This is interesting.
I just remember the other day that one of my friends has purchased a brand new Passat. And the accelerator pedal hinges off the floor like a Beetle. So maybe Volkswagen have come to there senses and gone back to the floor mounted ankle saving setup for this reason.
I do agree with you both with regards to the ankle having to pivot the way it does on your right foot for the accelerator pedal. But both the brake and clutch pedal are operated with a pushing motion using your whole leg, not with a pivoting motion like the accelerator. I suppose that the brake uses a little of both depending on how well the brakes are working and how hard you are brakingโ
So how's this sound, keep a floor pivot for the accelerator pedal and only move the brake and clutch pedals up to a firewall mounted underslung setup. This will save me from the ankle fatigue on long drives but also allow me to move most of the mounts and bits up out of the footwell to stop them filling up with sand and mud. Sounds like a win win to me ๐
People can let me know what they think.
Smiley ๐
If you said I was a Volkswagen man, you'd be right.
Smiley, if you then put in cruise control then you wont have to worry about fatigue on the accelerator foot so you can put all the pedals up ๐
I agree with your reasons for moving them off the floor though, it would certainly make cleaning up a lot easier!
Sharpbuilt V2, EJ25, Subaru 5 Speed, Falcon rear discs, Heater & A/C, Rack Steering
BlueV2 wrote:Smiley, if you then put in cruise control then you wont have to worry about fatigue on the accelerator foot so you can put all the pedals up ๐
I agree with your reasons for moving them off the floor though, it would certainly make cleaning up a lot easier!
Cruise control! That's going a bit far. I'm considering air conditioning, but cruise control! This is an offroad aircooled VW. Any electric fance-pansery that isn't required should be left off.
๐๐๐
But in all seriousness it might be easier just to put them all up instead of two up and one down.
I've never had any issues with ankle fatigue driving any other model of car which have underslung pedals.
Smiley
๐If you said I was a Volkswagen man, you'd be right.
Since this time two weeks ago when I started driving the car again I have done 3437km.
1712km of that was done in the last two days with a trip down to Brisbane and the Gold Coast this weekend.
On the drive down and back the car averaged 11.89L/100km. With my best tank I managed 11.3L/100km.
The A/F ratio gauge indicates that the engine is running rich at all speeds and all revs (I still haven't adjusted it yet ๐) So some more improvement is there to be had! Into the 10s would be fantastic, single digits even better! I think I might have to go down a main jet size we'll see when I start tinkering.
Wow what a weekend! The car is still quite noisy even loaded up with pillows and blankets and camping gear in the parcel shelf and back seat. I think sound deadening and a little more refinement are the next orders of business. If I'm going to be doing these sorts of kms all the time I'll be deaf in 6 months!
I got a text message today with some great news, watch this space, there might be big things happening really soon.
Smiley ๐
If you said I was a Volkswagen man, you'd be right.
Dad says that my baking is really improving ๐
Smiley ๐
If you said I was a Volkswagen man, you'd be right.
I'll tell your mummy
Don't let body work get in the way of real suspension travel
OZ Towdster wrote:I'll tell your mummy
Ha ha
What's for dinner????
Matt Berry Motorsports...air cooled advice, repairs and mods Ph 0408 704 662
OFF-ROAD,CIRCUIT,DRAG,STREET,ENDURANCE
Well all my Christmases came at once on Monday.
I picked up my new front tyres, and my Country Buggy spindles showed up from SA!!
I've had the tyres mounted onto my new rims. They are Mickey Thompson Baja ATZ 5-ribs in a 225/75/16. So I'm going to have Bajas on my Baja!!
Here's a few comparison shots to my current 175/R14 LT tyres. It's safe to say I like the improvement ๐
And here are the beautiful new spindles, don't mind the slight surface rust they'll be getting painted tomorrow. Freshly rebuilt by Tony Beven a member of our forum. I really can't thank Tony enough. The work is second to none and there is no doubt in my mind that they are better than when they left the factory. They were pretty grubbing when he got them and he has done a lot of good work to get them up to the standard that you see here. All of the stub axle bearing surfaces needed welding up and resurfacing, all new king and link pin bearings were manufactured. And after a few discussions we decided to upgrade the steering stop bolts to a much stronger design, cause if anyone is going to break them you can bet your bottom dollar it'll be me.
