1972 Super Beetle - Polishing

Hello all! I live in SA and I've got two VWs at the moment, and am possibly looking for a third, or at least bits of one. I got started a couple of years ago with my 1970 1500 Beetle. I bought it unregistered and not running very well, looking like this:



After a lot of hard work and effort, I got it running well, did an engine change and competed in Khanacross and Motorkhanas in 2007, 2008 and 2009.









Then unfortuantely, this happened:





Picked up a 1973 Type 3 Squareback the next day, as I'd already bought it on eBay several days earlier. Before pics:











A bit of a tidy-up, new plates and test-fitting some wide 14x6" steels:








So, that's me! Currently driving the Square and trying to decide whether to strip the Bug and buy another shell, or fix it.

Hi waveman, looks like you put the bug through its paces well and truly. Good work. Pisser about the mishap, but nice looking square👍

Going hard on the race track!!! My man!!! Accidents will happen when the envelope is pushed but that is okay.

Hey waveman - welcome to the forums !!!

vassy66T1 wrote:Accidents will happen when the envelope is pushed but that is okay.

Yup - admittedly dirt isn't my thing, but it's the same deal - just need to fix 'er up and get back out there again !!!

Being a dirt guy and being in SA, assume you know Mal Dodd and some of his... ummm... exploits....

😉

nice pics, shame about the dings...... the offroaders say if u havent rolled, u not tryin hard enuff

Hi mate, sorry about the the racer. Is that the Type 3 that was up North? Looks very solid

hey man, welcome aboard.

matt

Thanks all for your warm welcome!

Contrary to what you may have assumed, the mishap with the Bug was a pure accident on the street, and had nothing to do with speed. It was a two-vehicle collision in an intersection, and really spoiled my day, but the less said about that the better! I'm earning some money working through Christmas at the moment, and will look more seriously into fixing or replacing the bug in the new year. Having said that, if anyone knows of a good 1500 Beetle shell and front beam, I have everything else I need to build up a nice car and am willing to pay for the right parts.

Okay, now some more exciting stuff! Pics of the Square with it's new tyres on the wide rims, and a quick wash. Needs a serious heavy-duty polish, but that will happen later.











I'm loving the look of it at the moment! Runs nicely too, I had the twin-carbs balanced properly at GHR Motors, they did a good job really cheap. The only problem was the waiting list when I booked it in, because they're so busy!

Also, @Sides, as a member of the VW Club of SA and fellow competitor, I do indeed know Mal Dodd. He's a good bloke, and knows a lot more about driving Bugs on dirt than I will probably ever learn. I have no idea what was going on with his rollover though.

One thing I have learned though, from both Mal's accident and mine, is that factory VW seat rails are inadequately strong and in fact can be quite dangerous in an accident. Mal's seat (which had admittedly seen much better days) detached during his little off, and I bent the seat rails of my bug like a pretzel in my own low-speed bingle, so I will be replacing them with some decent sections of steel before the car goes back on the road.

Oh, and electricmonk, this Type 3 was previously sitting unregistered under a tree in the backyard of an old cottage right in the Adelaide CBD. It is extremely solid, yes, although one of the rear engine mounts is starting to separate from the right inner fender by cracking, rather than rust. Nice username too, Dirk Gently is possibly even funnier than that other thing Douglas Adams wrote!

What size rubber is that? 195?

Doctor wrote:What size rubber is that? 195?

Sumitomo HTR-200s, 195/70R14 on a 14x6" rim. Two of the rims were made by ROH, the other two are a home-made job. Slightly different offsets between the two pairs, which gives it a nice look as well. Haven't measured the offsets properly but the rear ones are about 10-20mm wider I reckon.

Shame about the bug. Nice rally work. What kind of diff did it have?

Great square, looks very clean and straight in the pix.

bus914 wrote:Shame about the bug. Nice rally work. What kind of diff did it have?

