'58 Karmann Käfer Kabriolett & Ghia

[horrido]

Been kind of busy and had this on a back burner over Christmas. I had kind of decided to give it to my pal to work on, but I'm thinking I'll try and get it at least driveable so as to avoid having to trailer it over there. Maybe I'll be clever enough to get it running nicely?
A friend in the UK with a 356 kit car has been through all this process lately, though he's Mr Fancy and has fitted a lambda sensor and all that stuff to do it right. Not sure I'll go that far. Anyhow, he was telling me I should check the jets and emulsion tubes to make sure I have the right ones. These are Alfa carbs after all and everyone says the Alfa emulsion tubes are not happy on a VW motor. Luckily, all this stuff is accessible from the top, as I'd have a struggle accessing the sides of the carbs. I checked it and astonishingly it had the correct tubes fitted, so that's at least a good start. He said the rest of the jets were also ballpark right.

I managed to get the motor running again after a long layoff (and set the carbs on fire twice) and this is what I'm dealing with.

I'm told the coughing is indicative of running lean and it does like to cough. Like all the time. If anyone has any thoughts about getting it running better, then I'm listening.

[dikkehemaworst]

Is your inlet manifold airtight? Not warped by heat or something?
No extra air intake somewhere?
That leans the mixture on fiats a lot
( no experience on beetles, sorry)

[mungo]

There might be 1 or 2 open vacuum ports that need blocking?
I presume you tried backing out the mixture screws to fatten it up?

[horrido]

Air leaks are on my list of things to try. I have'nt really tried anything yet. I hope the manifolds aren't leaking. They're new and pretty thick, milled ally, so I'm hoping they're ok. My pal played with the mixture screws briefly, but he couldn't get it to stop coughing either.

[turbogeek]

Has this engine run properly with any set of carburettors? Could the valve clearances be slightly too tight, keeping an/some inlet valves open, causing the coughing?

[gettingold]

Hi, on mine i have got a pipe that runs between the 2 carbs (not for fuel) i think it is to balance the pressure possibly and i brought a cheap tool/gauge off amazon that sits on top of the carb and reads the inlet pressure so you can set them both the same, it was early to mid last year but with the gauge i managed to set both carbs to run nicely and i have very limited knowledge i watched a youtube clip that showed me roughly what inlet pressure to aim for and apart from going very dizzy very quickly at one point because the wind was blowing into the garage keeping the fumes in the garage instead of clearing them i managed it so worth a try.

[horrido]

Wax on, wax off
Engine in, engine out.



After failing to get the motor running properly in the car, I'd thought about handing it off to my pal to look at, but since he hasn't been falling over himself to get in touch with me about picking up the car, I finally got annoyed enough to pull the motor out again and have a go myself. I'd built this up as if it was going to be a bit of a nightmare job, based on how much time and effort fitting up of all the parts and getting the engine in the car had taken. But it was dropping a fair bit of oil, which needs looking into and it's also very difficult to see what's going on with it in the car, as there's so little room. There were a couple of other good reasons that made it worth doing, one being my idea that it will be much easier to take the motor to someone to run and tune on a test stand, than it is to take a whole car to them. In the end (predictably) it wasn't that bad of a job at all.


I did have to drop the exhaust, which is six nuts to undo and had the usual struggle to get the back of the car up high enough to get the motor out from underneath it. Teetering piles of wood r us. I'm definitely going to be shopping for a low 3t jack, with a decent bit of lift height. Although I hadn't wanted to, I ended up pulling the tar board sound deadener off the firewall. It was taking up too much space that I really need to get some air into the cooling fan and my breather box was also rammed hard up against it, so it had to go. Same for the side parts, as they made adjusting the carbs absolutely impossible.
I took the opportunity to clean the firewall. Funny to think nobody has laid eyes on this paint since 1958. It polished up pretty well.





Next job is to strip the fan shroud off the top and see if I can see any obvious source of oil.
Also I have bought a Karmann Ghia.

[CaptainSlog]

In my experience, most beetle oil leaks come from the push rod tubes.

[horrido]

I'll take a look at those. Cheers. It's still a fresh motor, so at least I'm not trying to look past half an inch of crud all over the thing.

[glenanderson]

The last one I rebuilt leaked from the seals where the oil cooler bolts to the block. Still not sure whether it was my mistake or pattern seals. Replacing them sorted it though.

[metalshapes]

Fiat 500's have the same kind of pushrod tubes.

I've never been able to get them completely leak free.

Until I fitted a set of spring loaded ones on my current one.

Not period correct for the era of your build, but because they are hidden from view you may consider them anyway.

[horrido]

Thanks guys. I'll get it pulled apart soon and hopefully it'll not be too hard to work out.

[horrido]

New toy...


