Dave's 1971 1302 Not-So-Secret, Secret Project Build [Archive] - Page 2

owdlvr

March 13th 2012, 04:17

Dave, sorry for the historic reply but you move too fast for me! I have a hydraulic handbrake in the '03 and had to use a 2psi RPV on the rear line to get anything like a decent pedal as the m/c for the handbrake allows too much flex without the RPV. I can thoroughly recommend the hydraulic handbarke that can lock the rear line very easily with moderate pressure. The handbrake locks up with 3 clicks on the ratchet with the hydraulics and is set for 6 clicks when purely mechanical, so that when its used in anger the calipers do all the duty and not the spindely shoes.

Clive

Hmmm...thanks Clive. I guess I'll decide on an RPV after I can drive the car around block at least once. I'm still not convinced I've got a good bleed as I've only done it solo with the speed bleeders.

Don't worry about the windows, both of my lexan windows bow in, though mine are worse than yours.

Also, learn from my mistake and make sure your oil tank is grounded or the sensor won't work :) It took me a bit to realize my tank was fully isolated.

As for the lights I say go for the piaas even if you have to buy them still. The aesthetic difference and light stability are probably worth it.

Thanks for the tip on the gkn parts, I'm gonna raid their catalog for porsche 100mm fitments and see what I can find.

Weird that the windows bow in! I'm tempted to get all perfectionist and try and fix it...but really, at this point I just want to drive the damned thing. I found your suggestion on the oil tank quite funny, that was the FIRST thing I checked after installing the sensor!

Years ago a buddy installed a water temp sensor by putting an aluminum section in the middle of the rad hose. Worked great, even without a ground wire...for a few hours then stopped. Then a leak started. The sensor was grounding through the coolant, and caused some sort of reaction that ate away all the brass! I always check now to make sure I don't ground through fluids.

GKN boots for 100mm CV's:
MS5K023 - 99mm mounting I.D., 86mm bolt circle, 22mm shaft opening, 8.2mm bolt hole diameter. 'Fast' boot and plate to suit 100mm CV joints and tripod housings (no indents).
MS5K012 - 99mm mounting I.D., 86mm bolt circle, 22mm shaft opening, 8.2mm bolt hole diameter. 'Fast' boot and plate to suit 100mm CV joints and tripod housings.
MS5K024 - 99mm mounting I.D., 86mm bolt circle, 22mm shaft opening, 8.2mm bolt hole diameter. 'Fast' boot and plate to suit 100mm CV joints and tripod housings (with indents).
MS5K032 - 88mm mounting I.D., 86mm bolt circle, 22mm shaft opening, 10.2mm bolt hole diameter. 'Fast' boot and plate to suit 100mm CV joints and tripod housings (with indents).

I *think* based on the diagram that the indents allow for CV balls coming up higher then the flange level.

-Dave

owdlvr

March 13th 2012, 04:41

Alrighty! Back into the garage, though this time I think the post is better if I start with the finished product first, and then show the work behind it:

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7066/6978599815_8f5944d173_z.jpg

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7065/6978599961_6e9c4e875d_z.jpg

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7041/6832472166_b0996a1d03_z.jpg

Some nights I think my roomate and I should open up a rally shop. The PIAA lights mounted to the car? Yeah, those came out of our "spares" collection :P Two of the lights were used on my '69 beetle, one is brand new, and fourth is a light that was on his Subaru but gave up it's lens to the gravel gods. So, if I simply get a replacement lens for the lamp, I have four. Looking at the photos though, they seem small. Don't get me wrong, they "suit" the car, and I'm not going to change out for the larger set. They just don't scream "80's Group-B Rally Lights!!" like my previous Audi did :P

Throughout the mounting process I was continually thankful I decided to run with the smaller 6" lights, vs. the 8.5" Bosch 220's. Fitting these was enough of a pain-in-the-butt that I wouldn't want to try the 225's. The factory cars all seem to be drilled right through the bumper, but I have no idea what they did 'inside' the bumper to take the weight and keep the lights from shaking. Mounting rally lights requires two basic steps: 1) The lights must be 300 times more secure against vibration then you think they should be. And 2) make the lights removable if possible. There is nothing worse, and more tiring, then lights that shake and vibrate while running off road. The strobe effect is distracting and tiring. Removable lights means you don't risk wrecking the lights during the day, and thus blowing any chance you had at night. With that in mind...

Lights follow the curve of the bumper/front of the car...
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7070/6978600009_dba46318fb_z.jpg

...but are not actually mounted to the bumper. I used 1" tubing, and some heavy-duty angle mounts to make a vibration-free setup.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7067/6832471952_6387abed3c_z.jpg

Beginning of bar fabrication:
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7041/6978599759_2247f0285c_z.jpg

Mounting plates tack-welded on for testing. The two outside lights were relatively easy, but the two inside lights needed to be moved back towards the rear of the car slowly bit-by-bit to clear the front bumper. Eventually I had to notch the bar (pretty heavily) to ensure that I would be able to get a socket in to adjust the lights. I don't anticipate this will add any vibration issues though.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7201/6832540472_7430680fc9_z.jpg

With that done I cut down the plates to the smallest footprint possible, welded them on fully, cleaned up the corners and gave it a coat of POR-15. Based on the photo above I just realized I probably left a weld too close to the bolt hole, so I'll need to clean and dress that tomorrow and repaint. Once it's dry, mount the lights and finish the wiring.

I still had some time before bed, so I took to finishing up some items in the trunk. With the fresh air box mounted, I needed to find a way to join the box to the defrost ducts. Eventually I decided that some aluminized jute padding would probably do the trick nicely...which it does. Problem is it looks like crap! Instead of that space-age look you think it's going to have...it just looks, well, cheap. I know the factory used plastic tubing on the inside, but none of the bits I had fit very well. On the plus side, tonight was the first time I have ever turned on a working Fresh-Air fan that I remember. WHOA!! there actually is some serious defrost air flow! Definitely did not expect that.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7184/6832472272_53d4800b8c_z.jpg

-Dave

chug_A_bug

March 13th 2012, 06:37

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e263/chug_A_bug/6978599759_2247f0285c_z.jpg~original

Nice work on the rally Lights too man.. could always put some Spray foam in the bumper and shape it and then put that Plastic dip over it....I think it would Help with vibrations and abit of Aero ;)

Chris.

evilC

March 13th 2012, 11:51

Hi Dave, what's the light patterns - my guess - the two outers are fog wide beam for seeing round corners and the centre two are drive pattern? Did you link the dip onto the main beam? I'm finding that reliable and very useful without the extra auxillaries for the runabout.
Whilst you have solid mounts I always found that spot lamp steadies were a must because even the highest frequency vibrations from the solid mounts caused premature bulb failure.

owdlvr

March 13th 2012, 13:47

Hi Clive, you got it! Outer lamps will be fog pattern and the inner two will be driving. My preference is actually to have Pencil beams on the inside with driving pattern on the outside, as we don't get the extreme fog banks that you guys get. But pencil beams are no longer available, and I'm working with the lens patterns I already have :) All the lights are dipped off the factory high-beam switch, but each of the 3 sets (stock high, fog, driving) are independently selectable on the dash. The top three toggle switches are the lights. Stock high, Driving and Fog lights. When these toggles are up, the lights turn on with the factory high beam. When they're down, flipping the factory high-beam switch won't turn them on. This allows me to be legal in BC when driving on public roads (only four white or yellow front mounting lights allowed), drop down to just fogs in crap weather, use only factory highs if the lights are covered or light up the night sky with all six!

If I had mounted the 220's, I would have used some lamp steadies...but I've never found them necessary with Hella 4000's or 6" and smaller lights. I've only replaced a single bulb in 10 years!

-Dave

owdlvr

March 13th 2012, 13:53

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e263/chug_A_bug/6978599759_2247f0285c_z.jpg

hahahahahaha, so true.

I don't need a beer tap in my garage, I need a Tim Horton's dispenser.

-Dave

owdlvr

March 14th 2012, 02:24

Alright, I can't find a photo of it but I think we can all agree how your "first car" effects your automotive choices for years to come. The first car that I bought happened to be a 1989 Audi 90 quattro, a car which I still think has the best factory dashboard of any car out there. Even 23 years later the dash is still timeless. One of the best features, for me at least, was the night-time illumination. It was this warm red/orange. To this day I can't buy a car with a dash that lights up green. In my Audi Rally car I used Stewart Warner Gauges and their red LED lighting. It was good, but quite red. When I built the '69 Beetle I needed a way to get the dash to light up my preferred red, but with a mix of bulb types due to the VW speedo and Porsche tach. Anyone who has ever used the rubber "boots" that ship with aftermarket gauges knows they go white within a few weeks of use. Some testing resulted in a simple solution...
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7065/6981282009_f7c434f3c1_z.jpg

Two coats of Tamiya clear acrylic will give you an even light in the color you choose, keep going with the coats to get the color deeper and deeper. The clear Tamiya paints are available in a whole load of colors, so anything is possible. At night, my Bug lights up pretty well even across all the different gauges I have.

Finished up the wiring for the rally lights tonight. Everything was setup waterproof, but a lot of the wires were visible, so I went nuts with the techflex. Chances are it will get all nasty and I'll be cutting it off in a year...but until then it looks fantastic! :P The wiring is virtually invisible, except for the one loop coming from under the apron up to the light bar.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7051/6981281973_0deca74bd4_z.jpg http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7187/6981281945_831b9b8ee1_z.jpg

I've got a replacement lens/reflector coming for the broken unit, but looking at this photo it seems I might need to pickup some high wattage bulbs to replace the yellow H4's in the factory lights!
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7187/6981281877_db2fddb721_b.jpg

Some buddies dropped by, so we were able to toss the pop-out window into the driver's side. What a pain these stupid things are to install, eh? I do have the hinge cover, I just don't have the correct screws to install it :P
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7063/6981281835_9eaaebdfed_z.jpg

Also this evening, I worked further on the hood lock/latch setup. Last night I had the lock working, made some adjustments and promptly locked the hood shut with no possibility of getting it open. After popping out the spare tire access port, I got the hood open. A few more tries tonight and I ended up with a perfectly working hood latch and lock system. I popped an emergency pull cable in, routed into the front fender. When my buddies showed up I was demonstrating for Scott, who bought my '69, what a factory lock system actually works like (non existent on his '69!). Went to open the hood and the handle in the glovebox broke. ARRRGGG!

That's it. %$#! the factory lock, I'm just going to install a set of these to ensure the hood doesn't fly up.
http://shop1.actinicexpress.co.uk/shops/Rat_Sport/images/catalog/rubber_hooks.JPG or http://www.rhdjapan.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/small_image/5e06319eda06f020e43594a9c230972d/i/m/image_79.jpg

-Dave

al_kaholik

March 14th 2012, 05:21

Dave - fresh air box joining bits - the factory replacement parts that I got are just with a kind of black backing on them that have two pop fastners.

http://s61.photobucket.com/albums/h68/a_t_b321/beetle%20blue/R0015276.jpg~original

http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h68/a_t_b321/beetle%20blue/R0015565.jpg~original

I'm informed that you can use silicone tubing. In black that would tidy up if you were that bothered, think I will be doing this at some point in the future...

cookvw

March 14th 2012, 22:28

the rally lights are sweet! it will be like night and day..lol. what shifter is that you got in your car?

owdlvr

March 15th 2012, 02:31

Dave - fresh air box joining bits - the factory replacement parts that I got are just with a kind of black backing on them that have two pop fastners.
...

I'm informed that you can use silicone tubing. In black that would tidy up if you were that bothered, think I will be doing this at some point in the future...

I considered the silicone tubing. The 'issue' for any of the regular materials is the need to cut those notches into it in order for it to wrap around the back. Tough to do with the silicone tubing I have house, as it's all multi-layer for boost. Will return to this when I'm bored/frustrated elsewhere!

the rally lights are sweet! it will be like night and day..lol. what shifter is that you got in your car?

The lights will hopefully be closer to Day...and Day! :P (terrible joke, I know)

The shifter is simply a factory VW shifter with an Empi aluminum short-shift kit. I've modified a prototype Vibrant Performance carbon-fiber shift knob to fit the shaft, and then sleeved the spindly little factory shaft with a carbon fiber tube. I *think* the production Vibrant knob will thread right onto a factory shift rod, but its been 7+ years since I worked there. The carbon tube, in my case, is a cut-down paddle handle which I got from a friend who owns an outdoors shop.

------

Tonight was a quick night, I was in Whistler all day for work and then down in Vancouver for the monthly club meeting. Put my minimum hour in and called it quits. I spent the first bit going around the car and touching up a number of tiny details I have been meaning to get to. Little things, that you'd probably never see but bother me! I think I'm in danger of becoming a perfectionist.

Example? The razor I used to put the cut-line in on the plasti-dip before lifting off the paint wasn't brand new, so in a few spots it didn't pull on a perfectly straight line. A little plasti-dip brushed on tonight, and I'll cut a new line and pull off the excess tomorrow. Yes, proof I've gone insane.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7193/6837872306_25e1025314_z.jpg

With various little jobs done, I figured I should tackle the rear bumper and apron. I knew this wasn't going to be a simple bolt on affair, you may remember I dropped the body off a trailer and the rear apron opening is 1+ inches too narrow now! With the right-side bumper bracket bolted on, you can see how far off the left-side holes are:
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7189/6837872214_bea5b20a49_z.jpg

Using a rather dangerous combination of two pieces of wood and a damaged scissor jack, I managed to spread the bumper apart enough to get both sides bolted together...
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7206/6837872250_92359c3d4d_z.jpg

...but it's not done yet. For starters, the bumper is slightly shifted to the left and covers more fender on the left side then the right. Normally one would simply loosen the bolts and shimmy the bumper over...but in my case it's currently acting as a stressed member of the rear bodywork. Loosening the bolts without something holding the body spread apart would be a dangerous affair! The second issue is the rear apron opening.

The rear apron WAY closer to fitting now, so much so that I'm confident I'll be able to make things work, but it does need adjustment. I'm about 1/4" off at the bottom now, so I think I need to shim the bumper mounts away from the body. This is going to mean removing the bumper, shimming the mounts, stretching the body, attaching the bumper and then testing the apron. Again and again until it fits! Once that's all done, I have to figure out how to center the bumper!

In the end, I don't know if I'm going to end up with a removable apron or not. Depends on how close I get it, and how easy it will be to remove. At the very least, even if I have a removable apron I'm not going to be able to remove the bumper. At first thought it seems like "well, whats the point"...but I suppose engine pulls will still be much easier.

Let this be a lesson kids: Don't drop the body off the trailer. (but you probably knew that already.)

-Dave

evilC

March 15th 2012, 14:13

...........
.......................
I've got a replacement lens/reflector coming for the broken unit, but looking at this photo it seems I might need to pickup some high wattage bulbs to replace the yellow H4's in the factory lights!
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7187/6981281877_db2fddb721_b.jpg

.............
-Dave

Dave, rather than higher wattage bulbs i.e. 100/90 or 130/90 I have used the 60/55W +50% that will get you close to the first upgrade figure and with +80% now being readily available thats what I will be changing to. You could also go to +100% PIAA bulbs that would give an equivalent 120/110W without increasing the amp draw. Those extra power bulbs also give a whiter light as well. I would be conscious that to power the lamps a high power alternator would be required that would cause a power draw from an already power compromised engine. A 75A alternator will draw close to 2 Kw out of the engine. The higher the current draw, the lower the voltage output I found and I got to the point where the more lights I put on the less I could see! due to the differences between the light output at 12V and 14.4V.

Clive

owdlvr

March 15th 2012, 19:27

Thanks Clive, I'll check out the options as you suggest. I've got a higher-wattage alternator coming, but I'm not sure how taxed I want to make it!

-Dave

Joel

March 16th 2012, 19:29

Good to see nice solid mounts with the driving lights.
Nothing worse than shaky driving lights when you hit bumps.

I have to run driving lights on all my cars due to the wildlife out here, my bug and 4x4 are great, nice solid metal to mount but my damn Ford Mazda thing being a new modern plastic heap it was like they were sitting in a bucket of jelly.

Had to do so much reinforcing to get them nice and steady.

owdlvr

March 17th 2012, 03:34

A short time spent in the garage, before F1 qualifying, but a very productive and satisfying one. For starters, I got this to fit:

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7197/6842983166_26ac1f48d2_z.jpg

The rear apron isn't perfect, but its at least in the gap! Started off by notching the left bumper bracket mount a little to try and stretch things over. Managed to cut the distance needed by another 1/8". I was off just a little bit, but far enough that there was no stretching or sneaking it in. Hmmm...what to do? Occasionally, when working on a car, a little bit of violence is allowed. I put the apron on my lap, gave it a good shove in the right direction on the left side, and then a good shove on the right. Oh hey, look at that, fits!

The best part though, is that I'm going to be able to keep the "removable" feature I intended. I've popped two of the riv-nuts / bolts in, but will need to mark (pray) and do the lower two without the bumper on. This means I've got to be quite accurate, as there will be no testing possible between marking and the first test!

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7061/6989107141_b1c439ce3b_z.jpg

Occasionally one should leave the garage on a good note, and thus start the weekend nice and fresh. Lets hope no one needs to "use" these decals during the Spring Thaw next month!

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7181/6989107173_8c609efe73_z.jpg

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7181/6989107207_bd0953e0c7_z.jpg

-Dave

Steve C

March 17th 2012, 03:45

Hi

Love the light bar.

I had an 1963 austerity model bug that I used to do a bit of motor sport with.

http://i1184.photobucket.com/albums/z328/1303Steve/BJS2_280685.jpg~original

It had 2 Cibie Super Oscars in the middle and 2 Oscars on the outside pointing out a little to look around corners.

http://i1184.photobucket.com/albums/z328/1303Steve/DadDaveatValla.jpg~original

When my son was learning to drive we had to do a few interstate trips, so knocked up a light bar and fitted 4 Cibie Super Oscars.

Steve

Joel

March 17th 2012, 20:00

Is that your GH Sigma there Steve?

Makes me feel old that I'm the same age as one of them :lmao:.

Steve C

March 17th 2012, 20:06

Hi

The Sigma was my wife's car, traded a 68 Type 3 wagon in on it, misses wanted AC.

Steve

owdlvr

March 19th 2012, 03:03

Hmmm...this is why I update the thread every night I work on the car. It's Sunday, my last update was Friday before bed, so surely there is a tonne to update! I checked the camera, and I have only two new photographs. Geesh, I was down there for two days...what did I do!?!

I did finish up the rear apron mounts, which required stretching and releasing the rear body structure a few more times. I've got the bumper pretty even left to right, and the apron pops in and out easily (as long as you leave the bumper attached) so I figure that's probably going to give me enough access and clearance to make pulling motors easy enough. Then this morning I tore it all down again so that I could paint anywhere I cut or drilled through to bare metal.

I finally got around to cleaning up all the wiring above the transmission. With the changes to the oil cooler routing, and a change I made to the oil-cooler fan, some of the wires were too long. The rest of them were just popped in temporarily waiting for everything that could end up in the way to be installed. All were hortened where appropriate, and then mounted and cleaned up. Tomorrow I'll pickup the aluminum I need to make the cover for this access hole, install the rear windshield and then the "back seat" area is finished. That will allow me to move onto mounting the belts and seats.
http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6100/6995822653_659a4e5845_z.jpg

The next major step is the engine. My dry-sump pump still isn't ready, but I have to run the car for The Spring Thaw April 27-29, so I figure I better get something together and give myself time to sort out the car! So, I reassembled my 1776 with the 26mm standard oil pump and some new tin. I'll run the engine with my Kadron carbs until after the Spring Thaw, and when I switch over to the dry-sump oiling I'll switch over to a set of IDF carbs.

You might be wondering about the red fan shroud, and questioning my taste in clown-car engine tin colors...but there is a good and valid reason for it! Once I switch over to the IDF's I'll switch over to the Salzburg style shroud I made and painted. Problem is I only have one set of generator backing tins. My theory was the engine would look worse with a black shroud and red backing plates then it does with an all red shroud combo. But, if I'm honest, I really do hate it! It's everything I can do not to pull out the paint and make it black :P

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7064/6995822699_bcf6b87b42_z.jpg

Hopefully I can find some lower mounting studs in the the length that I need. That's the hold up now for installing the engine and determining the location of the fuel pressure regulator and crankcase breather box. Of course, that does lead me to a new problem...I haven't really determined my crankcase breather setup, or even where I'm going to pull from. Something like this will make the line routing the cleanest with the Kadron carbs:
http://www.cbperformance.com/catalogimages/3246detail.jpg

But these seem to be far easier to obtain on short notice, and while it will be a pain with the Kadrons, it will likely be much neater with the IDFs.
http://www2.cip1.com/v/vspfiles/photos/C13-17-2927-1.jpg

Hmmm...

-Dave

Steve C

March 19th 2012, 05:11

Hi Dave

Very neat work.

Can you buy lengths of high tensile metric threaded rod where you are for the lower studs?

Steve

owdlvr

March 19th 2012, 14:46

That was the first thing I checked, right after regular studs. Metric threaded rod, no problem. High-Ten threaded rod, problem. I did find a Ford part number for a metric stud, M10 x 120. I've got two coming into the local dealer tomorrow, and we'll see if they're workable.

Otherwise, it's down to Vancouver and wait a week for the Porsche dealer to bring in the 911 mounting studs.

-Dave

Steve C

March 19th 2012, 17:31

Hi Dave

I think that I may have some kicking around if the other sources don't pan out.

I think auto Kombis used longer lower studs. The VW parts system have a thing called "lak & normal telle" (spelling maybe wrong). I lists every nut bolt used on any VW by part number, maybe an idea to talk to VW dealer parts section.

Steve

NO_H2O

March 19th 2012, 21:18

A type 4 stud should work.

owdlvr

March 19th 2012, 21:28

That's what I thought. Drove over to my storage unit, dug the type 4 motor out, pulled the studs, and they are the same...or at least, mine are :P

-Dave

owdlvr

March 21st 2012, 03:11

I've got the proper studs coming from Porsche, but its going to be a week or two before they arrive. So, in the meantime, I'm working on other items that are needed to install the engine. Everything at this stage is taking twice as long as it should, because I'm needing to plan ahead. Everything I drill a hole for is permanent...so it needs to not only work with the engine as its but more importantly, it needs to work with the engine I build with IDF's and the Salzburg-style shroud.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7180/7002208955_c58e721f9f_z.jpg

After a bunch of testing and measuring I finally determined the positioning for the crankcase breather, fuel pressure regulator and oil pressure sender.

Fuel pressure regulator (still need a fitting and a new gauge), and oil pressure sender. I won't be able to fit the Stewart-Warner sender in the same spot I had the Autometer sender as the body size is larger. I had done a remote sender on Connor's mustang, so I had all the -3AN fittings and lines on the shelf...so tucked this one out of the way with a left-over Coil bracket.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7239/7002208915_f3676dbf30_z.jpg

On the crankcase breather side, I decided to reuse the Moroso unit I had, instead of getting one of the rectangular box styles. For now I'll run both the valve covers and crankcase into this one unit, but when I hook up the dry sump system I think I'm going to mount a second one right beside it. I tend to forget about checking them for oil, and would rather not end up with a huge mess. The oil tank will be running a fairly high level of oil, so better to play it safe since I have the real-estate. I did realize that I own a 3/8NPT tap from modifying oil pumps, so made up a crankcase breather that I can use for now. I'm tempted to cut the threads deeper on the part, but the threads were cutting odd and I'm not really sure what type of aluminum it is...played it safe for now.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7179/6856094634_3b24e763d6_z.jpg

And lastly, the stud problem. With the proper Porsche studs coming, I figured I could mount the engine using bolts. The only reason I didn't, its the need to guide the engine in using just the input shaft on the transmission. So, some Audi engine bolts sacrificed their lives to become temporary engine studs. Cut threads aren't ideal, and leave a major stress riser right at the base of the last thread...so I'll swap these out as soon as I can. For the moment, however, they should work.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7089/6856094604_eaf27b5f91_z.jpg

-Dave

owdlvr

March 22nd 2012, 05:38

A few weeks ago I was doing my usual bi-weekly parts run to AVR Import Specialties, hanging out and chatting with my friend Rob (the 'R' in AVR). We were going over the list of items left on the car, and prepping the order schedule based on how quickly I thought I would get there. Rob's often watching out for sales from his suppliers, or trying to stay a step ahead of me on the parts list. Often I'll text him to say "can you add X" to my shelf, only to get "was already there" back. As we went through the list, Rob asked me a question I had been dreading for weeks. "What are you going to run for an exhaust?"

I have a bad habit of always leaving the exhaust system to the end, and usually as an afterthought. I cut my career teeth working for Vibrant Performance, an exhaust manufacturer based out of Toronto. It's just ingrained in me to not worry about the exhaust and make something at end of a project. Well, Vibrant was over seven years ago for me...and they don't make any Beetle exhausts! Rob and I started chatting about all the options, and price points, and then he asked me if I had seen the Vintage Speed systems. AVR just started carrying the line, and so far they've been stoked on everything they've brought in. There wasn't an exhaust in stock, but he piqued my interest for sure. Then Rob offered me the contact information for Mr. Lee, and suggested I show him the project. Well...less then 18 hours later I had a reply from Mr. Lee, and in three days I had two boxes arrive on my doorstep.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7133/6859164310_07feb21290_z.jpg

Now, I could tell you as an enthusiast that in person they are incredible. But as a person who used to evaluate systems for a living, these systems are phenominal. The workmanship is so far and beyond anything else I've seen for a VW, it's incredible. Hand TIG welded as well. Take a look at the detail photos:
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7236/6859164280_dacd652766_z.jpg http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7207/6859164236_1e4076a308_z.jpg

http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6112/7005282413_d33bb5088f_z.jpg

As I'm planning on using heater boxes, the system ships with these flanges, that you can either weld to the heater boxes or use with factory clamps.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7076/7005282455_d484370edb_z.jpg

Now, you may have missed the fact that I said two boxes arrived to my doorstep. Vintage Speed and I discussed my current engine setup, and the engine setup I plan on running after my dry-sump pump is ready. The Sport Muffler was the obvious choice for the current setup, but would my new build benefit from using the Superflow muffler? Normally it's reserved for larger displacements then mine, but I'll be running high-revs for long sustained periods. "Well," he said, "why don't you try both and decide which works better for your setup." And so, sitting in my living room distracting me from work all day were two incredible exhaust systems!

But to get the motor in, I've got to take care of some more details. First up was the breather system. I spent a bit of time on the phone with Darren from KROC cylinder heads, and decided that I'm going to try venting the case, cylinder head 1/2 and not cylinder head 3/4. I had 3/4 vented previously, but I'm shortening my lines significantly and worry about filling the breather with oil. Instead of a breather I'm going to go with a drain from the head back down to the sump. Darren was great for sorting out what and how to do it now, so that I wouldn't need to change as much when the dry-sump system arrives. Crankcase breather, now tee'd for 1 valve cover and the case. I'll redo the fittings with my final engine, this is just what I had lying around. The lower hose is terminated just inside the fender area, all it does is allow me to drain the tank if needed.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7278/7005282381_2e8e3ef2cf_z.jpg

Fuel regulator is in with more Russell fittings and hose. I'm going to leave the outlet hose as factory cloth until the new carbs are installed, at which time I'll move everything over to Russell fittings and lines.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7206/7005282361_393e0fca65_z.jpg

I think I'm getting addicted to them actually ;-) Here's the -3AN line I'm using for the remote oil pressure sender.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7038/6859164126_070d4bb36f_z.jpg

Fast forward a whole bunch of time later, and we have an engine installed with an exhaust system. The engine took a few hours, and the exhaust system took less then 20min. It's such a rare experience with this build to have something that just bolted right up the first time! I am also pleased to report that our home-made clutch cable bits and the shortest factory clutch cable seem to have given me a working clutch. Well, the feel at the pedal is "right", so hopefully that equates to working when I get to drive it.
http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6227/6859164042_021cb26d32_c.jpg

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7058/6859164106_eaa99387bb_c.jpg

Its far from being ready to start though. I need to run oil lines, breather lines, make a 3/4 head drain, swap out the oil filter mount and THEN I'll be ready to start it. Closer, but still a long way to go!

I did finally solve a question tonight that I haven't been able to answer since I first discovered it. My e-brake cables were much too long for the car, as are the heater control cables. So much so that I can't hook up either without modifications. When I told Rob, he was surprised as they haven't had any issues on the shop restorations...which use the exact same parts! Sitting in the car, as well, there is something "odd" and "wrong" with the way it feels. I thought maybe I was using the passenger seat and it was setup on the mounts differently, but that wasn't it. Then today, it finally dawned on me. I think 1973 is the year they moved the e-brake handle and assorted bits further back in the car? I started with a '73 pan, but as I welded '71 style pans into it I always just tell Rob the car is 100% '71. Whoops.

I have to say, the two best modifications I've done to the car so far is the removable rear apron, and the "weber doors". The combination of both made the engine install so easy. You can reach everything!! I will never take a bug to paint without doing both of these...well, unless it's a factory resto. Then, and only then, will I drop the weber doors. The removable apron though, that's a given!

-Dave

al_kaholik

March 22nd 2012, 08:27

Exhaust looks amazing! Just had a browse at their competition exhaust too and wondering if they could incorporate a cat...

Bug@5speed(US)

March 22nd 2012, 11:44

Wow,

Your project is coming together great...

Enjoy your thread.. Helps keep me going even if at the current time can't work on mine..

Can't wait to see some video of your girl in action..
Alex

owdlvr

March 23rd 2012, 03:25

Well, that didn't last long.

The motor is coming out!!

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7058/7006533051_572370e9f0_z.jpg http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7049/6860417754_2b16141590_z.jpg

Back last year when I was researching dry sump systems and options for the Type 1 beetle, I evaluated as many different options of Dry Sump pump as possible. Most people using a dry sump setup in a bug are Drag Racing, so there was very little information out there regarding daily-driver and race style setups. When I could find information, all of it was clear...the Bugpack pump was reliable and long lasting. Issues were non-existent (as far as the internet was concerned), which these days is a pretty positive indicator! What sealed the deal, however, was the Huebbe brothers in St. Louis. Here are two guys who have been rallying a Beetle for years in the US. Mark and John's dry sump system uses the Bugpack pump, which was what sealed the deal for me. The fact that they just won their class at the WRC Mexico event using the pump is icing on the cake!

Rick at Bugpack was pretty excited about my car when I showed him the photos, he was clear it would be a while before the next run of Dry Sump pumps were ready, but he wanted to help me out and ship one up to Canada as soon as they were. With the Spring Thaw coming in less then 40 days, I figured I would dry sump the car after the event...not wanting to setup a new system so close to an event. So, as we all know, I installed the motor last night...the whole top half was ready to go. Today, however, John my friendly UPS driver showed up claiming "gee, more car parts! What a surprise."

You wouldn't actually expect me to sit around for a month knowing the dry sump pump was in house!?!

