Aircooled VW South Africa

HW2's new chassis and engine went to Orkney today, for some IMPI magic, thanks Bugger and Beetlefanatic for the help in getting it there

I've spent last week Friday, the weekend and Monday working on the chassis, cutting out the floorpans as well as cleaning the engine. Got a nice external oil cooler + pump from Calooker at the swop meet, so no more dirty oil!

Stay tuned (and STOP hijacking! )

Is the chassis also going to get diamond treadplate floorpans like the old Buggy? These things are solid!!

Blitzkrieg_Beetle wrote:Is the chassis also going to get diamond treadplate floorpans like the old Buggy? These things are solid!!

The plan is to go the same route as HW1, and I must start by thanking IMPI for his help many years ago, and his offer to help with HW2 again. This is also his ingenious plan to strengthen the (shortened) buggy chassis. Basically it is only the centre tunnel that is kept, and a frame of rectangular tubing in the shape of the old Beetle pan is welded onto it, with flat bar strips inbetween. The aluminium treadplate is then cut in the right shape, and riveted to the flat bar, to form the floor, see pics below.





The treadplate plays no role in the strength of the chassis, if you put pieces of plywood on the floor, you will have the same effect, but treadplate is probably the best material to use - light, relatively cheap, and easy to cut (I used an electric jigsaw on the floors of HW1). I am however, not too fond of the 'bling' effect of the aluminum plate, it goes dull soon after installing anyway, but the advantage is that it won't rust. If the chassis is well prepared (sandblasted/galvanised and/or powder coated), it will last forever. I drilled two holes the size of Coke bottle tops in the back of HW1's chassis, and when it was dirty, I just parked it with its nose uphill, and washed the chassis out with a hose, the water running out of the rear holes. Never had any sign of rust on the chassis.

I always wanted to cover the aluminium floors of HW1 with removable wooden slats (duckboards!), like the old Schwimmwagens had (barely visible in the pic below), but never got to it. It is an idea I'm playing with at the moment for HW2, will see if I get to it in the end. The chassis will probably be fitted with standard Beetle seat rails again, to enable the forward/backward adjustment and removal of the front seats.




To give you an idea of the strength of the chassis of HW1, it was so stiff that you could actually remove one of the front wheels, without jacking it up. It also stayed very well intact during the accident, as can be seen on the pic below - unfortunately the fibreglass body wasn't as strong

Update 09/10/2008:

Got the Porsche gauges back today! I am really impressed with the workmanship of the guys at Speedometer Services in Fisher's Hill, Germiston. They cleaned them out, repainted the needles orange red and the bezels black. The faceplates are still in an excellent condition, so they weren't redone.

(Ironically the gauges will probably be the last components to be fitted to the buggy on completion, so for the time being they will be safely stored away.)

The pilot lights in the 914 tach (indicator green and high beam blue) are also working 100% now, the coloured filters were replaced as well.



The 'blank' part below the fuel gauge is also a light - and bright red! In the 911 it came from, it was most probably the oil light - trust me, you won't miss it when it starts glowing! Will wire it up as an oil light on the buggy as well.

The speedo will definitely be replaced, since it is calibrated MPH, and is geared to work off the gearbox, not the left front wheel. I do however love the symmetry of the gauges, and will hang onto it, till I get a similar Km/h replacement. In the meanwhile it makes a great and secure base for the GPS suction cup

i love how you did that pan pine...i would like to do the same to the buggy one day...is it just flat bar you used there?

The work was done by IMPI, and the pics above are actually from another buggy he did earlier (mine is still far from that at this stage). Basically all you need is rectangular tubing for the outside pirameter of the chassis, narrow flat bar for the inside of the rectangular tubing, as well as the tunnel line, and wider flat bar for the 'support' bars across the chassis.

Although those wood slats would not look bad, I can just imagine how it will collect dust/mud or even coins! I know that they cna be removed though, but it would be a lot of work. Ie take seats out, take slats out, take undercarpet(if there is any) out, clean everything and put it back in. Why not prepare the surface of the aluminium and then rubberise it with truck bed liner?

