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Nov 23, 2008 13:52:48 GMT
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Hi everyone, I'm new here on the forum but have been reading constantly and stand in awe of how much you guys can achieve and how awesome all of your cars are as a result! I thought I would share a few pics of my own humble car, although I can't promise any rapid improvements as I am a full time student and on a very tight budget. The car is a 1970 1500cc beetle with standard 1500 single-port engine. It has 14x6" steel wheels on factory VW centres with VW hubcaps, non-standard bucket seats from an unknown late-model Japanese car and a Formuling leather steering wheel. Other than that it is all standard. I bought the car very cheaply from the secretary of the Volkswagen Club of South Australia about 2 years ago, it has previously been used and abused as a club motorsport car for many years but it has been maintained in very good mechanical condition. The only mechanical part which is not good is the engine, which is almost completely cactus but that's okay because it gives me an excuse to build a hot twin-port motor! Here is a photo of me and my car competing in some Khanacross with the VW club: While I originally bought it purely for competition this has now become my everyday transport and only car, so I am having to look after it and can't do anything extreme like stripping the interior out as I had previously planned to do. The major project on the go now is the build-up of a new engine which will be based on a twin-port 1600 which I managed to pick up for a bargain at a local wreckers. More pics coming soon!
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Mike
East Midlands
Posts: 3,387
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Nov 23, 2008 18:58:59 GMT
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Nice to see it gets used properly! Get some more pics up, it looks tidy.
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Last Edit: Nov 23, 2008 18:59:10 GMT by Mike
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Yeah, I'm certainly not scared to drive it, had plenty of time to get adjusted to the handling and I know where the limits are so I can run it hard through the hills without fear of tipping it over! Unfortunately Mike, it looks a lot neater in photos than it is in real life! One reason why it was so cheap is that there is a crease or dent in every panel except the bonnet and engine lid, but it's almost rust free so that's good. It has a few decades of 'patina' on the paintwork, the paint is oxidised and getting very thin so every time I wash the roof the water in my car wash bucket ends up white! It starts every time and serves double duty as economical daily driver and weekend warrior so I can't complain. The car takes a beating and has never even given a hint of breaking anything despite being flogged full-throttle over rough dirt khanacross tracks. Here's some more pics: I painted the orange bits myself because my family has four white cars at home (one per driver) and I was bored of all the whiteness! Plus the bonnet needed repainting anyway. Standard engine which came with the car, almost worn out and now running 40W70 oil (!!) to fill in the enormous main bearing clearances, it really quietened the bearings down a lot. 1600cc twin-port engine from the wreckers which will be rebuilt and eventually replace the tired 1500. I have tried to tidy the car up a bit and get it running nicely and have enjoyed driving it enormously. The seats and wide wheels were done by the previous owner so I can't wait till the new engine is in so I can say I've really done something on the car.
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Nov 25, 2008 14:25:43 GMT
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Just spotted ur car, so it is a single port the now. the twin port will make some difference to it. Are u gonna do a standard rebuild on the engine? or are u gonna build it for competitions etc? Car looks in really good condition.
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Last Edit: Nov 25, 2008 14:26:19 GMT by beetlesi
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Hi beetlesi,
Unfortunately, the car does look much more beaten up in real life than it does in photos. The main thing I've got to fix at the moment is the fact that I clipped a dirt embankment with the front-left fender during a khanacross at Lanac Park and pulled the bottom fender-attachment bolt and captive nut right through the body!! They were lost on the track somewhere, still haven't gotten around to fixing it.
The new engine will be built with help from my uncle David who is a VW expert and worked as a mechanic in a specialist VW shop for most of his life. This will be my first engine build so I'm taking his advice. Due to budget it is going to be stock crank, stock bore, probably with a new cylinder/piston set. The only mods planned are going to be a Webber or two, decent headers, Bosch 009 dizzy and possibly a mild cam. David reckoned that it's best to stick with the stock cam, since lumpier cams just give you less bottom end torque for very little gain at the top end. I have to buy a new cam either way as the one in the engine is cactus, so who knows. It's really hard to change a cam once the engine is together so I want to get it right!
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Okay, who wants to play a guessing game? Anyone who knows a lot about Japanese cars from the '90s, can you please tell me what car my seats are from? The seats flip forward when you pull a big lever on the side so I assume they must have originally been in a coupe. The flip-forward mechanism is not connected to the slider mechanism so you have to slide it forward manually with a lever under the front of the seat. They were installed by a previous owner at some stage so I have no idea what they are! Also, note the very retro Formuling France steering wheel. These were apparently all the rage on beetles back in the day (or so I am told). I have since replaced this one with a slightly different Formuling wheel I picked up at a swap meet because it's leather trim was cracked and I had to use a steering wheel cover.