So, first it was off with the exhaust...then the crank pulley, then the tin and finally the oil pump.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7271/6861731698_3c279a031d_z.jpg

The Bugpack pump has two stages, one scavenge and one pressure stage. The gears are huge on both, and the scavenge stage allows you to choose from two setups. You can either use the factory pickup (in which case you plug one port as I have) or use an external pickup such as Autocraft unit. In this case you would plug the internal pickup hole in the pump, and attach your external feed to the port I've plugged. Just in case, for archival purposes, you can't use both the internal pickup and the external port at the same time (for example scavenging crankcase via factory pickup and a valve cover via external port). If you do, as soon as one of them sucks air the other pickup won't pull anything.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7131/7007847407_23ed1c2c73_z.jpg
So moving from left to right we have Inlet from the tank in furthest from the case, blocked port not used near the case. On the Left side there is pressure side out furthest from the case, scavenge back to the tank next to the case. The Russell fitting is my pressure return back into the case (after passing through a filter and the oil cooler).

I've sized up all the oil lines needed for the pump install, and will make those tomorrow. Technically that would be it, I could put the exhaust back on get ready for the next part of the project. But halfway through the day, after he saw the photo of the pump I sent him, Rob was calling me with some crazy ideas. Looks like the motor is coming right out of the car! :D

...anyone want to buy a Powdercoated Red shroud? Used for 24 hours, never run :P

-Dave

hotsauce

March 25th 2012, 11:02

Holy crap, that exhaust is gorgeous!!!

al_kaholik

March 26th 2012, 02:38

Based on these pics, your report of how good the company is Dave and other bits and pieces I have read, I'm definitely putting a Vintage Speed exhaust on my shopping list. It's just decisions on which one to have!

owdlvr

March 26th 2012, 02:48

Yeah, I can't wait to hear it! Will have to fire up some video for sure.

Well, it's been a long weekend of ups and downs...but progress is certainly happening. Friday I finally cleaned out the car and the garage enough to get it on it's wheels for the first time. It was a good moment, quickly followed by the realization that it was going to be a bad moment. The 300lb springs that I selected are _waaaay_ soft. The car was lowered dry with no engine, no seats, no doors and only one piece of glass. The rear suspension still sags through half of it's travel. Bumping the preload up gains a bit, but they're very clearly too soft. Initially this wouldn't seem like a big issue, I mean they're coilovers...buy another set and swap them in! That's the whole idea. Problem, though, is that I'm already tight for clearance. Each heavier spring will be thicker, and thus cut down on my clearance. Will see what the rally shop has for springs that can be borrowed for static rate testing. I'm going to lower the front a few inches and see if I can find a happy summer setup for testing and actually dialing in the suspension on the car. Too early to panic, but late enough to realize I have a bunch of work ahead of me!
http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6034/6870517858_5d1d704390_c.jpg http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6060/7016625887_bcf2e387a1_c.jpg

With car on the ground, and tonne of sunny weather for the weekend, I realized it would be the perfect day for a drive. Hmmm, can't drive the car. So, trailer it!
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7140/6870517958_001e67157e_c.jpg

Okay, well, that isn't the full story. I actually the car back down to Chilliwack to GLI Autoworks. Lorne and Gerry have been storing the doors for me while I work on the car, and I've been waiting for the rain to stop long enough to get the car down there. While they mounted the doors, Art from AVR brought out "the magic rope" and helped Rob and I to install the rear window. The front windshield was popped in almost before I noticed, and things were just trucking along. It was team affair as we installed seals, chrome trim and the vent windows...mostly done by Lorne and Rob if I'm honest...but I did a good job of stealing spare parts from their personal garages and the shop to replace stuff that I've lost in the shuffle :D Rob and I finished the door latches by heading to their family farm to 'borrow' more parts from the company parts cars. With it getting dark I hit the road for the 2.5 hour drive home.
http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6101/7016626261_ba27428a2c_z.jpg

Today I started by finishing off the doors. I can officially state that I hate U-Channel felt. I've hated it for some time, if I'm honest, but always thought it was because the '69 one-piece windows used iffy aftermarket felt. Nope. I think U-Channel felt just sucks in general. I'm sure there is a trick to getting it all nice and even, without looking like a wavy boat, but after longer then I care to admit I decided to accept it for now. You can only remove and reinstall it so many times before you wish for a convertible! I finally remembered how to get the glass back in, and the regulators are...um...acceptable. I'll be scouring swap meets this year for a good pair of used regulators. To his credit, Rob told me to wait until I had a good pair of used ones! Door panels come in this week, and when they do I will do the plastic on the doors and finish them up.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7124/7016626319_63f6883e54_c.jpg http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7138/7016626363_331077fcd8_z.jpg

With the doors as finished as I can make them, and my fingers raw from all those stupid clips and stuff, I figured I would go back to prepping the engine and car for some power. Oil filter adapter has been replaced, which seems like nothing mentionable...except all the interior oil lines are finally 100% finished.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7227/7016626421_bfed78f1a7_z.jpg

Russell fittings had a fuel bulkhead fitting (670860) that ships with two teflon washers and a lock nut. On the '69 I used barbed fittings and standard rubber hose for the valve cover vents, and it was always a pain. Fitting the valve cover for AN fittings, though, was definitely an afterthought on my part. Found this fitting at my local auto parts store, and sure enough it works no problem. I'll need to run the engine around the clock once I have a crank pulley back on, but with #1 at TDC the fitting is clearing the valve springs/rocker/etc. And hey, if it ends up interfering...I'll just cut it down :P
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7094/6870518446_c32fac1be7_z.jpg http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6109/6870518474_13f4a14e91_z.jpg

Before I went down for the doors, Rob and I were talking about the list of things I needed to get the car running and how that differed from the list of things I needed to finish the car. After counting the number of engine pulls I was planning Rob put together a bit of a surprise pack when I arrived at the shop. That plan about pulling the motor later for carbs? Yeah, lets just do that now.
http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6214/6870518554_a398346312_z.jpg

So my late afternoon / evening was spent pulling the carbs down and blasting out the passages...then reassembling. The engine was stripped, and my "Salzburg" style shroud installed. I keep looking at it knowing it's just such a quick hack job, but everything I've seen/read about the factory cars was the same. I'm torn on it for now, but could re-do it down the road. Warwick was working on his mini and just laughed at me. "When the engine is the in the car, you're never going to notice" Hmmmmm....
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7231/6870518586_a964746e47_z.jpg http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6109/7016626657_5184b09bd9_z.jpg

Having never done a hex-linkage before, man is there a tonne of little parts eh?! I did have to shorten the hex bar a little, which I knew was a possibility. A quick zip over to my buddies lathe and I was back on track...I thought. As soon as I had the length right I discovered it interferes with the Alternator strap. Had I left the strap stock, no problem, but the powder coating added *just* enough to the piece that the hex shaft was hitting it. A quick trip back to the lathe and I've got it clearing.
http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6034/7016626731_a6c7c1c10e_z.jpg

Still have some work to do before it's ready to pop back into the car...but I'm starting to feel like I can see a finish line ahead.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7110/6870518688_26c6029916_c.jpg

-Dave

vw1303

March 26th 2012, 11:58

Man this thing is getting close:)

I have some 550lb/in springs if you want to test fit them.
2.5" Diameter 8" long. Are you running a rear sway bar as well?

owdlvr

March 26th 2012, 13:44

Man this thing is getting close:)

I have some 550lb/in springs if you want to test fit them.
2.5" Diameter 8" long. Are you running a rear sway bar as well?

Oh that would rock! Could I swing by on Tuesday or Wednesday (eve) to borrow them?

I will be running a sway bar, but I haven't installed it yet. I wanted to get the spring rate close, and then put the bar on.

Txt me at 604 849 0076 if that's easier?

-Dave

cookvw

March 26th 2012, 22:33

YA wish i could be making this much progress on my super! lol.

@vw 1303? any new progress on your car?

owdlvr

March 27th 2012, 04:29

So when I went to the shop tonight I thought to myself "I'm going to get the engine back in"...heh heh, yeah right. I started off by taking care a couple of details, and they snowballed and snowballed until all I had done was deal with details. The problem with details, is they take so freaking LONG!!!

First up, was mounting the coil. Should be simple, but the fuel-pump block off plate I'm using isn't flat. That left an angled gap right around the center of the photo below. Technically the hole doesn't matter, as the case is sealed by the gasket and plate...but should it fill with dirt and crap it could get into the case if I ever remove the plate:
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7206/7020220181_e112e35119_z.jpg

Eventually I determined a grommet would take up the space and ensure that a good seal was made. With that, the coil project was done.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7078/7020220219_726f6aa053_z.jpg

So up next, I trimmed engine tin to fit around the pump. Just a 'slight' bit of trimming required :P
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7194/7020220247_c5204d8f43_c.jpg

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7134/6874118612_1a4837d287_c.jpg

With that, I moved onto oil-tank cut-off valve. For whatever reason I had always planned on mounting this below the car, even though it would be incredibly annoying. I was having difficulty deciding where exactly to put it, so I asked Mark Huebbe to send me a photo of his. He's got a Beetle that he rallies in the Rally America series. As soon as I saw his placement it was like a bell went off. Why didn't I think of putting it in the engine bay!?!
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7053/6874118648_d23ec23180_b.jpg

The valve, fittings and line are all very close or touching the tin. I am concerned about the potential heat factor and was thinking of possible solutions when it dawned on me. Vibrant Performance recently started carrying a new line of thermal products, so surely they would have something that would work? A quick phone call, even though it was 11:30pm, and I should have the required stuff coming by mail tomorrow. Gotta love good connections! Getting this to fit correctly required pulling off the pulley tin, yet again. I think that was probably the fifth time this evening alone. The worst part is I will still need to take the whole motor down to the point where I can take off the cylinder tins...in order to install a bolt for mounting the valve! I think I'm going to get lucky on the feed line, though, as I should be able to use the factory hole for the reverse lights to pass the oil line through from the tank to the valve. I'll confirm as soon as the engine gets remounted in the car...if not, another bulkhead will go in near the right-side carb.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7071/7020220409_b132b2d2e1_z.jpg http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7238/6874118764_519d9887dc_z.jpg

I then moved on to the breather system. I mounted up my second breather tank, removed all the lines and fittings from the first tank and then started reworking the whole system. Once I had it about halfway ready, I realized that I really needed to raise the one breather by about a half inch. With it already touching the top of my firewall, that wasn't going to be a simple task! Yet another detail to find a solution to...
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7061/7020220487_638512516d_z.jpg http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7248/6874118862_8b08b28f0f_z.jpg http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7048/6874118896_9aff9c9525_z.jpg

With my new resized filter, everything fits exactly how I had imagined it in my head. Full sized filter on the right, shortened filter on the left.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7238/7020220647_674bba22f5_z.jpg http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7231/7020220615_17c995109d_z.jpg

Breather line for the tank was then added through the firewall, and now the system is ready for the engine install. I should be able to disconnect the breathers easily with a stubby wrench, but I'll need to get the engine in to be sure. Add another item to the "check this" list!
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7117/6874118964_1837c56c0c_b.jpg

Somewhere in the middle of all this I found myself sitting in the back of the car, probably tightening up a fitting or two, and realized that I could pop in a fuel filter and finish the fuel connections by the frame horn while I was there. Fuel system is now connected from the tank all the way to the regulator. No photos, it's just a filter ziptied to the speed sensor bracket!

It was about this point in the late evening that I realized I should begin tearing the motor back down. The garage, however, is a complete disaster with tools everywhere. I took a step back, thought about where to start tidying up, and then realized that would make a far better lunch-break project tomorrow during the work day. Besides, it was midnight and I still hadn't eaten dinner! I'll clean up the shop at lunch, and then be ready to start fresh at the end of the work day. Carbs off, motor in, oil-lines and breather lines completed. That's the goal for tomorrow...bonus points if I get the carbs back on :P

-Dave

al_kaholik

March 27th 2012, 05:07

You sir are a chieftain. Perhaps borderline crazy but the results are paying off :D Cutting down the filter is pure madness and a proper engineering solution.

Between you and Ricola a new benchmark is set for beetles

owdlvr

March 28th 2012, 05:08

Thank you for the kind comment. I never set out to be this detailed, but it kinda grows on you. Once you start, you can't stop! I think I'm way past borderline crazy though, I've definitely hit certifiably insane :D

Started off this evening by stripping off the bolt-on oil sump (Good Riddance!!) and returning the pickup/cover to factory spec. I was considering tearing the whole motor down to get to the cylinder tins when I realized there wasn't enough room between the tin and the head fins for a bolt head anyhow. I really shouldn't be allowed to powdercoat my tin...I grind, cut and weld on it _after_ powdercoating! :P I'm pretty sure I'll be able to put the heat-shielding in while the motor is in the car, so I'm not going to wait around for it to arrive.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7232/6877272724_4d0d1005e1_c.jpg

I had to wait around a bit to get a hand lifting the motor off the stand (the one thing I can't do solo). So in the meantime, I prepped the oil lines. Thankfully I was planning ahead when I had the motor in the car the first time, and had pre-measured the lines. I also made notes about where I would need heat shielding or other protection. So basically I just had to follow my own instruction sheet! The heat shielding is relatively obvious, but the other shield is simply left-over Flextech from the wiring harness. These two lines pass really close to a number of electrical connections so my hope is that this will keep them from rubbing through anything.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7248/7023373473_4027759410_c.jpg

Once the motor was on the ground, I wasted no time in getting it into the car. I then wasted no time getting the motor OUT of the car, so that I could install the forward tin piece :P The motor then made its way back into the car. Fortunately I hadn't bolted it in the first time!

The oil lines quickly followed the engine install. I ran the scavenge and pressure-out lines like I had them on my '69, below the exhaust pipe. The feed back into the engine goes between the two exhaust pipes. I did some head measurements on the '69 with the temp gun and this routing should be fine with the heat wrap in place. I'm thinking I may end up cutting the other two lines shorter to run them to though here as well, to keep them from hanging low. Will sleep on it (eventually!) to decide what to do. The photo does make it look far worse then it is, they hang about 1" lower then the heater box.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7061/6877272872_4418f913ef_c.jpg

With the motor in I began making the rest of the crankcase breather lines. My spool of Russell -8AN line was getting to be very short, and I was starting to think I was going to run out of line. The crankcase lines are quite tight in a number of spots...and I won't lie, dropping the engine is going to be a bit annoying with all the oil and breather connections to deal with.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7231/7023373547_acde659f69_c.jpg

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At this stage I was about to call my night a success, finishing all my goals, when I realized I had missed one line. There was still no oil-tank-to-firewall breather line....but there was no oil line material left in the box! All I had was about a 12" section on the floor, the final scrap. Unbelievably, it was 1/2" longer then I needed. One cut and a couple of fittings and the lines are done! Sixty-Five fittings, adapters or hose-ends make up the entire oil and breather system on the car. Popped the right-side carb on the engine to confirm all my lines clear, not quite sure how the ignition wires are going to work, but I'll solve that problem tomorrow.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7220/7023373711_f3948c202b_b.jpg

-Dave

Jadewombat

March 28th 2012, 10:52

owdlvr

March 29th 2012, 02:41

Today I zipped down to see Erik (vw1303) to borrow the heavier springs he offered for testing some spring rates. Since I was halfway there, I also zipped out to AVR for a coffee (thanks Vic!) and to pickup some more parts. Outside of a few odds-and-ends, and the final rear spring choice, I think I finally have everything I need to finish the car!
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7204/7025991507_4fb08e4720_z.jpg

I was absolutely bagged from the past week and hours of driving, but once I woke up from the couch I did my mandatory hour in the garage. Got the carbs on, the linkage in, electrical and fuel lines hooked up before I ran into a problem. CB Performance lists on their website "This pulley will clear all dry-sump oil pumps." What they forgot to mention, however, is that you may not be able to install the fan belt on all oil pumps. Sigh.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7197/6879892928_6faf1c7da9_z.jpg

Okay, so not a huge deal in the shop. Pop the pulley off, slide the belt on and reinstall. As a roadside repair that means waiting for the pulley to cool, hoping you can wiggle it off and reinstalling...not ideal. Will have to check to see if different belt manufacturers use a thinner belt design. Will definitely be getting a serpentine belt system though!

-Dave

owdlvr

March 30th 2012, 04:48

If I could make a suggestion, if you'll be pulling the motor several times you should install quick-release sleeves on your oil and fuel lines to keep everything clean when you have to pull the engine for maintenance, etc. Kind of like this, similar to an air fitting line on your compressor:

http://img.directindustry.com/images_di/photo-m2/all-fluid-quick-release-coupling-143700.jpg

I considered fluid-break fittings, but have you priced out the good ones lately? I think I can turn a wrench a few times until my bank account starts to recover ;-)

In other news, I started to tackle the last dry-sump issue (I hope). The BugPack pump is long enough that standard exhaust systems won't fit, but a few cuts later...and it fits like a charm.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7060/7028884341_0578668903_c.jpg

Hopefully I can get one of the guys at the Rallyshop to TIG weld it back up for me this weekend. Still deciding on whether I'm going to wrap the muffler or not, it's still pretty close to the oil pump heat-wise.

http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6058/6882785378_82d73e2e62_z.jpg

On the fan belt side of things, I opted to just pop the pulley off this time and mount the belt. I've only every had one fail, on a car I bought with a ratty belt, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't plan for the possibility while I wait for a serpentine setup. Not sure what the plan is at the moment, but I'm sure I'll come up with something. Can't turn the pulley down (belt rides right on it's outside edge) and can't machine the oil pump. The solution might be as simple as trimming a few teeth off a belt and taking it easy until the hotel. Not elegant, but it's such a remote possibility I'm not sure another solution is required.

Moving to the interior for a change of pace, I popped on the rear interior panels and started on the cover for my access hole. Really not happy with it at the moment, I wanted to avoid a million bolts holding it down, but the seal I've used is so thick it distorts with the few bolts I've used. Might go back to the drawing board on this one.
http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6220/7028884305_f29455e0bd_c.jpg

And then it was back to the engine...I finally got around to buying high-flow heater boxes, though I will admit to buying the cheaper version. At this point saving dollars wherever possible is a good thing, and Rob and I figured I've fabricated enough at this point that I could fix any issues I encounter. First up was removing the flanges off the one end.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7109/7028884209_51383f7237_c.jpg

...I think I found the dollar savings :P A few tweaks and I was able to get the brackets working. One on, one to go!
http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6119/7028884281_e02796081b_c.jpg

-Dave

owdlvr

March 31st 2012, 02:54

Started off by making the pieces to patch up the clearance hole I made in the exhaust. A friend at Rocket Rally is going to TIG weld the pieces in for me, and if I'm lucky he won't need to use any filler rod. Here's hoping my parts are a tight enough fit!
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7088/7031284795_973e5c1b35_z.jpg

No problems at all with the second heater box...though I did manage to bolt it all up to the car before I realized that I forgot to cut the flange off the rear-end. Oops! Fortunately a sawzall made quick work of the flange and I'm ready for the muffler when it comes back from welding.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7221/7031284769_525b2a2010_z.jpg

While I was under the car, I took the time to swap in the springs that Eric loaned me. They're a 550lb spring, but about 1.5" shorter then the 300lb springs I removed. Lowered to the ground, after a rough pre-load adjustment, the 550's sit about the right height for a "stock setup". The length of Eric's springs do let me max out the suspension height, but I'd be at the absolute limit of of the coil over threads. They have, however, served the exact purpose I needed, which was to figure out a starting point. I'll need to buy a longer length in 550, and I intend to do some crunch math tomorrow to determine the wheel rate on the car and why I was so far off with the 300's.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7057/6885188010_947de05195_z.jpg

With the rear sorted, I figured I should adjust the front a little.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7128/7031284685_cb22fcf1ac_z.jpg

Nothing really special here, just a 1" 'lowering spring' which should probably get me to the ride height I wanted to start with. Again, the whole purpose of running standard-type springs up front is to give myself some resemblance of a starting point that I could work from for matching up the rear.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7132/7031284597_104b59dd25_z.jpg

So here is the car sitting on the ground "dry". There's no fuel, oil, belts, seats, apron or decklid. But it does have all the glass, engine, etc. Sitting dry it's a great "rally height", which means wet I should end up a little closer to a street height. That also tells me that wet, I have some latitude for getting it up higher. I mean, it's all speculation at this point but it feels way better seeing it sit in a way I was expecting instead of scratching my head figuring out what the heck I messed up.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7278/7031284505_fcfb6fe48c_b.jpg

I figured I would end on a good note, and called it a night. LOTS of little jobs to accomplish this weekend, as well as that big job of lower shock mounts to be done at some point. I'm using outside help on that one, so I'll just work on knocking down the to-do list over the next two days.

-Dave

owdlvr

April 1st 2012, 04:40

Today started off as a bit of an odds-and-ends days. I was working on the heater box cable linkage when I got the call that Nick was over at the rally shop. I loaded up the wheels and tires that have been in on the car, and took care of flipping the tires around (so the overspray from previous paint job doesn't show) as well as solve the slow leak in two of them. Rusty rims were attacked by the wire wheel and all seems to be holding air now. Not that I plan to use these wheels and tires, but so far Lorne hasn't had time to dig up the rims I'm getting from him and tire-company-which-will-remain-unnamed hasn't jumped on board with some fresh shoes for the car. So, for the moment, it will have to hang out on these.

I also mounted up one of the spare 15" snow tires I have kicking around. By law where I live you have to be running snows (or carry chains) until April 30th, so when I get the car on the road I'm going to need something for while I'm out doing shakedown runs. A 195/55/15 looks hilarious on a 4" rim...but not exactly safe. Will have to see what else I have hiding in the tire and wheel collection. Might be time to break out the original German Sprintstars!

While I was playing with tires, Nick was welding my exhaust (and swearing my name). I guess the only stainless I could get in town was causing him fits as it was a bit thin. Good thing he's had my sandblasting cabinet for six months...otherwise I might owe him an even bigger favour :P With the exhaust welded up, tires ready, and the heater box cables hooked up I then moved on to sorting out the other "under car" items I need to deal with. The starter was wired up, one transmission leak was "solved" and another mysterious leak found...but still mysterious. I'm getting a clear-yellow fluid with no smell weeping down the side of the transmission it takes over a week to form any thing even close to a drop-sized amount on the bottom of the transmission. It would seem to be coming from the reverse switch seal, as that portion is wet but not immediately above it. The weird part, though, is the transmission fluid is red...and this doesn't smell at all like trans fluid. My initial thought was brake fluid, but all the fittings and lines on the rear are dry. Very odd.

Leaving that alone, it was time to hook up the heat between the engine and the body. The '71 came to me with these terrible black plastic units which obviously won't fit with all the stuff I've crammed in under the car, so I began stripping it down to it's core to determine what I might be able to build to suit the purpose.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7107/7034337009_bd951fdaf0_c.jpg

I was thinking of taking the plastic core, and simply wrapping it in heat wrap, when I found stainless steel corrugated pipe in one of my many parts bins. Dad had given these to me years ago when I bought the '69 (and promptly stole as many parts from him as possible). I remember him mentioning that he used to use similar stuff in the engine bay for heater tubes. (Must have been those whacky 80's). For what I needed though, they'd be perfect.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7068/6888242622_1bd251dd79_c.jpg

I didn't want to leave them just as the bare metal, as I do know that the airflow right out of the heater boxes can be incredibly hot. No need to risk melting any wiring when I have a spare roll of exhaust wrap kicking around. Finished heater duct, ready for install:
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7052/6888242660_20f46843fb_c.jpg

While I had the exhaust wrap out, I took the time to wrap the portion of the muffler that close to the oil-pump. I definitely didn't want to wrap the muffler, as this stuff retains moisture and frays, and looks like crap after a while...but at the same time I'm so close to the oil pump I think anything I can do to help with heat is a good idea. I'll get rid of the hose clamps once I figure out where I put my stainless safety wire.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7138/6888242422_8041a84ecb_c.jpg

I figured that mounting up the exhaust was going to be a breeze, but then discovered a problem I hadn't thought of. When I ordered the exhaust with Vintage Speed I was running standard heater boxes, but after seeing the quality knew I just had to uprate them to high-flow boxes. The problem was that Vintage Speed had sent me the flanges I originally requested, which were for stock sized pipes. A few cuts with the angle grinder, about 6 on-and-off fittings of the muffler, a little welding...a bunch of grinding...and I had flanges mounted to my heater boxes.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7116/6888242710_121b018ba5_c.jpg

Muffler and rear tin installed:
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7061/7034337267_1453733a68_b.jpg

...and with the rear apron and heater hoses:
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7212/7034337299_20cc11e4f4_b.jpg

I have to say, I am soooo stoked on the body modifications I did. Between the firewall move, the Weber doors, access panel and the removable apron I can't pick my favourite...they are all so awesome. I can't believe I worked on the '69 for so long without any of these mods. I don't think I could own a modified Beetle without them now. That month of cutting, welding and grinding was 100% worth it! Case in point, I pulled the plugs to prep the car for building oil pressure. Took me 30 seconds, and one long spark plug extension. True, I have the wheels off so it's easier, but that would have been a bear of a job without the weber doors.

Where were we? Oh right, oil pressure. Well, for whatever reason I decided to prime the fuel pumps first. 10L of fuel went into the car (no leaks!), but my fuel pump wiring isn't working as planned. Pump one is working fine, but doesn't shut down without a tach signal as it should. Pump two has an issue at the switch, which is new as I know I had the pump working when I was testing the dash. Regardless, #1 was pumping away and I was working on solving number two when I realized it was getting really smelly in the garage. "Hmmm, has the fuel gotten to the back already?" I could hear air bubbles working their way out of the system as I walked back, only to realize that no...those are airbubbles being worked out of the #4 intake runner as the left-side carb pukes fuel everywhere.

Yeah, float level? Not so correct.

With that fixed, I have a surprisingly well-sealed fuel system! The fuel tank breather still needs finishing (just an 8" hose at the moment) but otherwise it's leak free.

I filled up the oil tank, oil filter and tossed a litre in the case-sump to help prime the scavenge stage of the system. I started priming the oil system and realized a few things. First off, this was going to take a while due to all the lines...and secondly, if you're contemplating a 901 swap...do the starter modification now before you install it. My starter doesn't engage the teeth properly every time, so until I mill .100" off the front face of the starter I'm going to sound like a jalopy every few startups!

Priming the oil system sucks. On a stock 1600 build you might have to hold the key for a total of 30 seconds to prime the pump and the engine...but I have like 30ft of oil lines and accessories. This isn't going to go quickly! The whole time that poor motor and its bearings are riding on assembly lube and/or oil-film. I usually begin by undoing the outlet on the oil pump so that I can go in 10sec bursts until oil is being pushed out the pump. Then I attach the pressure line, and disconnect it at the next fitting. Again running the engine in short bursts until I can see oil. I do this at every fitting, every stage, for the whole oil system. Things like the accusump and oil cooler are disconnected (and their fittings capped) until I can reliably build oil pressure. It takes forever, but at least I can check each fitting for leaks as I go.

About an hour ago I finally built up pressure in the engine with everything but the Accusump lines attached. With it being so late, I figured that my neighbours would probably appreciate me packing up for the night and installing the plugs tomorrow. I have to run down to Vancouver at some point, but hopefully I will still have time to shoot a video of it firing up. Not bad for seven months work!

-Dave

owdlvr

April 4th 2012, 14:24

This forum needs more build threads! ;-)

Alright, where was I? Oh right, Saturday night I went to bed with the oil system primed. I slept in a bit on Sunday, then headed down to the shop to fire things up. I had to button up the top half of the motor, and deal with a few little issues, but soon the time came to turn the key for the first time. I held by breath, pumped the accelerator twice and promptly ground the starter gear into the flywheel.

Crap.

I am fully aware of the issue that the starter only engages about 1/3 of the flywheel teeth width, but other porsche-box swappers seemed to have neglected to report the fact that this means you'll likely be grinding the starter on a number of attempts to start. Okay, mental note...pull starter so that material can be milled off the face. I turned the key a few more times before it finally launched itself into mesh, and the motor fired right up!

There is that moment of elation, where you realize it's finally happening, you're close to driving, you blip the throttle twice (always twice...why is that?), walk to the back of the car and see a nice puddle of synthetic forming on the floor…
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5271/7045439441_b5b2d0af74_z.jpg

Turns out I forgot to tighten one of the oil lines which is close to the exhaust, almost impossible to get a wrench into...but after a few choice words I managed to get it tightened up.
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5155/7045439767_e136bb4385_z.jpg

I fired the car back up again, with the intention of letting it warm up enough to start bringing the oil up to temperature, and shoot a video of the car actually running. I couldn't quite place it, but the engine "sounds funny". It's got a strange hollow sound to it, and there was definitely more noise to the engine then I think there should be. Problem is the bottom end hasn't been touched, so it should be fine...unless I managed to flatten the cam while priming the oil system? Either way, I had to leave the car as is and run some company errands for Classic Car Adventures. On the way to Vancouver I called Mark Huebbe in Missouri and talked with him about his dry-sump engine, which is the closest in setup to mine as I can find. No strange noises from his, and certainly no 'hollow" sound. He's run his dry of oil a few times, and the bearings (checked months later) always look perfectly fine...so he did calm me down a little!

When I returned to the car, I figured I would ignore the engine momentarily and instead work towards getting the rest of it ready. I was planning on an alignment Tuesday, so started working on the rear suspension. Through a series of strings, measurements, 3D modelling and lots of scribbles on cardboard I thought I was getting a good grasp of the rear suspension alignment. Math was never my strong point in school, so sorting this out was one of the more challenging aspects of my build! By Sunday bed time I figured I had the rear end either somewhat close...or so far off it was to be laughable.
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5332/6899257746_37ab60cfdc_c.jpg

Monday started with a 4am run across the border to grab some parts I had shipped to Blake, back in time for work. Warwick had also returned home on Monday, so while he was gearing up for working on the Mini I figured it was a good time to get a second ear listening to the engine. From the very beginning I figured it was my mind playing tricks on me, and that fear of destroying something while priming it. I honestly think I get this every time I setup a new build! I fired it up, grinding the starter a few times in the process, and Warwick confirmed that it "doesn't sound bad at all. A little 'clackety', but not 'gonna blow up tomorrow' bad". Hmmm, clackety is probably the valve adjustment. Duck an ear into the fender and sure enough 1/2 is sounding quite loud. I did a quick valve adjustment, even though things were a little warm at this point, and as soon as I did all sounded normal. Ah yes, 24 hours of torture because I can't remember what a Volkswagen should sound like!

The odd part is that I was sure I checked the valves on #1 while it was on the stand. If I _did_, then I most likely have an issue where the cam is going flat or similar. But I do know for a fact that I did not do a valve adjustment on all four, and even said to myself "I might as well do that when it's in the car"...so there is a very good chance they were just "in need" and there were no problems. Will have to adjust them cold, and then keep track if they are changing at all.

With that, I moved onto swapping out the springs. I picked up a set of Eibach 550’s in an 8” length, an they’re a perfect fit.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7138/6899257844_7535650982_c.jpg

Yesterday was Alignment Day…or so I hoped. I did drive the car out of the garage and onto the trailer, which I have to be honest brought a huge smile to my face. It came off the trailer and onto the rack with no drama. OK Tire in Squamish was pretty incredible about the whole thing. I explained the issues with the rear end, and he agreed to three setup and alignments charged at the end based on the time it took the boys. We would need to measure, then take the car home to change the rear end, measure again (thus giving me a baseline of “two turns equals X degrees) and then go home for a final measurement change.

Off to the gas station for the first time!
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7057/6899258866_00299e2472_c.jpg

Once I got the car on the rack it was apparent that the first thing I would need to do is fix the fuel leak :D Fortunately it was a quick hose clamp, for the gas heater and NOT the one found buried under the tank!

