I thought I had better post some pictures from Fraser 😀
I had such a great week.
Smiley 😀
If you said I was a Volkswagen man, you'd be right.
Smiley 😀
If you said I was a Volkswagen man, you'd be right.
Smiley 🙂
If you said I was a Volkswagen man, you'd be right.
This is the stretch that broke my CV 😊
Smiley 🙂
If you said I was a Volkswagen man, you'd be right.
WD40 is good deodorant as well as good for drying out drowned engines 😀
My favourite
Smiley 🙂
If you said I was a Volkswagen man, you'd be right.
Smiley wrote:
1 of those 3 blokes standing out on the beach is my father!
Your Baja wasn't lop sided was it?
Small world.
🙂2.0slow 92 MK2
Made in Germany, Assembled in Africa, 'Migrated' to Australia
Dave's Baja was lopsided as he broke the R/H rear torsion bar just after he got onto Fraser for the week
65 Meyers Manx
68 Country Buggy (KO 367)
68 Country Buggy (KO 669)
68 Country Buggy (KO 789)
68 Country Buggy (KO 815)
68 Baja Bug
76 Baja Kombi Twincab
65 Meyers Manx
68 Country Buggy (KO 367)
68 Country Buggy (KO 669)
68 Country Buggy (KO 789)
68 Country Buggy (KO 815)
68 Baja Bug
76 Baja Kombi Twincab
65 Meyers Manx
68 Country Buggy (KO 367)
68 Country Buggy (KO 669)
68 Country Buggy (KO 789)
68 Country Buggy (KO 815)
68 Baja Bug
76 Baja Kombi Twincab
Yeah the broke car was Dave's Baja. Still made it to the cape and back with it broken though!!!
We fixed it once on Saturday night, then he broke it again on Tuesday halfway up to the cape. And we fixed it again on Wednesday morning. He has told me it still hasn't broken again yet, but he hasn't really driven it since we got back from the trip.
Smiley 🙂
If you said I was a Volkswagen man, you'd be right.
Can't believe it, but Dave's baja actually looks schmick!
(and I can't believe I'm using the term schmick🤪)
Sandy wrote:Can't believe it, but Dave's baja actually looks schmick!
(and I can't believe I'm using the term schmick🤪)
Amazing what a paintjob can do
😀
Smiley
🙂If you said I was a Volkswagen man, you'd be right.
Yeah Dave's Baja got a new paintjob and rack & pinion steering before the Fraser Trip
65 Meyers Manx
68 Country Buggy (KO 367)
68 Country Buggy (KO 669)
68 Country Buggy (KO 789)
68 Country Buggy (KO 815)
68 Baja Bug
76 Baja Kombi Twincab
And it's .......................................... broken again
Don't let body work get in the way of real suspension travel
Finally got my arse in gear and ordered a new CV and boot to replace the on I broke on Fraser.
This is the setup I've been running for the last +2000km or so since the incident. It's a Westwood design Heavy Duty offroad CV boot, now available for purchase at all Woolworths and Coles supermarkets. 😂😂😂😂😂
Here's the spare CV that Tratty lent me and the boot ring for the boot I ripped. I'm going to pull the CV down and check it out. I doubt there's much wrong with it aside for a little sand contamination.
Smiley 🙂
If you said I was a Volkswagen man, you'd be right.
I pulled the new CV out of the box and notice that it was a little tight and didn't move as freely as it should.
So I pulled it apart to check the surfaces out. They turned out to be quite rough and not to my liking so I hand sanded them smooth.
Before.
After.
I did the inner half too.
Smiley 🙂
If you said I was a Volkswagen man, you'd be right.
All ready for reassembly.
After I put it back together it was nice and free and smooth in all movements.
Fitted to the car with a new boot.
That's all for now folks.
Planning some big improvements. More on that as it develops.
Smiley 🙂
If you said I was a Volkswagen man, you'd be right.
Ok. So I am currently going through performing a brake upgrade to the car. I'm also going to fit the Country Buggy front spindles that I have at the same time. Starting out with adding discs to the front, then I want to put them on the rear asap too.
First thing I did was pull the discs off a spare balljoint beam. These are a pretty common swap to fit onto the Kingpin with the right bearings and a caliper bracket that bolts on where the drum backing plate normally fits.