These spindles are off the Volkswagen Country Buggy and give you approximately 3 inches of lift over standard. And are the only legal option for lifted spindles in Australia. You can see here that the stub axle is attached in line with the lower link pin, whereas the factory ones the stub is situated evenly between the two link pins. They also have a much stronger steering arm (about twice as think as the Beetle ones!)
In this photo you can see my caliper bracket mounted to the CB spindle. I was very keen to use these stubs but was not happy with the factory CB drum brakes that came with it. They are basically the same brakes as a late split Kombi with HUGE heavy drums and twin slave cylinders inside. There was no way that I was going to all this effort and sticking with drum brakes. They wear out way too fast!
So I've designed and built my own disc brake kit for the front using Commodore parts.
You might have see earlier in the thread that I rebuilt some VN V6 calipers ready for the car. Well I traded them as a part of another brake kit to a friend. And got myself some V8 finned calipers instead!
And here are the rotors mounted onto the CB stubs.
The Country Buggy uses a double locking nut setup to hold the brake on, same as any link pin VW. But I was informed that Bay Window Kombi locking nuts will fit onto my stubs and have the correct lefthand and righthand threads too!
I've only run into one slight issue with using these nuts. They don't quite fit inside the Commodore grease caps. So I'm going to grind them down a little and hopefully we can sneak them in there.
While I was messing around tonight I decided to weight some of the parts old vs new.
One of my old wheels and tyres weighs 16kg, and the new wheel and tyre weighs 26kg.
One of the old spindles with stock drum brakes weighs 10kg, whereas the new spindles and brakes are 17kg.
Poor old Baja is packing on the pounds!
Smiley ๐
If you said I was a Volkswagen man, you'd be right.
Here are the old and obsolete brakes and spindles ๐
It wasn't long before it looked like this. Might need some new snubbers soon too.
One thing I had to do was replace the outer balljoints. The Country Buggy spindles have a larger holes and taper and take a larger balljoint. Which happens to be the same as the ones run on balljoint front end beetles. So I picked up a pair of out tie rod ends and swapped them in.
You can see in this picture the larger and stronger balljoint tierod end on the right compared to the smaller Link pin one on the left.
While I was tearing things apart I also drained and removed the master cylinder. I was still running a stock single circuit master cylinder. I would have been no where near adequate for the discs up front (and planned rears too) so I'm upgrading to a Bay window Kombi master cylinder. The Beetle M/Cs are 19mm internal bore whereas the Kombi is 23mm bore, which is the same as the M/C bore in the Commodore. I'm hoping that this is all going to work, but it's proving a bit of a mission even to get the Kombi M/C to fit. It's quite tight on the tunnel in places, and I'm going to have to get tricky with the fittings I think.
The car is booked in for a wheel alignment first thing on Saturday morning, so I'm hoping to have it all built and done by then. Nothing motivates like a deadline! Wish me luck.
Smiley ๐
If you said I was a Volkswagen man, you'd be right.
Well I got a lot of little small jobs done today on the car.
Went to 3 different brake and hose shops before I found someone that had the right gear to help solve some of my Master cylinder clearance issues, more on that tomorrow.
I got the spindles painted and the caliper brackets too. But I did have to make this little addition first. It's a tab where my magnetic sensor for the digital speedo bolts in.
Then I went ahead and started grinding down the locking nuts until they fit nicely. Can still get an allen key into the socket and the grease caps now fit over the top.
Speaking of grease caps. The CB spindles are longer in the thread than the Holden stubs. So the grease caps are too shallow to fit over.
Fortunately I've collected about 10 caps from the wreckers while getting brake parts. So I picked out 4 good ones and made them into 2.
Chop chop chop.
Standard next to modified.
Weld weld weld.
Just need to grind them down smooth, give the inside a buff out, a lick of paint and they'll be better than bought ones ๐
Well tomorrow is crunch day. I need to have the car ready for Saturday morning. I'm at the stage where I'm ready to start putting everything together, wish me luck.
Smiley ๐
If you said I was a Volkswagen man, you'd be right.
Good luck ๐
Matt Berry Motorsports...air cooled advice, repairs and mods Ph 0408 704 662
OFF-ROAD,CIRCUIT,DRAG,STREET,ENDURANCE
Smiley what are you doing with the old drums?
Are they original VW ones?