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Okay, just thought I would update with some interesting "retro" bits and pieces. My beloved beetle got new fuel lines yesterday and is therefore no longer leaking fuel, although it still smells a bit because of all the fuel spilled during the operation! I'm thinking of putting a tacho in the beetle soon for motorsport purposes and to keep the period look (and save money) I want to use a vintage (read: old and secondhand) tachometer. I currently have two choices which I have collected. Here is the interior as it is, without tacho. The steering wheel is a leather Formuling which I got at a swap meet in Hahndorf for $15 with a really bizarre boss kit on it which would not fit any vehicle I know of, but luckily my car already had another Formuling wheel on it with the same kit so I just swapped over to the new wheel with its lovely leather wrapping. Saved me about $150 compared to getting the existing wheel re-wrapped. This is the unknown boss kit I was talking about, anyone know what it is for? Here is an OMC tacho from a speedboat, held in the position that I would mount it. Here is a 4" Smiths tacho from some kind of old 4cyl Hillman, bought for $10 at the same swap meet where I got the steering wheel. If I was going to use this one I would need to cut a 4" round hole into the original metal speaker grill in the dash to the right of the speedo, so I'm not sure about the cutting. If I could make a new panel to replace the speaker grill I would be happy with that, but it is probably well above my skill level. So, what does everyone think?
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yup, different material to mine, but same shape I reckon! If they are, then they should move forward on their runners when you tilt them, or at least mine do. Yours may not be on the right runners come to think of it..
Cheers,
Rich
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Hmm. The Sunny Coupe seats pictured are very close, but not quite. Good try though! Mine don't have the plastic lever up on the side of the seat, instead they have a big chunky plastic lever at the outside rear of the seat squab, which only causes the seat back to flip forward when released. It is also the only means of adjusting the seat back lean angle, ie. you hold the lever up to release the ratchet and then angle the seats how you wish, then release the lever. I will try to get some more detailed photos up today. I do think they may be Nissan though, my family has had a 1990 Nissan Pintara TR.X (Bluebird or Stanza in other countries) since new, and the shape of the lower seat bolsters are quite similar.
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Also, in case anyone hadn't realised, this car is in South Australia so any seats fitted to things which weren't imported to Australia are fairly unlikely, unless the seats came in separately in a container with a J importer or something. I don't believe that any Sunny Coupes were ever sold in Australia, so that would make it hard for there to be seats lying around to have their seat rails welded to the top of factory beetle seat runners!! I didn't do it, but if I had done the conversion I would have possibly bothered to make some new seat rails that weren't a clear foot off the floor. I guess that's just how beetles are set up, but about five centimetres out of the seat rails would make the driving position much better I reckon! One odd benefit of this backyard conversion is that I now have two seat sliders (!!), although the beetle one is locked in place with exhaust clamps, so only the seats' slider mechanism is used.
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For anyone trying to guess the seats, here are some detail shots: Passenger seat: Seat tilt lever, as mentioned this tilts the seat forwards (or backwards) but does not slide it: Lumbar support adjuster, is on drivers side seat only, the knob around the outside turns, which adjusts the seat back's side bolsters in and out! Very nice feature, allows 100kg of Aussie muscle (and beer gut) to get perfectly comfy in a Japanese sports bucket seat. I can't even fit in a new Civic Type R seat! Gratuitous photo of my beautiful wide wheels tucking under the guard: Which is only possible because of the extreme off-road shape of my driveway, on flat ground there is about 10cm from the top of the tyre to the guard lip! Good for off-roading though. Happy seat hunting!
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That speedboat tacho is way cool! Not only would the install be easier, but I think it suits your Beetle better than the Smiths gauge anyway. Reminds me of Porsche 356 instrumentation, somewhat.
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With a bocephus sticker on his 442, he'd light 'em up just for fun
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Hi all, just a minor update with a technical question. When I originally got my car all the flexible fuel lines were very ancient and covered in some sort of black cloth braiding, possibly asbestos depending on how old they are! For fear of leaking and engine bay fires, I have recently replaced all of these lines with new black rubber fuel hose. Since most of you guys are suffering in the UK's icy winter, I will share my story of weather-related car trouble. Last week I was driving home from work in the city during 5pm peak-hour traffic. Here in South Australia we have been having a bit of a heat wave recently, with seven days over 40 degrees celsius. So here I am, old air-cooled car in heat and traffic for an hour, driving past lots of much more modern cars boiling on the side of the road. ;D I made it home and was just trying to drive up my driveway (which is a fairly steep slope) and the engine conked out. Dead. Tried cranking it over for minutes, but all the fuel lines were completely vapour-locked and it wouldn't go until the following morning when the fuel had cooled down and returned to a liquid state. My question is, what can I do to shield the fuel hoses from heat? Should I put on some sort of insulated cover or braiding or just hope for the best? This has only happened to me once so far but I would not like it to happen far from home.
