Gonzo Racing 5/1600 Post Roll-Over Rebuild

[Gonzo 5/1600]

With the damaged mounts pounded down, cut out and rewelded it was time to replace those that were damaged beyond saving.

-Ultimatly I ended up cutting out the forward passenger side trans mount and replacing it.
-The upper bumper mount tubes were kinked and otherwise messed up beyond keeping, so out they came to be replaced.
-The firewall was crushed in and the sheetmetal torn in several places so we cut out the damage to be replaced with new pieces. In the meantime this gave us a nice access window for welding.
-The biggest repair needed in the rear was the replacement of all the horn support and hanger mount structures.


New forward passenger mount:


Damaged firewall removed for access and repair, upper bumper tubes also removed:


New bumper stubs:


Trans in place, new hanger mounts and horn supports tacked up:


Lots of uncomfortable contorted TIG welding later everything in, and new firewall piece held up for attachment:


With that done, the major structural damage to the car is fixed. The remaining tasks are to build a new rear bumper, fix the slightly tweaked front bumper and then body work and reassembly.

The roof gets welded on this week.

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[frostbite36]

Really a great rebuild thread!! Thanks for sharing. My first race car was a 5-1600 and this brings back great memories. I so don't miss having to work around sheetmetal..LOL! She will be better than new. Is your next planned race the 1000?

[Gonzo 5/1600]

Haha yeah tell me about it, not going to miss working around the body when/if we move on! Yeah we're planning on making the 1000 and with progress as it has been going it shouldn't be a problem.

The roof is welded on, now we're into grinding down the welds and thinking about body work. I'll post up the pics after it looks a little better.

[Gonzo 5/1600]

Last week we put the roof on, and started doing some body work.

Backing plates for gaps:




Final fitment:


Welded up:


A lot of grinder work later:




A little Bondo later:




Should actually start looking nice again soon. Gonna try to put it back on its wheels this week since all the parts and structure are ready to go again.

[TexasAirCooler]

Comming along, nice work!

[Gonzo 5/1600]

Since the car stood on its nose (on the light bar) the front bumper got a little tweaked. It's difficult to see in pictures but obviously out of whack when bolted to the car so repairs were in order.

Tweaked Bumper:


Kinked:


Damaged stuff cut out:


New internally sleeved passenger side light bar:


Repaired/replaced tubes:


Also had to extend a beam clamp to compensate for a little tube overhang due to passenger side front end being shifted.

Figured this was better than re drilling the skid plate or rebuilding the whole bumper...

Next up is a full rebuild of the mangled rear bumper, already working on it but I'll save posting the pictures till its done.

[1fastbean]

Right on Trevor, she's lookin' good! Your progressing really quickly and making it look easy. Haha... I would of still been trying to align the roof! Do still have that nice yellow VW daily driver?

[Gonzo 5/1600]

Thank! Yeah the yellow car is still running good.

[Gonzo 5/1600]

As I mentioned the rear bumper was pretty much thrashed, not salvagable. So time for a new one, not the first time so here we go again haha.

The old bumper several kinks failed tubing:






Time to start fabbing up the new one:




Hoops bent up:


A little bit of fine tuning was called for hahaha:


Starting to fit up the horizontals:




Really had enough of doing this with a grinder...


All set for final welding:




I finished all the tube welding earlier tonight, all it needs now are the skid plate tabs, and ignition coil bracket. But you get the idea.

[burninfuel]

You do it verry well, excellent fab work.