Had a lot of work done - has an Okrasa twin port head/twin carb kit, rebuilt gearbox - but hasn't been driven much in around ten years. Drives pretty well, though the tyres drag the front arches something horrible on full lock. Who said fat b*st*rd? Wants more anti-roll and better shocks I think and the steering is a little stiff.
Not sure which way I'll go with it. I have some nice Porsche wheels and front disc brakes that would go on it, but if I can't find a way to stop the tyres rubbing, it might have to go back to stock height.

[metalshapes]

A low light KG!

Nice!

Can you legally narrow the front beam where you are at?
( I don't really like the look, but it does solve the rubbing problem)

Or limit the steering lock?

[horrido]

Thanks Alex.
Seems there are a couple of things that are not helping the tyre rub. The wheels are some 356 looking rims with a worse offset than stock and the drop spindles sometimes push the wheels out too. Just standard VW 4" wheels would probably help, but I'd need to fit bigger tyres for the TüV, so i'm back at square one.
I have some 4.5" Fuchs wheels that will work on the front, with a huge back spacing, but I'll need to fit the matching disc brakes too, which means different spindles. Since my front beam isn't lowered, I'd probably have to fit an adjustable beam, as stock ride height combined with Porsche wheels isn't appealing. But then I don't know how the TüV will feel about all that and I want my Historic status H number plate. In theory it should be ok, but it ends up being at the discretion of the tester.

Had some fun and games so far. Went to visit my pal about an hour away. Sat in some horrible traffic jam for about an hour and the car was ok, aside from the idle being a little low. I was way less OK, getting boiled in a black car without even a fan to blow air at me. My pal said we should go and see his friend, since he runs a VW workshop (SGS Aircooled, Waltham Chase) and he'd for sure like to see the car. We got there just fine, but then - of course - the car won't start. Well, if you are going to break down, there are worse places than in front of a VW workshop.
The guy was looking at it and we started to notice a few things. The coil was cracked and dripping oil. We figured someone must have left the ignition on, until he got a jolt when trying to tighten the distributor up. Whoever fitted the points/condensor had managed to lose the insulation to the distributor body, so it was permanantly live.
While this was going on and the engine was running again, I spotted fuel dripping from the carbs. Once we started on those we realised they weren't even bolted to the manifolds properly. It looks a lot like whoever refitted the engine forgot to tighten up any of the carb bolts, since you have to remove them to fit it. The spark plugs were so black, I thought we'd be needing a chimney sweep.
Got it all sorted, starting on the key, but even afterwards it wasn't running too well. It actually goes really well for a 35hp car, but it isn't super happy on a steady throttle. It can occasionally start to stumble a bit. Give it some gas and it's fine again. I've fitted a new fuel filter and ordered some new plugs, so we'll see if that makes any odds.
It's very moody about starting too. We went across town to a couple of shops. On leaving, it started basically on the key. At the first stop, it was ok. The last place, nope. Had to bump it. None of this bodes particularly well for the forthcoming long drive to Germany.

[horrido]

Roadtrip!
(eventually)

Well, that was all rather more grey hair inducing than expected. Rashly assuming that the previous non starting incident had been an isolated occurence, I left the car parked for a few days until it was time to head towards the channel tunnel and, eventally, Germany. First stop Holland though. Or not, as it turned out. Goodbyes were said and then, naturally, it wouldn't start. At all.

Went into panic mode and phoned around some local VW mechanics. Nobody wanted to come out on a friday afternoon, but I got a great suggestion of going up to Custom and Commercial and buying a new 009 dizzy to chuck in, just to rule out a few possible faults in one go. I then got kind of sabotaged by not having anything but the few tools previous owner gave me and the usual, predictable incompatibility of the bits I'd bought and the bits on the car (eg. spade connector on the condenser wire, post fit terminal on the coil!). Gave up for the day.

I managed to get a pal to come over on Saturday morning with a multimeter/battery charger/wire crimpers and everything else, including a used 6v coil. Took about an hour and a half and it was running again. Easy with the right tools - impossible half the time without. I managed to change three of the spark plugs, but couldn't get the fourth without a short extension. Also worth noting that new points are apparently sometimes coated in some kind of shipping coating that acts as a very good electrical insulator.

Still needed to get to the tunnel quickly, to get to my friends place in Holland before nightfall, as the headlights are about as bright as the sidelights on a new car. Had a very quick sandwich and chucked my stuff in the back. Turned the key and....nothing!! My electrically talented pal had left by this time....I was not happy. Ignition lights came on and then went out....which could only mean the battery as the likely culprit and luckily I spotted it has some rather odd terminals, where the cables are loose and rattle about until you really tighten the clamps. Not like the usual ones where you can just push them on. Wonder how much of the previous random issues were down to this, but who knows? So another two minute fix and much to my relief, I was off. All went pretty much perfectly after that, although you can believe I was sweating it until I made it to the tunnel. Occasionally (like once every two hours) I'd get a big old heart attack inducing stumble from the motor (cr*p in the tank?) but if I stuck my foot down, it would clear. Made it to Holland with about half an hour to spare before nightfall.

