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You don't need an oil temp gauge. There is a good reason why VW did not fit one. If you can't smell the oil, then it's not overheating.
The generator charge light is there to warn you in case you throw a fan belt. As the fan is mounted on the end of the generator shaft, as long as you are charging, then the fan is spinning.
These engines already have a very effective oil cooler, which is force-fed air from the fan. It's on the left in front of the fan housing. A secondary one should not be necessary unless you are running a really high compression ratio or doing heavy towing. Remember that these same engines also powered fully-laden vans and campers up hills on hot days.
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Feb 14, 2017 12:37:02 GMT
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Oh, and before worrying about new gaskets for your rocker covers, make sure that the covers themselves are straight and flat, and the bails are tight.
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Agreed that you don't need to worry so much, stop overthinking it. The carb looks fine to me. The nut on the front is because someone in the past has stripped or broken the stud off it, which always seize in there. They have then put a bolt through from the bottom, and a nut on the top. Nothing wrong with keeping that arrangement. VW engines are incredibly robust and will run with a lot of things wrong with them. My first Beetle was a 1500 with a tired old engine. With 20W50 oil in there, you could hear scraping sounds from the bearings at idle. I ran 40W70 oil in it and that filled in the clearances nicely. It had 70psi compression in #3 and 100psi in the others. It still started every time and I drove it daily for a couple of years. I even made it to an indicated 86mph on a downhill run! After upgrading to a 1600cc twin-port, I ended up selling this to a guy who put new bearings in and a new piston & barrel kit on it and reckoned that it went great in his Kombi!
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Regarding the oil from the breather, don't mess about with any kind of oil catch can. The original oil-bath type air cleaner does a perfect job of catching the oil, just pick up one of those and stick it on. Note also that the correct type of distributor is shown in this photo, which is a double vacuum, double advance (DVDA), i.e. vacuum to advance and retard, plus centrifugal advance. The main idea of the vacuum retard unit was to reduce emissions I believe. You can also use the SVDA type, which only has the one vacuum mechanism and a centrifugal advance, as fitted to earlier Beetles.
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Is it an original carb? It might be worth keeping, I've heard the reproduction ones are not much good. Check that the shafts are tight and then give it a good wipe to try and find the leak.
One thing to check if you have a fuel leak is to make sure the fuel inlet fitting is tight. Try wiggling the fuel hose where it attaches to the carb and see if it moves. They're a brass insert and can come loose. Sometimes you can re-seat them by taking the hose off and giving it a sharp tap with a hammer.
Have you got an engine bay pic?
Vacuum advance is definitely the way forward.
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Ideally, you want a double garage which is at least 6 metres wide with a daily driver in one side, which can be driven out when you want to work on the other one.
My garage is a bit narrower than that, so it's a tight squeeze. Whenever possible, I prefer to work on the driveway.
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Beetles do not have a 1:1 gear in the transmission, 4th is overdrive. You can treat it almost as if you're driving 1st, 2nd, 3rd and then 5th. 1300cc Beetles also have a different (shorter) diff ratio than 1600cc ones. Idle speed should be quite slow, you should really check this with a tachometer and adjust it. The main thing is to have it idling fast enough that the generator charge light doesn't glow. Generally, the auto choke should switch off after only a few minutes. Given that this is basically an "unknown" car, you need to start with the basics. Does it have the stock distributor and carburettor? From memory, you should have both vacuum and centrifugal advance and a 34PICT-3 or similar. If you don't have a vacuum advance canister hooked up, then as tofufi says you probably have a non-standard distributor like a Bosch 009, which will give you flat spots with the stock carburettor. There are also various aftermarket electronic distributors around, but generally for a stock engine you would want to have vacuum advance. If everything is stock, set the timing as per the manual, depending on which engine you have. If you're new to VWs, it's well worth getting a workshop manual. The "idiot book" is very good, and even the Haynes manual is good for Beetles. This site also has a lot of information: www.vw-resource.com/34pict3.htmlMy final piece of advice would be to find someone local who knows about Beetles and can help you. They were very common cars for a long time, so lots of people should still have the right knowledge.
