't find the original screws and mounting hardware, but digging through th piles f goodies I found some nice bits to hold it together. And big surprise, had to solder a wire back onto the blower resistor. That sucked even with my nice soldering station.

The best part though was discovering that using my soldering station in the car, was painful. Damn thing has a grounded iron and well my extension cord apparently isn't quite so well grounded. I kept shocking the crap out of myself.

Got The raintray mostly repainted before I ran out of paint, again. The sections not finished though I can do with the blower covered up. Engine bay is cleaned up a lot more too.

The biggest things not in my pictures above though are the dash and wiring. The dash is one of the better ones I have come across, but it still had some damage and cracks in it. I managed to plastic weld most of them up and got it a fairly solid dash again. Still needs a lot more cosmetic work, but I am not sure how I am going to proceed quite yet.

The wiring is going to be lots of fun! I want it online FAST so for now at least I will be running the wiring harness out of an '83 rabbit I had that was in really good shape. A few things will have to be adapted over, but I really don't foresee that being too hard. I am really stoked about the instruments and the turn stalks though! Got some pretty cool tricks going on there....

Laid the several wiring harness I have out tonight and sorted through them. Its going to take a little bit of cleanup and I will be rewrapping and recovering all them. But I have enough to get it done and nicely too. Getting pretty excited here! I am hoping to actually be powering up systems in the car by Friday!

Found another picture I haven't posted up yet! Tranny is done and looking pretty sharp. I am very happy with how its all coming together here. 

I keep wiping out the local Autozone's of Wimbelton White paint though...

May 21, 2009

So test fitting the wiring and trying to get the electrical systems all online today. Started with finishing up the steering column. Not a big surprise but the rabbit ignition switches fit right into the switch section on the older beetle column. So I now have a metal column surround and metal signal stalks!

The wiring for the column isn't fully sorted out yet but the contacts happen to be the same for the porsche signal stalks and the rabbit. All the contacts are labeled too, but not sure they all match up yet. Quickly going through it I only found one common wire to both.

So I went ahead and set the dash and kneebar into the car. Needed to get an idea of where the wiring needs to run. 

Looks okay I guess, but I swear the dash looks bowed... Had a really hard time trying to get it to fit in there too. The holes to mount the kneebar are there, but they aren't threaded. Guess I will be using SAE hardware there as I don't have metric nut rivets.

The instrument cluster area looks really sharp. I am happy with how thats all turning out. Turns out I have a plug for the cluster so wiring that in just became a lot easier. 

This little beastie looks cool so I had to pop it on and snap a picture of it.

So I was looking for the horn wire in the engine bay harness. Couldn't find it, then discovered my horns were also missing. So I went and got a set of these. 

They are loud and sound way old school. They take a second to air up though... Oh well. Not like I really use my horn very often anyways. But its giving me ideas about an air tank setup.... 

Thanks deathhare! Means a lot and gives me hope! I wanted Fiam or hella horns, but I had $40 credit at AutoZone for purchasign too much paint... Do yours also have a small delay from hitting the button to operation?

There is a local GTG in Salt Lake next Sunday. We are planning on rolling to it with the bunny.

Impossible? Nope but its going to be a blast trying to get there. Lets see where we are...

1) None of the wiring is really sorted out yet. Engine managment is easy, I can do that in my sleep, and probally even have a premade harness sitting there ready to go. Engine bay lighting and everythign else is mostly sorted. We will be rolling with the harnesses unwrapped and raw, or maybe electrical taped together for the moment though.

2) Brakes... Rears not installed yet and fronts may be the wrong stuff. Still can put that all together in 2-3hrs at most unless I decide to paint them (I probally will paint too...).

3) No engine. The one going in isn't built yet. But I have a compleat 8valver ready to drop in donated by FalconFixer. So we will likely be running that as I don't see havign enough time to finish everything else AND have the engine built and rolling.

4) Suspension not done. Will eed to bolt on the rear coilovers. Easy enough but then theres an alignment needed. Still might need some tie rod boots too.

5) Interior nowhere near done. But we will pop the seats in and roll as long as I have instrumentation.

Hoping to have brakes done, susension, and the electrical systems powereing up tomorrow. If we finish all that we are on task for having everything online and should be ready for the show!