1303 German Look Wannabe

[bushoarder]

Here is my weekend's weldings....









now awaiting some more box section to make the end brackets - replacing my mocked up bit on the end of the 25x25 box.

[bushoarder]

Welded in the rear half moon vent cover, cleaned up and aligned the front valence, but decided not to weld until i've cleaned up under the front and sorted the gearbox position. Got the engine mating surface to within 0.5° perpendicular to the top of the tunnel








That's it for another week Gonna design the gearbox front cradle this week on CAD.

[bushoarder]

Looked at the gearbox bracket and decided to do some tidying and added the raising pad on the topside. No other mounts available via G&S today so have to consider the other mount idea for the future..

[bushoarder]

Fitted the car's old engine case and basic tinware to gauge the gearbox position since with the body back down it looked a bit wrong:










Measuring the other bug I have I get 30mm to the front of the return of the rear tinware off the firewall, here I got 55mm so I got underneath to investigate. 49Rag whom I purchased the box off had it fitted to his car on the rear cradle that you see here, therefore I used this since if it fit his it would fit mine right!!!

Looks like the bellhousing is 23.25" from the torsion tube and possibly 10-12mm further back [towards engine], the body is sitting 5mm out of position. Looking at the box position there is only 5mm between the gearbox and torsion tube so can't go back any further.

Any comments on this appreciated, but since I'm going to run a T4 and make the tinware I can obviously make it all fit in there, just won't be stock.

I will ponder this a bit and see what others have done, but looks like I'll be making some custom tinware if I ever fit a Type 1 back in there.....

[bushoarder]

I just pottered and decided to fit up my T4 mock up engine and some other bits:











In the pictures you can see a stock T2 rear engine bar and my old JMR turbo muffler - ran this on my first bug back in 2002 and saved it since it has a great low sound. It goes without saying that the pipework will need changing!

So I plan to run a polo front muffler under the O/S and the turbo under the N/S with a connecting pipe under the gearbox which will be set back from the flywheel oil seal location. I'll make an aluminium splash shield so that if I get an oil leak it won't end up on the hot exhaust!

Additionally, I figured out that I can mount a clutch slave cylinder along side the 901 box and use a steel rod to connect to the clutch lever, probably with a rod end for connection. This should give me a nice adjustment free reliable clutch connection.

The T2 bar will have late 1600cc bay window mounts used at the ends with a fabricated bracket to the bumper mounts and I'll probably use another 2 of these to remake my gearbox cradle - still not 100% happy with that design.

So happy that now I can begin the 'exciting' part which is laying out how the mechanical parts will fit - I will do this with the body and chassis as it is on my trolley then I'll pull out the chassis at a later date to repair the rusty areas since these are really small !

I want to make up all the mount bracketry for the engine bar and the exhaust before I finish the cosmetics of the body.