Loving this thread too btw
Cheers
Shaun
BMW R65 LS
1967 1300 Deluxe
Swing-axles FTW
โ
super friggen awesome ๐
This baja is gonna transform from steroid pimp to uber wilder breast!. You know i'm gonna chuck a 10c piece on the bitumen in front of you at valla, and expect you to stop on it ๐ lol.
(รด_!_/รด) (รด_!_/รด)
69' baja: kombi box, thing spindles, irs, disc front, type 3 rear drums, 2 inch lift kit, 31x10 rears. ๐
New engine in process: 94mm p&bs, 74mm C/w chomol Crank, 35.5x39 SP heads, turbo. Wierd combo, hopeful torque monsta!
sander288 wrote:Smiley what are you doing with the old drums?
Are they original VW ones?
Loving this thread too btw
Cheers
Shaun
I was just planning on putting them 'back into stock' at my place.
I'm fairly sure that they are original VW ones, not sure that they would be any good cause they have seen a lot of sand.
Smiley
๐If you said I was a Volkswagen man, you'd be right.
bajachris88 wrote:You know i'm gonna chuck a 10c piece on the bitumen in front of you at valla, and expect you to stop on it ๐ lol.
Challenge accepted! I plan on having the rear discs done by then too!
Smiley
๐If you said I was a Volkswagen man, you'd be right.
Well I've just pulled up working on the car.
It's 99% done but my master cylinder is leaking.
I'm running a standard bay window kombi unit without the booster. It's 23mm bore which is the same as the 15/16" of the VN Commodore.
I had to do a few mods and changes to make it all fit in there.
Two of the ports on the M/C face inwards towards the tunnel. And they were too tight to get normal fittings onto. So I'm using the top one for my brake light switch. With a right angled fitting the switch clears the tunnel by about 3-4mm. And on the lower port I had a banjo style small flexible hose made up. It loops around and joins onto the normal rear brake circuit hardline.
The standard brake pushrod had to be shortened because of the different offset of the piston in the Kombi M/C.
Here it is mounted in the car. I had to clearance the firewall slightly with a hammer to make room for the little reservoir that goes on top of the M/C.
The M/C is leaking out of the back and onto the pedals. I have to see if I can get some more seals for it tomorrow.
It wasn't long before these were mounted to the car.
You can see here the driver's side spindle fitted with the VSS.
And all tied back out of the way. I got someone to cycle the steering while I was checking the wires to ensure it doesn't bind on anything or pull tight.
Awesome blue brakes fitted. Everyone knows blue is a cold colour so I won't have any issues with brake fade ๐
I'm liking the height ๐
Fitting the brake pads is as easy as removing one bolt and swinging the caliper open. Slot your pads in and the job is done ๐
And by this point I just had to throw a wheel on to see how it looks.
Well there you have it. Still have to sort out the issues with the M/C. But the spindles are all fitted and shimmed. Grease nipple fitted and greased. Wheel bearings greased and adjusted, brakes fitted. Steering connected.
All I need to do is get it bled then fit the wheels!
Hoping to have all the problems solved tomorrow.
Smiley ๐
If you said I was a Volkswagen man, you'd be right.
You are are a legend in the DIY VW world Smiley. Find a problem, You solve it. Cant buy a specific part? You make it. And the amazing thing is this aint a long term project stuck in a state of the art workshop, its Your daily driver!!!! Keep up the good work.
P.S. Good tyre size choice 225/75r16 are proper light truck rated 4wd tyres and are easily available everywhere.
grinderman wrote:You are are a legend in the DIY VW world Smiley. Find a problem, You solve it. Cant buy a specific part? You make it. And the amazing thing is this aint a long term project stuck in a state of the art workshop, its Your daily driver!!!! Keep up the good work.
P.S. Good tyre size choice 225/75r16 are proper light truck rated 4wd tyres and are easily available everywhere.
Thanks for the kind words mate.
And yes, that's why I went with those particular tyres. And also why I changed to 16" rims, far more common and cheap cause it's what all the 4WDs run.
Smiley
๐If you said I was a Volkswagen man, you'd be right.
Well today was incredibly long a frustrating. But we've finally gotten there. Just took her for her maiden voyage. I have to say it's fantastic.