I also pulled out my CB bits which included all the drums and braking parts. And while I was going I pulled the front brakes off an old VN Commodore that dad had lying around.
Balljoint spindle.
Country Buggy spindle.
Country buggy drum, balljoint disc and Commodore disc.
Smiley 🙂
If you said I was a Volkswagen man, you'd be right.
After taking about a million measurements off all three spindles and all three brakes, I came to the conclusion that there was no way that I could fit the balljoint disc onto the CB spindle. The spindle was too big for the hole through the disc, there wasn't much room left for a bearing!
Fortunately I discovered that the Commodore disc could be fitted to the CB spindle with the right bearings.
Commodore caliper sitting in place.
So I sat down and took another million measurements to order to work out where the caliper needed to be and did some drawings for caliper brackets.
Smiley 🙂
If you said I was a Volkswagen man, you'd be right.
At this point I went and saw an engineer and spoke to him about what I wanted to do. He was happy with what I was going and I got the go ahead to carry on with the project and get it approved.
Blasted the calipers.
Bought some new discs, caliper rebuild kits, high tensile bolts, high temp paint, bearings, etc etc.
Here's a picture of the caliper bracket bolted in place with the caliper pivot sitting in the correct location. Obviously the real ones won't be made of cardboard 😂 I'm having them CNC plasma cut.
Smiley 🙂
If you said I was a Volkswagen man, you'd be right.
Time to clean the caliper pivots up ready for paint.
I can't have this blasphemy written on parts going on my Baja!!!
Grinder made should work of that. But while I had it out I got a little carried away and smoothed off all of the steel casting flash and seams.
And soon they looked like this. I'm going to bake these and the calipers in the oven tomorrow to cure the paint correctly.
Smiley 🙂
If you said I was a Volkswagen man, you'd be right.
While I was getting carried away smoothing things I decided that the calipers needed to be done too.
And then I got one spray out of the can of high temp paint before the nozzle clogged 😬 Couldn't get it going again so I'm going to take it back tomorrow and swap it for a new one.
That's all for now. More soon.
Smiley 🙂
If you said I was a Volkswagen man, you'd be right.
Should be a great improvement brake wise. You wont know yourself after having baja drums all round. (full of sand and mud) Will you run 15x6 commodore rims on front ?
Bone wrote:Should be a great improvement brake wise. You wont know yourself after having baja drums all round. (full of sand and mud)
Yeah. I can't wait. Am over adjusting the drums all the time and them wearing out so quickly! The good thing about the Commodore bits is that replacement parts are so cheap!
Bone wrote:Will you run 15x6 commodore rims on front ?
That's the plan. Might have to tweak the offset a little to get them under the car as much as possible. The CB stubs add a fair bit to the track. Plan is to do the fronts, run Commodore rims there and my normal Baja ones on the back for now. Then get to work on putting the Commodore stuff on the back as soon as I can. Then I will have Commodore stud pattern front and back and can eventually look into getting a nice (light!) set of mags.
Smiley
🙂If you said I was a Volkswagen man, you'd be right.
Sounds good. Their cheap and plentiful !
Following your brake build smiley. Looks like the goods so far.
If it all works and you don't mind I would love a copy of the list of compenents etc.
62/60 model bug eye baja bug, (Full Build in Progress)
1974 Chevrolet Luv
1970 MK2 Ford Cortina GT
1979 Yamaha RX125 Two Stroke tracker project.
2004 Harley Davidson Sportster XL Custom
Anthiron wrote:Following your brake build smiley. Looks like the goods so far.
If it all works and you don't mind I would love a copy of the list of compenents etc.
No worries man. If you decide to go ahead with it I'd love to help you out. I can get a set of caliper brackets made or even do a up a full brake conversion kit for you. Remember this is only for Country Buggy spindles though.
PM me if you are interested.
Smiley
🙂If you said I was a Volkswagen man, you'd be right.
I need to stop reading this thread, makes me want a Baja too much again
I agree Joel, I agree.
I'm thinking the next bug I buy will become a Baja, unless it already is 🙂
I'll take those both as compliments! Thanks chaps 😀
I went out offroading in her again all of yesterday at a local spot. The car is such a pleasure to drive with the new engine. Just hop in and drive. So reliable.
I've done almost 10000km in the last 2 months, so she's certainly seeing some miles.
Smiley 🙂
If you said I was a Volkswagen man, you'd be right.