Grant at OK Tire called me about 30min after I dropped it off to say “come and get it”. The rear end was so far out it would have to come home. -2.2deg of camber on the left side, -0.8 on the right. 0.18deg positive toe on the left, 0.30deg of negative toe on the right. Well shoot, I didn’t even realize camber was that adjustable on the rear, how would I fix that!?!

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7194/7045354203_62b25c8c5d_c.jpg

Thankfully Bruce Tweddle’s post on TheSamba was readily available on my iPad, and the camber adjustment was easy enough. I dialed in back end of the car over lunch, and brought it back at the end of the day. We tossed it up on the rack and found that I had fixed the left side, but gone way too far on the right. That’s when Grant came through with the best news ever. “I don’t have another car booked on the rack, if it won’t take too long just fix it here.”

We jacked up the rear, pulled the tires and in less then ten minutes we had adjusted and checked the suspension twice. I’ve got .06deg negative toe on both sides, and -1deg of camber on both sides. I left the guys to dial in the front, but thankfully caught them before they had finished the camber adjustment. The factory spec calls for .2 to .8 positive camber! Uh yeah, sorry guys but I’m not doing that! We dialed in a half degree negative and I’ll see how that works out.

…and that’s where it sits right now. I can’t drive it because I still need to tune the carbs, and fix the lower shock mounts on the rear. The 50ft between the trailer and my driveway were quite exciting though. My shifter setup works perfect for going from dogleg 1st to 2nd without catching reverse, but that’s about all I can report.

- The starter grinds
- The clutch feels HORRIBLE (needs additional return springs for sure)
- The throwout bearing is noisy (oh weee, another engine pull)
- …and I think I found a few other issues. But hey…

IT DRIVES!!!

Also had to dial in a few things for weatherproofing the car (it was raining yesterday). So Monday night saw the addition of the engine deck lid, some ducting for the oil cooler, door handles and a few other odds-and-ends.

I kinda wish I could run without a license plate! Mounting the decklid did reveal an item I forgot to pre-plan for. The license plate light has no wiring, and no where to connect it! Whoops.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7234/7045352903_960c652a78_c.jpg

With the plate installed. The plate sits on ¾” spacers to allow for airflow. You can see the green tape in the corners, I can’t find a way to adjust the decklid so it doesn’t hit here. Might just use 3M stoneguard to protect the paint.
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5453/6899343858_66a2d93415_c.jpg

The oil lines are actually tucked up quite high, this is temporary with zipties but now I know where to put the proper clamps.
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5316/7045440149_1fdff2c76b_c.jpg

Oil cooler ducting. I have a tube of really nice proper racing duct, but unfortunately it’s just long enough for one side. It’s the high-temp silicone hose type for brake ducting, so I think I’m going to reserve it for front brake ducts should I ever decide to add them.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7267/7045353747_4114b7ac52_c.jpg

But really, you all came here for videos. So here’s a couple of startup/idle vids.

#1 is Monday night, you can hear the valves clattering. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bH-Q6ZtgXbw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bH-Q6ZtgXbw

#2 is today, quick start up…needs some tuning.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLRz--T2FZo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLRz--T2FZo

Eventually I have to return Geoff’s trailer to Vancouver…so I’m going to see if I can rope either he or Darren into some carb tuning ☺.

-Dave

owdlvr

April 5th 2012, 03:45

So tonight started out really well. I began by finishing the assembly on the rear suspension (putting my double-shear plates back on) and then while I was in the wheel-wells installed the rear mudflaps and O2 sensors. The bungs are placed for great readings, but are a little bit exposed. I suspect I might go through a couple of sensors! haha.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7251/7047176381_0969bcaf79_c.jpg

I was going to hook up the accusump to the oil system, but before doing so though I'd check the oil level in the tank. My night pretty much went to crap right at the point where I turned the flashlight on. The oil was right up there, but I couldn't see the screen that helps remove air bubbles. Um, what? It took a second to register, but the oil was full of microscopic glitter particles.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7104/7047176533_157b495371_b.jpg

Even now, three hours after discovery I don't know how to put the feeling into words.

I ran a clean magnet thorugh the oil and picked up nothing, which means it's more then likely aluminum from somewhere. I pulled the drain plug, which is magnetic, and it had virtually nothing stuck to it...just a bit of black particles that are so small they're virtually grease. I've seen more in regular oil changes then this.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7104/7047176419_fed01a91ee_b.jpg

One option was to flush the motor and oil system twice with some cheap 5wt30, and then refill with my usual oil. Run it until it was good and hot, and then see if there are any particles. That's a big risk. I have to believe that whatever is causing this problem is only going to be more expensive the longer I leave it. I made the call to pull the motor, knowing that tearing it down means I'm very likely to miss the Spring Thaw event we run. By midnight I had the motor ready to come out, just the four mounting bolts are holding it in now. Since the oil was cold, though, it's taking a long time to drain out. I'll leave it until after work tomorrow as that should make the whole job a lot cleaner and more enjoyable.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7215/6901081722_06600949b8_b.jpg

I did learn a couple of things that give me some hope that it may not be too catastrophic. The oil in the 3/4 head is clean and I can't see a single particle with a naked eye and bright light. The oil draining out of any of the post-filter lines that I've pulled is perfectly clean without a single particle that can be seen with a naked eye and bright light. So far I have only found nasty oil in the dry sump tank, and the engine sump. This could mean that the vital engine bits were actually receiving clean filtered oil...at the very least, I know that the oil line going into the engine had clean oil in it. So from a "find the problem" perspective i simply need to follow the oil passages from start to finish until I find a bad part. Then, figure out what else it damaged down the line.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7088/6901081778_028c939f06_b.jpg

The Spring Thaw, my car's debut event, is April 27th-29th. I'm so hooped. I've blown engines before (even did one on the Thaw!) but I co-organize the event, I can't not make it! It's not the damaged engine, it's not the time, it's not the teardown and rebuild. If there is anything this thread could prove it's that I'm not scared to do the work! It's a bit of stress over the time crunch, but really it's the knowledge that I've really stretched the financial lines getting the last assembly stuff finished. There is just no more room to squeeze.

Getting the engine ready to pull was good, gave me a way to spend time and not think about anything but dis-assembly steps, bagging and tagging. I have this funny feeling tomorrow at work is going to be a really tough day to get through.

-Dave

NO_H2O

April 5th 2012, 08:36

That set back sucks. We are all watching and hoping for the best. Did you put a new cam/lifters in this engine? Given that the glitter is non magnetic. it could be something rubbing the case or a tight clearance in the oil pump rubbing.

owdlvr

April 6th 2012, 04:10

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7058/7050035685_70f93d6715_c.jpg

Well, that was anti-climatic.

Before you look at the detail photos keep in mind this engine has somewhere between 50,000 and 75,000 miles on it. Hasn't been opened in all that time. I didn't start tearing the engine down until about 930 tonight, but once you get going it tends to go pretty quick. Pulling the heads off revealed nothing but a lot of carbon. The engine was definitely running rich on the kadrons! Pistons, cylinder heads and related items were all in perfect condition. The rings look great, the skirts have some wear and light scoring but the cylinder walls still have complete cross-hatching on each of them with no signs of wear. The piston-pin bushings in each rod still have cross-hatching in them. So far, things were looking good!

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7058/7050035149_35cdbbf462_c.jpg

I pulled the oil pump, and each of the additional stages looks perfect and brand new. The "inside the case" portion shows some chatter marks under one of the gears, and the hole for the drive shaft shows some strange scoring and marks. It's possible the metal came from here, but it's just as possible that metal from elsewhere is what caused the damage. I'm going to try and refurb the housing with lapping compound, etc. If not I'll have to get a new housing for this section.

After the pump I pulled case apart, and discovered that I apparently use "lube-a-lobe" lifters! I've read so much about how bad they are, but thankfully each of mine look fantastic.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7059/6903944570_32e4c5dfd1_c.jpg

The cam bearings, however, have seen better days. I'm now starting to understand why some of the chips in the oil clearly looked silvery and aluminum-like, while others had a distinct yellowish color. I thought that I was going to find the timing gear bad, but instead it could have been copper sparkles.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7076/6903944610_c98e4bf63e_c.jpg

The cam surface shows some matching wear, but definitely no where near as bad as the cam bearings:
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5441/6903944662_2909455993_c.jpg

Rod bearings all look perfectly good, and the main bearings show even less wear.
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5197/7050035639_7fb908ff07_c.jpg

So at this point, I don't really have a smoking gun. At the same time, however, I have a relatively easy fix on my hands. I suspect that this is a combination of some swarf left in the tank after drilling and welding in two bungs, the oil pump chatter and the worn cam bearings. Can't really be anything else...?

At the very least I need to swap out the cam bearings. I'm going to do the crank and rod bearings as well, since I'm already in here. Otherwise I'm going to clean it, button it up and make sure I flush the tank and lines extremely well. I'll run some cheap oil for a day to flush the system, and then replace it with my usual 5w40 synthetic.

-Dave

NO_H2O

April 6th 2012, 06:46

Better to have a look and know than to always be thinking, What if?

owdlvr

April 7th 2012, 04:05

The day started off early, loading the bug onto the trailer with my friend Gord. Gord is shop foreman at Rocket Rally, and a wizard when it comes to fabricating. Long ago I roped Gord into 'helping' me do the lower shock mounts...which is to say he works, and I watch :P

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7070/7052931835_883f0f4d67_c.jpg

After discussing the options and taking into account the things I thought were important, Gord went to work on cutting off the lower shock mounts and starting fresh. While he was working on suspension, I took advantage of the rally shop's automated parts washer, and prepped all the engine bits for reassembly. A couple of hours later and I had clean engine bits...and a bug with an finished rear suspension setup. We even managed to sort out the limit straps as well. I'll need to lathe up some spacers to go on either side of the rear shock, but that will be a super quick job I can leave for another time. Gord did have another design done up which wasn't a complete box, the lower section was closer in, and then they opened up on an angle. Definitely looked better, but swapping springs was similar to the stock mounts which required much manipulation of the suspension arm, shock and some swearing. With these mounts the springs are super quick and easy to change....so I went with the more useable design. I'll get photos with the springs installed soon.

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5152/7052932045_d81ba10628_z.jpg

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One of the lathe jobs I wasn't going to tackle on my own, was the starter. Swinging one of these around in a lathe is not for the faint at heart! We took a total of .125" off the mounting face of the starter. It could be a bit thin, but then it's a $40 starter from Autozone. If the ear snaps off I'll know to to do just .100" next time :P
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5326/6906842520_2c4fc498e5_z.jpg

The plan for the evening was to assemble the engine. Rob actually opened AVR on a holiday to get me the bits I needed to reassemble the engine. Amazing. I think I was laying the crank in the case when I realized that this job takes a whole lot longer then I remember with all the measuring and checking! I readjusted my plan to become "assemble the long block" before bed. Had an issue with the cam thrust bearing, but that was just a matter of polishing down the thrust portion on some glass. After mating the case halves I discovered two of the main studs needed some cleaning up on the threads. This was done very carefully with the engine all protected in plastic and paper towel. After spending the time doing that, I was highly considering just getting the short block done! I snugged the cam-plug bolts down okay, and grabbed the torque wrench. I now know why the cam plug leaked on this engine for the past year. I didn't make it 14ft-lbs before the stud stripped out of the right-side case half.

Un.

Freaking.

Believable.

The engine is now disassembled once again, and tomorrow I'll have to get a helicoil kit and set a coil into the case half. Then, after cleaning out all the swarf and crap, I can return to the job I was doing earlier this evening! Here is the stud, and next do it are the nice threads that should still be a part of the case!
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7242/6906842748_bea005eaa7_z.jpg

-Dave

ricola

April 7th 2012, 11:33

Dave. What was your reasoning for making new lower mounts? I thought the new boots gave plenty of spring clearance?

owdlvr

April 8th 2012, 04:06

New boots gave plenty of spring clearance, but the holes in the lower mount had to be drilled off center, and regardless there is still a round section you're trying to bolt to. If you machine up some special spacers that match the curve and square it off inside and out it's safe, but the usual "stack of washers" I've seen isn't a safe option. Cutting new mounts is safer, allows for more spring options (thicker wires), easier spring changes and is the 'right' way to do things ;)

-----

Okay, I'm bagged after a full day of work in the garage. Engine is rebuilt and ready to go in. This included the helicoil, swapping out two main studs, blue-printing the dry-sump pump and all the usual engine build items (endplay, checking deckheight, etc. etc.). New shock mounts are now sitting in wet paint...so things are looking up again. Can't wait to find out what the next disaster is! hahaha.

-Dave

owdlvr

April 9th 2012, 15:02

Not much point in posting photos at this stage, since I've now been here at least twice before! Engine is back in and assembled completely. Rear apron and deck lid have been reattached. I managed to remember the 3M clear-tape, so hopefully the decklid won't wear through the paint at the corners. I did the very nerve-wracking oil-system priming last night, which always feels like it's taking forever. Really hoping the assembly lube does it's job!

I didn't get the oil system primed until 12:30am, so after setting up the fuel pressure double checking the floats and doing a few other jobs, I opted not to wake up the neighbors.

I need to torque down the CV joint bolts, install the crush-panel (for lack of better term) to the front frame head, install some running boards and the car can come off the axle stands. The running boards are probably going to need a bit of work, AVRparts.com gave them to me a few weeks ago. Apparently they were returned due to "not fitting", but I don't know anyone who buys non-VW running boards and expects them to fit perfect! Good for me though, they were free :D

...then it's onto the interior, where I need to finish the heating system, install seat belts, seats, the carpet portions I'm going to use and sort out what the plan on the floor is. I was going to leave it bare, but getting in and out of the car when your shoes are wet is like trying to walk across a skim of wheel-bearing grease! I might cut my new carpet kit, or cut a set of OE rubber mounts. All I know is that I don't want to cover the transmission tunnel at this stage.

The thread-extending gnome did make a visit to the garage last night, however. I was in the trunk fixing *something*, when I decided to fill the washer fluid system. A few moments after pressurizing it there was washer fluid spraying everywhere! Turns out one of you jokers put a couple of pinholes in my washer fluid line...but it was a quick, if not wet, fix.

-Dave

owdlvr

April 10th 2012, 17:25

AUGH!! Don’t you just hate when you write a whole post and then hit the wrong button and close the window? DANGIT!

Alrighty…well, I guess I must have started with yesterday evening. I began by torquing down the axle CV joints, and finishing up the wiring for both of the Oxygen sensors. I wasn’t sure if I would be able to see a difference between the left and right bank, but it appears that there is enough gas flow past the sensors that they aren’t reading a mix between sides.

For the past week it feels like I haven’t stopped. The monthly meeting for the VW club is tomorrow night, and I’ve been going hard-at-it to try and make sure the car is ready for a “launch” at the meeting. It was going to be smooth sailing until I found all that metal in the motor…from then on, it’s been a serious touch-and-go mission. It seems that each day I start with a text to my friend Geoff saying “dude, not going to make it” only to follow up at about 3 in the morning with “well, maybe!”

I did get the car fired up last night, but I’m still not happy with the noise level. The valves sound too noisy, which is not good because I’m sure I adjusted them to loose-zero while the motor was on the stand. 100% positive this time! I had a couple of buddies listen to the car and they think it’s fine. I’ll check the valves again tomorrow morning (car has been running today) and go from there. While the car was running my friend Scott stopped by to see it. He’s a side-draft weber guru, so I figured having him do the initial tune was better then me! He dialed in the idle by ear, which should be enough to get me in the ballpark. He also noted that the return springs that come with the kit bind near the end of their travel, I’ll need to move the springs to actually pull the plates fully closed every time.
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5235/7065313037_102963d51e_z.jpg

With the engine running and the final details mostly taken care of underneath, I was really tempted to take the car out for a burn around the block! But there are no seatbelts and from the very beginning I wanted to drive a car into my Garage in September, and then drive a finished car out of my garage when it was done. As much as the driver in me said “go”, the responsible part of me said start bolting more parts on.

I had bought an EMPI carpet kit for the car, and figured it was time to go about fitting it. Some people are going to cringe when they see that brand name, but I’ve found their cheap carpet to be quite durable…and I needed something that I could buy and cut up into pieces right away. After some careful cutting I managed to install all the carpet I intend on using (for now) and did so without making too many errors. The errors I did make are big ones though! No one will ever see or care about #1, but #2 behind the pedals shows up in photos. Doh! The carpet over the heaterchannel on the right side fits perfect and I’m really stoked on it. The left side, however, fits weird. I haven’t sorted out whether it’s the heater channel or the carpet, but these pieces aren’t glued in so I can fix it later.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7205/7065314481_848fd8f29d_c.jpg

Astute viewers of the above photo will also notice I now have seats and a proper steering wheel installed in the car. Turns out I need to swap the oil pressure and volt meter gauge (they’re to the right of the tach). I can see the alternator is charging while driving, but can’t see the oil pressure!
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The seats and belts are killing me. I have long ago over-extended the budget and passed what was “affordable”. I must reuse the seats and belts from my old rally car, and they look incredibly tired…not to mention out-of-date. They’ll work for now, but will definitely be a “replace me” item as soon as I can afford it.
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I finished up the interior with door panels, reminding myself just how much I dislike mounting new door panels. Dear producers of new door panels: this isn’t rocket science…is it really that hard to punch holes in the correct location!?!
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I finished my evening (which, at this point was well into the early morning) by mounting up the running boards.
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5031/7065249135_05e1ac0330_c.jpg

The driver’s side fit like a glove and I was really quite happy until I absolutely gouged the @#!$!@ out of my front fender. Chalk that up to working on the car while tired, and pushing too hard to get it done. It’s just visible in this shot…but goes right down to the metal.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7105/7065249449_2756ff6ecd_c.jpg

On the Passenger side I’ve got bigger issues. I had to trim some of the inside lip to get the running board to sit low enough, and once I had the front hole wasn’t going to line up. Not that it really matters, there is almost a 1” gap front-to-rear so even if the holes did line up they weren’t going to go together anyways! Eventually I’ll solve this with a new running board, but for a Spring-Thaw fix I might end up putting a bit of the black vinyl on the bottom of each fender and then hiding the gap with some rubber. Photograph the driver’s side please! ;)
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5340/6919168700_25c22e0690_c.jpg

With the details done, this morning it was time for the part we’ve all been waiting for…a test drive! Rather then do a short once-around-the-block, followed by a check over on the car…I figured I’d just dive in and drive to work in Whistler. Ha! Like that was going to happen.

First stop was a trip to the insurance broker, to increase my coverage from “lowest you have” to “um, please replace my whole car if something happens”. On the way over to the broker the oil tank burped a bit of oil out the dipstick hole. Hmmm, that’s a bit odd, maybe I need to put an o-ring or something in it. After dealing with the insurance, and an unpaid speeding fine (oops!) I walked out to the car to find a small puddle of 5w40 underneath the car. A quick check showed no loose lines, but the breather tank drain was dripping. I combined issue one (burped tank) with issue two (draining breather) and quickly realized I had forgot to multiple the heat-expansion factor of the oil. Checked the tank and what do you know, almost at the top! I pulled back into the house, sucked 1 full liter out of the tank and made attempt number two.

I got to the edge of town with no further oil problems, before I decided to head back to home. The air-fuel gauge was registering stoich for both the ½ and ¾ sides, but was showing a little on the lean side as well. I’m running narrow band sensors, and once they heat up tend to fluxuate across such a small range on the gauge it’s often hard to tell exactly what the reading is (vs. a fuel injected car which is constantly bouncing rich/lean, rich/lean). Not wanting to melt down a motor, I whipped the car back home. Tonight I’ll take it out and adjust the air/fuel mix to see if I’m getting a change on the gauge and pull some plugs to compare gauge to real-world measurement. Once I get it dialed in, the narrow band are great for seeing a problem or a change…narrow band for tuning, though, not so much!

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7185/7065250221_32aaefc907_b.jpg

Having driven the car for a good 35min today I did learn a few things. First off, the car is far more “race” then I initially planned. It’s bloody loud, harsh in the rear end and requires some lightning precision to shift the 5-speed well. It sounds funny, terrible at times and there are noises I don’t recognize that shouldn’t be there. In the words of Eric Bana “a new race car never feels good straight out of the workshop.”

So my current list of complaints are…

• There is a bad bearing in the Porsche trans. When I lift off the throttle you can hear it, and it goes away as soon as you’re on the throttle. Type-1 trans do that as well, and go for years just making noise. Will have to research the Porsche boxes and hope they are the same! For now, I will just keep my foot in it :D

• The oil tank isn’t fully sealed, and the inside of the car smells like hot oil. Now, this one could simply be due to having the cap open a number of times…or it could be I have to add an o-ring to my dipstick. I think I saw oil vapour wisping from the cap at one point, but I didn’t look too closely. Sealing this up will be a priority. Either that, or I need find a woman who thinks Eau-de-synthetic is the best cologne you can get.

• No 5th point on the seatbelts. I hate four point belts (and their dangerous). I haven’t welded in the plate for the 5th point yet, and will have to do so asap. I can’t handle driving the car without the Anti-submarine strap. Heck, you can’t even tighten the seatbelts! Very annoying.

But on the other hand, I actually drove the car more then onto a trailer! I have officially entered the “debugging” stage, vs. the “building” stage!

...oh, and I missed the best part. With the new motor setup, 165-series tires and the stiff rear suspension, the car is just dying to slide the rear-end around in the dry. It's going to be a total handful in the wet, I'm sure, but should be a lot of fun while I slowly dial in the sanity!

-Dave

Humble

April 11th 2012, 00:27

Congrats! I love that feeling of the first few drives, regardless of new car/part worries. Glad to see it's on the road, now you need to get us some video :D

NO_H2O

April 11th 2012, 09:28

Good to see it out in the sunlight and moving under its own power.

owdlvr

April 11th 2012, 12:46

I got home from work last night, warmed the car up and took it for a cruise. I got the idle jets sorted out, and then confirmed that it's a bit lean on the mains. After consulting with my buddy Geoff, I hand-drilled the mains and popped back out for a test. Exhaust tips are darkening up, and I think I'm good to drive it some distance now. I can at least get it to the club meeting!

Now, I could drive it down as-is...but that's not really finished is it? I fired up the Vinyl machine, and about 10min later fried the motherboard. AHHH!! A couple of hours were spent troubleshooting before I determined it was terminal, and came up with an other solution. I hand cut the stripes, which is why they're a bit off on the white! Once my machine is up and running I'll have to redo the stripes. Based on the photos I have of the factory cars, the decals were laid by the guy who swept the floor...with one eye closed. So I've taken some artistic liberties with them!
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5445/7067174489_4dc8e8e49b.jpg

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The rear engine lid stripe got a bit too much heat, and will definitely need redoing.
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Took me until about 2:30am to get it done...but I can't believe I OWN ONE!! (even if it's not quite genuine!)

-Dave

vw1303

April 11th 2012, 13:59

Looks awesome Dave:) Glad those springs worked out. Can't wait to see it in person:D

NO_H2O

April 11th 2012, 21:59

Looks nice. I say it is video time.

al_kaholik

April 12th 2012, 05:16

Gerrelt

April 12th 2012, 13:34

Looks very good!!

This is a great picture: http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7130/7068039303_0348473abd_b.jpg

spannermanager

April 12th 2012, 14:19

Dave, well done on all you hard work, nearly there, congrats, but your proposed rear spring poundage is huge, i only ran 300lb for dry tarmac racing with a much heavier rear loading than you will have, and I'm an oversteer set up man, i love it, but 500 lb will handle so loose at the rear even on the tarmac, you wont wont a rear ARB connected, we've seen this a lot lately, with many posters on here talking up the spring rate, unresponsive setup changes usually indicate chassis flex, perhaps when you get some testing miles on it, things will become clearer. Regards Johnny.

volkdent

April 12th 2012, 21:20

Really, really sweet, congrats again!:p

chug_A_bug

April 13th 2012, 07:27

Nice Work dude can't wait to See it in Action... Nice that you went with the Red Mudflaps ;)

Chris.

owdlvr

April 13th 2012, 22:03

Thanks Guys. I'm super stoked to be driving it, though it's far from finished! I've just got to the "debugging stage". After that, it's finishing off the race-prep with things like skid plates and other necessary items. I'll be shooting vids soon enough, but have a coaching event this weekend so won't be posting until next week.

Dave, well done on all you hard work, nearly there, congrats, but your proposed rear spring poundage is huge, i only ran 300lb for dry tarmac racing with a much heavier rear loading than you will have, and I'm an oversteer set up man, i love it, but 500 lb will handle so loose at the rear even on the tarmac, you wont wont a rear ARB connected, we've seen this a lot lately, with many posters on here talking up the spring rate, unresponsive setup changes usually indicate chassis flex, perhaps when you get some testing miles on it, things will become clearer. Regards Johnny.

Thanks for the input Johnny. I definitely don't have an ARB on the car yet. I'm going to dial in the spring rate for a chosen setup (tarmac, gravel, snow/ice) before using anti roll bars to address the fine tuning. Which, I suppose, is "the proper" way to do it :P

I'm shocked to hear that you ran 300lb springs without issues. With the 300's and no damping my car sunk through most of it's travel. Even with the preload cranked I'm not sure I could get it up to ride height...though I admit to not trying it. The 550's hold the car at right height with just a slight touch of preload, but I will admit they are too stiff. You can feel the rear end wanting to go on dry tarmac, but it's fully predictable and I haven't actually slid it yet...in the dry. When the road is wet, however, it's a complete handful. Like, Porsche 930-widowmaker, handful. I'll be honest...it's a tonne of fun, until you suddenly find yourself looping it on a Vancouver city street without even trying...in traffic. Yeah, not my proudest moment :P

My brain was screaming "don't lift!!!" ...but my foot had already started coming off the pedal.

Now, keep in mind I'm on an older pair of 165 series tires, so that definitely adds to the problem. Bump compliance in corners isn't great though, so I do need to soften the springs a little. I'm going to try 450s next, and then from there move to progressive setup with tender & main. I probably should put the 300's back in and crank up the preload to see if it will support the car. Would certainly make it far closer to the front springs which are rather soft right now.

-Dave

owdlvr

April 20th 2012, 15:06

Well, I haven't abandoned this thread...but it has been a week. At the rate I was going it sure feels like I've abandoned it!

I had a few days off from the car, while I was coaching, and have since just spent time enjoying the drive. There is much to be done still, and I have a couple of deadlines looming that require some fast hard work...but I figured for a few days I would enjoy it. At about the 500km mark I noticed I had a slight leak of oil out the front of the engine case. The cam seal always leaked on this engine, so I was less concerned then perhaps I should have been. At 700km I noticed a slight oil smell coming from the car when I stopped at a light, by 750km it was dripping oil consistently. Hmmm. Drove it back home (trailers are for wimps) and by the time I got there she was smoking oil off the muffler. Hard to see in this photo, but the 'fogginess' of the lower half of the photo is caused by oil smoke.
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5342/7096591717_2c2cf05897_b.jpg

By now I knew that it wasn't the cam seal, but rather the flywheel seal. I have 5w40 all over the bottom of the car, or as I like to think of it "rust protection" :P Regardless, the motor needed to come out...so last night I popped it out. Took me two hours from the time I drove into the garage, which is long by bug standards but pretty short considering all the stuff I have to deal with. A good bit of that time was spent finding tools i have yet to put away properly!
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5447/6950521346_5eb9ef05cd_b.jpg

Hmmm, yes, it would seem we've found the problem.
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5330/7096592081_c76c10e0b1_z.jpghttp://farm8.staticflickr.com/7276/7096592171_11795be726_z.jpg

When I called my local parts store to see if they could get me a seal for the morning, she was surprised to find they not only stocked them...but she has sold one or two per year for the past few years. Doing some mental math, that pretty much sums up my engine pulls/flywheel seal sagas exactly. Thats when it hit me, I always install the first seal "flush with the case", and end up having a leak. I go back, put a new seal in to the step and it solves all my problems. Maybe this note will stay for next time?
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7132/7096592341_b1846d75d1_b.jpg

All buttoned up by 12:30am and ready to go. I have a few other items I need to take care of while it's in the garage...but I could have driven it to work today if I wasn't working from home.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7211/6950522028_240027e661_c.jpg

-Dave

Bruce.

April 23rd 2012, 09:36

Is that a new flywheel or an old one? If the shoulder that the seal rests on is at all rough or grooved, it will kill the seal in no time.

Also, I source a genuine VW seal to put on the shelf for next time. The normal aftermarket ones don't last and I'm not a big fan of the silicon type.

Bentley manual doesn't give an exact position for the seal but in the past I've gone for slightly under the face of the case.

Looks the business by the way. Well done to you!!!

owdlvr

April 23rd 2012, 15:20

The flywheel is used, but smooth and no grooves. There was a polish mark right up near the backside that told me the seal wasn't set in enough. I used to have a piece of steel I made up on the lathe for setting the seal, but I never remember I made it when the time comes!

Thanks, I have a few new additions to post up that I've made...just buried under Spring Thaw Classic Car Adventure planning and gear. Will post up as soon as I can.

1050km on the car now...starting to feel good :)

-Dave

al_kaholik

April 24th 2012, 07:06

Seals can be had from VW dealers directly in the UK - not sure how it is out there, but if you are struggling I'd be happy to procure/post them for you :)

Eagerly awaiting more updates!

NO_H2O

April 24th 2012, 09:39

I have used the orange seal with dual seal lips and had the "Dry" seal lip tear loose each time and leak like hell. I always look to make sure they only have 1 seal lip now.

owdlvr

April 24th 2012, 15:14

Well, 300km on the new seal and holding fine (knocks on wood).

Drove the car down to a Vancouver Swap meet this weekend. Before heading down I needed to mount up the club badge onto the car:
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7239/6964309282_79cb6bfe8b_b.jpg

I had planned on just hanging out at the swap for a couple of hours, keeping my wallet firmly in my pocket. Sadly, that didn't last long. Geoff found me a 1302s badge, which I paid way too much (in my mind) for. Hard to negotiate when you so obviously have the car that needs it parked 100ft away! I'm such a cheapskate that $20 for a much needed badge seems like the worst spend I've had on the whole build. Forget the ridiculous spending I did on the wiring harness...this one hurts! haha.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7115/7110285643_fd847ef534_z.jpg

I was picking up a set of 4.5" wheels from Rob, but then one of the guys rolled into the swap with a full set of 5.5" sport rims and tires in his stash. Two of the tires are dated 1980, and while all four have the molding nubs still installed they aren't exactly a set I would trust to drive on! A deal was made, and I soon found myself trying to figure out how to stack 4 rims with tires and 4 bare rims into a car which will has no storage space or room. Out came the passenger seat, in went the gear, and then I layed the passenger seat on top. Thankfully I still have my ratty old seats, so fear of dirt is non-existent! One more tire and wheel combo, and two rims are still go be loaded in:
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7114/7110286389_d4b7d97383_z.jpg

I've managed to find time to mount up the rally intercom, into the only spot available in the car. Without the belts on I can easily reach the volume knob, but once strapped in the location is useless. Sort of a pain, but there is no room on the trans tunnel which is reachable, and I'd have to extend the wires by quite a bit to mount it under the dashboard. This will just have to do. I trimmed out the wire length and resoldered on the ends for a clean installation. Also wired in an output line for interior video, and and input line for the iPod. When cruising and not racing I can listen to tunes (mono, in one ear only), or while shooting video the camera gets a feed of what's being spoken between the two seats. (hopefully not "OH &^$%!!!!!" :P ) Last thing to do for the intercom system is repair/replace my headsets. The Peltor intercom requires dynamic microphones, and I have passive ones currently.
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I keep tossing the GoPro in my laptop back to shoot some video, and then promptly forget that I have it until I'm down the road strapped in and unable to move. Speaking of which, I also welded in anti-submarine belt mounts this weekend. There was much debate over whether I should put my mounts to the floor or mounts to the seat mounts. The proper way to do it is with plates welded to the floor, and a bolt going through the floor and plate. But that assumes that you also have your seats properly mounted to the cage / floor. I've got my seats mounted to factory sliders...so, it's a bit of a grey area. Technically if the seat breaks free the belts should hold me and the seat in place. Eventually I decided that I'm in a '71 Volkswagen Beetle with just a 4pt roll bar. If I've managed to hit something hard enough that my seat mounts have broken free, I'm in a whole world-of-hurt that makes the anti-submarine strap mounting far less of a concern. With that, a 1" seamless tube was welded across the bottom of the seat mounts and the straps are now mounted to that.