The Beetle is all stock 1500, apart from the engine, which I installed with the help of a mate. Some setup changes may have been made by previous owners, as the car has been a motorsport hack for many years.


Stock suspension at both ends with Monroe GT Gas shocks.


New engine as purchased. Bought used as a good, running engine, it's a 1600cc twin-port with stock vacuum advance dizzy, 34mm Solex carb, original heater boxes and stock muffler.


Good mate Rex helping with the swap.


And it's out!


The two motors side-by-side.


The wide steels which the Bug came with, which now take pride of place on the Squareback.


14x6" Performance Challengers, which replaced the wide steels. Unfortunately one of them took the brunt of the impact during the crash so now I only have three of these, but I have already bought a set of Sunraysia copies from U-Pull-It which will be shod with rally tyres once the bug is repaired. I have only ever run it on street tyres so far, but would like to try competing with grip!

Edit: Oh, and I forgot to say, it had some nice front seats in it too, and a Formuling leather steering wheel.


I have no idea what the seats are from, but I believe that it must've been an early '90s Nissan, as they're very similar to EXA/Pintara TR.X seats and the overseas-market Sunny Coupe seats.

Had a visit from my uncle today, who helped me out with some VW wisdom. The Type 3 has had a bit of timing taken out of it as it was pinging a little bit on steep hills, and the idle speed was then adjusted. Bigger news though was the final decision to scrap the Bug. I already knew that it would be easier to get another car than to fix the Bug shell, but David helped point out to me some of the subtler areas of hidden damage, including bending to the framehead and damage to the right-hand side panels as well as the left, due to the fact that the entire front apron and fuel tank have been pushed to the right in the crash. The steel box section which surrounds the tank actually hit the right hand side of the body, which shows that it is more or less had it. So, I'm officially on the lookout for a new shell.

If anyone in Adelaide has a complete Beetle or nice shell for sale, preferably a balljoint/torsion-bar front end (1500 or 1300) then please let me know. I don't need the engine or transaxle, but I want at least a complete shell and front end. In the mean time I will tidy a few more things up on the Type 3 and go searching for a replacement motorsport car.

Decision made then fella, shame about the 1500 but on the flip side you'll be able to salavge alot of parts from it to keep the next one alive.

At last someone who gets the reference for my username lol. There really seems to be a lot of type 3's coming out of the woodwork in SA of late

I think that Tea time of the soul was better than Holistic Detective Agency. Though the Monk was cool.

Man that's a shame about the shell being so banged up. I am sure it won't be too hard to get another. Glad to see your going that route would have been a shame to give up

Your right tuffnut but the monk was my favourite character as I have studied religions in the past so it sort of suited

Went camping by the mighty Murray for New Year's Eve. The Square managed much better than 10L/100km on the highway, and got up and down the steep, loose sandy track to the riverside easily.


Chilling out by the river.




Naturally, we had to crank the tunes!


Site was powered up via diesel, 20A at 240V 3-phase. We ran three to four 1500W spotlights as well as the sounds, but had to pack up early to keep the equipment out of the rain.

Big news today! My new Beetle shell is finally home! I ended up with a Superbug, despite the fact that I was looking for a 1500, but it was in such nice condition that I had to buy it. Plus, the IRS rear end will be helpful in the corners. It will be interesting to see how well the MacPherson strut front end holds up to Khanacross use, but certainly as a street car it will be a fantastic all-round package.



More photos to come soon.

Hi

Nice looking car. May the struts be with you

Steve

Work has now started on the S-Bug. It came with a plethora of parts to add to my already huge collection, so the biggest question is which bits to put on it! So far I'm building it along similar lines to what the original restorer had intended, by using the parts which came with the car. So far this has involved putting in the side glass and front and rear windscreens.

All the window rubbers are black "Cal-look" ones without trim strips and all the glass except the front windscreen is tinted, which sets the tone for a fairly prominent red and black theme. Perhaps I should call it The Redback or something. Anyway, the headliner has been painted black by the previous owner, which is not what I would've done but it can stay for now. The other modification which has fallen into my lap so far is the decision to install a 160km/h metric speedo.