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Like this one? With the rest done right to match the front view I'd say exactly like that. That is a photoshop, and if you built it in real life the finished car would be ridiculously wide. Let's say those rear wheels are on 6" rims and spaced 4" away from the bodywork. That makes it 20" wider than a normal Land Rover!
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I bought a VW Type 3 squareback from a hippy lady. It had the shells of crab claws and legs stuffed into all of the dash vents for some reason? I think they were supposed to be decorative.
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Cupholders were really only considered an important feature in quite modern cars. If you like both retro cars and cupholders, I would say that you should probably install your own. You can use a bit of PVC pipe and an end cap, or pick up your preferred type of cup holder from a wrecker's. Mounting options could be as simple as double-sided tape. Having said that, my ST185 Celica GT-Four has a double slide-out cup holder in the dash, and I believe a lot of late '80s to early '90s Toyotas have the same one. Due to the open sides, it's really only any good for cans, or can-sized bottles. If you find a car with a double-DIN radio, it should be quite easy to swap it for a DIN-mounted cupholder and a single DIN radio.
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Also, first improvement – a steering wheel cover because the wheel was a bit scabby: So, when are you getting the longhorn sticker for the back window?
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I see you mention it has B1 omega underpinnings, this gives me very bad idea, although i imagine getting one of these in the UK would be about as easy as ingesting a pineapple whole, you mention its lengthened and widened, does this extend to the engine bay or are they pretty similar? V8 omega would not be a bad thing. The car is widened straight down the middle, so therefore I would say that the engine bay is wider.
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Jan 24, 2017 12:09:58 GMT
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Fantastic collection and photos!
The "postless" hoist looks amazing as well. I would love to have one in my dream garage.
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Jan 24, 2017 11:59:29 GMT
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Nice Sundowner, there can't be many left like that!
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This is fantastic! Was it created by a member of our parish? If not, they should join!
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I have it, but haven't played many hours yet. So far, I have died many times, but not finished the car.
The first time, I died by crashing the van in the rain, trying to pick up the drunk guy who rings you from the pub in the middle of the night.
In another life, I tried to go to the shops to buy sausages and beer in the van, crashed into the ditch but survived. Then I hitch-hiked, but the guy dropped me off in the middle of nowhere. I died of thirst whilst trying to walk to town and getting lost. Apparently, Finland was a harsh place to live in the '90s!
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Roadkill have more than just trade contacts, they have assistant mechanics from the staff of Hot Rod magazine and Motor Trend to help them behind the scenes. Freiburger and Finnegan have noted in videos that people like Lucky Costa work on Roadkill cars when they run out of time, as per the video below.
I'm not bagging their work, I'm just amazed that their company Health & Safety officer allows them to get away with it! Remember that they work for a fairly large US company, it's surprising that their legal department lets Roadkill do half of the stuff that they do.
And by the way, Freiburger and Finnegan really "get it" in a way that can't be faked, that's obvious from the videos. I've been a fan for years.
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Given the exact circumstance that you describe, I would definitely pay in full. You asked them to change the sensor and they did so.
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IMO that Impala was beyond sketchy and questionable in many ways of its assembly. But it won me over. Man, the sound of that thing was simply menacing, even if it slow compared to some cars with all of that power! And the look? Spot on! The one thing which I didn't understand, is why couldn't they get a nut on the steering wheel? It looked like the stock steering wheel, did they just lose the nut and couldn't find a new one? That seems excessively slack and dangerous. Or do you think it was because they had to meddle with the column shift to get it to work with their transmission, therefore messing up the steering wheel mounting? As a lot of people have commented online, it makes no sense why they didn't weld up the diff. That seems very Roadkill-style, and would have improved the burnouts massively! Obviously, the whole car only "works" as a system because it has no grip. If they put decent tyres on the back, then the huge torque of the engine would quickly destroy either their axles, driveshaft or transmission. The lack of axle location would also probably cause issues, as you would be winding up the springs and getting axle tramp, etc. The fun thing about people like Roadkill working on big old American cars is that they have plenty of room in the engine bay, and drivelines which are all compatible with their muscle car engines, so everything seems to more or less slot together. They have the expensive engine on hand already, and the rest of the car is disposable, so they can simply slot the engine into any old car and thrash it.
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