Part of our overall vision is for a Left Hand Drive (LHD) car and whilst it may have been easier to buy a LHD chassis, we are always open for a challenge! Our donor car was a RHD Beetle, which we have managed to convert to LHD, using a mixture of VW and Porsche components. The overall result can be seen below.
The peddle assembly is an original Porsche 356 assembly, which we bought online from the USA. It arrived pretty quick and with some amount of planning we have managed to make work on the Beetle chassis. The main changes that we had to make were:
- Drill new holes in the ‘Nelson’s hat’ to connect the pedal assembly and master cylinder together
- Extend the brake pedal push rod, to account for the increased length through through the ‘Nelson’s hat’
- Drill holes through the floor pan for the (grey) pedal assembly plate
- Open up the tunnel and shorten the clutch tube, which is required as the clutch level arm is about 40mm further back than on the Beetle
The other main changes were with the steering box, which needed to be swapped from the right to left. We thought this should be a simple job, but ended up needing to order a new steering box, pitman arm, steering damper clamp, and tie rods… well pretty much a whole new steering setup when you think about it.
The issue we had was that whilst the steering box is the same unit for LHD and RHD, we could not get the pitman arm off the old steering box and that part is handed, so both needed to be ordered. However, we hope to be able to sell the old ones at some point to recover some of the cost. The steering box clamp is a brilliantly simple system, with two notches cut out for it, which are used to locate the correct position against two dimples on the beam. There are two ways of mounting it:
- With the number 14 facing forwards, which gives your steering column a lower angle, as found on the Karman Ghia
- With the number 13 facing forward, which was found on the Beetle and gives a higher angle for the steering column
We’ve gone with the lower angle, which should apparently sit correctly with the 356 body.
The tie rods are also different length for LHD vs RHD so new ones again, but again hopefully we can sell the old ones. The new assembly can be seen in the photo below, as well as the new steering damper installed using an after market clamp, as the original was welded on the left hand side, where the steering box is now located.