At the moment I'm thinking of painting the floor with chassis black over the top of the original sound deadening, because I don't have any decent carpet to put in yet but I don't want to be deafened on the highway either. Any comments on this idea? Will the mineral solvents in chassis black affect the sound deadening somehow? If it does then I suppose the only thing to do will be to strip it all out and go race-spec! Will be working hard on this over the next few days, I'll try and get some decent progress pics.

AQll i did for carpet was went to bunnings and bought a fair bit of carpet, i measured how mmuch i needed first but then i just measured where all the bits like geard stick and handbrake were from one point whichi marked on the carpet and cut holes for it all and sat it in there, now i can take it out if i need to weld anything and i dont have any sound deadeing i dont think and its not to loud.

I also did the same with the hoodliner, bought carpet and cut it into strips about as wide as where the original had the stitched lines. I just gluee it to the roof bit by bit and it looks good now and not to expensive.

Cant wait for pics.

Progress today: driver's door fitted with latch, striker plate, handle, window channel, window regulator, quarter-vent window and side glass. Annoyingly, the driver's window has had the dark tinting scraped off of it, leaving the glue residue. As a result I've swapped the tinted quarter-light for a plain glass one to match.

I've also now decoded the body number to reveal that it is in fact a 1972 model, but I can't seem to find the compliance plate anywhere. Where should I be looking?

71-Beetle-Sedan, I do have a proper carpet set for it which would probably be better than a home-made one, but it's grey and a little bit ratty around the edges.

Big progress today! Rex came over to help and we got cracking on stripping some good bits from the 1500 and putting them on the Super. We rolled the 1500 into the shed first (on 3 wheels) so that it would be easier.















We removed the engine, starter motor, clutch throw-out bearing, the aftermarket semi-solid mount for the gearbox and the front brake calipers.







After a bit of closer inspection we soon realised that the clutch throw-out bearing for the IRS box is different, but I managed to find one in serviceable condition in my parts collection in the shed, so we cleaned that up and put it on, along with the starter motor.





Next was the front brakes. After a long struggle involving cutting one of the flexible lines, clamping the caliper in the vice and a deep socket on a big ratchet, the brake lines from the 1500 eventually relented and parted company with the calipers. Because the brake pads were nearly new when the crash happened, there was too much material for the caliper to just slide on even with the pistons pushed right back, so we ended up having to take the pads out and refit them one at a time with a bit of a struggle. All went well though and I now have front calipers on the car which are known to be good. Result!



Next job: clean up and possibly paint the engine bay, ready for the engine!

that new engine u got must have been from a 71 super originally
its probably one of the only ones left in aus that still has a DVDA dizzy
VW recalled them and put SVDA on when they were new cos they gave terrible economy

by the looks it connected up wrong too

Joel wrote:that new engine u got must have been from a 71 super originally
its probably one of the only ones left in aus that still has a DVDA dizzy
VW recalled them and put SVDA on when they were new cos they gave terrible economy

by the looks it connected up wrong too

Wow Joel! Thanks for the knowledge. By DVDA do you mean dual vacuum and dual advance? If so then I think either you might be mistaken or the distributor has been altered, as it only has one vacuum line and canister and I believe that it can only advance, not retard. Either way, I've never had any problems with it, it's a nice quick, responsive motor and hasn't given any trouble. I never really noticed the economy being that bad either, certainly better around town than my Type 3.

yeah double vaccum double advance
i didnt look that closely at it the first time
its only hooked up to advance so it would work no different to a SVDA, but yea thats an unaltered DVDA
there the only ones that had that big collar like it does and the hose on the bottom not the top like SVDA
the retard line came out the back and usually broke off cos its plastic