Even though the tires are old, and likely unsafe, I couldn't resist mounting up the wide sport rims to check out the look. They've got 205/70/15's on the back and 165/15s on the front. It's a terrible combo that rakes the front end of the car and just looks...wrong.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7096/6964214952_46a1e2aa34_b.jpg

So now I'm in tire juggling mode between now and my Spring Thaw departure on Thursday. The 165's I had on 4" wide hub-cap rims are being mounted to the 4.5" sport-style rims today. They'll go onto the car tomorrow morning, and should have that "narrow period" look that match the rest of the car. The wide sport rims will have the 80's cal-look tire set removed and my 205/60/15 track tires will be mounted. Not 100% sure these are going to fit on the front of the car, but tomorrow night late I'll mount them up to see. They'll totally ruin the period look of the car, and it's probably far too sky-high for wide track meats (no adjustable suspension on the front yet)...but they will be safer and more fun for 1200km of pavement rally/touring. If I'm not sold on the look, the narrow sport-style wheels will get coat of poor-mans-chrome (silver spray paint) and get remounted on Thursday morning.

Sleep, who needs sleep?

-Dave

Xellex

April 24th 2012, 16:04

Hard to negotiate when you so obviously have the car that needs it parked 100ft away!

Haha, that's what happened to me one time, with the GSR steering wheel. I tried to stay strong, and in the end the seller left home. But he was so convinced that I would buy it, so he left it in a friend's car. I'm not sorry he did that :D

NO_H2O

April 25th 2012, 08:54

The 1302S badge looks to be in great shape. I would call that a good find. I love a good swap meet.

owdlvr

May 6th 2012, 01:05

Wow,

What a few weeks it has been. I'm sorry I haven't been updating the thread as frequently, but the moment the bug was "ready" I had to go into emergency car-prep and organizer mode for our Annual "Hagerty Spring Thaw Classic Car Adventure". This year Warwick, my business partner, and I were pushing the limits a little too closely. First up was the Bug, a whole brand new build which required three unplanned motor pulls and the unplanned tear down to replace the bearings. That set me back by at least a week, which meant helping Warwick out was becoming a problem. On Warwick's side we had his '66 Alfa Romeo Duetto which needed rear brake work. The left rear caliper was locking up so I tore it off and rebuilt it. Oddly enough the same problem continued. Alfas are famous for needing a flex line replaced to solve rear axle lock up, but the strange part was it was only the left side that was a problem. Never-the-less, the car was put up on axle stands again so I could do the rear flex line. Following that the brakes released properly (odd) but it had to come in a third time for a full brake bleed. I guess once we free'd up the rear the air in the front became apparent!

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7096/7092631999_978b1f558b_c.jpg

With the Alfa ready to go, we focused on Warwick's '66 Austin Mini. With just three days to go before our event it still had no interior, a new motor puking oil, no brakes, no doors, no hood and no engine lid. First up was fixing the motor. When the engine was built one of the oil-galley plugs was pulled to clean out the block from any machining. The galley was threaded and a bolt installed with gasket and sealant. Unfortunately the 75psi of break-in oil pressure was pushing oil past the threads at an alarming rate. Different sealants were tried, and then finally as a last-ditch effort before pulling the motor I pulled out the tubes of Permatex Cold Weld (JB-Weld's competitor). I hate to use cold-weld on a new motor, but with the event fast approaching we were running out of time. 12 hours later, Warwick and I both crossed our fingers as he hit the starter. Sweet! No oil leak! I then made him a temporary gauge holder to house an oil pressure gauge, Audi Voltmeter and coolant temperature gauge. A spare Stewart Warner tach was popped onto the dash so he could monitor his break-in and ensure he was running at different RPMs on the way to the start. Warwick was working on the car 18 hours a day. His buddy Martin was putting in daytime hours and I was working evenings. All along the two of us were pausing to do last-minute event items such as hotel changes, meal confirmations, cancellations and wait-list entries. It was a crazy blur!

At some point I managed to have my buddy Gord swap the 165-series tires from my hubcap style rims over to the late-model super rims. Still 4.5" wide, but more in the style I prefer. There were plans to refinish them before the Spring Thaw event, but those were quickly shelved with all the other crazyness going on.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7112/6996658110_78a1498cb4_z.jpg

Thursday afternoon (April 26th) came, and while I worked on final changes with our entrants Warwick hit the road in the Mini to break it in on the way to our start location. He made it about 40min down the highway before calling me to say the car had died. Diagnosis procedures were relayed over the phone and via text as I loaded the car and raced down to help him out. In the rush to leave I managed to completely forget any tools, and thus planned to do the 1200km driving adventure with no jack, no wheel wrench, and no tools or spares! I did have a clutch cable, but that was going to be pretty useless without any way to install it :) By the time I had arrived Warwick had diagnosed the problem as the coil, and soon after a fellow Mini buddy dropped by with a spare. Off we went to prep the start! Well, actually I went to the hotel and started drinking beer with some of our Entrants while Warwick hit a buddies shop for a late night alignment, fuel pump repair and the manufacture of rear wheel spacers to stop the rubbing. Nothing like finishing the car at 11:30pm the night before!

http://www.classiccaradventures.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/top1.jpg

With the morning came 73 classic cars, 148 people and the start of what has turned into the fall event of the Pacific Northwest. Our Fourth Annual Spring Thaw started in Hope BC, travelled to Sun Peaks on night one, from Sun Peaks to Penticton BC on night two and then back to Hope for the finish. The event attracts everything from cars you wonder if they'll make it, all the way to very expensive and rare european machinery. Amazingly all entered vehicles managed to make it to the first night's hotel stop...which is a first for the event. The bug was running flawlessly, though I will admit to driving it much easier then I have in previous years. I decided that I really didn't want to be the "Hard Luck Award" winner, which is given to the team which has a catastrophic failure during the event. Much of the first day was spent playing on the roads with a friend's 356. Dave recently installed a new motor and was also "being easy" on the car with a self-imposed 4500rpm rev limit. By the end of the day it was clear both of us had to flip our mirrors if we were the one leading...the car in the back was clearly pushing the rev limits higher and higher!

My co-driver had bailed for the Thaw with relatively short notice, and with the craziness of the weeks before I never got around to inviting a new one. So, Ernie jumped in the right seat to take care of map duties for the weekend. He was pretty quiet the whole time, but I have to say he was about as accurate and useful with the directions as my regular co-driver!
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7248/6996560406_edd531cb07_z.jpg

Day two was a day of swapping cars between myself and Duncan's TR7. I've always wanted one, as dad had a project TR7 when I was a kid, but have never had the opportunity to drive one. At first I realized you should never drive the cars you dream about...coming from the bug the TR felt like it was floating all over the road...but soon settled into reviewing the car on it's own, instead of comparing it, and came to enjoy it quite a bit! Duncan and I also worked on tuning the dampening for the rear suspension on the beetle. Having a second set of eyes to see what the car was doing and comparing it to what I was feeling inside was a huge help. We've dialed out much of the widowmaker handling and the car is becoming quite predictable under throttle and when sliding.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8155/7142652017_1890c6b631_z.jpg

Day two also saw our first catastrophic failures. Warwick's Alfa blew out it's centre driveshaft bearing while his mom was driving, and was the only fully-terminal issue for the whole event. The car was towed to a local town, where one of our entrants offered the use of their enclosed garage for as long as required. Tucked away safely, Sue and Lorrie began jumping into the back seats of whatever classic cars they could. On the Spring Thaw, no one is left behind! Gerry Frose, who painted my bug, also had a big failure on day two. His 1980 Rabbit decided that the inner CV balls would look far better bouncing down the highway as opposed to inside the joint where they could be useful. Parts and tools were acquired from 2 hours away, and while rather sunburned, they managed to get it together and even beat me to the hotel (via a shortcut) for night #2.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7258/7142651039_d585d9f320_z.jpg

Day three for me was rather short. Someone on the organizing team had to skip ahead to greet guests at the finish, and since I haven't done it on the other three years it was my turn! I left 15-30min before the first cars were out, but that didn't keep me from watching my rear view mirror the entire time on the first road. I always warn guests on the day three driver's meeting that the brake pedal is going to be a little longer today, and my car was no exception. Going deep into the corners had double meaning on this run! Ultimately, however, the car performed flawlessly and it was a short while later that my co-driver and I were able to enjoy our first meal of the weekend. It didn't last long though, like all my other meals on the weekend it was quickly interrupted by organizing duties. Cold food taken in bites over a period of hours...that's the eating habits of an organizer!
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7185/6996568672_cd5fb5afd0_z.jpg

Following the Thaw the week has been a whirlwind. I wrote down a 34-point list of things I needed to prep by Friday night. Connor spent much of the week crossing the items off the list with me each evening...and the local Rally Shop, Rocket Rally, filled in the blanks during the day for me. I think we un-mounted and mounted the equivalent of 20 tires over a three day period! Some of the major highlights of the week:

Rally Tire rims painted, Pirelli tires mounted.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8154/7147290179_a9b1a927a8_z.jpg

Hand Brake lever handle completed by my buddy Scott.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7084/7142894973_586b9e45dc_z.jpg

Spare tire strap was sewn, and finally installed.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7109/7142895079_94fbd9cb93_c.jpg

I fixed the stripe on the engine lid. It took 4 tries to lay without bubbles or tears...but then promptly split the next morning!
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7110/6996808076_ffb7fd8b1b_z.jpg

And the big one was seats and belts. I needed a non-ratty set for the weekend, and time was running short to work out some options. I ended up calling another ralliest in town, Brandon, and asked to borrow his seats and belts. Took two nights to modify my seat mounts to fit the wider seats...but the interior is looking far better. Sorry the photo is so dark, meant to take another in the morning and forgot.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8004/7142895389_714a542795_c.jpg

With that, I packed the car and prepared myself for waking up at 3am...

owdlvr

May 6th 2012, 01:48

My alarm went off at 3:00am this morning. It took until 3:30 before I finally shut snooze off for good, and by 4:00 I was on the highway south of my hometown. Crossing the US border was shockingly easy this time around. The guard didn't even open my passport, simply asking "do you race this thing!?!" I replied with a "not yet, but after the photos are done I will be." She didn't even ask me where I was going, or for how long, just a "have fun" and I was in the U.S. The drive down was through the rain, and when I arrived in Lynnwood it was off to find a do-it-yourself coin wash to clean the car for the second time in 13 hours.

Now, I suppose I should pause for a moment to explain that "washing the car" to me usually means some dish soap, a sponge and the hose...and done as quickly as possible. About a year ago I switched to proper car washing soap, only because it was on sale, but drying to me has always been either air-dry or with a beach towel. Quite frankly I've never owned a vehicle with a finish nice enough to care.

But here I was, bringing my car to Northwest Auto Salon, a buddy Blake's detailing shop. NWAS is regularly voted Washington's top detailing shop, and every time I'm there its jammed with Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Porsches and Classics. Blake's shop, especially the back storage shops, and his neighbour Cat Exotics are the places to be to find the weird, rare and wonderful. LM002? Two colors to choose from. Diablo? pick your model, flavour and color...they are all here. Countach? Do you prefer early no-wings, or late crazy 80's style? It doesn't really matter, as they are all represented in multiple choices. That's just the Lambo selection! Anyways, you can imagine that bringing the lowly beetle is a bit humbling. Not to mention that any vehicle I've ever driven there has been embarrassing...at least on Blake's scale. Now, he did start off with cheap Audi 4000's and rust bucket Audi-90's, so he's paid his dues. But take his Riviera for instance, you can't find a flaw on the entire car...and trust me, I tried!
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5076/7001254284_c7e5d4e964_z.jpg

Before Blake arrived I washed the car, polished the bumpers and tail pipes, cleaned the wheel-wells and swapped the street tires over for the rally tires.
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5114/7001077396_50c0cd9599_b.jpg

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7126/7147162617_ec8105c215_b.jpg

When Blake did arrive, he was quite impressed with the build...which, for me, is like getting approval from someone like Jay Leno. To have Blake, who deals with insane cars on a daily basis, check the car out and show genuine enthusiasm was pretty rad. My wash job was even determined to be acceptable, though apparently the Chamois I used is no longer "in style" and I need to switch to microfibre cloths for drying. My windows, however, were a complete and utter failure.

I own seven different metric wrench sets, but seem to think that blue-shop-towels are all you need for detailing a car. Blake whipped me through window-detailing 101 and taught me the techniques for crystal clear windows, right to the edge of the rubber. I had no idea that one would need three cloths, special steel wool and the eyes of a hawk to do the job right...but after seeing the finished product I'm totally sold. There was no time to move onto other lessons, so Blake matte-waxed the hood and engine lid to remove water spots, and I vacuumed out the inside of the car.

Another friend, Andrew Holliday, showed up...and the car was rolled back into Northwest Auto Salon's photo studio. Blake gave the car one final check under the lights...
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7057/7147162561_efe289e81b_c.jpg

...the curtains were closed and Andrew went to work.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8001/7001077518_76f5aecf5f_c.jpg

The rest of today's story will need to be told at a later date, but the important part for now is that "the studio shots" have been done. I no longer need to worry about stone chips, thus the gravel tires will be used this week! Not quite sure where yet, but I am definitely getting out for some testing :-) For now, however, I'm completely bagged. 17 hours after I left this morning, I am back home. Almost fell asleep on the highway, had to pull off and sleep at a Starbucks for an hour. Following the nap I had a double shot of Espresso followed by a double-shot Mocha while driving. Needless to say, it's sleepy time.

-Dave

NO_H2O

May 6th 2012, 07:01

Sounds like a very cool weekend for you.

Gerrelt

May 6th 2012, 12:59

Very very nice! It sounds like you had a great time! Thanks for sharing.

Post the photos here when they are done, if you are allowed.

chug_A_bug

May 7th 2012, 14:40

Sweet Can't wait to see the Photos....

owdlvr

May 8th 2012, 18:56

Thanks Guys!

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8016/7161212810_5ff325035a_z.jpg
I'm super stoked and happy with it so far. Having the shots done this weekend by Andrew means that I've now got free reign to play with the car. Stone chips? Not a big deal now! The car does handle significantly differently from the last bug, so it's going to take some testing before I'm comfortable sliding it on Gravel. Sunday I swapped the seats back to my own, and prepped it for some gravel playing on Monday eve. A last minute group in whistler meant switching it back to street tires, and a day on the mountains until 11pm. Sigh. Probably won't get out on the gravel tires until Sunday :(

On the plus side, however, I am allowed to post this teaser shot!
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8026/7161184320_a7ff99e746_o.jpg

-Dave

Steve C

May 8th 2012, 23:27

Hi

That looks fantastic.

I was watching a German motoring TV show the other night and it had a bit about VW race & rally cars, it had Salzburg 1303 in the show.

I've saved the show to disk, I will get it chopped down on email it you if your interested.

Steve

Humble

May 9th 2012, 12:59

You did an amazing job with that car and I can only hope it drives as good as it looks. The teaser pic looks awesome and I can't wait to see more. Now we need some gopro footage!

al_kaholik

May 9th 2012, 13:09

Dave, I've posted a link to your thread in the Volkszone rally beetle thread. Sure it'll generate some interest on there :)

owdlvr

May 9th 2012, 13:22

Steve - I can provide you with a YouSendit or DropBox account which would allow you to upload and send large files to me. If that works for you let me know and I'll email details over to you. Would love to see the footage for sure!

I keep promising GoPro footage...but everything I've shot so far seems so lame and boring. Maybe I'll post a couple of quick clips today so you can see that it actually runs, and how freaking loud the transmission bearing noise is! Definitely haven't shot any gravel yet. The car handles so differently from my other vehicles I need to get some time behind the wheel before I'm comfortable playing with it. Can't post vids of me driving like a rookie now, can I? haha.

I will need to keep an eye on that Volkszone thread...I'm curious to see what people think. I mean, at the end of the day I built it for me. But the European reaction to the build is of big interest to me, simply because here in North America I've built a car so outside the box that most people don't know what they're looking at until I explain it to them. Europe's Rally connection is much stronger, so its a bit better of a fit over there!

-Dave

Bogara_ZO

May 13th 2012, 12:40

Dave, it might be useful for you (articles and the whole website):

http://www.vw1302.de/start/suchen/suchen.html
http://www.vw1302.de/start/suchen/suchen.html
http://www.vw1302.de/start/suchen/suchen.html

Google translator is your friend :D

owdlvr

May 13th 2012, 14:11

Ooh, I will take a look at that for sure!

So a project is never finished...I haven't been happy with the power level of the car, especially when accelerating from a standstill. The car is just slower then my white '69 was, both in acceleration and top speed. I attributed the top speed both to the massive ride-height and it's resulting instability with crosswinds. (aka part car, part my fear level)...but the acceleration just doesn't make sense. I finally had a chance to look at it last night and discovered a simple issue which is possibly causing the problem. A key step when setting up new carbs/engine? Yeah, that would be determining if you can get full throttle with your pedal. Adjusted now to get to about 80% of the stops on the carbs, will need some reengineering to figure out how to get the last 20%, but I'll try it today on gravel and see how it is.

The other item I'm not fully sold on is the shifting. I tossed this in another thread, and it originally comes from a PM I wrote, but without having to retype it, I think it makes sense:

I'm using a stock bug shifter with EMPI aluminum short shift kit and then a custom carbon knob and custom carbon tube over the stock shift shaft. If I pull the knob and carbon tube off, it's 100% stock VW Beetle...even the lock out plate. I did double up the lockout springs (using two stock ones), and the shift rod is a cut-and-weld mix of stock beetle, steel tubing and Porsche shift rod.

I have a shorter-then-stock-beetle throw going forwards and backwards, but what feels like "stock" throw going side to side. It's easy to figure out where all the gears are and works quite well...most of the time. The problem is the Z-bend in the shift rod. This makes the side-to-side action somewhat vague at times, and appears to bind occasionally. A quick wiggle of the shifter in neutral sorts everything out and the gears become easy to find again, but this doesn't help much if you're on a race track! I believe I have some more R&D to do before I'm 100% happy.

My reverse (and 1st) lockout works well, but I need to build a single-spring that is heavier weight. The two springs occasionally bind and don't allow the shifter to snap up, thus the lockout "sticks on". If you're not careful it's easy to select reverse instead of second. I have learned that if I go into first, and the shifter snaps-up immediately, everything will be okay. If I don't hear the snap, I have to be super careful.

On the catching reverse front, instead of second, even when the shifter snaps up it's possible to 'rub' reverse on your way into second. I had a chance to talk to a couple of 901-Equipped Porsche owners, and the problem is found in those cars too.

Bottom line is that I have fully sorted out perfect shifting yet...I'm currently considering going back to the stock beetle shifter shaft (small diameter) and adding a "gate plate" and tower above the transmission tunnel. Imagine a Ferrari shift-gate-plate, but mounted on a 4-post tower. That should eliminate miss-shifts if it were precisely machined. Possibly ugly, but I will try and find the photo of a factory Audi rally car that used one. The other option is to go with two universal joints in the Z-bend so that when I move the shifter left and right the shaft rotates at the transmission as it should. Currently it rotates and "swings" due to the hard Z-bend. Going universals, however, would require between 2 and 4 mounts welded into the trans tunnel which could be a challenge with the body on.

So shifting is another item I'll be looking into after I get back from two-weeks away.

-Dave

NO_H2O

May 13th 2012, 14:43

Maybe this would work for you.
http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb225/NO_H2O/BugTechshifter-f1.jpg~original

owdlvr

May 13th 2012, 19:20

Considered it, but the issue of vague shifting is not in the shifter, but rather the shift rod that runs fore-aft in the transmission tunnel. I've either got to gate the shifter, or rework the shift-rod.

-Dave

owdlvr

May 13th 2012, 19:45

http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o254/zermatt4kq/rally%20car%20pics/1986-audi-quattro-s1-e2-pikes-pe-6.jpg

Audi S1 E2 gated shifter mod. This, as far as I know, isn't Audi factory but rather done by the current owner of the car.

-Dave

rioprelude

May 14th 2012, 23:34

The bug@5speed shifter has an integrated shift rod hanger that drops the shift rod down to the bottom of the tunnel, in-line with the 901 transmission. I recently converted from an custom (aircooled.net article) 901 installation, and was able to use a straight universal shift rod (buggy) from the shifter to the transmission, with a welded 901 shift rod end. Haven't completed the car yet, but the shifting seems much better already.

owdlvr

May 17th 2012, 18:50

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8021/7217155506_1338e9dd2d_b.jpg
Well, finally got the chance to try out the tires and suspension setup on gravel. Rear suspension is pretty good, though I will probably swap out to a progressive spring as I've been thinking. Front suspension on the other hand could be a little stiffer. I'm loving the weight transfer under braking, but needs to be just a hair stiffer to match the front. The gravel tires, however, are awesome! To date I've always bought used tires for RallyX, and I can totally understand the difference between a fresh set and one that has been used for a few stages. The fresh blocks are square, and cut into the gravel like a track tire sticks to tarmac. Corners where I've nailed good sliding shots on a used set of tires were simply a matter of carving around the turn like it was tarmac. Gotta love when the performance of something is so good, it becomes boring!

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7090/7217155916_52deae4008_b.jpg
I did toss the GoPro into the car, but I have to be honest and say the videos are too boring to watch. While doing some testing on the forest roads I have closest to the house, the tires don't even slide around corners until you're into the triple digits. Once you do get them sliding it's not even something you could pickup on a video. I'm going to need to find some tighter corners that require pitching the car in order to make a video that's interesting!

One thing is for sure though, these tires are going to take their toll on the paintwork. The light specs you can sort-of see on the fender are stone chips. That's 30km of gravel running...yikes.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7072/7217156372_6d2aaa0842_b.jpg

-Dave

chug_A_bug

May 17th 2012, 21:49

LOOKS GREAT ALL DIRTY....

would Still love to See some Video though, and I'm Sure other would too. ;)

Chris.

evilC

May 18th 2012, 08:57

Hi Dave, good looking motor!

I have the same shifter problem as you, nudging reverse instead of second. I initially thought it was the reverse stop plate but I have noticed that it occurs most on power downshifts - never on upshifts. I think its to do with the 'box moving around due to torque reation and the bumps. My shift rod is in perfect condition i.e all the bushes are new and the rear is a polybush in the orginal VW cage that takes out any slop. When I have the engine out I will renew the gearbox mounts and add a 5-bar KC brace to stop the frame horns flexing.

Steve C

June 2nd 2012, 21:35

Steve - I can provide you with a YouSendit or DropBox account which would allow you to upload and send large files to me. If that works for you let me know and I'll email details over to you. Would love to see the footage for sure!

-Dave

Hi Dave

I've cut the video file down too either 211,xxx KB or 796,xxx KB, what would you prefer?

Cheers Steve

owdlvr

June 3rd 2012, 22:07

I'll take the large one. Will email you a dropbox link shortly.

THANKS!!

-Dave

Steve C

June 3rd 2012, 23:29

Hi Dave

I just put the large one in the drop box, let me know how it goes. The large file didn't play as well on my computer but my computer is almost as old as my bug, the smaller file played better.

Steve

owdlvr

June 11th 2012, 15:16

Well, tis been a while. Worked on a few minor details over the weekend to try and adjust some issues. First up was grounding each of the temp senders to their own ground, I was getting some flaky readings or the feed-sensor dropping out, and the individual grounds seem to have solved that problem. The feed ground is a little messy, but I'll get in there again next weekend to make sure it's shrink-wrapped and permanent now that I've confirmed it's working.

My F150 was stolen, and recovered. But in the process of the body shop replacing all the locks and repairing the doors, they messed up the interior light. Battery was discharged and charged enough over the course of the week that it was 100% dead. Wouldn't even hold a charge for an hour. As I'm not sure if the problem is 100% solved, I stole the deep-cycle optima from the Bug since they can be discharged flat a number of times without damage. I tossed in a Honda S2000 battery I have kicking around, and Ziptied it in for emergency use :P I figured I would get around to swapping it back soon, but then realized a RallyX is next weekend and I was more likely to show up at tech and then remember I haven't swapped the batteries! A metal-on-metal mount was made for the Honda battery. It's ugly, but will pass tech!
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7233/7177397063_f1abee45b4_z.jpg

I've also been working on the cooling. The NACA duct flows too much air past the oil cooler, and running on the highway I can't actually get it up to 200deg running temperature. The thermostat I'm using to bypass the cooler still lets a small amount of oil pass through, and this is clearly a problem. A couple of tests with cardboard (blocking the duct) allows the car to come up to temperature...so a solution needs to be found! I honestly don't understand the aerodynamics of the duct well enough, but I know I need to keep the boundary layer intact as much as possible past the duct. This piece of lexan seems to be doing the job so far, might need to make it a little larger and/or adjust the shape.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7095/7177396879_ce8c05d002_b.jpg

Once I've got the shape/setup figured out I'll then swap the bolts out for Dzus 1500 fasteners. They will allow me to pull the panel at any point when the heat is getting to high for the fan to control. (Hot day at the track perhaps?).
http://britishracecar.com/KeithBurnett-MGBGTV8/KeithBurnett-MGBGTV8-FD.jpg

I was up doing some gravel testing for the panel (high revs, long stints), which also highlighted another issue I need to deal with. The oil-level in the tank is quite sensitive, and it seems when I have it too high it will burp out of the dipstick tube under high-heat/revs! Will need to o-ring or otherwise seal the dipstick tube. Tough to see the top of the tank is all coated in oil.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7227/7177396991_b4ba49bf4e_z.jpg http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7216/7177397185_a04661bfb0_z.jpg

...and, speaking of testing. Here's some proof that the car does indeed move under it's own power. I goofed on the front-mounted cam, and wasn't going to post a vid. But hey, if I keep waiting until I have a perfect one I will never post anything! :P

http://youtu.be/k7yPrwBifGw

-Dave

judgie

June 12th 2012, 03:31

video looks great and good to see a bug being used. one bit of advice i learnt the hard way, dont have your thumbs inside the steering wheel. hit a rut or a rock and the wheel snatches, it will beat your thumbs hard.

owdlvr

June 12th 2012, 04:32

Yup, bad habit indeed. When I was 18ish and starting to rally/rallyx, I had a problem with "happy hands" and too much steering input. To finally beat the problem I just had to focus on keeping the left hand locked to the wheel. I hook thumbs because of it, and just can't break the habit on gravel. I can do it on tarmac, but not gravel :P

I've broken both thumbs and scaphoid enough riding bikes to realize it sucks...but some habits die hard!

-Dave

Bruce.

June 12th 2012, 04:56

owdlvr

June 12th 2012, 12:34

Do you run the oil cooler and thermostat in the high pressure line to the block or the return line back to the tank (low pressure).

Oil thermostats are not always designed to handle pressure as they are supposed to be fitted in the return line of a dry sump system. The 911 works in that way I think.

Hmmmm...That could be it right there. Its plumbed into the high pressure line. Switching it to the return line for testing shouldn't be too difficult...

-Dave

owdlvr

June 13th 2012, 00:59

Well,

Started cracking down on the various things I need to address before rallyXing the car on the 24th. First up was swapping the Oil pressure gauge with the Voltmeter. Let this be a lesson to everyone, before installing everything else in front of the dash (wipers, airbox, etc.)...put the steering wheel in and make sure you can see everything! Now with them swapped I can monitor the oil pressure without the need to look, and I can see just enough of the voltmeter needle to know if it's charging or not.

With that done, i decided to investigate why Fuel Pump #2 wasn't working. It hasn't worked since the first day I put a battery to the car. I recall testing the relay and all the wiring I could reach, and determining at some point that it had to be the wiring right up at the switch. Since the dash was apart I pulled it all out, and found the switch and wiring to be fine. Hmmmm. Testing all down the line I eventually discovered I bought a $30 dead fuel pump relay. Hmph. Tossed a regular relay in for now (which doesn't have the tach-input feature) and Fuel pump two was working properly. Sweet. Stuffed everything back in the dash, put the airbox back in, did a few other things and triple checked it before leaving the garage. Fuel pump two not working.

Hmph. Guess I'll be going back to deal with that tomorrow night :P

I decided since I'll be working on it tomorrow that I might as well drive my F150 for a day, and put the bug up on Axle stands. It will give me a good chance to look everything over after playing the gravel for over an hour on the weekend. Good thing I did!
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8144/7182385255_c8b62a77bc_b.jpg

My first thought was that I must have blown a Motorsport CV boot. But upon closer examination it would seem that my catch can drain came loose and the oil was being picked up by the airstream from the tire. The drain is right against the inside of the fender wall, and will need to be changed. The oil tank was slightly overfull before I hit the gravel, and I knew the catch cans were going to need draining...but I guess the bug decided to drain them a little earlier then me. Unfortunately it's all over the brake caliper:
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7244/7367618210_2ec626fa86_c.jpg

And the inboard brake pad is wasted.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7088/7367618266_87bba9b218_c.jpg

I've got the brakes and rotor cleaned up, but will need to check to see if I have any rear pads for the car. I know I have spare fronts, but not sure about rears.

...on the plus side, at least I have something to do?!

-Dave

owdlvr

June 14th 2012, 02:00

Well, AVR has brake pads in stock...but I really don't want to drive down just for a set of brake pads. Especially since that means I would have to drive my Ford. Ugh.

So, what I did next comes from the "not recommended" and "historical" section of your library. Back in the earlier days of motoring, when brake linings were riveted to the shoes and a pain to replace, it was accepted practice to clean a pair of oil-soaked brake shoes. The problem being that brake linings are porous, so simply wiping them off isn't enough. First step is to clean them with brake clean, to get the major surface gunk off. Then, using white-gas (called Naptha or camping fuel in Canada) you clean the pads a second time. Once that's done the pads will look new, with some light oil staining. Now the fun begins. Pour some white gas on the pad, wait about 5 min for some of it to soak into the pad...light it up and stand clear!
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8166/7185704167_b7a0e60f3f_c.jpg

As the white gas burns, it draws the oil out of the pad like a candle wick. Repeat the soak/burn step about 4 more times. This next photo was after the second burn. You can see the pad is clearing up, and also that it had cracked during the burn. Oh, you thought this method was foolproof? lol.
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5338/7185741989_25e39d3587_c.jpg

Regardless...what I have is set of pads which are usable for the couple of days until my new set arrives.

uh, not recommended as a permanent solution...but does work for a roadside fix!