Spent all day screwing around with the brakes. Had to change the master cylinder to a brand new one and swap that all back in. Then the new one had one less port than the old one. So I took the T piece out of the rear circuit off a floorpan I had lying around. Finally got that in and they wouldn't seem to bleed up nicely. More hours frigging around checking and double checking everything, plus it's been raining on my all day, lovely.
I ended up pulling the fuel tank out and pouring brake fluid directly into the little split bottle that plugs into the top of the M/C. this got rid of an air pocket and they finally bled up good. Pedal is still a little soft, half of this is cause the rear drums need adjusting, might do that in the morning.
Put the wheels on and sat it down, the thing is massive! I'm really liking the stance. Though the front is higher than the back now, by a few inches at least I think. Time to bump in up a notch I suppose.
Took it for a drive and noticed a number of issues that will need to be sorted out.
- Looking in the rear vision mirror, all I can see is the road about 10m behind me ๐๐
- The headlights are pointing at the tops of the powerpoles, they will need adjusting.
- The steering is a little wandery. This is fair enough, I haven't touched the wheel alignment or even roughly measured it. It's booked in for a wheel alignment on Monday afternoon. There is also a little play in the steering box. I'm going to adjust it in the morning and maybe put some oil in it ๐
- I can't seem to get the smile off my face. From the second I first sat in it and thought "Did I leave the jack under the front? Hang on, this is how she sits now."
- The disc brakes are working well. It's raining here at the moment so I was taking it easy to make sure all was good. The car will lock the fronts up if you apply the brakes hard. I attribute this to a number of things, obviously the drums on the back are hopeless trying to keep up but they do need adjusting so that should move the bias rearward a little. I think I still have too much pressure in the front tyres so dropping them down a little further will give me some more grip. I will have to start working on the rear disc brake conversion ASAP.
I also noticed the car feels a little more top heavy to drive. Which is understandable, it's built for embarrassing 4WDs not winning track days.
Last Monday I was driving the car up to Rocky when some loud noises started emitting from the engine bay followed by a bang and then silence. I turned the car off immediately and pulled over. Went round the back to find this, notice anything missing?
And this was sitting on top of the RHS cylinder tinware wedged against the exhaust.
The pulley had let go off the hub. I've since found out that this is caused by not having enough shims installed and the pulley halves are riding on the belt. Causing them to wobble and crack.
I adjusted my belt a few weeks ago and have only done about 5000km. Something to look out for, for those playing at home.
This is the only picture I managed to take once the car was back on the ground. I'll get some better ones tomorrow in the daylight and up the beach to should it all off. Can't wait to go and get her dirty!!
Thanks for reading. There will be more updates very soon. Next thing on the list is to build a speedo, I'm not sure if you can see it in any of the photos but I had the hole in the spindle for the speedo cable plugged to prevent water and mud getting in.
More soon!
Smiley ๐
If you said I was a Volkswagen man, you'd be right.
She's back on the road alright! Aside from one tiny setback at the end of the day which put her back off the road ๐ ๐ ๐ ๐ ๐
After a fantastic day of offroading up at the local beach spot 5-Rocks. While driving out the fan nut decided to come loose! Not a massive deal, we towed her home. I'm going to pull the alternator out tomorrow and sort it all out.
I didn't get any pictures today as my camera went dead as soon as I turned it on this morning ๐ So as soon as people put some up on Facebook I will repost them up here.
I did manage to get a few shots this arvo before it got too dark.
Here is a nice comparison shot of before and after.
Before...
...and after.
And as you can see from this next picture I now need to raise the back up a little to match!
Is it possible to raise it up a little bit without notching the springplates and not have it riding on the stops? It's currently set to factory ride height on the rear. Dad has suggested 33"s, but the 31"s rub already and I don't really want to change to short torsion bars.
Let me know what you think.
And I will try to get some more pictures tomorrow in the daylight with a charged camera!
Smiley ๐
PS - You all missed a great day up at 5-Rocks, when are people going to come and start visiting??
If you said I was a Volkswagen man, you'd be right.
Also. I measured the ground clearance with the car sitting on the ground and with it jack up at full droop with the wheels just touching the ground.
The old ground clearance was 210mm, it is now 370mm ๐
And at full droop, old was 280mm and the new is 450mm.
Smiley ๐
If you said I was a Volkswagen man, you'd be right.
Here's a few happy snaps I manged to snag off Facebook. Aside from the constant drizzle the day was quite great. I think I might look into wiring up intermittent wipers, really needed them today.
