My Pinzgauer is undergoing a civilian face lift

[krick3tt]

Great job. When I was younger I wanted a 4X VW. Got stuck a lot...the VW thought it was a 4X.
Can you still get the engine out if you need to after the build?

[Rocky Mountain Westy]

Great job. When I was younger I wanted a 4X VW. Got stuck a lot...the VW thought it was a 4X.
Can you still get the engine out if you need to after the build?

Thanks for following along. Engine removal won't be a problem. The front doors are almost 4 feet long! I spoke with Jim at Goatwerks the other day. It is awesome that he has spent the time to refine these engines and get some more power and torque out of them. I will be using his Fuel injection maps this year and hopefully next year I will be spending some real money on a big bore kit and other refinements.

Does anyone on the Colorado front range have a 2.7 engine in there 710? I would like to drive one or ride in one.

[Rocky Mountain Westy]

I have been doing a bunch of mini projects on the Splitzgauer and there is progress. I have gotten a lot of the front floor sheeted. I used 10 gauge which is almost 1/8 think. A little overkill maybe. There are also some pictures of the Passenger side Rocker/wheel well/ dorr jamb. I made that all out of 16 gauge. I pretty much had to make new ones because I stretched the doors 9 inches. The original jambs were preety jacked up anyway. I probably have 10 hours in the jamb but hopefully the drivers side will take half the time. The Pinzgauer hydrulic levers will be mounted up high by the dash. I have been working on it the past six weeks. Hopefully I can get it done in the next 15 or so weeks.

[Rocky Mountain Westy]

So here are some more pictures. I have been working on this project with my brother a lot in the past few weeks. We are learning a lot about metal shaping and the capacity of the tooling we have. We will probably have 150 hours into this passenger front fender and door. Most of the stuff was cut on the cnc plasma table. The cad program has a mirror image function so hopefully the driver side will go way quicker. I guess one of the biggest reasons we had to do all this is because of stretching the front doors. At first I was going to use the original jamb material. It seemed like more work plus I ended up using way thicker material and it will be much stronger. so here are some pictures of thefender and inner jamb at this point. It still needs to be disassembled and welded up but we'll get there later.

The curves were made with a shrinker and stretcher. It turned out pretty sweet.





Here is what it looks like with the door shut





We are working on making the inner reinforments for the door extension. I want to have a really solid door that you can slam tihout worring about it. The door was extended about seven inches overall. Here is a pic of the lower inner reinforcment.






We are working on the upper reinforcment right now. I have a Baliegh magnetic sheet metal brake. This is a super cool brake because you can make your own forming die. Notice the 1/2 inch round bar to get the desired bend radius. just hit the button and a super strong magnet holds it all together. The capacity of this machine is 16 gauge mild steel. 16 gauge that is bent and formed is really strong. The Splitty sheet metal is all basically 20 gauge. So the Splitzgauer should be as strong as it looks.

[M Wehrman]

Nice work! I need more equipment....and a bigger shop......and a REALLY good story for my wife!

[MadMax]

awesome work! Man, wish I had that metal break. WANT!

[undysworld]

Just checking in. Any progress to report?

[Rocky Mountain Westy]

Just checking in. Any progress to report?

I haven't touched in probably a month. Tomorrow it is getting tarped and pushed outside. Too busy working on other peoples projects. Stupid bills...

Anyhow, it will probably get another couple weekend blasts befor summer and then it will probably go into storage till fall.

Thanks for the interest though.

[undysworld]

Gettin' on towards fall here. Any new news?

[Rocky Mountain Westy]

Just getting back to update with some pictures. This is probably two weeks worth of progress. I already had all the floors cut, I just welded them in. I hade the passenger side fender made as well. I have been working on the skeleton of the inner dash, which will tie in with the center console. It is going to be totally cockpit style with a center divider console that will come up to armrest height. or there abouts. So I made brackets and mounts for the steering and the pedal cluster which tie off the dash support. There are some pictures of the floor perimeter structure. The floor is totally flat on the outside and the structure will be welded in on the inside. The floor is going to be 2 or so inches thick with insulation board and diamond plate aluminum floorboards that bolt in. We reinforced the a pillars and tied into the structure of the lower hinge. It is going to be super tough. We made a nice little filler panel for the passenger side.

I would say it is looking good. What do you think?


Here is the pedal assembly and the steering shaft. The pedal assembly is out of a Vanagon. The pinzgauer brake booster and master fit it perfect and live under the speedo pod. Hopefully the Vanagon clutch master works with the Pinz slave cylinder. The bore is just a tiny bit smaller.I modified the stock Vanagon pedals and I will make my own gas pedal. The steering shaft is the original Pinzgauer that I cut and added to swivel joints to. The original Pinz steering wheel was probably 10 inches further back orginally.









Here are some pictures of the floor peremeter. There is going a big sheet metal cap those goes in the nose and is 6 inches tall and will go along the front floor structure. It will basically make a half moon shelf that is six inches deep and six inches tall off the floor. It will make the nose much stronger. I spot welded in a little 90 degree angle at the base of the nose along the radius.







Here are some pictures of the A pillar supports. There is a metal block that is welded to this upright and slipped in behind the lower hinge











The next piece will be the front inner nose cap. Than it is time to start building the console. The seat position feels awesome.

The Splitzgauer might look like a Splitty on the outside (maybe), but it definitely will not look like one on the inside.

[undysworld]

Thanks for the update and new pics. This is one of my favorite threads here.

[waterdog]

i loove the fact that the aircooled engine is part of the proyect...

[M Wehrman]

Would be really easy to fit electric power steering....

[undysworld]

What's up with my favorite Pinz project lately? Any progress?

[undysworld]

Any progress?