Oh, btw, afaik, you can powder coat galvanised parts (well, maybe you can, but it will look kak I think. rough finish)

Rubberising sounds like a good idea, will keep that in mind. The main purpose of galvanising - should I go that (expensive!) route - is to prevent rust. When cutting and welding the tunnel for shortening, the inside of the tunnel is left bare metal since it is impossible to paint or treat it after 'sealed', that is the main reason why the chassis' of many buggies rust so badly.

Any updates on your buggy, Zero?

Ihave got an idea, but need to research into it a little. So I will get back to you.....

Update 10/10/2008:

Did not do anything serious to the buggy this afternoon or tonight - it has been a long week at work, but I scratched around in the electric component spares box I have and found a working dim/bright relay from a 411, which I had forgotten about. Tested it, and it works fine, and that is good news, because they are getting quite hard to find and the current Brazilian 'pirates' being sold are crap. Also identified the horn I'll be installing (some German LOUD one!). Cleaned the chrome window washer nozzle and hooked it up with the electric pump - it works perfect and sprays two strong jets of water.

The next major step will be the sorting out of the front suspension beam - cleaning it, sandblast, paint. Check the steering box, new balljoints, and king & link pins. Not going for dropped suspension this time (it proved a bit of a waste on HW1, Merlin has a story to tell about smoking front buggy tyres at last year's Potch Show, because of the dropped suspension.)

Would like to fit Golf front disks with wide-5 Beetle adapters for the Sprintstars, but finances a bit tight at the moment. The big spending will probably only proceed after the George Challenge next year.

In the meanwhile the gearbox will also be removed, cleaned, and I'll have Bugger have a look at it to see if it is A-OK.

Current wish list for the Buggy (read: high $$$ ), things I would love to put on at some stage but won't hinder the progress if I can't get it immediately:

- Porsche 356 manifolds, air cleaners & linkages (hmmm - what goes 'inbetween' the air cleaner and manifold, you might ask, and WHY is it not on your wish list, Pine? Well - go figure it out )
- Left hand side IRS swing arm, or set of Porsche 924/944 swingarms
- IRS gearbox, CV's, drive shaft

Saw these cool pedal rubbers on TS tonight - I like it a lot, and will see if I can get hold of a pair (Calooker? ), it is a fresh, yet simple and straight-forward variation on the 'drilled' aluminium racing pedals seen so often!



And finally - a pic of ME , for your enjoyment by the great VW artist Pascal Meslet (Google his name to see many more pics)

Porsche 924/944 swingarms

There was a white 924 on Gumtree that was being stripped for parts, car is/was in Cape Town.

IRS gearbox, CV's, drive shaft

Eish - Had you taken that white 1302, you would have had a complete IRS suspension Sadly, IMPI and I lost out on that one.

I had a vision (I'm phsychic, you know?) of the consequences of 'taking' that white 1302, so I backed away...

The car wasn't the seller's to start of with........so yes...........Maybe it was for the better........

Update 15/10/2008:

Well ...uhm... not a lot to say at the moment. The past few days have been quite busy (dayjob, that is) so not a lot of time for the buggy in the week anyway.

Have done some reading in a book 'Hot and Cool VWs', by Herbert Williamson published in 1970, which has some valuable information on the era when buggies were the thing to be seen in. A quote from Chapter 4, 'Going Buggy' -

According to one reliable estimate there are some 65000 buggies running in California alone.

Now remember, this was 1970...

Will post a few more lines from the book, throughout this thread. Still figuring out which way I exactly want to go for the 'look' of the buggy. Also stacked some old Volksworld issues in the magazine shelf of the toilet for some intensive reasearch..



Well, I haven't done completely nothing, though! Got an old gearbox carcass from Bugger a while ago, so I cut it in two to make a bellhousing for the engine stand. A starter can be now be fitted to it, so that the engine is attached, it can be bench-started. Spent some time cleaning the bellhousing, still have to figure out how to make a bracket for it though.

Update 16/10/2008:

Got the other two Sprintstars back today after sandblasting, this is the first time their bare Sprintie assmetal sees the light of day in 36 years!

A HUGE thanks to Ken (ACVWSA username beachbug) for the sandblasting, apparently he had a hard time getting all the old layers of paint off! Contact him by PM for more info on sandblasting, they are situated in Centurion.



Matching pair - manufactured June 1972