We had one Patrol, one Hilux, one Cruiser ute, one Jeep, one Range Rover and one Baja. That just about every make covered ๐
Look and see if you can tell who has the most ground clearance ๐ค
We found one of those nice logs stuck in the sand and every one had a go cycling their suspension.
I'm happy to report the tyres don't rub at all on full compression, not even on the headlight bucket which I thought they would. The only place they rub is a little on the inner guard at full steering lock. I'm very happy.
Smiley ๐
If you said I was a Volkswagen man, you'd be right.
One more from today.
Smiley ๐
If you said I was a Volkswagen man, you'd be right.
love the thread smiley but i cant help thinking that its too much lift in the front now, how can you match that on the rear without going to kombi boxes?
Good on ya Daniel, you been waiting very long for this. ๐ Good on ya mate.
What a change! Those tyres fill in the front guards perfectly! I gotta cure the whacky racer look on Frog one day... maybe so the some route. I'd have to raise the rear then too which is the only thing stopping me atm.
(รด_!_/รด) (รด_!_/รด)
69' baja: kombi box, thing spindles, irs, disc front, type 3 rear drums, 2 inch lift kit, 31x10 rears. ๐
New engine in process: 94mm p&bs, 74mm C/w chomol Crank, 35.5x39 SP heads, turbo. Wierd combo, hopeful torque monsta!
niall wrote:love the thread smiley but i cant help thinking that its too much lift in the front now, how can you match that on the rear without going to kombi boxes?
Blasphemy!!! There is no such thing as too much lift, as long as you still have travel too and it isn't sitting on the stops. I already have a Kombi 5-Rib Transaxle in the back. Or do you mean a set of Split Bus/Country Buggy redux hubs?
The plan is to fit Kombi CVs on the outer to replace the Beetle ones I have currently. This will give me some more travel so I can notch the spring plates a little. Then I can screw the back up a spline or so without it riding on the stops. And 33"s are also in the pipeline.
Any more brain busters?
๐
bajachris88 wrote:Good on ya Daniel, you been waiting very long for this. ๐ Good on ya mate.
What a change! Those tyres fill in the front guards perfectly! I gotta cure the whacky racer look on Frog one day... maybe so the some route. I'd have to raise the rear then too which is the only thing stopping me atm.
Thanks Chris. I'm very happy with the way the front end has turned out. The tyres only rub very slightly on full steering lock. And the good negative offset of the rims means it's not stressing the wheel bearings as much and there is a lot less force being transmitted into the steering arms. Means I'm less likely to bend long tie rods and there's less feedback through the steering wheel.
And as for your car, you certainly need bigger tyres on the front! And lifting the back up is a good thing. I'll do mine and then in can follow along
๐ฅท
Smiley
๐If you said I was a Volkswagen man, you'd be right.
Smiley, you'll need to upgrade all your cv's for increased lift as inner and outers all see the same angle. Don't muck around and go straight to 930's.
Matt Berry Motorsports...air cooled advice, repairs and mods Ph 0408 704 662
OFF-ROAD,CIRCUIT,DRAG,STREET,ENDURANCE
matberry wrote:Smiley, you'll need to upgrade all your cv's for increased lift as inner and outers all see the same angle. Don't muck around and go straight to 930's.
I already have Kombi inner. Just Beetle outer. I was going to set it up for Kombi CV bolts pattern with the intention of going to Type 4 CVs down the track.
Smiley
๐If you said I was a Volkswagen man, you'd be right.
Smiley, you will find that 33's will have a big effect on your acceleration and braking. You might not like that change, but you will enjoy the extra height. Just dont make it so it looks like it will tip over on the first corner ๐ต
Sharpbuilt V2, EJ25, Subaru 5 Speed, Falcon rear discs, Heater & A/C, Rack Steering
BlueV2 wrote:Smiley, you will find that 33's will have a big effect on your acceleration and braking. You might not like that change, but you will enjoy the extra height. Just dont make it so it looks like it will tip over on the first corner ๐ต
Yeah. I have considered that. I was probably going to change to 33"s when I fit the 5 Speed gearbox and a few other mods at the same time like a body lift. Cause the 31"s currently rub at full compression, so the 33s would probably be too much.
Smiley
๐If you said I was a Volkswagen man, you'd be right.