Up the next morning to carry on to Germany. It started on the key - I seem to have the knack of it now - but about a mile after I left, it started spluttering and wouldn't pick up at all. Pulled over, yanked the jets (a super easy job, as the are front and central on both carbs) and blew them through and it was running perfectly again. Assume some crud had settled out in the tank overnight. The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful and it runs like a champ. Not 'fast`, but far from the slowest thing on the road. Goes up some of the steeper autobahn hills with no trouble at all, unlike every other 30hp VW I've had, where you'd be screaming it in 3rd to get up anything halfway steep. That twin carb/twin port heads set up really makes a difference. Also, not having a kippered old used up motor probably doesn't hurt any. I just cruised along at around 60-65mph. Also - everyone stares, which is a bit disconcerting at first.

[horrido]

After some fairly heavy rearranging in my workshop, my measurments were - luckily - accurate and both cars did fit inside, with a little room to spare. I do need to have a serious clear up and organise things session. Prob some more shelving wouldn't hurt either. Getting abandoned project vibes from the Bug, wedged in the corner like that. :-(



Front suspension - After looking online, I found that CSP, up near Hamburg, have adjustable front axles for sale, complete with TüV approval paperwork. Quite pricey though. I figured I'd see what turned up on the small ads website and really lucked out, as two days later, one turned up. It was 45 minutes away from home, less than half the new price and still with the CSP stickers on it. That meant I could get new paperwork for it. I arranged to go and pick it up.
I figured the seller would be some fellow hobbyist, since an early VW adjustable front axle isn't the sort of thing you end up with otherwise, but it was much better than that. The guy had a workshop, with a number of modified VWs. We were chatting and he said he'd got lots of things through the TüV with no problem, much of which I thought were verboten. Also that he'd registered imported cars previously too. Seems like he's going to be the guy who can solve a lot of my problems.

The current problems of too low and rubbing tyres are down to the spindles (drop spindles tend to be wider and they're too low) and the rims. I can solve a lot of this with the new front axle beam and stuff I have had lying around for a very long time and never used - namely Porsche 356C front disc brakes and some 4.5"x15" Porsche Fuchs wheels, which have a really large backspacing. I bought all this kit way back, as I was going to put it on the Beetle, but I couldn't bring myself to do it in the end. Anyway I have it, it solves a lot of issues and I might as well use it on something.

First world problems. The 4.5" Fuchs wheels are a bit rare, being only used in 1967 and only on the 911S. They're the first Fuchs wheels used on the 911. I have a pair of 5.5" from 1968 to go on the back. I'll need to do something with the wheels before I fit them, as they were polished probably 30 years ago and are pretty ropey by now. I went online and found out there's a guy a couple of hours away, who's the king of restoring Fuchs wheels, right down to the correct re-anodising. Early Porsche restoration prices being what they are, I took a deep breath and emailed him, asking how much it'd be to make all four wheels look like the 1967 style, which are differently painted. He replied that (of course!) those are the absolute hardest ones to restore, as they have both gloss and satin anodising on them and it was 500 euros a wheel. Ouch. I mean I'm not saying it's unfair, and it's not mega money until you multiply it x4. I'm sure it's a ton of work, but I hadn't planned on spending quite that much ie: nearly double what I paid for the wheels. Same problem to paint them all in the later scheme. Cheaper, but still 320 a wheel.

Pic from his website...top work...


Not really sure what to do now. I was wondering about trying to mimic anodising with paint somehow, but I can see that costing nearly as much and it might come out horrible. The other thing I might try is paint them to look like tarnished magnesium. Should be relatively easy and it's a different look.

(FYI: Fuchs means fox and is pronounced the same as books. Not Fewshes or Fuschias or anything else you may have heard. It's also not a plural. One Fuchs wheel, lots of Fuchs wheels. But never one Fuch wheel.)

[metalshapes]

Easy for me to say, I know...

But go for the original plan, with the '67 style.

It will look great on your car.

[horrido]

I can't say I'm not tempted. They do look amazing, but blimey...that's a lot of money.

[teaboy]

Sept 7, 2024 15:30:58 GMT horrido said:

(FYI: Fuchs means fox and is pronounced the same as books. Not Fewshes or Fuschias or anything else you may have heard. It's also not a plural. One Fuchs wheel, lots of Fuchs wheels. But never one Fuch wheel.)

Seeing people write Fuch wheel really makes my teeth itch.

You wouldn't call a fox a fo.