-Dave

NO_H2O

June 14th 2012, 07:56

The rear calipers look to be the standard rear disc kit calipers. If so they are from a 90's Ford Tarus and the pads should be easy to find.

owdlvr

June 14th 2012, 12:37

The rear calipers look to be the standard rear disc kit calipers. If so they are from a 90's Ford Tarus and the pads should be easy to find.

I knew they were ford...but for the life of me couldn't find/google/remember what the fitment was. The set I have on this car don't have any casting markings or stamps, so I was completely blank. Taurus eh? Will do a little more googling today.

-Dave

diarmuidmcd

June 14th 2012, 17:26

Dave,
This is a fantastic build an is a credit to you!
I'm looking forward to seeing some video of her being used in anger!
Diarmuid

owdlvr

June 17th 2012, 02:34

Thank you! If it would stop raining around here, I'd film more :P

---------

I'm getting closer to sorting out a solution for the temperature issue. Cutting off a portion of the forced-airflow through the duct has helped quite a bit. Here are the three sensor readings after 45min at 120kph: (Engine at front pressure plug, Bottom of tank, , Feed into engine)

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7100/7384275120_acef334c06.jpg http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5036/7384274518_7daaef22d9.jpg http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8144/7384274122_cbd96074cf.jpg

All sensors the same brand, but I on the next oil-change I think I'm going to need to pull them and confirm they all read exactly the same at 100deg C. The engine temp reading lower then the feed could be a product of the location, the case temp or the sensor. At this stage I'm most interested in the feed temperature, and so it would seem that I have a bit of trimming to do on my cover plate. I should also order in some of those Dzus fasteners pretty quickly.

-Dave

owdlvr

June 26th 2012, 15:43

Well that was an interesting weekend! To date I've done about 100km worth of testing up on the local forest roads here in Squamish. Switching from an Audi quattro (All-wheel-drive, massive amounts of front end weight ahead of the front axle), to the bug is quite the challenge. I've been getting used to it up on the mountains, though I have to be honest it occasionally catches me out...let it get away from you and it will just spin regardless of what you try :P

Sunday was a local RallyX event though, so it was up at 4:30am and the three hour drive to Hope BC. Unfortunately I didn't wake up to my alarm, and woke up at 6am. Whoops! Lets just say the bug gets real light up front at speed, and I will be starting to look at front spoiler options :P Made it in time for registration, and even early enough to end up tech'ing the other cars. The course we've got out in Hope is pretty tight. Depending on the configuration you can get up into second gear, but it's down to first for most corners. Considering I have the 901 gear box with dog-leg first, and a pretty heavy lockout, dropping down into first gear isn't the easiest proposition. I made the attempt for the gear change on a couple of runs, sacrificing some syncros along the way. After a couple of laps I decided the time lost hunting for first wasn't worth the gain made in second gear along a short section. This, of course, was mostly irrelevant seeing as I was mowing down cones with almost every run. With low momentum I just couldn't get the car to transfer weight under braking, resulting in understeer into corners. When it would transfer it would grab so hard I'd end up taking out the inside cone. Mostly humorous, but frustrating as I wasn't correcting my errors for future runs. Definitely need more play time in the tight stuff if I'm going to do well in RallyX in this car. Oops, isn't that one of the things I built it for? :P

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7133/7437615190_d2b8a5441b_b.jpg

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5326/7437615786_f196d2d07b_b.jpg

For the afternoon the course was reversed, increasing the overall speeds significantly. For RallyX, however, the 901 as I've got it set just isn't precise enough for the 2-1 shift. Second gear really would have helped coming across the mid section, but I ended up just wailing off the rev-limiter in first. The back section was my arch-nemesis, a missed gate in run one...the same cone mowed down in the next 3 or 4 runs. For the last couple of runs I stopped caring about the back half and just focused on enjoying the first half where the speeds were higher. Figures that on the final run I finally cleaned the afternoon course with no penalties :P

While I wasn't able to link up a single run to my satisfaction, I did have some great "segments" where I was able to pitch and flick the car exactly the way I had planned. Essentially the stuff I had practiced on the forest roads was dialed...now I just need to back it down to some tight stuff and get re-learning for the Rear-Engine 2wd setup. Either that, or I need to find a larger venue so the courses can be faster! I'd love to try the car out on some rally-sprints, where the gear box wouldn't be an issue and you could really work the car over a longer, quicker, section.

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5118/7437617276_fd83580c9f_b.jpg

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8009/7437618552_5c56af3da9_b.jpg

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8148/7437617954_a490978e82_b.jpg

As you can see, the course was pretty wet...and the mud accumulation was incredible. After the morning runs...

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7134/7437614128_b0dcc64512_c.jpg

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5324/7437614490_0eba439eb7_c.jpg

...end of the day was a bit worse...

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5338/7437599162_358a0c725d_b.jpg

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7271/7437600096_57bf33954d_c.jpg

Rob was commenting on some different Tin he has to seal up the engine bay better. I think I'm going to take him up on the offer.
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5452/7437611608_a120d00e7c_b.jpg

Pretty sure this is the first DVKK badge to be treated this way...
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8004/7437601402_b11722b4f9_b.jpg

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8148/7437612194_a4cde8e00e_c.jpg

So, last night I figured I should start taking care of the cleaning process. I posted this photo up on Facebook with the question "this is normal, right?". #1 comment was the fact that "No Handwashing" definitely means no removing the tires and putting the car on Axle-stands!

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8141/7448861048_bd912f090d_b.jpg

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7257/7448860572_699bf68fd0_b.jpg

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8025/7448859530_826d6707d3_b.jpg

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8168/7448859672_be73132f38_b.jpg

...40min of pressure washing later, and I have *most* of the mud off the car. Seriously, the stuff was like concrete. Thankfully a buddy works at Sea to Sky carwash, so I had a semi-sponsorship last night!

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7123/7448861264_154549db1e_b.jpg

I'm not sure how I'm going to get it out of all the fender lips, but I won't leave it in there as it will just hold moisture and cause the fenders to rust. I guess you could say "stage one" of cleaning is complete? I anticipate an other 3 or 4 evenings to get the car clean. One to wash the body with soap and water as per normal, one to work on cleaning out all the fender lips and any missed areas on the underside, one to clean the engine bay and a fourth to clean out the interior. Racin' is hard work! haha

I did have two casualties this weekend while racing. The car performed absolutely flawlessly, and was only hindered by my driving talent and the gear selection. There is something satisfying about tearing the car on the rev-limit knowing you're just running it for exactly what it was built for. Back off? heck no! I may consider trailering the car to the next event, only because there is such limited space for carrying the four gravel tires. The bakelight heater outlet was casualty #1 from loading tires in the back. As we all know, the body needs to be removed if I'm going to replace this. For now I think I'll epoxy the parts back together! (and shhhhh...don't look at those welds)

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8017/7437609262_1a5f5aa8af_c.jpg

The second casualty was on the Accusump. Kind of hard to tell, but the tire slipped back and crushed the pressure gauge. The gauge is bent back, and the face is broken. Accusump seems to be working fine still, but I'll need to swap out the gauge for piece of mind.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7115/7437608410_e34a339f37_c.jpg

At the end of the event I was second in 2wd class, and 5th overall. The field was small, however, and based on my driving I have work to do before I would be "happy" with my performance. But honestly, who cares? I built the car to race it, and I was out racing it. That in the end is the important part. I was having a blast, and will look upon all of it's new stone chips with satisfaction. I've now got 6,300km on the build and will be busy scouring the Pacific Northwest for other events. Maybe a track day next so I can avoid the week of cleaning?

-Dave

al_kaholik

June 26th 2012, 16:01

One muddy then clean beetle!

Approval from me. There is some pretty awesome photography going on too :)

Gerrelt

June 26th 2012, 16:13

It's cool to see you using the car where it's meant to be used for!

I think the mud looked great on the car.:D

NO_H2O

June 27th 2012, 08:46

Looks like it had a great first test under fire. The 901 gearbox is not a fast shifting box. They are very finicky and you will have to learn what it wants. I had one rebuilt and ready to put in my car. I ended up trading it for my daughters 66 Beetle and having a type 1 gearbox built to order. What gear lube are you running in the 901?

owdlvr

July 13th 2012, 13:49

Well, not much progress in the past few weeks. I've been traveling for work, so the car has been resting in the garage. I've currently got Redline MT-90 in the transmission, but it needs to be replaced with Motul Gear300. I've noticed the redline gets worse the hotter the trans gets, and I've always had great success with Motul. Just can't buy it here in small-town Squamish.

In the meantime, I've been making a list for the next stage of development. Some of the items are ridiculously simple, and others will be more complex (like the skid plates). While I do love the "sport" style wheels, and they are definitely my preference, they aren't correct for that "period look". The factory cars ran 5.5" wide hub-cap style Porsche wheels:

http://www.salzburgkaefer.at/images/strasser01_lbb.jpg

So I figured I better pick up a set.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7107/7560035556_496b72d5fb_c.jpg

I was hoping to sandblast and powdercoat them, but my friend's shop is currently "clean" for painting, and not messy for blasting...so the wirewheel, hand sanding and spraybomb will have to suffice for now. Once you run any wheels on gravel the finish doesn't last anyways, so powdercoating is really just lazy not better. Of course, the wheel purchase means I'm going to need to buy more gravel tires. As the set I have are narrows for use on the 4.5" wheels!

-Dave

owdlvr

July 13th 2012, 19:40

Looking better in silver...

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7272/7564862350_7b8e553b13_c.jpg

-Dave

NO_H2O

July 15th 2012, 08:19

They cleaned up very well.

owdlvr

July 24th 2012, 04:00

Despite a lack of posting here (Summer will do that to a guy), I have been tinkering with the bug on a weekly basis. One of the main things that bothered me was my lack of working headsets for the intercom. Peltor transit headsets are about $290 a piece, and the quality leaves a lot to be desired. Most rally folks won't loan them to buddies for events when not used, as they are so well known for breaking. The Peltor intercom, however, is relatively cheap and bulletproof. Go figure. I've tested a lot of broken Peltor headsets over the years and when it's not user-error breaking the cables, it's always the microphone that fails.

A few years ago I did make up my own intercom headsets, but I could never get the microphone circuit to work properly. The FMT110 intercom, which I own, requires a dynamic microphone. Even with piggyback circuitry I couldn't get the electret mics I had working. For the most part I didn't worry about it, as my last car wasn't so loud that you needed them to talk to each other. The bug, however, is pretty loud inside. To make matters worse, Mom was coming out to visit last week...so I needed a solution! A pilot friend brought me over a bin of broken airplane headsets, and after a day of breaking, testing and soldering...I combined about 8 different headsets, and some bits from radio-shack to create four good working headsets which are compatible with a Peltor Rally intercom. Success! I picked mom up in the airport, and we spent the week using the bug able to simply talk to each other instead of yelling. Once I dropped her back to the airport (5 days later), I started on the hit list for up coming events.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8026/7635548754_e9611b53c7_c.jpg

As you can see, the events are coming up fast...and there isn't much time between them! I'm going to start with a High Performance Driving Event on August 9th. I've done quite a few back east, but due to the length of time and record keeping I'm considered "beginner" status out West, and will need to start fresh again for Track & Lapping events. I still haven't sorted out a good stiff Tarmac setup for the car, but I figure even if I run it as-is, that's going to be more fun then not running the car at all! Following that, it Classic Car Adventure's mixed gravel/pavement event the "Rush to Gold Bridge". Should be a good and dusty time, which I poorly planned when setting the dates. Why did I plan a dirty gravel event that ends just FOUR DAYS before the Great Canadian VW show?! I'm going to have to pull the engine and the interior just to clean it in time. Eek!

The hit lists for the events is starting to pile up too:
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8147/7635549102_bcf3793c2d_b.jpg

But no worries, I'll get it all done!

As a start to chipping things off the list, I tried to take care of the big chips I put in the B-Pillars. The match isn't bad...and I actually think when this is dry it will be passable.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8429/7635548896_e6412fec26_z.jpg

-Dave

Bogara_ZO

July 25th 2012, 04:22

fyi

http://www.ebay.de/itm/VW-Kafer-Salzburg-Tuning-Rallye-Elba-winner-Warmbold-1973-5-TOP-UMBAU-1-18-/200795125182?pt=Spielzeugautos&hash=item2ec05275be

chug_A_bug

July 27th 2012, 09:14

that's KILLER thanks for posting

owdlvr

July 30th 2012, 03:17

Such a good weekend!

A buddy of mine does snowboard, mountain bike & outdoors films/videos, he and I have been talking about shooting the bug since it was a project in my garage. We've bounced around different ideas, but still haven't gotten around to doing anything. This past week, Taylor sweetened the pot the little with the addition of a RED Epic Camera. As if that wasn't good enough, his friends from Sea to Sky Cable Cams were looking to do some testing with a rally car. Hmmmmm....

Taylor's current demo reel. (http://vimeo.com/31620957)
Sea to Sky Cable Cam's demo reel. (http://vimeo.com/44619341)

For those who don't know what an Red camera is, think the Porsche GT3 of the camera world. It shoots in 5k, and super high frames per second (super slow-mo). To give you an idea of the quality...
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-RAG86CieLps/TzJEJvrxCtI/AAAAAAAAACs/HgP3HaNb8qk/s1600/Techblog1

Can't really turn down an opportunity like that!

Started off in the garage. David prepping a shot.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8287/7674244010_96af1b2ae4_b.jpg

Later, Taylor setting up the Red as a POV cam. A wee bit bigger then a GoPro :P
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8019/7674658888_2ff2a87734_b.jpg

Cable Cam rigging...
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7114/7674659488_4f3b34b3a2.jpg

I won't have the video for a while, but will be sure to post it up once Taylor's had a change to edit something for me. In the meantime though, I did lap after lap of the section of road we had set aside. "faster", "slower", "can you put the car here?", "more show-ie", "that was great...we nailed it...better do it again just in case". Now I remember why I avoid video shoots! haha

One of the lines required getting close to the raspberry bushes. They ended up all down the side of the car.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8164/7674659222_9066361703_c.jpg

iphone pic...I think
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7131/7674312678_53fda7136e_c.jpg

The road section we were working on was less then a half km long, with 6 corners and an uphill section. It was top of third gear type of stuff, though I was making it 7 to 8 corners for the runs they wanted it more "showy". For some of the shots I wasn't running it end to end. So as you can see, a lot of laps and takes to get all the shots they wanted to get. I'm not complaining, getting to play on a closed road at full bore is worth every second!
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8422/7674659790_3636567939.jpg

At one point in the early half I smoked a big rock, and following a large bang was sure I flatted the driver's side tire. We stopped, jumped out and my tire was fine. Hmmm…as I was going around the front side, my buddy Taylor (who was 'co-driving' at the time) says to me "pretty sure it's your side", yup no flat on his side either. Remember all those to-do lists I wrote down in my notebook, crossing off items as go? There was one item on the front suspension that I didn't do, and figured I would catch in that "check all the lists" step before running. Cotter pins on the sway bar ends? Based on the fact that the passenger side one didn't have a pin, and the driver's side had spat it's parts all down the road…I'm gonna guess I missed that step! Only part of the car (beside the rear axles) where I didn't replace everything with nylock nuts and/or safety wire. A quick zip home (in a friend's truck) to get some spare bits, jack and axle stands…and we were on our way to a backwoods repair. Ever try and compress/jam those stupid things together in the middle of nowhere? Yeah, not wanting to do that again! Other then this potentially disastrous event, the car ran flawless all day.

-----

Today, it was all about clean up, damage assessment and check of all fasteners to ensure I hadn't missed anything else. I washed the car twice, first at the coin-wash to pressure wash as much dust and dirt off as I could, and then a regular hand wash upon returning home. The inside was filthy, even the dust had dust on it.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8010/7674243610_b4e6a8dc4f_b.jpg

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8143/7674242362_34fe0836ef_c.jpg

Once the interior was cleaned out, I started on the damage assessment. The paint on the wheels took the expected beating and chipping.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7108/7674243238_d6097d7ab3_c.jpg

And the raspberry bushes left me with some passenger side stripes that I'll need to polish out this week. Hard to photograph on a silver car, sadly not hard to see in person though!
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8433/7674243346_2e2e43fb73_c.jpg

The gravel road isn't a polished prepared "loose surface" road designed for road traffic. We were using a logging access road, so the stones are bigger. Sometimes much bigger. But hey, gotta use what you got! The rocks do take their toll on the car though...

Slight dent on the driver's side rear fender...
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8017/7674243470_e592c80e2b_c.jpg

Slightly larger dent on the passenger side rear fender. Kinda wish I had made that flap just 1" longer! The rock has completely crushed the lip of the fender and pushed it out about 1/4".
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7270/7674243726_9ea30e7f06_c.jpg

The muffler is saying "make the skidplates dumbass!"
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8006/7674242988_6d28976d1f_b.jpg

About this time I was thinking to myself "why don't I build track cars?" And then I removed the wheels. Seems I might be switching to alloy wheels sooner then I had anticipated! This is the passenger rear wheel:
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8282/7674242822_c4a59ddbc0_b.jpg

The passenger front has one small dent/flatspot on the inside edge. In true rally fashion, however, both driver's side wheels are 100% perfect. Why anyone chooses to be a co-driver I'll never understand. Now, initially I was a little down on myself for doing this, as i have to go find a replacement. But then I checked the wheel and it's holding air to the exact psi I had set it to. My friend Gord has repaired a number of rally wheels (steel and alloy) using a special tool, so really this shouldn't be so bad. I grabbed my copy of Gord's special tool, and went to work. Good as new! (or in this case, good enough :P)
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7108/7674242668_702cea3f4a_b.jpg

The engine bay is starting to look quite scruffy, but I have a gravel rally event before our local VW show..so I figure I'll do the full detail after that. For now it was just a quick clean to get the main dirt out.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8150/7674243874_f159737688_b.jpg

I did decide to do an airfilter cleaning, as they showed some signs of needing it.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8287/7674242530_c6f6264977_c.jpg

Car is now cleaned, checked and ready for work tomorrow. Just need to pop the re-oiled air filters back on.

-Dave

volkdent

July 31st 2012, 19:42

It's like watching a super model used as a plow horse! So weird to watch you build this pretty car then instantly thrash it. I'll be living vicariously through you for a long time to come!

Jason

owdlvr

August 1st 2012, 00:48

I won't lie...it hurts. And almost every day when I see the damage I think to myself how much easier a track car would have been. But, rallying is just so damned cool :D Every flick into a corner brings a huge smile to my face.

-Dave

Humble

August 1st 2012, 11:29

I cant wait to see the finished video, if your friend has a RED camera and knows how to use it we're all in for a treat. BTW that camera isn't even their high end, I've seen their 8k footage with an 8k projector and it blew my mind. Even crazier is my roommate went to NAB in vegas where they had a 24k demo going :eek: You're very lucky to have friends with nice camera gear!

Gerrelt

August 1st 2012, 14:21

Very cool! Can't wait to see the video too!

Clatter

August 2nd 2012, 01:06

Ever think of putting "outerwears" pre-filters on?
I even like to run them on my street cars.
They not only keep the filters cleaner,
but, more importantly, water that hits them is shed to the outside of the filter,
and doesn't run down into the intake...

owdlvr

August 2nd 2012, 14:07

I had looked at them but not considered it too heavily...though I don't know why. Now that you mention it, I think I'm going to try a set out.

*edit* now I remember...finding set that don't say "EMPI" on them is a pain the butt :P

-Dave

owdlvr

August 16th 2012, 22:59

...At Rocket Rally getting the rear skid plate fitted for this weeks Rush to Gold Bridge event.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7108/7799358230_a236bb797e_o.jpg

-Dave

owdlvr

August 20th 2012, 03:10

Whew! What a weekend.

The CCA "Rush to Gold Bridge" was our first stab at a mixed gravel and tarmac event for classic cars up here in Canada. The formula works well in California, where the events are well attended and popular. Up here, however, we have some work to do! A total of 6 cars made the start, but that was just fine by us. We modified the route throughout the weekend to suit the guests we had. Saturday was shortened due to heat, and Sunday we split into two groups with some cars going for the smooth gravel route, while others braved goat-path-like sections of road to claim they conquered a famous 4x4 only mountain pass. For this particular event, I left the gravel tires at home so that our guests wouldn't feel like their cars were about to die on the event. I could keep the sliding controlled enough for street tires, right?

We began in Hope BC, and after about an hour of paved twisties and canyon views, turned off to catch a ferry. This ferry, though, wasn't like your normal car ferry. This one is a reaction ferry, it has no motors and uses the current of the river to move back and forth between the two banks. An overhead cable holds the ferry and the two guys working the boat simply tilt it one way or another in the current to push across. At least if it sunk, I would have a chance of floating!
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From there it was incredibly twisty gravel all the way to Lillooet. I have never driven a road which required so much steering movement, without a pause in between for straight sections. Toss in a little sliding action, and my hands never stopped moving. Rarely do I find myself happy we're stopping to regroup, but on this road I was thankful for the break and the reminder not to get too carried away! I was running without a co-driver, and more then a few turns were marked "Triple Caution!!! hairpin, exposure with large drop to the outside". I think one of the instructions for a corner we wrote was "Large drop with certain death straight ahead". Have I mentioned it was a blast!?! One of the straight sections:
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It was 40.3 deg Celsius as we were doing this road, and for the time I saw 240F on the oil temperature gauge. It didn't go any further (the whole weekend) and once I determined that my oil cooler fan relay failed, the temps were brought back down to 220F for the rest of the day. Warwick, in the Mini, wasn't so lucky. A couple of overheats had him finishing this leg on the tow strap. Once it was cooled down, refilled with water and an expansion tank jimmy rigged, it ran like a top.
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Having spent a lot of time with Warwick, we eventually decided that I should probably head to the rest of the group and tell them to carry on. The throttle pedal was dropped, and I went from casually enjoying a few corners here and there to fully setting up and linking slide after slide to try and make up time. I was in a left hand drift when I felt a wiggle...but was already pitching right. Upon returning back to the left, however, I instantly knew what had happened. 'Tis a wee bit flat back there!
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Let that be a lesson to you: 165/R15's of unknown age, showing lots of cracking in the tread, are probably not the best tires for sliding around on gravel :P Normally I'd have had this fixed up quick and been on my way, but it would seem that I have neglected to purchase and install an important road-side repair tool. And, really, sweep and every other car is carry a jack. Why would I want to? I stood sheepishly by the side of the road waiting for Warwick and sweep to arrive so that they could now go and deliver the 'carry on' message.
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With the flat fixed, it was off again. I met the group in Lillooet and proceeded to pay $50 for a used tire, of completely useless dimensions, to ease my fear of driving 300km home on a steel wheel. For the afternoon we ventured the 2.5 hours into Gold Bridge, via the Carpenter Lake Road. The road is mix of billiard-table-smooth gravel and paved sections. It winds up and down the side of the mountain sometimes mere inches from the river, while at other times so high you'd have time to count your mistakes before impact.
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We arrived at the Chilcotin Holidays Ranch tired, dusty and hungry.
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...Tomorrow, I'll recount Sunday. Then the cleanup begins!

-Dave

owdlvr

August 20th 2012, 15:17

Sunday started with breakfast at the Chilcotin's Ranch. We thought maybe they confused our group of 12 for a group of 30 at dinner the night before, but Breakfast proved that these folks simply like to eat! We were fed as though we were going on a 4 day backpacking trip and this would be the last meal we ate. I'm not complaining, anytime I can eat a whole pig-worth of bacon I'm game! Following breakfast, a quick tune and check over on the cars was completed before we departed.

"yup, looks like the engine is still there"
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For the Sunday run, our group split up into two. The Mini and 356, which were sporting rather low clearance levels, chose to head out the way we came in. The rest of us were going to brave the Hurley River Pass road, a 4x4-only, summer access road which is not recommended for classic cars. How bad could it be!?! Warwick, the other photographer on the event, was in the Mini so that means most of the day's photos are without my bug.

First stop was the bustling gas station in the town of Bralorne...
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And then off to check out some of the abandoned Gold Mines in the area.
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With the sight-seeing done, we were off! Being the adventurous types, we agreed as a group that we shouldn't take the "main" Hurley River Road, but instead venture down the 20km Bralorne short-cut. It's essentially a Goat-Path through the woods in some sections...but we were all in rally cars. Well, everyone except Bruce and Greg in the lowered Volvo :P. To say I was driving gingerly on these rocks would be an understatement!
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Once on the main Hurley we found the road to be wide, in good shape and relatively quick travel. I was averaging about 60kph, which allowed for dodging the odd hole or sump-tearing section of granite sticking out of the road.
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The group made it through to the end, with only a minor exhaust pipe issue hampering the progress. After a couple of hours on the pass, we descended into the town of Pemberton and met up with the rest of the group.
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It was a quick zip down the highway to Squamish, where we finished with the traditional (for me at least) Campfire Grill smoked BBQ.
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-----

Upon arriving home, I took quick stock of the Bug. The interior is so dusty and dirty the passenger seat is looking brown. There is dirt and dust caked on the headliner, and the whole underside of the car still looks like I just went racing in the mud at that RallyX. The Great Canadian VW Show is this coming weekend, which means I need to get the car back to looking as close to "new" as possible. After a quick body wash, it was up on stands to clean the wheel wells and suspension.

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I guess, like I have many times with this project, I got a little carried away next. Out came the creeper, and I scrubbed all the dirt and such off the bottom of the floor pan. I'm pretty sure my neighbours think I'm insane...washing the underside of my car in the driveway. The worst part is you can see I missed some spots, which means I'll be getting soaked again later today when I roll back underneath. Can't do a half-assed job, right?
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While the car was in the air, I thought it was high-time I took care of the rather sad looking state of my rear fenders. The vinyl has been chipped through pretty good by the rocks, but at least it's protected the paint somewhat?
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Well, peeling off the vinyl reveals that there is more damage then initially meets the eye. The passenger side was even worse, with large chucks coming out of the paintwork. Oops!
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New vinyl covers most of the damage, in photos it looks fine but when the light hits it right you can see the divots underneath. At the end of the day though, one has to accept that fenders are replaceable, and this is a bloody race car not a show queen.
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For the front fenders, I've always had a problem with the front right and where it meets the running board. In the following photo you can see the dark patch where I've had to cover the factory running board hole which didn't line up at all.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7124/6921958436_e0f520dd78_b.jpg

Both front fenders now sport a black vinyl treatment, which matches the rear and hides the error.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7270/7825545082_3a51621c8b_z.jpg

So now I have to deal with the front trunk, the interior, the engine bay and all the body lines and door jams. Oh, and a wax of the silver paint...and matte wax on the black to remove the watermarks which are impossible. yee haw.

-Dave

owdlvr

August 21st 2012, 03:13

Got the inside stripped down, cleaned out and a fresh coat of paint laid down on any of the areas which needed it. Man that was dusty/dirty. Might have a problem with my seats for the weekend. I borrowed a friend's seats back in April for the studio shots, and was planning on borrowing them again for the Great Canadian Show. Well, it turns out they might not be available...so I'm off to my backup plan tomorrow. If that doesn't work out, I need a backup to the backup plan, and thus scrubbed my current seats like they've never been scrubbed before. Turns out, they are still black and I got most of the staining out! Now I just need to figure out how to cover/hide/fix the tears, and I have a useable back up plan. Too bad I forgot the "before" photo...
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While the seats and battery were out, I started thinking about what I was going to do for a battery. My Optima got moved to the truck, and I've been using a Honduh battery for the last little while. It's small, light and fires the car up every time. Too bad it says Honda all over it. Wait, i own a vinyl machine! Bosch it is, in fact, lets make it a small german racing battery :P
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Wheels are still off, night number two on Axle stands in my driveway.

-Dave

NO_H2O

August 21st 2012, 08:11

Looks like it was a fantastic event.

Steve C

August 21st 2012, 18:13

Hi

Beautiful scenery, the roads look well maintained.

Steve

owdlvr

August 22nd 2012, 11:03

I'm not gonna lie, pulling the motor now is a complete %#!@%!!!. So many lines, extras, etc. and then every nut and bolt is caked with dry dirt so they don't spin by hand, you have to use a tool for the entire length of the threads.
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The reason for pulling the motor is to make for easy cleaning, and to accomplish a few upgrades as well. As you can see, cleaning is definitely needed!
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There is even dirt/mud inside the bell housing!
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I started playing with Vibrant Performance's new heat shielding product...
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...and finally protected the feed line to the pump from heat.
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Fell asleep posting this at 4am, but engine is almost cleaned and ready to go in.
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And the engine bay is looking much cleaner. Trans area is insanely dirty. Might have to accept defeat on that one...just no time left!
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-Dave

oasis

August 22nd 2012, 22:57

Absolutely one of my all time favorite cars :cup1:

owdlvr

August 23rd 2012, 12:43

Wow. Thank you. Never thought I'd have someone say that about my car!

Well, this is what the car looked like at 1am last night, except the rear apron wasn't installed.
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At 1:01am this turned into the motor-clean from hell, as I went to go rotate the motor to TDC so I could check the valve adjustments. Motor wouldn't turn, locked solid. WTH? E-brake, off. Trans, neutral. WTF. I was already pretty tired from the previous nights early morning, but with time running out before the show I had no choice. The motor was stripped, dropped and checked again. Once the motor checked out okay, I discovered someone hadn't tightened up the countersunk trans mount bolt enough when he adjusted the transmission mount. Sigh.

Back in when the motor, and the carbs, and the wiring, and the oil lines. Now I just need to adjust the valves, change the filter, prime the oil system, add the spark plug wires, swap the distributor and I'm good to move onto other parts of the three-page list.

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Went to bed at 4:45am, considered staying up to watch the sunrise but the 3 hours sleep was probably a good idea.

-Dave

2.7911E

August 31st 2012, 23:33

Dave, It was nice talking to you at the GCVW show. I had no idea the car had been sooo dirty just before the show!! Great job!

owdlvr

September 10th 2012, 01:54

Dave, It was nice talking to you at the GCVW show. I had no idea the car had been sooo dirty just before the show!! Great job!

Hahaha, yeah it was just a wee bit dirty just days before. I also did the final wash and polish in a car wash near the hotel at about 2:30am after the Drag racing night...but we'll get to that a little later down. In the meantime, help me out. Obviously you didn't introduce yourself as "7.2911E", so what was your name and when did we get to chat? (it was a very long, busy weekend for me...sorry, I'm terrible with names faces and would like to remember)

-----

Well, the night before the big Great Canadian VW show weekend was spent chasing down all the little details that still hadn't been finished about the car. Some of them were small, like actually installing the antenna plug instead of the spot of silver vinyl which had been covering the hole.
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Other items, however, were a little more serious. As you can see, my seats are very tired and worn. I bought them used out of a National rally car, after it had been flipped upside down in a pond. That was 10 years ago...they've lived in my Audi 90 quattro rally car, the '69 beetle and now the Salzburg tribute. They've been my daily driven seats for about 8 of the last 10 years, so they're pretty tired.
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The image above is after I used a full can of Upholstery cleaner on each seat, which helped greatly. Gone were the coffee stains, ground in dirt and other issues. But remaining were the tears. I called various rally buddies, but couldn't get a set of seats to borrow on short notice. Hmmmm...would iron-on patches work?
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Surprisingly, yes they do. Sure, it's not perfect, but the tears are no longer screaming out to me like a flashing red-light.
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The last step was to trade out my worn-out belts for a loaner set from the Rally shop. The flash here is playing with the colours pretty badly, but you'll just have to trust me when I say everything is a nice uniform black now. The astute viewers might be wondering why the FIA tags are missing...lets just say these belts were "well used" in a shell that no longer exists ;)
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The show weekend wasn't without it's problems for my car, however. I dropped it off the axle stands on Friday, to drive down to the drag racing night, and discovered I had no clutch. The clutch pedal worked, I had resistance, but it wasn't releasing the transmission from the engine. I couldn't get it into any gear from neutral. But if I shut the car off, put it in gear and started it with my foot on the clutch it would start and idle. With no obvious solution, and no time to fix it, I just drove the car down regardless.