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Okay, a quick update. I have had plenty of time to idly fiddle with the car recently so I have tested both of my ancient tachometers and have sadly discovered that I will not be able to use them. The OMC one I had already tested before and came up with the same result: it works perfectly up to 1000rpm and then stays at 1000 when you rev it harder. I don't know how to fix this and I imagine that it will be cheaper to source another tacho rather than get this one fixed. Disappointingly, the Smiths/Hillman tacho doesn't work at all. I opened it up and couldn't see anything obviously burnt out or broken inside so I gave up on it and will keep scouring trade tables for a decent-looking old tacho. So that I could feel like I had achieved something, I then decided to remove some weight from the car, inspired by ghost and his MR2 thread. I removed the panel inside the engine cover which is supposed to catch the rain (since there's a drought on and I live in the driest state on the driest continent on earth) and weighed it. Weight of the panel and attached hoses was 1350 grams, not as much as I had hoped. Mind you, I already took off the towbar which came with the car and that weighed about 15kg! Anyway, I'm thinking my next step in weight loss would be to take out the tar boards and fibrous sound deadening from underneath the carpets and then put the carpets straight back on the steel floor. The only thing I'm worried about is the increase in engine noise, since this car is already pretty loud and I use it on the street every day and only compete probably 10 to 15 days a year. Has anyone done this before? Anyone running a Beetle on the street with no interior? How bad is the noise?
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yeah, it's going to be noisy without the tar-boards. there's not really much to strip from a beetle without getting radical (like taking out the backseat), probably 1/2 a kg of padding in the front boot. pretty sure there's not too much that can be done about the vapourlock either, especially in such extreme weather, but make sure you keep replacing those fuel lines ever 12 months or so, they're routed in the most rediculously dangerous way and with engine heating can crack after a couple of years.
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Remade In Australia thereimaginarium.com.au
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Feb 13, 2009 13:46:05 GMT
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Thanks for the advice, I rather thought so. There was nothing in the front boot of the car when I got it anyway, so I haven't put anything back in! Instant weight saving!
All the boot trim, including the glovebox and the instrument panel cover, was made largely of cardboard and apparently disintegrated or was lost at some stage years ago. The lack of a glovebox and an ill-fitting bonnet means that you get an awesome rush of air through the glovebox lid if you open it while driving! I do have an original glovebox from a slightly different model and what seems to be a poorly-fitting fibreglass reproduction of the instrument panel cover stashed away in the shed, but it was too much effort to make them fit properly.
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Mar 18, 2009 12:54:08 GMT
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Last weekend was the VW Club of SA's annual weekend of motorsport, so I got the helmet out and had a crack at my first two events for this year. The weekend was held on a very dry, dusty, sandy dirt surface and involved a motorkhana on the Saturday, followed by a khanacross on Sunday. My mate Rex and I both drove for the whole weekend, and my dad had a try at the motorkhana as well, so the car was working overtime all weekend. This is my mate Rex lining up and competing in the motorkhana. At this stage the car still had a 100% pristine, undamaged original floorpan... During the course of the weekend though, some rather large rocks were encountered some distance off the track. This happened whilst I was not driving, leaving the driver's side rear floorpan pushed upwards about 3cm. I first noticed because the vinyl trim panel between the back seat and the floor had buckled, causing the heater vent trim ring to fall out! Anyway, after the worst of it was bashed out (through the carpet) with a rubber mallet and piece of wood, here's how it looked: This was then cleaned, wire brushed and painted in bituminous chassis black with a brush, a process which involved getting almost as much paint onto my (inverted) hand as was applied to the floor! So there we have it, job done and ready for another 39 years of abuse. I also had to tighten up a loose front ball-joint and re-align the front suspension (by tape measure) following the dirt-track beating. Then, off to university during the week! I did encounter one major problem with the Beetle in soft sand though. When power was applied, the rear end suffered such bad axle tramp that the car was shaken half to bits. The passenger side door is no longer properly aligned and must be lifted in order to be unlatched. I'm thinking that it will need a new set of shock absorbers (dampers) to cure the axle tramp. Any other suggestions?
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Mar 18, 2009 15:53:56 GMT
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Excellent work,.. have +100 actually using your car points!
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Mar 18, 2009 23:44:19 GMT
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Thank you very much sir!
I don't see why I wouldn't use it and enjoy it as much as I can. I forgot to mention also that the track was about 90 minutes drive from my house, about half of which was on a freeway at 70mph. No better way to warm up your engine in the morning!
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