I didn't run the car at the drag racing night, partially due to the clutch issue but more due to the fact that I drove down on my Pirelli gravels and didn't really want to destroy the tires on the strip. Not to mention the wheel/tire combo is pretty damned heavy. After the drags, when I went to leave, my leg was hit with burning metal as I turned on the headlights. WTF?

Three, yes three, fuses blew all at once. I had no tail lights, no brake lights and no dash lights. Sigh. With no light at the track to fix it, and no spare fuses, Geoff followed me to the hotel and made sure I wouldn't get hit on the highway. Once there I pulled the tail lights apart and discovered I had vibrated both bulb holders out of the back of the housings. That explained the lack of lights, but why the blown fuses? Eventually I discovered a fresh-air hose (which was aluminum) had shifted, been crushed by the hood hinge and was resting against the back of the fuse panel! Yikes.

Other then that, it was trouble free for the rest of the weekend. I never did determine what the problem was with the clutch. As the weekend progressed, the problem started going away and by the time I drove home it was perfectly fine. I've had the car up on stands, checked everything (without pulling the motor) and can't find any reason for the error. It's not good, but it's also not a problem I can diagnose at the moment.

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The other day driving to Whistler I noticed the oil temp was running about 20deg higher then normal. Cycling through the various senders I also realized that the oil feeding into the engine was 30deg higher then the oil in the tank. That was definitely a bit odd, so I decided to investigate further.

In my efforts to increase the clearance between the oil lines and the ground, they now run far closer to the exhaust pipes, and my best guess is the feed lines are picking up a significant amount of heat from the exhaust:
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Out came the exhaust wrap, and some aluminum shielding...
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Today's drive to Vancouver had the oil temperatures back to normal, with all three sensors showing matched readings. Guess I found the problem :P

-Dave

2.7911E

September 16th 2012, 14:28

Hahaha, yeah it was just a wee bit dirty just days before. I also did the final wash and polish in a car wash near the hotel at about 2:30am after the Drag racing night...but we'll get to that a little later down. In the meantime, help me out. Obviously you didn't introduce yourself as "7.2911E", so what was your name and when did we get to chat? (it was a very long, busy weekend for me...sorry, I'm terrible with names faces and would like to remember)

I was with my brother-in-law in the orange turboed '68 from Calgary and was wanting to show him your wiring. heh heh I know it was pretty busy for you and I didn't really introduce myself. It was neat to talk to the owner/builder and see the car and I had only read about. Michael

2.7911E

September 16th 2012, 14:31

owdlvr

September 17th 2012, 10:33

I was with my brother-in-law in the orange turboed '68 from Calgary and was wanting to show him your wiring. heh heh I know it was pretty busy for you and I didn't really introduce myself. It was neat to talk to the owner/builder and see the car and I had only read about. Michael

Ahhhh yes, fully remember now. Too bad I didn't have more time, I would have liked the opportunity to fully check out your brother's car. From what I saw it was very intriguing.

-Dave

owdlvr

October 2nd 2012, 02:17

Well, I continue to use the bug as much as possible! Over the past two weekends I've done 3,496km on the bug...plus whatever I drove during the week. Last weekend I did half of that in just 30.5 hours, including sleep, while I setup the route for Classic Car Adventure's "Fall Freeze Adventure".
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The event itself was just over 1400km, but with the start 5 hours from my house, and the finish 3 hours away, the kilometers added up pretty quick. Prep for the event was supposed to be pretty simple, but quickly escalated into a long list of to-do items. First up, was tearing out the front suspension to figure out why the front strut was loose. A broken top spacer (likely caused by a loosened strut cap) was swapped out and everything put back into place.
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I also decided not to risk another event without a jack, having had to wait for Sweep to arrive with one on the Rush to Gold Bridge. A temporary mount was worked out, and later this week I'll figure out how to make it permanent in the car. It would be easy if I was willing to wreck the paint with welding...
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I was doing work on the rear suspension and ended up removing the skid plate. I was curious to know what the relationship between engine/oil heat and the skid plate would be, so I left it off for the first weekend of driving. Interestingly there was a significant difference. With the skid plate the engine reaches operating temperature much quicker, and runs between 200 and 220 deg F depending on how hard you're pushing the engine. I was seeing temps as high as 240 before I moved and insulated the oil lines (as per a previous post). Pulling the skid plate results in oil temps 15-30deg cooler, depending on the ambient air temperature. More testing is required to determine if I will need to change the plate shape, but going into the colder weather I don't think I will worry about it until spring.

I also took care of some more simple items, like grip tape on the floorboards.
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The Sparco seat has funny story. The last job on my list of preparation was to swap out one of my Cobra Imola2 seats for a wider seat. My dad was flying in from Toronto to co-drive the event for me, and I knew my seats would be uncomfortable for him. On his 60th birthday I called him up and told him he needed to go "race seat shopping" to find one that fits! A Sparco seat list arrived in my email box, and I went and snagged one out of a buddies rally car. Only after I had it all fitted, did I actually read the list that dad sent me. "Sparco Corsa - too tight (nasty!)" Well, crap. I ended up doing an emergency run down to Vancouver to borrow a Pro2000 out of another buddies rally car. By the dimension charts they are almost identical...but hey, whatever makes Dad happy. On Thursday I picked him up at the airport and we made our way off to the start location in Kamloops. I was pretty sure dad wasn't going to survive in the car for the whole weekend, it's bloody loud inside and he was commenting before we even left the airport! To make matters worse, the intercom stopped working Thursday night as we neared the hotel. I bought a butane powered soldering iron, foam earplugs and hoped for the best!

The event started with about an hour of 'normal' roads, nothing too twisty, or where it was twisty it was populated so speeds are heavily controlled. Soon we were out into the unpopulated areas, and as the first set of twisty corners were fast approaching, I figured it was a good time to test how well Dad was going to do as co-driver. I lifted, so that we were dropping in at about 60% of what I would have normally done, and without brakes drove into the first corner. "Uh, David, these things do roll."

First corner, fail.

Second corner, onto the gas and drop it in faster...maybe Dad will be impressed with the cornering ability of the bug build? (Dad has owned over 30 beetles, but all of them bone stock)...."daaaVID!!"

Hmmm, second corner? Fail.

I drove conservatively until our lunch stop, where I proceeded to swap the Driver's seat for the Passenger seat so that dad could take a turn at the wheel. I figured that since I had driven all the roads the weekend before, it was easier to just let Dad drive at a pace that made him comfortable vs. trying to convince him I was being perfectly safe. He drove for some of the afternoon, and when the noise was finally too much he jumped into one of the other entrant's BMW 2002. I took the opportunity to jump into John Hinde's 2010 Intermeccanica Roadster, and instantly realized that my next bug is going to need a 2.3L engine like Johns!
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Dad and I finished up day one together in the Bug, and were having a quite a bit of fun by the end of the day. I was text messaging my best friend from the passenger seat, and they're pretty funny:

2:30pm
45km into dad driving and he's starting to get comfortable with the car. "Don't lift! It will corner at that speed" ... "Whoa, it sure does."

2:45pm
60km into his stint and he's finding the light side of the limit. "Oops, that was a bit too fast."

3:15pm
"Dad, I think you're one of us now". "That didn't take long, did it?!"

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I left the seats as they were for day two and day three. Dad lives on the other-side of the country and hasn't driven any of these mountain roads before. Day two was full of left foot braking, and discovering just how well a beetle can handle. By day three, dad was dropping into corners and making ME grab for the 'oh s%&# handles'! It was an absolute blast. He was pretty impressed with the build, and the bug held up trouble free. And, really, what better way to spend a weekend with your father???

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Checking the oil level in Greenwood BC

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About to test the traction circle...

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Father and Son driving team

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The group lined up on the Kootenay Lake Ferry, morning of Day 2

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Group dinner at Tin Horn Creek winery

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Dad/John with the bug

-Dave

70Turbobug

October 2nd 2012, 05:12

I really love this project! Very well done and fantastic pics!! Thanks for sharing!

Mark

graham

October 3rd 2012, 01:43

I really love this project! Very well done and fantastic pics!! Thanks for sharing!

Mark

Well said Mark ,what a great car/thread amazing information and stunning images, brilliant.

Humble

October 3rd 2012, 17:31

Awesome report, glad to see your dad having some fun too :D I recently did the grip tape stripes on my floor like you did after slipping around with wet feet getting in and out of the bug.

NO_H2O

October 4th 2012, 07:06

Looks like it was another great event.

owdlvr

October 11th 2012, 16:36

Last weekend I was digging through a guy's Volkswagen parts collection when he showed me these. Wouldn't take a penny for them, but they'll display quite well with the car :)

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8043/8078005385_dbd5750788_b.jpg

-Dave

Clatter

October 16th 2012, 00:54

Dunno if you have ever looked at the skid plate that came on the Thing, or Safari.
It is more of a cage than a plate.
Always thought that the air moving under the car across the sump was helpful for cooling...

Maybe something like that would be helpful.
Top build.
Thanks for taking the time to post this all up.

owdlvr

October 18th 2012, 03:47

The operating temperature of my setup is heavily influenced by air temperature, skid plate, traveling speed and/or oil cooler ducting. One downside of my situation is that I haven't built an absolute race car, nor have I built a street car. The setup is initially quite sensitive to air temperature, and flow through the duct over the oil cooler. I'm starting to get a good feeling for the relationship between the two, and thus have different 'block-off-plates' for the duct opening in the side window. Once I mounted the skid plate, however, the block-off plates became unnecessary as the engine runs hotter and thus becomes fully controllable (temperature wise) by the oil cooler and fan combo. The hot summer days we got at the end of August, however, were causing oil temps of 240 when I was really pushing it. I anticipate I'm going to want a couple of skid plate options available to use. A solid plate, whenever possible for maximum protection, and a second plate with more airflow for the hotter days. Going into winter, though, I think I'm going to need to look at installing an oil-tank heater to speed cold weather warmup!

And, speaking of warmup, I started working on dialing in some items for winter today. The stock heater linkages were interfering with the Kafer bar setup, so the first job was under the car to shift things around, bend a bit of the stock heater linkage and confirm it all worked. No photos, as I think I've put enough of that area in this thread already! Following that, it was onto the gas heater where I simply had to adjust the ducting, and add some foam to try and stop the cold air blowing around the ducts into my lap. The air-conditioning was nice in the summer, but it's getting a little chilly in the mornings now!

You might, at this stage, think I've got more then enough heat in the car...and you're probably right. I've had my racing seats in my daily driver for the last 9 years, and ever since I popped them into my Audi I've missed the heated seats. I always thought about putting elements into the racing buckets, but it almost seems like blasphemy. A few weeks ago, when I was on the Fall Freeze, I was thinking about how nice heated seats would be on a sore back, and how much I loved it driving home from skiing. I suppose the 3500km in two weekends helped me remember what a sore back was like! As luck would have it, a friend Geoff was selling some heated seat kits when I returned home. Well, why not?

But first, we must do a temporary install on one seat to see if I really want to do this...

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8048/8099114560_213620db77_c.jpg

The elements were laid into the seat for initial trimming. On this first install, I'm going to install them behind the padding instead of right under the cover like a traditional seat. Traditional seat covers, whether fabric or leather, are usually fairly heavy. The covers on my race seats are almost t-shirt thin. The foam padding, before you sit on it and compress it, is only about 1/4-3/8" thick...so I believe the heat should pass through. If I get a bit of warmth, but not good and hot, I'll try the elements right under the cover. But for now, this temporary fitting requires no holes sewn.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8194/8099105439_56041f2ffb_c.jpg

This probably isn't FIA approved...but the switch is convenient to reach, and subtle enough to not be noticed.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8335/8099114702_f19718af4b_z.jpg

I thought this would be funny to post. Not my usual wiring standard! Since this is a temporary test, I left the kit wiring harness intact. If I decide to keep the warmers, I'll trim the harness down to it's bare minimum, mount it to the seat frame properly and put in a nice connector. At the moment I wired the seat heater into the reverse light circuit, since the relay right behind the driver's seat and I can go without for a day. Tomorrow morning should give me a good test to see if I'll keep 'em.

-Dave

Humble

October 18th 2012, 12:03

You know, once you kick that on during a particularly cold morning it's not coming out of the bug right? ;) I really miss heated seats and that is a must have for my new project.

DORIGTT

October 18th 2012, 22:07

Hey Humble,

Still interested in that Eberspacher BN2 I've got? That'll provide some heat!

Humble

October 19th 2012, 13:30

oh yeah! might end up using that for my new project :)

owdlvr

October 22nd 2012, 03:07

Couple of minor updates...

Forgot to post up the pedal set a while back. I do a tonne of left foot braking, and have always loved a larger middle pedal. I mounted these up a while back, but forgot to post some photos. The angle cut lets my size 12 shoe escape the gas pedal for those times when I need to heel-toe.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8324/8111814296_95aac1013a_c.jpg

I also decided to man-up this week. I have no fear of anything mechanical, but tuning the carbs still makes me lose sleep. I guess its like my last frontier...I can get 'em running, and do some gross adjustments, but I set 'em up rich to avoid melting down the motor. Time to step up my game!
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8465/8111825528_60a4a147f5_z.jpg

...course, fitting this into the bug is going to be interesting. Innovate's first instruction is "zip tie the LC-1 under the car..." um, no. That's not going to work.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8463/8111814228_5645050c58_c.jpg

Oh hey, I think I'll install a gauge, shouldn't be too big a deal!
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8047/8111806087_6d9ce555f5_z.jpg

The first 15min...
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8464/8111805881_f943825cc6_z.jpg

An hour later (not exaggerating), and the harness is through. Stupid foam.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8190/8111805985_591295f28a_z.jpg

Tucked up beside the carb, away from the rocks.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8332/8111814636_b580996929_z.jpg

And, somehow, it would appear I forgot shots of the dash. Whoops.

-Dave

oasis

October 29th 2012, 13:13

Dunno if you have ever looked at the skid plate that came on the Thing, or Safari.
It is more of a cage than a plate.

It is my understanding they are an exact fit on Type 181-coded engines specifically. In order to use it on another upright Type 1 engine code, one must do some drilling to the engine block to make it fit.

Since Thing's and Iltis's are included in my search pattern, I would think a solid skid plate like that of an Iltis would be better for someone who has to endure more robust circumstances whereas the Thing accommodation would be plenty for someone like me.

Bruce.

October 30th 2012, 17:05

Back "in the day" the amateur rally enthusiast Peter Noad fitted a tow bar to his bug to act as a sump guard. It works pretty well and he drove over some tough terrain. My brother copied the trick on his (volkworld featured) rally bug and grounding out on rough farm tracks was no problem.

Steve C

October 31st 2012, 21:20

Hi

If anyone is interested I have factory plans for the 181 style sump protectors for Type 1 & Type 4 motors.

Steve

owdlvr

November 15th 2012, 03:52

Hi

If anyone is interested I have factory plans for the 181 style sump protectors for Type 1 & Type 4 motors.

Steve

I'd be interested in those, curious to see them.

...In other news, now that I'm back from SEMA and mostly caught up I figured I would actually tackle the tuning of the bug. With the wideband hooked up I'm far less worried about blowing up the motor, so I poured a glass of wine, hooked up the laptop and pulled out the screwdrivers.

I just getting started when something caught my eye, something I would have never caught without the Weber doors. Seems my 3/4 accelerator pump cover lost the pivot pin. Crap! Where am I going to get a replacement for that?

Oh wait...what's that on the Colt?
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8338/8187515904_a89d6a3101_z.jpg

Spare, genuine, Weber parts! Fortunately Empi's Chinese suppliers are good 3D photocopiers, and the Weber pump cover popped right on without problems.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8343/8186473467_b4fbd367e9_c.jpg

With that, it was back to tuning. The way the carbs were originally setup up (by ear, and rich). I was running at 11.5:1 at idle, dropping to 10.5 under full load. In other words, very rich! With the Wideband I was able to set up the sitting idle at 13.5:1. The result of which means when I'm driving around town I'm seeing anywhere from 13.5-14.5 under partial throttle/loads, and then going to a 12:1 ratio under full load.

WOW what a difference. I seriously should have done this months ago. It's crisp, any of the running issues or quirks are gone, and it's got significantly more power. Took a buddy out in the car (who's been in it lots) and after a single pull on the highway he was asking about what new parts I had put in the engine.

Of course, now that I have a sweet Wideband setup, I need to figure out how to protect it from gravel...
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8488/8187516798_0c6f5dd664_z.jpg

Vibrant Performance & DCI Heat Shielding to the rescue. Technically I'm not using the product as designed, and I will need to build something a little more robust down the road...but Totem rally (snow and ice) is this coming weekend and I needed a quick fix to last a few days. This material is rock solid with the curve, and even my ball peen hammer wasn't making a mark. That pretty much tells me it will be folded around the O2 sensor by the end of the weekend, but probably won't allow the sensor to be damaged :P
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8346/8187517458_75e1808015_z.jpg

I picked up enough of the material to protect the exhaust wrap on the muffler as well, but will wait until after the weekend to re-do the wrap. Snow tires should be here tomorrow, and I can finish packing the car for the event. I won't be racing this one (I'm event steward) but at least I will get out for some fun roads and winter sliding.

-Dave

volkdent

November 15th 2012, 12:51

Dave, I didn't know you went to SEMA!!! I was there Thurs and Fri, I wish I knew it would have been nice to meet! I'm from BC, but I only get there about every 4 years, so the chances are actually better of meeting up at SEMA then BC!

Jason

owdlvr

November 15th 2012, 15:15

Indeed!

I saw your photos after my return. The WiFi at my hotel was absolutely terrible, so the trip ended up being all business.

-Dave

Steve C

November 18th 2012, 22:47

I'd be interested in those, curious to see them.

Hi

Plans for the 181 style sump protector, Type 1 & Type 4 and it looks like the updated one for a 2 litre.

These are from a VW publication called "Journeys under difficult conditions"

It also has a protection plate for the jack point

Steve

http://i1184.photobucket.com/albums/z328/1303Steve/sumppro4.jpg~original

http://i1184.photobucket.com/albums/z328/1303Steve/sumppro41.jpg~original

http://i1184.photobucket.com/albums/z328/1303Steve/sumppro1.jpg~original

owdlvr

November 30th 2012, 03:35

Well, Totem Rally didn't exactly work out as planned. The event started out well enough...I had great drive up, and Saturday was a tonne of fun. The morning stages were mostly gravel due to warmer temperatures, but as we climbed up in elevation we got to see some colder temps and 'old snow'. The car started to feel 'right', and I was getting used to it on the slippery stuff which was a relief beyond reliefs.

See, I swapped from super-stiff sidewall summer performance tires to snow tires, and then immediately left on a five hour drive over the Duffy Lake road to the rally start. The Duffy is a mountain pass full of twisties and dangerous corners, which I pretty much know like the back of my hand and usually enjoy. The entire trip the car felt like it was trying to kill me. You'd turn the wheel, the car would turn in...followed by the sidewalls flexing and then it would REALLY turn in. Horribly unpredictable and near deadly before I wisely calmed down.

But yes...by mid-day Saturday, I was back to getting along with the car on all surface types.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8198/8204307789_10760804e6_z.jpg

Saturday afternoon was a blast. Mud, gravel, a bit of snow and then a "late on transit" night time blast through mud and ice with the odd fallen tree. Fun is seeing a downed tree, hitting the brakes and having to do the split-second determination of whether a) you lost all brakes on the car 'somewhere back there' or b) that's ice, not water and you have no grip. Oh yes! B. Quick, adapt! Alas, a stage later and the fun was over.

The last two stages for the day were cancelled due to multiple road blockages. I came upon the rally group as they gathered at a bridge, and stopped the car. I left it idling as I got out and walked four cars down the row to get the latest update. A brief chat, and walking back to the car I noticed the air had a lot of exhaust vapor. Wait, "is that my car making all that smoke?" OH #$%!!!!!!!!! It is! We're talking blown-motor, can no longer see the cars parked around me smoke-show. I jumped in, oil-pressure light was on, and shut it off just as my brain registered the 0psi on the oil pressure gauge.

Checked the oil tank, completely empty. Checked under the car, as best we could with flashlights, no major oil leaks that we could find...though the skid plate was coated. I filled the oil tank with the 5L extra I had and started the car. After about 20 seconds, the oil pressure light went out and 20psi popped up on the gauge. (this, for the record, is normal procedure when filling the system from dry). While the procedure determined the oil system was working, there was no diagnosing where all the oil disappeared to. Thus, I had sweep rope-tow me 40km to the highway, where we dumped the car. From there I had a 14 hour towing adventure with borrowed vehicles that still didn't get the car to my house. Sigh.

I met the guys who owned this Mercedes about 10min before they offered to loan it to me for an overnight towing adventure...a bit nuts, but I wasn't going to complain!
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8485/8204306633_62f63a740c_z.jpg

Getting the car on and off the trailer, however, required some creative techniques.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8344/8205398472_c65e893e61_z.jpg

That was two and half weeks ago, and finally last Friday I was able to pickup up the car and bring it home. Driven hard, and put away wet. Yeah, this cleanup was going to suck. It started with a $10 trip to the car wash, where I thought I had gotten most of it. Once it was on axle stands in my garage I realized how much more mud there was...

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8348/8232015178_a6f4b5912e_c.jpg

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8349/8232015430_77a70377ed_c.jpg

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8057/8232014948_be136b976b_c.jpg

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8059/8232015316_75d3ae299c_c.jpg

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8486/8230952953_508ee2195c_z.jpg

So, a second wash in my garage...and then the floor...and then I could start on tear down.

Yeah...that's probably not a good sign:
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8338/8232016134_50c71fa3e5_c.jpg

I'm seriously thinking of switching to track racing. This is just brutal :P
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8205/8232016274_24b1bafba4_c.jpg

Now, I suppose at this point I should mention the magical beast which is my oil system. See, when the motor blew deep in the woods of Lac La Hache we found no oil in the tank, and added 5L. When I pulled the car off the trailer, however, the tank was overflowing onto the floorboards. The breather tanks were overflowing into the engine bay and the actual engine had half a dipstick worth in it. Now I have all the oil I was missing, PLUS the extra 5L! After some thought, it seemed pretty clear the scavenge stage of the oil pump must have failed and it was no longer removing oil from the engine. Once the system had pumped all the oil into the engine, there was none left to pull from the tank and thus zero oil pressure. The heads would have been stuffed full, and thus we get the massive smoke show.

But here's the trick shot. The BugPack oil pump is 100% a-okay:
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8069/8232016626_172e448ef1_c.jpg

So what happened? And why did 'it' fail, and then start working again (as evidenced by the pump emptying the engine and overflowing everything else)?

So far I've managed to disassemble the entire engine and I've found no clues. The pistons and cylinders are perfect, the main bearings look like they're barely used. The rod bearings look like they've been run for about 20min, the cam bearings are basically new and the lifters and cam are also perfect. The pickup is tight, and clear. I still need to test the line from the pump to tank, but that's not a very likely failure point. It's a total mystery. At this stage I'm going to have to reassemble and simply not leave the car idling without being in the driver's seat.

On the plus side, my heads are beginning to show the 65,000+ miles they have on them. The combustion chambers cleaned up nice, but when I pulled the valves for a cleaning I found two guides with lots of play and one guide broken (with bits missing) in the exhaust port. The heads are going to visit Darren at K-Roc heads for a much needed 'refurbish' while I continue to clean the mud and oil off of every component from the front bumper to the rear bumper.

Track racing seems like it would be a whole lot cleaner...

-Dave

al_kaholik

November 30th 2012, 04:51

That mud is everywhere. Where do you even start to clean that all off?

Could you look to install some defelctors on the inside of the rear wings?

Hope that the engine is fine once its back together, always a worry when it can't be diagnosed

owdlvr

November 30th 2012, 18:45

Yeah, it's been a week of cleaning stuff, and I'm still not all the way through it. On the plus side, I probably would have overheated a head shortly after the event without cleaning all the mud off :)

Dish duty at my house is a little different...
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8060/8232646597_f92205a72c_c.jpg

Broken valve guide, and the reason the heads are off getting some work done.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8489/8233710366_078985d863_z.jpg

-Dave

70Turbobug

December 1st 2012, 06:48

Hi Dave,
yes...mud is your friend! :D The good thing is,now you see where improvements need to be made and what could be done to make things easier to clean for the future.Or switch to track racing :D
Concerning your oil problem: A possible reason (that I am certain of) could be that your crankcase ventilation is not sufficient.On my old car,I´ve had a very similar problem before and I enlarged my crank case ventilation to an AN-16 and a larger breatherbox.After that no oil pressure problems and a decrease in oil temps also,but most important,no more oil leaks from the valve covers or elsewhere.

Mark

owdlvr

December 3rd 2012, 14:04

Heads are back. Main case is assembled, should have the motor ready to install before bed.

-Dave

owdlvr

December 4th 2012, 07:00

Engine is reassembled and ready to go in tomorrow after I get some help lifting it off the stand. I ended up getting the wrong exhaust gaskets for the muffler to pipes, so I'll probably be making a set of four tomorrow. Fun!

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8482/8243278267_2d8e6750c3_z.jpg
I re-wrapped the exhaust again, for the third time. Every time I hit gravel it tears the wrap and start little flaps of wrap hanging down from the muffler. Thus, this time I decided to do something about it.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8489/8243278367_3123b8bc2b_z.jpg
The metal sheet is aluminum heat-shield from DCI Performance Products in Australia. Trimmed to fit, it should make a nice stone guard to keep the rocks from tearing up the heat wrap.

...and in place:
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8204/8243278471_d997731416_z.jpg

it's going to be a smoke-show for a while after start-up, the muffler has a nice coating of oil inside all of the internals. I tried to clean it out with some degreasers, but doesn't appear to have been too effective. So tomorrow I'll figure out gaskets, hopefully install the motor, and start cleaning the interior mess. Should fire the car back up on Wednesday if things go to plan.

-Dave

spannermanager

December 4th 2012, 12:40

Hi Dave, stick with it, your doing well, but its making you work for your fun right enough, the only thing i can see from the pump pics, is the tank feed unions in the pump look very restrictive, at first i thought, easy one, 'spun gears', but i can see they are keyed, so its not that. the pump is having it easy pulling oil from the tank, then struggling to return it, that restrictive size on the return and a high tank position would just be enough to tip the balance, especialy if there are more add ons on the return line with similar sized fittings, 5/8" is the minimum, 3/4" wont hurt, if you run a filter screen on the pickup tube, check it has good clearance to the pick up tube base, i cut these angled to help scavanging, some early engine cases, and most brazil cases, use a too small pick up tube size for dry sump, i also like to run 8lts minimum oil tank vol' on race tracks, as its quite possible to have 3 or 4 ltr 'hidden' in the motor and up the rocker boxes etc with g and braking involved, and then you get tank surge. food for thought anyway.... best regards.

owdlvr

December 19th 2012, 17:37

Thanks for the thoughts! Sorry I have neglected to reply to them. The current oil setup, including the fittings, was modeled after the Huebbe brother's setup. They've been stage rallying their car without oil issues for a few years now, which is why I figured it was the safest way to go. I have been looking into new fittings on the pump, however, as I think you're right...they do look pretty restrictive. Only the fittings on the pump are the steel industrial units, everything else is a proper aluminum -8AN fitting. The steel fittings on the pump are the same fittings the Huebbe's and I have used without problems (until now)...but at this stage I should be tweaking everything I can.

Upon reassembly I obviously measured everything, once again, but this time found one item which I had missed on previous builds. The magnetic drain plug was long enough to be touching the screen. While it *shouldn't* cause a problem, with heat I suppose it's possible that it could have reduced the opening gap for the pickup. Next time I have the engine apart I plan to cut the pickup on an angle to reduce the chances of a occurrence. For now I've tossed a washer in as a spacer. Sometimes the quick fix is just as good. The motor has been back together for two weeks, and I've put almost 2,500km on it. So far the engine has been trouble free, and I'm even letting it idle for short periods while I walk away. I guess you could say I'm testing my luck, but so far there hasn't been any problems.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8479/8244347210_774900512b_c.jpg

A new issue, which is probably related, is that the Accusump stopped holding pressure. Now to be fair, I think this was an issue prior to the big failure...but I broke the gauge on the Accusump months ago and haven't fixed it. In order to swap out the gauge I needed to remove the Accusump, so I was simply waiting until an oil change with some time. Over the previous months I've noticed it was slowly leaking down pressure, like if I left the car for a week or more it wouldn't have the pressure to pre-oil. Without having the gauge on the unit I couldn't tell if it was the ball-valve leaking down, or an issue with the Accusump. Once installed with the new gauge, I quickly determined it was leaking down. Within a couple of days of use, it wasn't holding any pressure (or indeed building pressure when the engine was running). A few emails to Canton Racing and it was agreed the internal seals on the piston were probably in need of replacing. Considering I've been using it daily, not really surprised.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8494/8276433466_371ab26a89_c.jpg
The Accusump isn't designed for user-servicing. Canton requires that all units are sent back to the factory, except for a few teams who do refurbish their own. I was given the go-ahead, and a list of mistakes to avoid. But first, one has to create a key to get into the secret vault...

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8057/8276433662_3196d6a3a0_c.jpg

With that done, I popped open the Accusump and immediately found the problem. The first thing they check when rebuilding these units is scoring on the cylinders. If the cylinder is scored, the unit needs to be replaced...and I won the bad-luck lottery. Obviously the Accusump ate some hard particles at some point, which I suppose isn't surprising considering I've roasted a couple of motors with it. The score marks are also on "the bottom" of the cylinder with respects to how I had it mounted, so the particle(s) were probably settled on the bottom and then caught up in the seals.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8339/8275369693_2ea5310a3c_c.jpg

A few emails back and forth with Canton, and I'm going to need a new Cylinder. Since they don't sell refurbishment parts, that's going to be a challenge as I missed the production run for the year. Hmmmm. They're looking to see if they can find a cosmetic blemish unit, and in the meantime I've decided to clean up the scoring marks. While waiting for the correct sized O-rings, I figured I would try the closest-fit from the local industrial shop, just to see if I'm wasting my time. In went the O-rings, in went the Accusump and voila! Holding pressure...for a while. Interestingly it's now holding oil pressure, but not holding pressure on the air-side of the chamber. I suspect with the proper sized o-rings it will all work as planned. Might make it without a new cylinder after all!
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8079/8288295067_07047cd0a7_z.jpg

Also started on a new project for the car, I've been getting tired of 'bouncy tach', and tore apart a spare Stewart-Warner performance Tach to start playing around with sizes. It's going to take a bit of work to get it to fit/work in a 914 Tach housing, but i have some ideas on how to make it work.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8081/8289354636_f4ec8b92e3_z.jpg

I also spent some time tuning the gas heater this week. I was having some issues with it cutting out, or taking a long time to fire up. Through adjustments to the flame switch I think I've finally got it running close to factory spec. It now runs continuously without cutting out, which is great. I should be getting just a bit more heat out of it, but my fuel pump adjustment is maxed out. That's the Achilles heel with using a gas heater these days, the pumps aren't available new and everyone I have is just slightly under the factory spec for output.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8492/8276433386_71946c115b_c.jpg

-Dave

70Turbobug

December 21st 2012, 02:00

I have the same gas heater and was never able to get it dialed in perfectly.My problem was just the opposite though, it was always running way too rich and bellowing black smoke.My guess is the combustion chamber is corroded.I'm contemplating whether I should overhaul it or not. I will contact Eberspächer here in Germany and find out if there are parts available.I'll let you know what I find out.

owdlvr

December 31st 2012, 23:59

I assume you've tried dropping the fuel flow through the fuel pump adjustment? If you find you need parts let me know, I have another five or six on the shelf and would be ready to split one down for parts.

-----

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8353/8331351353_0c77d175ba_z.jpg
Back to the beetle!

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8217/8332408164_0649ddcd46_z.jpg
We've had a fantastic December in the area as far as snow is concerned, which has been fun for the bug and I. Learning the switch from All-Wheel-Drive to RWD has been, uh, interesting...but I've got the hang of it for the most part. I have stuffed good at least once, but following a few snowstorms I'm feeling pretty comfortable up into mid-fourth gear. Now I need to transfer it to more slippery surfaces, as I've got 20 days to ice racing!

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8083/8332218572_102287e98f_c.jpg
Started playing around with the tachometer project, its going to be a little more involved then I anticipated. I need to work out how to remove 3/4" in depth from the Stewart Warner tach internals before moving forward. I think I've figured out how to attach a face-dial, and the Porsche needle will simply need to be drilled out to fit the SW motor.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8082/8331161593_cb84614cc1_z.jpg
On the one hand, my motor will definitely be rust free. On the other hand, an oil leak is never appreciated. Turns out the pressure switch was leaking through and out the electrical connection. Rather annoying, as with the Christmas rush it took a couple of days to figure out that simply tightening things up back there wasn't solving the issue! Finally stopped to run the engine while I watched, and the issue was quickly determined (and solved).

...and, yeah. I guess I should include this here too. This was a pretty good Christmas present to get from Stephan Szantai!
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8354/8332218874_319ecda64d_z.jpg

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8077/8332219018_d2e7c44e72_z.jpg

-Dave

70Turbobug

January 1st 2013, 05:20

Congratulations on the magazine article! Yes,I´ve tried adjusting the fuel flow and was able to reduce the smoke quite a bit,but never down to to an acceptable level.My guess is the combustion chamber is dirty or rusted or something is clogged.I´ll know once I have time to take it apart.

NO_H2O

January 1st 2013, 10:29

Everyone who builds a nice car would love to see it featured in a magazine. Most don't get to see it happen. I was very happy when my car was featured in Hot VW way back in July 07. Congratulation. You worked very hard for that.

Gerrelt

January 1st 2013, 17:25

Congratulations, you deserve the magazine article!!

owdlvr

January 12th 2013, 16:25

Thanks guys! I'm stoked.

------------

Well, it's back to other projects! I was invited to check out a driver training center just North of Whistler, and so popped the car up on axle stands Thursday to give it a "pre-event" check. I was anticipating an issue with the rear wheel bearings on the right-side, and I wasn't "disappointed". The metal washer between the disc and bearing spacer had cut into the seal, destroying the first lip. Dirt then destroyed the second lip and the outer bearing had water/dirt ingested.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8493/8371850586_74df6b3bf8_c.jpg

Normally the job is annoying, but not too difficult. Public Service Tip: if you weld all new lower shock mounts onto your control arms, confirm that you can still remove the axle stub before assembling the car for the final time. Oops. Once I pulled the shock out I was able to get *just* enough room to cut away the required material. A mere 5mm was all I needed. With the stub axle free, the job was as per any other Volkswagen. Greasy but easy. Alas, we had incredible amounts of snow in the last few days, and the skid pad plowing went much slower then anticipated. Event postponed...but I'll get out there soon enough.

The Pre-event check also determined that the mud simply never stops. Geesh.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8352/8373260431_6f1ac32e68_z.jpg

Back to the tach project. Started with a lot of measuring, and some basic drawings / concepts to figure out the direction I was going to go.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8233/8370781749_5df24a61e4_c.jpg

In order to get the drawings perfect I'm using a combination of Rhino3D, and then exporting it to Adobe Illustrator before finally exporting it to my vinyl cutter. The three steps opens a lot of room for file error, so test cuts are required.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8082/8370781849_4752ec21c6_c.jpg

Once the file was sorted out, various stages of 'look' for the tach dial.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8098/8371849896_114fe94225_c.jpg

The new tach will have the turn signal indicator where I can see it, as well as the high-beam indicator and an oil-cooler fan indicator so I can see when the fan is on (either tripped by the thermostat or by my override switch)
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8506/8374403248_c3c8ab309c_z.jpg

After modifying the internals of the Stewart Warner Tach, and then determining that my original plan of mounting it all inside the Porsche housing wasn't going to work, it was off to the Lathe! Unfortunately, this is where the project sits for the next little while. A slight 'lathe accident' means I'm on the hunt for a new 914 tach housing :P
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8503/8371850398_05793a00e8_z.jpg

-Dave

volkdent

January 13th 2013, 01:57

Ouch! It's amazing how fast a project turns junk after a lathe "incident"!

Jason

wrenchnride247

January 13th 2013, 21:16

Yep, thin walled items don't stand a chance! :D

owdlvr

January 13th 2013, 22:13

wrenchnride247

January 14th 2013, 21:21

"Hmmm, this is so thin I can't really clamp it super-tight without deforming it. Ah well, lets try anyways"

...surprisingly made it about 4min before I was jumping back to avoid the housing flying off the chuck. Okay, not my smartest move.

-Dave

I have done the same thing...more than once! :lmao: The way I got around it was to use a bull nose "live" center in the tail stock to put pressure on part against some round stock with rubber glued to the end in the chuck...the hard part is getting the piece centered enough to cut. ;)

owdlvr

February 11th 2013, 21:22

Well, rather long since an update. Whoops. Canton Racing and I had been talking about refurbishing my 1-quart Accusump, and after trying a few of their suggestions we determined the damage was too extensive. Lucky for me, however, as Canon Racing loved the build and sent me a little care package:

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8519/8463972130_c77be335db_z.jpg

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8382/8462871161_76af63fb56_c.jpg

Inside was a 2-Quart Accusump, and Canon Racing Products oil filter. Part of the issue with my original Accusump could have been attributed to less-then-ideal filtering, and this new oil filter cuts down to 8-microns. I'm pretty stocked to add this into the oil system.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8232/8462872113_48f8e55109_c.jpg

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8109/8463972424_a03faf15b4_c.jpg

Installed and working like a charm. I'm back to pre-oiling before each startup, which I feel much better about.

You may have noticed the paper towel stuffed down beside the heating pipe...had a bit of 'fun' while swapping out the Accusumps. I was undoing the AN fitting on the old sump, sure that the line was depressurized since the gauge said zero. But just as I'm doing the last 1/4 turn my brain asks "what if there is no pressure on the air side, and the piston is all the way against the case?" BOOM! The line released and about 1/2 quart of oil went EVERYWHERE. My jeans were ruined, but only because I worked frantically to clean off the headliner, windows, back of the driver's seat, floor, door cards and everything else. Did I mention I was going to a work Christmas Party (we do ours in Jan) and thought "oh I'll just do a quick swap before I leave."? Oops.

I also got fed up with people who think they're funny at Gas stations, and decided to add a touch of clarity to the roof logo on the car. No more questions or jokes regarding a certain 30's-40's German political party.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8238/8463971686_3d510cd787_z.jpg http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8524/8463971798_1e008c3857_z.jpg

…and then I got a few weeks of trouble free driving before the car started spitting a popping a bit on idle during warmup. I figured I had a bit of tuning to do, but had a couple of busy days at work which included trips back and forth to Whistler. This coincided with my wide band 02 sensor taking a dive, so it was hard to say whether or not I was experiencing a major issue. On day two, I noted a bubble in the paint on the apron upon arriving in Whistler. Doh. Limped it home, cleaned the jets in the carb, checked the timing and then fired it up. Within seconds the apron on the left side was noticeably hotter then the right. Pulled the apron off, and there's your problem!! No wonder the wideband was showing impossibly lean settings at idle!
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8530/8463971442_9b4b71b05c_z.jpg

The emergency exhaust gaskets I got on the last engine install were apparently really short-life units!
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8512/8462871425_03db332295_c.jpg

I knew getting gaskets to fit the Vintage Speed exhaust in my hometown wasn't going to happen. And while AVRparts.com had a set on the shelf, that means they would have a system they couldn't sell until replacements came in. Time to find a better option!
http://a248.e.akamai.net/origin-cdn.volusion.com/brkc4.4tqja/v/vspfiles/photos/GS16024-2.jpg

http://catalog.remflex.com/v/vspfiles/assets/images/hatch_words_web2.jpg

I've read a lot about Remflex gasket material, it's 100% graphite material, and is often used successfully for pitted and warped header flanges. Could be awesome in this application, as the Vintage Speed flanges are pretty long and narrow, making them challenging to seal if you're not careful. The Remflex is 1/8" thick, and crushes down to 1/16" (but seals long before that apparently). I traced out the flange, and cut out gaskets using a hobby knife and punch for the bolt holes. So far, so good! If the gaskets aren't the reason I pull the exhaust next, they'll definitely be a success.

-Dave

al_kaholik

February 14th 2013, 05:22

The gasket material looks good, interested to hear the results on it.

owdlvr

March 6th 2013, 03:42

Whew, long time no post! Funny how that happens when I'm out enjoying and using the car, vs. building it.

A few days after installing the Remflex gasket material, I was heading over the Duffy Lake road on my way to The Thunderbird Rally. I was almost past the point of no return when I smell alerted me to a problem. Yup, burned out number 4 again...and this time it was the Remflex that was 100% gone. Clearly my issues were bigger then just the gasket material. I checked my watch, and was a little over 40min away from the closest town...and it was 4:40pm on a Friday night. Not good! I hammered down the road, and into a tire shop and general repair shop to peruse their gasket selection. I found a few that were close enough, and then hit the local snowmobile shop for a roll of header wrap. A parking lot backwoods repair was done, and I was on my way.

Since I'll forget to update it later, it turns out the issue was not the gasket materials, but that I had overtightened the flange when I last had the motor out and they were no longer mating flat. With the pressure localized on the ends, the gasket would blow out in the middle every time. I have since repaired it and enjoy leak free driving without issues...

For Thunderbird, I was serving the role of "Chief Steward", which is to say that if there were any protests, or issues with the rally I was the guy who would make the final call one way or the other. This also allowed me to checkpoint the rally, and run the whole route without competing. I figured after the last event having a few more 'shakedown' events on the car wouldn't hurt. And, as it would turn out, I was 100% correct. The next morning I was heading off to my first checkpoint, on regularity (stage) one, without a co-driver. I was probably...okay, I was definitely...going too quick. What can I say, I was having fun in the light dusting of snow and loose gravel. I came around a right-hander and saw three yumps which were definitely far too large for the speed I was going. With little time to react I opted for ensuring I didn't end up in the ditch or a tree, car be damned. Coming down off the first one, I was landing on the second. The rear went clean through to the bump-stops, and then I was hitting the third. Instantly I knew there was an issue, but kept the car pointed in the right direction and slowed down until I could pull off safely.

Crawling under the car I was met with a rather interesting sight, which I'll admit took me a few seconds to figure out:

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8517/8532592873_49431d2c88_c.jpg

The observant amongst you might notice that something is missing. I could see the shock body, I could see the spring. I could see the lower spring perch but oddly enough there was no shock shaft joining the upper and lower halves of the assembly! Now, a normal person would probably look at this and think "call a trailer", but rally people have never been accused of being normal. I could see from the way the shock body was wedged, and how much movement it has without a spring, that there was very little risk of losing the spring out of the assembly. The embarrassment of not making the finish of another event was too much to consider, so I jumped in and began to figure out the new handling characteristics.

By the end of day one I was getting pretty comfortable with the car, and I had pushed it enough to know that I wasn't going to be at any real risk of losing the spring. I could take it easier on the gravel sections, and go with a much heavier foot in the snowy sections. By the end of the event, I was thoroughly enjoying myself. Sure, I had heavily damaged my car (who knows what else went with the shock), but it held together and I had figured it out enough to have a tonne of fun driving it. I drove home over the Duffy, which was snowy by this point, and I found that special bond you hope to build with a car. That moment where you can't wipe the smile off your face, that point where enjoyment and experience outweighs the build, the cost, the headaches and everything else. That spot where the car I imagined on paper was finally materializing in experience.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8391/8533703138_8a652283bf_c.jpg

Of course, one still has to fix the damage.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8252/8532592601_0ed0991631_c.jpg

Upon teardown of the rear suspension the first thing I noticed was there was no longer any bump stop attached to the trailing arm. My best guess, based on the experience is that I lost the bump stop on the first big hit, which then allowed for the shock to bottom out completely. The shocks haft snapped off right at the lower eyelet, at the beginning of the threads which are a stress-riser. Initially I was concerned that the shock was getting a side-load under full compression, but the missing bump stop (and cycling it through without a spring), points to a simple bottom out failure.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8090/8532592665_0caf2aacbb_c.jpg

Both the upper and lower hardware had the faintest of bends in the bolts (visible only when rolled on glass), so they were replaced. The load travelled through the Kafer bar to the right-hand side, where the upper bar mount snapped clean off at the weld. Needless to say, it had to be a big hit! While technically the QA1 shocks are rebuildable, and all parts are replaceable, for time sake I picked up another unit and installed it. The Kafer brace was removed, a new stronger mount welded up, and replaced. Sorry, no photos as I was trying to get the car running for work the next day!

The upper shock body received some damage from leaning against the body all weekend.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8516/8533702890_dbd1037af4_c.jpg

More updates coming, but I think this one is probably long enough…

-Dave

owdlvr

March 11th 2013, 16:05

I call this next shot "why I will never POR15 new metal again"...
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8100/8533703188_da1e40be71_z.jpg

It literally just peeled off the bottom of the floorboards, iphone included in the sweeping up for scale:
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8370/8532593081_8d4a2de2b9_z.jpg

Interestingly enough, any of the "old metal" (spine, torsion bar housings, etc.) which was prepped the same way is fine...can't take the POR15 off with a chisel. So, I let the bare pans 'season' for a day or two and then repainted them. We'll see how this holds up...
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8528/8533703298_cf9932654b_c.jpg

-Dave

ricola

March 12th 2013, 14:07

I found that too, POR just doesn't stick to clean metal or if the metal is too smooth, I also had issues with metal that had been prepped with a wire wheel in an angle grinder..

wrenchnride247

March 12th 2013, 21:24

Its made to use on rusty metal. There's a chemical reaction that happens.

owdlvr

March 13th 2013, 01:48

Which, normally I would agree with you, but their metal etch is supposed to solve that problem!

Ah well, I just 'seasoned' the pans by letting them get a bit of rust scale on them. Not mirror smooth (as you can see in the photos) but will hold now.

wrenchnride247

March 13th 2013, 20:50

Yes, the etch "metal ready" or new name "prep and ready" is made to prep surface before coatings are applied, but the POR-15 was originally made to react with rusty metal, and I never had luck with it sticking to "good" metal. I did the same thing you did 10 years ago ;)

owdlvr

April 30th 2013, 16:14

Whew...it's been a while since I've updated, and unfortunately not a lot of photos. I've been distracted, but we'll get to that.

The car was essentially trouble free all of March and April, until two weeks before the Hagerty Spring Thaw. I clogged a jet on the way home from Whistler one day, and despite cleaning it out had some serious tuning issues coming back from a parts run (which is about 2hrs each way for me). The tailpipes were showing lean, the wide-band was showing lean, but the plugs looked good. WTF? I hadn't changed any jets...just cleaned them. I worked on some tuning off and on, but was getting very strange results. I'd change the main jets, but the idle mixture would change. I'd move up three jet sizes (in steps) and the first two would show logical changes while the third would blow the wide-band off the scale in some strange way. This was all happening in the final week before the Spring Thaw. My business partner and I were working long hours to make sure everything goes off perfectly at the event. I'd get an hour or two for tuning, get no results, and have to get back to pre-organizing duties. It was incredibly frustrating.

Finally I decided to go all the way back to the beginning. Well, actually the car decided for me when it blew out an exhaust gasket (again). The car went up on axle stands, and I made plans to adjust the valves, set the timing, start with a set of base jets (by the math), fix the exhaust gaskets and try again. The heads had been fully reworked in November by Darren (K-Roc Heads), so I was really confused why every single valve was tight. I was exhausted, so when I popped on the 3/4 valve cover, removed the paper towel on the heater box and was met with a piece of valve spring…

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8403/8695910007_dc0a0ed7f2_c.jpg

Really?

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8534/8697029740_59d218943d_o.jpg

Darren and I chatted, and we both realized that I have almost 80,000 miles on this set of springs. More then double what either of us would have suspected. While they were fine in November, clearly that wasn't the case anymore. Thankfully Darren had put dual-springs into my heads many years ago, so when the outer spring failed, He offered me his on-car replacement tool, and had a full set of dual valve springs ready for me…two hours away. Good thing too:

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8536/8695910109_84a45f3e2d_c.jpg

While driving to get the valve springs, I realized my valve adjustment issue. In my stress of organizing and lack of sleep, I had neglected to consider that I have chromoly pushrods and thus adjust to loose-zero, not .006"! Whoops. With springs and exhaust gaskets installed, valves adjusted and timing reset, I cleaned the carbs…finding mud in the choke area which isn't used by the Empi HPMX version. Mud eh? Hmmm. Don't let anyone tell you I'm easy on equipment.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8113/8695909625_79743513cd_z.jpg

Well, with that cleaned out I started tuning for lean-best-idle…and still had exhaust popping. Soon a hairline 2" crack was spotted, and off came the apron & exhaust. It would seem that at some point an impact resulted in a crack on the muffler at the #2 inlet (actually on the little pipe sticking out of the muffler to the flange. The resulting movement probably attributed to the gasket failure issues I was having earlier this season. It was 11pm, but my buddy Scott still took it home, welded it up, and brought it back. Killer service, and help from a buddy who leaves for work at 6am. It was too late to tune, but not too late to get a good night sleep.

Amazing how easy the tuning is when there aren't a bazillion other problems causing weird results! Within two hours I had lean-best-idle, idle jets set, mains sorted and the airs figured out. My AFR numbers were spot on everywhere except for a lean condition when cruising at 3000-3200rpm. While I knew Darren and Geoff were going bat-**** crazy with all my calls and texts regarding tuning, I was at a loss. The RPM range said it should be mains, but changing them didn't help and made other things worse. Maybe a combination of Airs and Mains? changing didn't seem to get the results I needed. A final text sent to Darren (with crossed fingers) and a suggestion came back "go one up on the idle jets". I did, and what you know. Running fantastic for the Spring Thaw…with 20 hours to spare!

-Dave

dub_crazee

May 1st 2013, 12:07

cool story and great dedication - i love reading your posts!

dub_crazee

May 1st 2013, 12:07

oh - and those springs are crazy! could have been a whole lot worse!

owdlvr

May 1st 2013, 18:03

Darren said to me while I was picking up the new springs "best thing about dual valve springs? If you break a spring, the inner spring usually holds the valve so you don't destroy the engine." THANK GOODNESS he had upgraded my heads to dual springs many years ago. Geesh.

-Dave

Humble

May 1st 2013, 21:09

Good story (and meme pic), though when you're going through it you're not really thinking about the later re-tellings :) Good to hear the car's running great, and you should get us some in car video of the next event :D

owdlvr

May 1st 2013, 21:57

Actually...That meme photo I pulled off my phone for this post. I made it when I found the valve spring and sent it via Text to Darren (who does my headwork).

:-P

-Dave

NO_H2O

May 2nd 2013, 07:46

Did you check for coil bind when the springs were installed? The longer springs may have been bound up when the valve was full open.

owdlvr

May 2nd 2013, 15:20

Indeed! Coil bind was checked for when I originally built the motor, and again in November when I had the heads off. The old springs show no marks of coil bind, and the new springs (same brand/model) were checked and cleared without issues. We are attributing the failure to a combination of mileage, abuse, and a WOT over-rev the other night while tuning.

-----------

I mentioned that I've been distracted, and hence haven't posted much about the work on the car. I actually have some other upgrades and items added to post about, just haven't had the time. I've been playing with a new toy, a 1974 Dodge Colt stage rally car. It's owned by a good friend, and was purchased with a blown motor and tranny. I've been storing the car for a few years (he lives in the states, is a professional rally driver), and he finally said we should get this thing ready to rally. Over the past couple of months we've installed a new motor and trans, I've rebuild the trans, had a dashboard fire, re-wired the whole damned car and finally got it tuned and running. We were out testing at DirtFish Rally School on Monday, and the car is a BLAST. Still need to upgrade the seats, belts, cage and paint...then it's ready for stage rally.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8404/8609771487_17150a65bb_c.jpg

Here's the thing, when the owner isn't using it...he wants me to Rally it. Stage rally, rallyX, etc. if it's just going to be sitting, it might as well be used. Hmmmm. So basically I now have a full stage rally car in my collection of vehicles. Suddenly destroying the beetle further with gravel is a less enticing idea. I mean, why would I shred paint on the beetle when I can just use the Colt?

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8258/8695909015_9c2a8a9f90_c.jpg

I'm seriously considering working on the suspension this summer, and setting the beetle up as more of a Tarmac-Rally car. We've got our www.classicccaradventures.com events every year, and I'd probably still pop the suspension back up for winter events. The Colt is too damned loud inside for anything but Stage rally.

Thinking Coil-overs on the front, perhaps wider wings (and rubber), a Kamei front spoiler and it should be good. Tarmac rally and track car...???

-Dave

Steve C

May 2nd 2013, 19:50

Hi

Those cars were called Mitsubishi Lancer down here, in the day they were a real force in rallying, I remember seeing Andrew Cowan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Cowan competing in one in the Southern Cross rally in the 70s.

Steve

owdlvr

June 9th 2013, 16:15

I've been pretty busy with various jobs and haven't had much time for playing with cars, a problem which is compounded by the fact that I've got the Beetle, the Colt, an Audi Coupe quattro and a new Chevy pickup truck all on the go. The Salzburg Beetle has had some ups and downs over the past while, and I'll try and document what I can.

First up, I finally got around to mounting a co-driver footrest in the car. I had planned on machining up a unit which would have two rails permanently mounted to the floor, and a moveable panel (for different height co-drivers), but the crunch time to get the car ready in time for Spring Thaw meant I went with an OMP pre-formed panel. Of course, I'm not happy with the way it sits...so it will come out of the car soon enough for some changes. Basically, the angle isn't "right", and in order to sit correctly it needs to be trimmed to clear the tunnel and the inner fender.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8411/8998368389_34753ebd25_c.jpg

Next up, and far more of a fun toy, is my Shift-I progressive shift light. You would think, in a car that is so loud you need hearing protection, that paying attention to the revs is easy. The problem, I've found, is that after a certain point its all just noise and volume...and you can't distinguish well enough between various levels of RPM. I saw this unit at my local race supply shop, and took a gamble. Such a good call! It's fully programmable for RPM range, light patterns, brightness and more. One button turns it on or off while driving, so I only use it when I'm 'having fun', thus ensuring my brain doesn't get so used to it that I ignore it. I've found it gives me two main advantages: I'm finding it much easier to keep the engine within the torque curve and I'm not risking an over-rev when playing in the upper rev limits. The one I bought has four green lights on the left, followed by two yellows and one red. I set mine up so the four greens are progressive, then the greens go out as the two yellows come on, and finally the yellow and red flash as you hit the limit. Incredibly hard to miss...but not distracting either. http://www.ecliptech.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=59&Itemid=109
http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2871/8999554962_a4a1cc023b_c.jpg

On the bad news side of things, I'm still struggling with burning out exhaust gaskets. To say I've beaten the pulp out of the exhaust system would be an understatement. I think most users would look at the condition of my muffler and assume it's only good for scrap metal. I have noticed that the last set of gaskets I blew out were about 3 days after I bottomed the muffler out on something...even though it was lightly. I now suspect that physical damage is starting the process, and it takes a few hundred kilometers for blow-by to damage the gaskets to the point I can hear them. Once I hear the change in exhaust note, or notice the wideband reading leaner, I get about 50km before the gasket blows out completely. The answer, unfortunately, is probably a whole new exhaust system and to extend the skid plate (or skid plate system) back to protect the exhaust as well.

The second set of bad news involves the oiling system. Three times in the past month I've experienced a zero-oil pressure situation where the car will lose oil pressure at idle and then I can't prime the system back up. I end up loosening off oil fitting and cranking the starter over while slowly working the oil through the system segment by segment. The first time it repressurized in relatively short order (about 30min of work), but just this week I lost pressure twice on one day and it took 1 hour and 2 hours (respectively) to get the car back up and running. Really quite frustrating...but thanks to some things I noticed on the second time, I think I have a theory. I have the cold-idle set relatively low on the car, its at about 500rpm, sometimes less. This corresponds to a hot idle of about 1000rpm. At low RPM I don't *think* the scavenge pump is moving enough oil back up to the tank. Eventually on Friday, while I was trying to prime the system, I realized that the tank had less then 1/8th of oil, and the motor was over-full. Hmmm.... I put an extra litre into the tank, took a risk and revved the motor to 1500rpm (with no pressure). Instantly I could hear the scavange oil splashing back into the tank and in less then 20seconds the oil light was out. So, I think the issue is two-fold:

• First off, I'm not watching the oil level in the tank often enough.
• Secondly, the scavenge pump isn't pulling enough oil at sub 1,000rpms

The combination of the two means that there isn't enough oil in the system to allow the car to idle cold at low RPM…and I lose oil pressure. Repressurizing the system from full oil loss takes about 2.5 complete minutes of cranking (assuming oil in the tank, coil disconnected), which I can't imagine is too kind to the bearings. I'm going to redo the venting on the tank which will allow me to run a higher oil level (additional one or two Litres) and keep a closer eye on things.

I am worried about the likely damage I've done to the bearings in the current motor. At hot oil pressure I'm down a full 10psi from where I was two months ago. I now see 40psi at 3500rpm instead of the 50psi I was seeing earlier. It's not low enough to pull the motor immediately, but it's something to be concerned about for sure. It could be the electric gauge/sensor, however. The mechanical gauge on the Accusump used to match exactly, but now they are 5psi different (Accusump being 5psi higher). Again, no emergency...but something to watch for sure.

Back to the Good News! If you haven't already seen the June 2013 Issue of UltraVW, you may want to go pickup a copy. Okay, I'm probably a little biased…but hey, six page feature on my car!

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7312/8998932415_d9e93e0732_c.jpg

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3724/8998931387_1b18c741f1_c.jpg

Stoked to finally have a magazine feature I can give to family and friends who don't speak Japanese or French! Makes oil system issues a little easier to deal with.

-Dave

Humble

June 9th 2013, 18:51

Man, lots of ups and downs, but hopefully you have the oil issue sorted out. Any reason you're not running a higher cold idle? I can't speak to unkindly because I do the same thing, 900-ish cold and 1300-1400 hot.

Congrats on the magazine feature!

owdlvr

June 9th 2013, 19:42

Thanks!

No good reason for a low cold idle...I simply set it where I wanted it on a hot engine, and let the cold idle end up where it may. Might bump the hot idle up to 1200rpm and see where that gets me on the cold.

-Dave

NO_H2O

June 10th 2013, 04:52

Congrats on the magazine feature. Every car guy wants to see their ride covered in print.
I am sure you will sort the oiling system out. What size lines are you running for supply and return to/from the tank? The Herbie X was my first try at a dry sump system. Ended up with -10 to and from the tank and -8 for the rest of the system. Also the oil level had to be checked with the engine running at (warmed up) idle. After that it was good to go.

TSAF

June 10th 2013, 08:12

Its good to know that there are also other Porsche Salzburg maniacs out there.

We will start our new car during the winter time.

Gerrelt

June 10th 2013, 14:28

Another nice update as always! Congratulations on the magazine feature!

al_kaholik

June 11th 2013, 04:00

I'll pick up Ultra. I have passed over it when I was searching for Dean's feature. No evidence of the excellence inside!

TSAF

June 11th 2013, 04:03

I'll pick up Ultra as well.

TSAF

June 18th 2013, 10:13

I got the magazine. They also have a feature about the Finland guys:cool:

owdlvr

July 5th 2013, 02:06

Well, short update but I realized I haven't been back here too much. Work is crazy, been traveling for my other job and the bug just keeps going. I seemed to have solved the oiling problems, will post some photos this week. The happy news is I've finally got the tuning to a reasonable 10L/100km highway driving, but not at all light footed. I'm quite sure I can still pull it back for even more fuel savings. Really want to dyno the car, but worried I'm going to be disappointed!

-Dave

owdlvr

July 7th 2013, 03:12

So the current debate is whether I go and drop in the new front coil-over suspension I had planned, or a redo of the shifter setup with something never before seen. Budget for either choice is about the same, not sure what I'm going to enjoy more over the summer. Hmmmm...

Bogara_ZO

July 7th 2013, 08:06

Shifter ;) what is the plan?

owdlvr

July 8th 2013, 13:44

Hmmm...I'm not sure I want to say before I've jumped in with both feet!

Spoke to the developer on the phone this morning, went over the measurements and I just need to wait until after work to confirm that it's all going fit "in theory". Will definitely require some modifications, possibly firing up the welder, but that's not too scary.

-Dave

owdlvr

July 28th 2013, 13:28

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7377/9303632051_b9707b8655_c.jpg

Geesh, this car was new just months ago! It's amazing how things underneath get dirty and corrode. Adjusted the steering box in anticipation of a road trip a couple of weekends ago, and made a note to get under the car with some cleaning supplies and fresh paint soon. The road trip started off as a blast, headed down to the southern border of Washington state, via Mount Rainer National Park and a bunch of other twisty roads. The car was handling flawlessly, despite the heat, until I hit the desert-like conditions of Yakima. The air temperature was a little over 33 degrees, with zero wind. Driving at around 120kph the oil temp was up to 220, and I had to work to keep it below 230F. In hind sight taking the skid plate off before my trip would have been a wise idea, but I was so close to my destination I figured I wouldn't worry too much. I know from past experience that dropping the skid plate will equal a 20deg oil temp reduction, and should probably resolve to create a summer plate with some of the design features of VW's original ones.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7454/9303632645_0db55188bc_c.jpg

The road trip home, though, was like a story from hell. First bad gas (water), which required overnight carb cleaning in a walmart parking lot. The rear brakes went to metal (seized slider pin) and I roasted the rotor and brake calliper. Then ignition issues, and finally a broken elephant foot adjuster (which I discovered many hours later).
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3820/9383845579_b869f0daf9_z.jpg

I limped the car to AVR on three cylinders, and spent a bunch of time diagnosing the problem (being awake for 30+ hours doesn't help the brain to function). Thank goodness Art and Vic were there to help me out between calls and customers! Eventually I borrowed a set of Rockers from Art's drag-car parts stash, a few other miscellaneous parts and made my final two hour trip home.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7413/9386623440_951aeef30a_c.jpg

And once home, the poor Beetle sat. First off to wait for parts, then to wait while Audi & truck projects were worked on, and then finally because every damned thing I did wasn't working out. The list of things I meant to take care of was rather long, the car after 42,000km was due for some bumper to bumper checks and maintenance. Some things, like the grinding starter, I was aware of…while others (like apparently I have no brake lights!) were pointed out to me on the drive home. While I waited for new rocker arms to arrive, I started picking away at the list.

The brake switch boots were filled with dried mud, and thus the contacts had corroded. Relatively easy fix that, so there was that positive factor. But the next two photos give a much better description of how my last two weeks went.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7425/9383847171_c76fbe03e4_z.jpg

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5447/9386625172_3aeaaa1116_c.jpg

Missing from the photos is the brand new brake calliper, that once installed started puking fluid out of the e-brake mechanism…there were other issues too, but I'm afraid I'll end up in a mental hospital if I start listing them off! After breaking the new chinese-rebuilt starter ($40), the only thing I could get quickly was a Bosch rebuilt, at a price tag of $150. True, not bad for a starter…but when you toss them in a lathe and cut a 1/4" off the front face you think about whether or not you want to spend the money! My gosh, why did I not buy one of these from the get-go? All my grinding starter issues are gone, even though I haven't replaced my now hurting flywheel. Not to mention it spins so much quicker the bug starts in less then a second.

After getting the whole motor reassembled, the brakes replaced and bled (twice) I loaded in a bunch of tune up parts (points, wires, cap, rotor, plugs) and fired it up. Holy bag of hammers, Batman! The motor sounded like the crank was split in two, and all the bits were bouncing off each other. Well crap. A few evenings of sleuthing around, and eventually I simply replaced the new rocker-shafts/rockers with the old ones (putting a new adjuster into the one broken one) and everything is silent as a lamb. Same part, same part number, same measurements in every respect. The car likes one set, but not the other. I'm not going to argue, because it's running now!

I figured after a frustrating two weeks, two things where in order. First, movie night:
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3752/9386628488_621e9eb1c1_c.jpg

and second, a little upgrade today:
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7328/9383850689_91a695b668_z.jpg

I need to make some mounts today, but looking forward to the front spoiler. Also, my new shifter assembly has shipped…it will probably arrive just in time for the long weekend, and I'll be away in Edmonton. Argh!!

-Dave

dub_crazee

July 28th 2013, 17:33

That really is a crap week but well don for knuckling down and getting on with it. Many people would have put the car in the garage and left it for a month or more!

I also feel your pain. I went through 3 hydraulic clutches before going back to cable. Finally happy with that but now have to have the gearbox rebuilt (again!!!!!) due to grinding into third.

Gotta ask why we bother some times but when you get behind the wheel and everything is working fine you cant help but smile!

owdlvr

July 29th 2013, 03:04

Needed to clear my head tonight, figured a drive was the best way to do it. 150km later, guess you could say I'm enjoying the car again! Stopped up on Cypress for a few night time shots.

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2876/9388958181_2f90318ab5_c.jpg

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3799/9391730120_2f16c534ac_c.jpg

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3794/9391732268_9c76f89e5c_c.jpg

URL for larger images: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dhdynamics/9391732268/ (takes you to the last shot, then just scroll through)

-Dave

al_kaholik

July 29th 2013, 07:43

Those photos look great. And I'm with Dean, its fixed, you drove it, and it looks great. Your dedication to this car is absolute.

What's the crack with the mini? Looks tidy :)

owdlvr

July 30th 2013, 14:04

The Mini is my housemate's. Warwick's been restoring it for a few years, it's had a full ground-up. He went as far as dipping the whole shell to remove the rust, and then had the panels cut out and replaced. Pretty rad car, 1276cc now. Should be in a Mini magazine before the end of 2014, unfortunately he travels too much to actually "finish" the car.

...so I'm impatiently waiting for the courier to arrive today. Well, hopefully today. My new shifter, which was way too expensive, should be arriving before 5pm. Woot!

-Dave

owdlvr

July 31st 2013, 02:49

And here it is!

So I ordered the Hargett Performance 901 shifter (designed for a 911). It's going to need modifying to fit a Beetle, and I suspect substantially more modifying to make it fit the way I want/envision it. But it ticks all the boxes for improving the shifting, at least on paper. Will be a few weeks until I can get to installing it, which is going to kill me. I'm off to Edmonton on the weekend, and this is more then a few evening's job!

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2869/9407465680_79246c419b_c.jpg

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7313/9404707961_4e0fef4f28_c.jpg

-Dave

70Turbobug

July 31st 2013, 08:17

That´s a nice piece! Cool wine rack btw ;)

Oval

July 31st 2013, 10:50

that looks effing porn!
And so does that shifter!

al_kaholik

August 1st 2013, 05:31

Very nice.

Moog

October 18th 2013, 06:58

Ooooh... Look what just arrived... Cover car and a 7-page spread - Nice feature Dave!

http://i357.photobucket.com/albums/oo19/k9gti/VW%20Stuff/null_zpscf106c3b.jpg~original

http://i357.photobucket.com/albums/oo19/k9gti/VW%20Stuff/null_zpsec90a5fb.jpg~original

http://i357.photobucket.com/albums/oo19/k9gti/VW%20Stuff/null_zps67e88f4f.jpg~original

http://i357.photobucket.com/albums/oo19/k9gti/VW%20Stuff/null_zpsa3af32a5.jpg~original

http://i357.photobucket.com/albums/oo19/k9gti/VW%20Stuff/null_zps5a5830c1.jpg~original

owdlvr

October 22nd 2013, 15:45

Wahoo!

So, apologies for disappearing for a couple of months. I popped the motor drag racing on our Big VW show weekend, work has been insane and my new '68 Single Cab allowed me to just take a bit of a break. But I'm back, and super super stoked that Retro Cars chose the car for the cover :-) Retro Cars has been my favourite magazine for the last 4 or 5 years, and throughout the whole build in the back of my head I was working on building a car that "could be worthy" of a feature one day. Anytime I was frustrated, or thinking of cutting corners, I'd ask myself if it would be 'RC worthy' still, or whether I needed to put in the effort to make it perfect. Halfway through the build I was reading an issue, and realized the photographer was someone from Vancouver BC who I had met a few times through our Classic Car Adventures business. A few emails, some photos, and I had confirmation that Retro Cars was interested in the build. It was all looking good, the photos were taken, and then...nothing.

Both the photographer and I couldn't get a reply or answer, were they going to run the car? The VW magazines, which shot the car 5 months later, all printed articles first. I figured it was probably dead in the water...but hey, I got some nice coverage in the VW scene. About 6 months ago I heard Retro Cars had been sold to a new publisher, and suddenly it all made sense. I tweeted the new publisher, got the new editors contact details and sent him some photos. I've known it was going to finally be in Retro Cars since August, the writer and I had some great back and forth emails and cross-the-pond phone call. "It's going to be printed before the end of the year," was the last thing I heard. And then...nothing.

Turns out they were keeping the cover a surprise, and I gotta say, I am over the moon. Building the car, the only exposure I wanted was this particular magazine. The VW mags were awesome, but this one is the pat on the back I was secretly hoping for.

-Dave

Oval

October 23rd 2013, 06:14

Congrats!

Gerrelt

October 23rd 2013, 13:33

Yes, congratulations!

Steve C

October 23rd 2013, 18:03

well done getting in a magazine that means so much to you

graham

October 26th 2013, 01:37

Congratulations ,your car is simply brilliant.

owdlvr

October 26th 2013, 03:45

Thanks guys!

I'll update more tomorrow about why the car hasn't had much going on in this thread over the last month and a half...but I'm hoping the reason why will be worth photos. In the meantime, I started playing around with a few things tonight. First up, was the Hargett Precision shifter. The shifter is designed to bolt over the-brake handle on a 911, so for visuals the tower begins between the front seats and points forward to the dash. In my case, I want to put the tower starting under the dash rising back towards the seats, as I think it will look visually better. Well, that and the seats are so darned close together in the beetle. The first step is to flip the shift mechanism 180 degrees in the housing, which means drilling some holes.

The Hargett shifter has adjustable stops for the L-R action of the shifter, which are adjusted using two 1/4-20 bolts on the side of the housing. Flipping the mechanism around means drilling two new holes...and the fun task of figuring out where they should be. I measured it up, and then cut two templates on the vinyl cutter. Lining up the holes on the factory side confirmed I was spot on, and then it was just a matter of laying a template down on the other end:
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3748/10488355136_5d2679942d_c.jpg

With that done, I started to figure out where I wanted the actual shift knob to end up. Mounting the shifter is going to require quite a bit of work in the beetle chassis. I'm going to need to create some mounting plates at the front, welding them onto the tunnel to make a flat surface. The e-brake assembly is going to have to be removed, as the shift rod will now travel down on an angle from the shifter to the transmission. The fun part is going to be measuring and figuring out just where the hole needs to be for the rod to pass through the top of the tunnel. I break out in a sweat every-time I start thinking about it!
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7394/10488356114_b144e19b8b_b.jpg

The Canadian Rally Season is half-done at the National Level, which means wheels are starting to get scrapped over at the local rally shop. I've always wanted to put a proper set of motorsport wheels on the car, but hate the thought of buying them. I'm so cheap when it comes to wheels! The cheapest way for me to get a set of Speedlines is to piggyback at the beginning of the rally season when the team buys a lot of them. Problem is, I need to buy Subaru fitment. Well, now I have a couple of scrap wheels to play with to work out the fitment. These ones are 8" wide, which is far too wide for the bug. Once I know the widths and offsets available to order, I'll cut the back flange off on a lathe and adjust one to be my 'front' tester, and one to be the rear. I have some long-term brake ideas, and will add this project in with them.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7442/10488527473_0c97b50b0a_c.jpg

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2876/10488354446_abe438aa34_c.jpg

-Dave

owdlvr

October 27th 2013, 14:17

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3757/10517203996_bb2eab9482_b.jpg

Well, winter engine build? Hahaha. This is what happens when you side-step the clutch, in error, on the start line of the dragstrip. End of the strip I put the clutch in, and it sounded pretty bad. We diagnosed it as either a loose flywheel or a broken crank...and the car was parked for a month while I travelled for work. Popped it out of the car, found the loose flywheel, bolted it back in and it sounded fantastic. 700m down the road, silence. Seized solid. Main #1 is pretty much welded to the crank, Rod #3 is stiff, the case is trashed. This raises two simple questions...

1) What to build next?
2) How to pay for it?

ha.

-Dave

Moog

October 27th 2013, 15:19

Ouch! I'm guessing that the dowel has been pulled round in the bearing saddle, but that doesn't mean the case is trashed. I just rescued a 2007cc for someone who was a little overzealous with sealant and blocked up the oil gallery to that bearing and did pretty much the same thing. Oversized the dowel hole in the case, tidied up the bruising around it, and turned up a stepped bearing dowel - worked a treat and saved the case. The crank was scrap as when we got the bearing off it has about 8 cracks all the way round, but at least the case was saved.

owdlvr

October 28th 2013, 01:15

If this case wasn't so tired, I would definitely consider it. I've sworn up and down that I would replace the case the "next time" it was opened up...been doing that for at least 3 years, so I guess it's finally time! I have to wait for parts, so I might as well deal with replacing the case now. The new engine plan calls for clearancing for a stroker crank, so better to have a fresh(er) case to begin with.

-Dave

Humble

October 28th 2013, 15:24

You know, my old turbo 2165 is just sitting in the garage, not that I'm suggesting anything ;)

owdlvr

October 28th 2013, 16:57

...Boulder Creek isn't tooooo far away. You know, for a road trip.

PM me a price, I'm not likely to go turbo...but just for fun.

-Dave

owdlvr

November 15th 2013, 04:31

Well, I have a bit of an update on my new engine. The case should be cut for the larger cylinders, and full-flowed. My new crank was stolen off the pallet before arriving to it's destination...sigh, so I'll order another one. The heads though, I had planned on reusing from my old motor. NOPE! Darren text messaged me last week "All your valves and guides are toast. 1 cracked, and 1 broken keeper. 1 head cracked. Valve seats pounded out, retainers show heavy wear. Valve float." He then sent another text..."Don't you have a tach?!" Heh heh, well, I guess there will be new heads on the order-sheet as well. Not a bad idea, as I'm going to be upgrading to IDF44's so moving up on the valve size will be ideal for those. I think I'm going to finally get rid of the 914 tach, and look into a better ignition system with rev-controlling capabilities.

While I work out the various engine specs, I'm continuing on with other chassis projects. The factory e-brake has been cut out, as well as the unused heater control lever. I’ve removed the Accusump valve and lines (for now), the Z-Bend shift rod and the shifter setup I had. I’ve also started removing the POR15 from the tunnel. It’s amazing, use that stuff on “used” metal, and I can barely get it off with a grinder and an 80grit flap wheel. Use it on ‘new’ metal (like the floor boards) and it just peels up, as you can see. I’m hoping the surface rust will help it to finally stick!
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7405/10865526546_4e78cd3f0a_c.jpg

I have some personal modifications planned for the Hargett shifter, which won’t improve the performance level at all…but will improve my personal driving experience far more then anything else I’ve done. I managed to rope Stenhouse Racing into giving me a hand, as he has loads of design experience, and a CNC mill. He keeps teasing me with renderings of the shifter…but always leaving out my custom bits!
http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2818/10865638274_23456574ec_c.jpg

I did realize, however, that Colin’s work would allow me to draw up the pieces I need to make mounts for the shifter. I am going to get the pieces water jet cut, and then weld them to the tunnel. The driver’s side will be closed off, while the passenger side will be open so I can reach whatever hardware I use underneath.
http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2834/10865826333_59b10406fc_c.jpg

I’ve also started working on the handbrake. I spent a lot of time on Demon-Tweeks trying to find a handbrake I liked, which wouldn’t break the bank. Lots of measuring, scaling, and sitting in the car. Nothing fit the bill. I went to Rocket Rally, and found a horizontal e-brake on the wall which wasn’t being used. YOINK! The perfect example to R&D (review and duplicate) from! I have a bunch of finishing up to do on the handle, but I’ve got enough done that I can print out a drawing, cut it from cardboard and test the height & angle in the car. Problem is, I need my shifter back in order to figure out exactly where it will sit! I'll have an option for locking it on, and I've built in a tab which allow me to run a cable to the factory e-brake cables. I wasn't planning on using the cable e-brake setup, but may have to scale back my plans for the winter and keep the brakes that I have on the car for the time being. The cable setup will be more for 'visuals' and 'legal' vs. very functional.

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5479/10865639054_e10f067f86_c.jpg

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7373/10866569826_93de7a5d5d_c.jpg

-Dave

spannermanager

November 15th 2013, 10:19

hi Dave, Backtracking here because something dont add up with the engine failure, the clue is the seize (partial?) on no' 3 rod bearing and the seized no 1 main, that is down to low oil pressure, usually due to oil surge, i know you are dry sump, but it can still happen in the d/s tank, i think the other event with the flywheel coming loose?? may be a red herring, its definitely lost oil pressure and that is separate to the loose flywheel im sure. its important to isolate this earliest as it may carryover to the new engine.:eekno: regards anyway.

owdlvr

November 15th 2013, 18:53

Well, oil pressure never dipped on the gauge, but that's the other end of the engine case. Over-revved at the end of the drag strip for sure, which could be a culprit. Regardless, the new motor is slated to share no parts with the old motor, except for possibly the fan shroud and the tin. I was going to reuse the oil pump, but that hasn't been completely decided yet. The crank also hasn't been inspected for cracks or damage which could be related the oil pressure...I haven't even pulled the rods off it yet. There is some minor concern that an issue in the rest of the oil system could be at fault, but I'm planning on flushing and checking each line, as well as replacing the ones that come near the exhaust system (in case there is internal heat damage).

Gotta have some risk ;)

-Dave

owdlvr

December 16th 2013, 16:04

I've had some long time "off" of the garage, but puttered around a little bit. While flushing and checking hoses I've come to think that either the scavenge-to-tank or pressure-to-filter line may be disintegrating due to heat. After flushing the lines I found some two or three extremely small black specs, I would have passed them off as carbon but they don't break up or dissolve in carb cleaner. I wish I had done each line into it's own container, then I'd know which one the specs came from. I think the solution is pretty easy, however, as there are just three oil lines that come close to the exhaust. I'll swap those out with fresh, and upgrade the heat protection. Could be the reason for losing oil pressure on bearing #1, but it would have had to sneak its way around the oil filter. Odd, but sort of a non-issue at this stage...replace, replace, replace!

In the meantime, I started working on the shifter mounts...

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3751/11393804393_1409b40d2b_c.jpg

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2848/11393674335_89a1ec49c7_c.jpg

Bolted in. I need to make 'sides' which will bolt in separately. For now I have lots of measuring and math ahead of me, to ensure I put the hole for the shift rod in the right spot :P
http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2891/11393685346_16d387f348_b.jpg

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7324/11393676975_3325cb4eb9_b.jpg

-Dave

TSAF

December 17th 2013, 04:21

Fit a hydraulic handbrake, it will help you a lot, trust me on this.

Gerrelt

December 17th 2013, 14:48

Nice work, especially the last picture looks impressive!:yes:

owdlvr

December 17th 2013, 23:04

Fit a hydraulic handbrake, it will help you a lot, trust me on this.

Already planned and designed (see last page), can't use any of the factory equipment anyways.

-Dave

owdlvr

January 22nd 2014, 16:32

Shifter is now working through all gears. I'm waiting on the handbrake install, but once I take care of that I'll strip the interior and paint the tunnel and floorpans again. The throws are longer then I was expecting, but the shifting is unbelievably precise. Having the shifter so close to the steering wheel more then makes up for the throw length. I still have to adjust the side-to-side limits, but in order to do so I will need an engine and the chance to drive it. As a nod to the Germanlook forum I opted to pass on the standard steel shift rod, and instead made my own from Carbon fiber. It's lighter and stiffer, and an improvement if my aluminium ends bonded well enough!

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3699/12091661306_320d6dff98_b.jpg

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3773/12091302323_b661086a39_b.jpg

-Dave

volkdent

January 23rd 2014, 22:21

I love the CF, I just don't know if I would do it myself. After watching WRC for awhile and watching the drivers lose stages because they broke off their CF shifter handles that were works built, I tend to just go with slightly heavier stuff that would bend instead of breaking:D.

Jason

owdlvr

January 24th 2014, 04:22

haha, yeah I've definitely considered that. I was more curious if I could make one that would hold, so I figured it's worth a try. On the transmission end I've both bonded the aluminum and used a clamp externally. If it fails, I'm pretty sure it's going to fail at the shifter end. Will keep a metal rod in the car for the first little bit until I'm sure!

-Dave

owdlvr

January 31st 2014, 18:16

Well, not a lot of progress to report. I've been working on my Coupe quattro Turbo project, so the bug has been hibernating. I am pleased to report that all the major engine components are in-house now, and going to my engine builder for machining & balancing. In the meantime, I've ordered 3 of these which should make engine pulls much more pleasant:

http://cdn2.bigcommerce.com/server5900/0hvs8tg/products/29958/images/56682/20808-1__69477.1382649826.1280.1280.jpg

-8AN dry fluid breaks for the oil lines. Will allow me to remove the engine without draining and disconnecting all the lines each time.

-Dave

Jadewombat

February 3rd 2014, 10:08

-8AN dry fluid breaks for the oil lines. Will allow me to remove the engine without draining and disconnecting all the lines each time.

-Dave

Told ya' so. :rolleyes: Just kidding. Those are pretty neat looking fittings, I haven't seen those before. The only ones I've dealt with are having lines made with the slip-sleeve. How much do those cost?

owdlvr

February 3rd 2014, 14:06

Scared to type this...but roughly $80 per fitting.

-Dave

al_kaholik

February 5th 2014, 05:54

Youch, but worth it. The quick connects are used on air lines and I've often wondered why the cost is so much more for fluid lines

owdlvr

February 21st 2014, 05:16

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7415/12671758524_f786814f57_b.jpg
I’ve been spending most of my time lately working on the 1990 Coupe quattro project, but seeing as the pile of parts for the beetle is growing…I best start working on it again! Well, that and I’m sick of working on the Audi.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7290/12671409083_ccbe93679f_z.jpg
A while back I did the design for my vertical handbrake, or rather the ‘first’ design. I know I will need to drive around with it and refine it a bit before doing the finished version, so did a basic outline of the handle for now. The problem is, without being able to physically sit in the car with it, how do you know you’re “close”. It dawned on me, while cutting decals, that I have a relatively smart rapid prototype option right here at home. A quick true-size sticker, and some cardboard and…

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3691/12671281145_fa011d9a45_z.jpg
Voila! A test unit that can be tried out in the car. Without having the base mounted it was pretty tough to “try”, but at the very least I figured out I was close enough to send the drawing out for water jet cutting.

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3759/12671411003_789c0e1b1f_b.jpg
With a few additional bits stolen from a Rocket Rally horizontal handbrake, and a Honda clutch master cylinder, I have myself an inexpensive hydraulic handbrake to try out. The last step was to lathe up the pivot bushings, and drop the handle off with Nick at Rocket Rally for some TIG welding. As soon as I get it back, I can weld in some mounts on the transmission tunnel.

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In the meantime, I’m trying to plug away on a number of the little jobs I never seem to do. I’ve had this idea in mind since before the car was finished, but never got around to it. No time like the present!

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Pull cable and radio antenna, when combined, become an external battery-cut-off switch. Now, I suppose I should mention that when I bought the pull cable there were two options. This one, which is a shorter “front of the car” length cable, and the longer “back of the car” setup which I knew i would have to cut down quite substantially. I was prepared to buy the more expensive longer version, but the shop owner convinced me I was wasting money and this one was long enough.

It’s not.

Well, it is. But only for one cable routing option. It’s not long enough to try various options and ideas and then decide which one I like best. Mildly frustrating, but only because I will never know if this one “is” the best :P Still need to make a couple of bits for it, and then I’ll finish the install.

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The Porsche tach, or rather the way the needle bounces on downshifts, has always bugged me. I have a 3 3/8” Stewart Warner tach doing nothing, so why not have a precise tach in my car? Well, the mounting of a small tach in a big hole is a problem. Last year I came up with a pretty good idea, and then crushed an old 914 housing in the lathe. Oops. I figured it was because I disassembled the tach and weakened the body too much. I recently found I have a plastic-faced 914 tach which has seen better days, so time to try again!

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Step one seems to have gone fine. I now have hole perfectly sized for the SW tach, and keeping the Porsche unit assembled definitely makes it more rigid. Now I’ll just flip it over, and use the lathe to cut the back end off the tach…

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Oops.

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Well, lets just move onto other things then. Voltmeter replaced by cylinder head temperature, using a NOS VDO gauge I found at last weekend’s swap meet. Once I confirm it works, I’ll paint the outside rim silver, and touch up the panel behind it. Installing the gauge was a colourful language affair, since I had to run sensor wires all the way to the engine bay…frustrating when I know I have spares hidden in my wiring harness. Just can’t use them as the cylinder head gauge requires using their wires without cutting. Sigh.

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I did solve the tach problem though. Spent just a wee bit of money and dropped a 5” Monster tach into the dash. I’m planning on taking the car down to the VW Classic show in June, and figure this will buy me some street creed with the Cal-Look crowd. :-) But in all serious, it solved the problem was the closest match I could get to the current gauges and allows me to button the dash back up.

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So I finally decided I need to replace the Throwout bearing which was overdue for replacement three years ago. Have you priced one of these things out before? $149 USD! That’s painful. I recalled reading about an alternative option a few years back, but figured I better run the proper bearing for those first few transmission tests. This year, however, I returned to Google to try and search for the solution. I found it on the 356 registry, or did I? Turns out the 356 crowd converts their throwout bearings to the early 911 style because it shifts better and is significantly cheaper then the original option in their cars! Guess I know why I play with VW’s instead of Porsches! Sigh, alright…I’ll order the expensive bearing.

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Starting to cross things off on the list, which is good. I have to have the car ready and tested by March 31st, as I could be away for all of April. Our Spring Thaw classic car rally is April 25th, and the car MUST be ready for that! At least I’m starting to cross things off…

-Dave

Gerrelt

February 21st 2014, 15:14

Great work, as always!
I use to-do lists too, I find it's strangely fulfilling to cross something off the list... :laugh:

owdlvr

February 28th 2014, 04:55

Thanks! Normally I keep my lists on the whiteboard, but with two project cars exploded across my shop the window lists seem easier. Best part of the day is that moment spent crossing things off the list before shutting the shop lights out ;)

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An odd angular growth has appeared off my transmission tunnel.

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And after a little bit of time its like grand central station down here. Not sure how I managed to make it all fit, but it does!!

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This one is kinda funny, I can remember being 17 years old and wanting to buy ATE Blue so badly but not being able to afford it. Then, in later years, I realized that regular-old-Pentosin was just 20degrees off for a whole lot less money. I was buying other parts last week when I saw the blue on the shelf...hell, I'm 34 now I can afford this! Yes, that's right, I bought brake fluid for the colour. But hey, it made flushing the system super easy!?!

-Dave

Humble

February 28th 2014, 13:44

heh, you can't get super blue in the states anymore... because it's blue. Seriously. It's been on the market for years and got banned for being the wrong color. I still have a couple bottles in the garage waiting to go in the race bug. :)

owdlvr

February 28th 2014, 14:31

Shop I bought it from was mentioning the price per bottle was going up March 1st. I wonder if that's related to the US no longer getting it. Unbelievably convenient when flushing the system, I usually do it every 6 months so there isn't a big colour change between used and fresh fluid. Apparently I've been wasting a LOT of brake fluid over the years. Flushes out much faster then I realized.

-Dave

owdlvr

March 2nd 2014, 04:07

Cell phone pictures for tonight, but they'll do.

First up, the 'factory' (empi?) bolt for holding my shift rod to the transmission has gone for a walk somewhere in my garage. Not overly worried about it, since it didn't seem to fit the Hagertt Performance universal joint. After cutting the end into a cone shape on the lathe, I realized I wanted to make sure I safety wired the bolt this time. I had the shifter come loose and lost all gears last summer while on a road trip. Let me tell you how quickly your heart sinks when you think you've blown a transmission in the middle of nowhere! Since I don't own a safety-wire drilling jig (and apparently none of my friends do either), I had to improvise:
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With the shifter setup now 100% complete, I moved onto to the oil lines. I’m replacing the three oil lines that pass through the exhaust system, as I believe the rubber lines may have deteriorated due to heat. I’m also taking the opportunity to put the Vibrant Performance Dry-Break fittings in the lines. These allow me to disconnect each oil line without losing a drop of oil, or introducing any air into the lines. I’ve put the Vibrant fitting (black) inside two straight hose ends so I could figure out how long each section of oil line would need to be.
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Before finalizing the assembly, the lower section of the hose was wrapped with Thermalflex Isultherm wrap. The lower section of hose will pass either very close, or through, the exhaust system. I’m not sure which, as I’m getting an all new system from Vintage Speed. The Isultherm wrap is a resin-impregnated ceramic wrap which is good to 1200deg F (650 C). If that isn’t sufficient, I can always do an over-wrap for additional protection.
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Thanks to Rob over at www.avrparts.com I have a perfect-condition fan shroud sandblasted, and ready for modification. The new 2110cc motor will not be running heater boxes, so I’m going to modify a new shroud which will still have the Salzburg “look”, but without functioning heater ducts. We’ll just pretend this factory doghouse shroud was in rough shape, and thats why I’m cutting it up…
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Darren at Kroc heads sent me a teaser photo this afternoon. Looks like my parts are back from the balancing shop and he had some time to start the assembly! Where’s the stoked icon???
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Just seven items left on the To-Do list before the car is ready for the Hagerty Spring Thaw Classic. Okay, one of those items is "build the engine", so it's not like they'll all happen quickly. But still, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel! Can’t believe I’ve survived this long without the car. I miss driving it!

-Dave

owdlvr

March 11th 2014, 04:25

This has been a pretty big week/weekend. Last week I finished up everything on the to-do list, which was essentially a bunch of little annoying items that are time consuming. The only thing left, besides the motor and related bits, is to paint the floorpan again, on the underside. We had a week of straight rain, so I put it off for some warmer weather. Cheaper to heat the garage then!

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You might notice the "Porsche" name on one of those bags, which simply means these items are priced about 3x more than they should be. Regardless, after almost three years of a rough throwout bearing, I figured I'd best replace it. Also bought new plastic mounts, a nylon cup for the clutch arm and the retainer clamp. Pretty interesting to see what those parts are supposed to look like!

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Got the shroud finished up with fake Salzburg outlets. I had more time on this one, so instead of rushing it I worked on at least making the straight and not warped by heat. No shims required for the generator mounting, which is lightyears better than the last one! I did, however, forget to fill a couple of holes I won't be using. Ah well...

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I'll be running a new Vintage Speed exhaust system, having beat the last one into submission. Just before I went to pick it up at AVR, though, I remembered it wouldn't clear the oil-pump. A few facebook notes to Lucas (Art's son) and he TIG'd in the required modification. I think I messaged Lucas on Thursday, and Rob brought me the exhaust system completed on Saturday! Couldn't believe my luck, because Darren messaged me that he was going to break in my cam/motor on Sunday morning. So Sunday I was at Kroc's shop to hang out, basically be in the way and watch Darren break in my new motor and do a quick setup on my new carbs. After it was all cleared, and cooled down, we loaded it up in my truck and home I went. It's about now that I should probably post some engine specs, but the honest truth is I haven't been paying much attention! Throughout the whole planning and parts acquiring period of the build Darren would call me up and ask something like "So, what cam did you want to run in this engine?" I'd answer with something like, 'well, I haven't thought that much about it...what would you suggest?' Darren would give me his idea, and I'd follow up with "sounds perfect, lets run with that then." The whole idea is kinda funny, seeing as I've so carefully planned everything else out on the car. I'll update the specs on my 2110 at a later date!

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I actually couldn't have cut this better myself! I went slightly wider with my dimensions this time, and slightly deeper. Now I should be able to remove the oil lines with the muffler on (should I ever need to), and the deeper inset should help with the heat soak.

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The muffler then got some exhaust wrap, and the steel shield which keeps the wrap from tearing off due to rocks.

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Being a glutton for punishment, I wrapped the J-tubes as well. And then whipped up some stone shields for those too. The wrap doesn't go all the way to the ends in the photos, as I like to be able to access the exhaust nuts without tearing up the wrap. On the muffler end I actually wrap the rest of the pipe and the flanges once the system is all bolted up.
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CB Black Box is mounted and wired in. Tomorrow I'll pickup the vacuum line fittings I've ordered, and will run the line through the firewall next to the Black Box. I've run out of space to run wires through the factory routing, so a couple of new grommets were added to the car tonight.

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I'll have to finish the engine-side of things once the engine is in the car, which will make doing the wrap or heat-shrink a little bit challenging!

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Ready to go in, hopefully I'll find time to take care of that tomorrow.

-Dave