Very interesting. I would never have thought that these distributors were that uncommon. I've got another spare one in the shed too! Took the vacuum canister off it late last year to replace the one on my car, because I'd had a fan belt let go and snap the plastic vacuum fitting off.

they were only fitted to bugs for part of 71
as i siad earlier they were recalled but i think late kombis may have had them as well
alot of overseas bugs had them too
the stock single vacuum vac cans have a metal spigot too not plastic

i was looking for a DVDA ages ago to use as boost retard but couldnt find one anywhere 😂
and heres you with 2

and yes ive seen orgasmo i know what DVDA stands for 😂😂

Yeah, I've got one of the normal steel vac canisters on my 1500 single port. Didn't they also fit DVDAs on late Type 3s as well? My uncle seemed to believe that one of those would have been factory fitment on my '73 Type 3, and he generally knows his VWs pretty well. He also reckoned that they have a better advance curve (in single vacuum mode) than the older type of vac advance distributors. I'm pretty keen to swap the 009 from my Type 3 with the DVDA, as it's driving me around the bend with pinging at ridiculously low static timing settings in the Type 3, but it might be alright in the Bug. Have no idea what's going on with that Type 3 motor, it just loves to ping!

its that useless POS 009 causing your pinging
it'll be just as bad on the bug if not worse for flat spots
last type3 i drove with a 009 was an auto and was it ever a pig

009s have no place on a stock engine theyre designed to idle and rev flat out ie. race engines

people chuck them on stock motors cos they're cheap not cos they work
so many people dont seem to get that timing needs to advance with engine load ie vacuum not only with revs like a 009 does
if a vac advance wasnt needed the factory woulda save millions not installing them

Yeah, I'm beginning to feel that way myself after buying this car. It sort of boggles the mind that I'm running a stock Type 3 engine on 98 octane with about 7.5 degrees static timing and still pinging through 3rd and 4th gears. I've tried fiddling with it for quite a while so I supppose it's time to give up on the 009 and put some vac advance on! I don't know why the person who put it on there would have left it pinging so badly though. Perhaps they'd never driven it up a hill or over 50mph, as it was perfect on the flat when I got it, but pinged as soon as it even smelled a hill!

perfect example of why they suck
crawling up a hill like that the engines under big load but cos theres no vac advance the timing couldnt be further off

it'll be a totally different animal back the way the good doc intended

Okay, I'm officially at my wit's end now! I've spent two days trying to get the ignition system of my Type 3 to co-operate. Basically, the car pings all the time and is generally slow. I blame all of these problems on the Bosch 009 distributor.

I took the 009 out and took it apart. When I got to the bottom of it I found that only one of the centrifugal advance 'arms' had a spring on it. There are two arms, and it appears that one has a lesser effect on the advance (smaller range of movement) than the other. The smaller arm was missing both the weight and the spring. Is this normal?

I then went to try and fit a DVDA distributor, but due to the Type 3 fan housing and the generator, I could only fit it at an odd angle. Once installed, I didn't seem to be able to rotate it enough to obtain correct timing without the vacuum canister or condenser fouling on something. I believe that these distributors were factory fitted to these cars, but I couldn't work out which way they go in.

After this I relented and re-fitted the 009, so the car is now running again. Unfortunately it is still very sluggish with acceleration flatspots and heavy pinging under high loads. Can anyone help?!

IIRC the 009 on a type 3 has to be timed different than a normal dizzy. In my old notch the PO also installed an 009, after searching through thesamba.com I was able to time it (at least minimising the flat spot). The problem with the 009 way of timing is that it can shorten the life of your motor because it is slightly advanced due to having to account for the TD being at a different spot.

Also, IIRC, you cannot put a Type 1 dizzy on a type 3, the dizzy for a type 3 is specific with a 311 part number.

Let me see if I can find the 009 timing procedure.

OK, found some info:

009 are timed at 30* full advance (about 3000-3500 rpm), and letting the idle timing fall where it wants to. adjust your carb(s) accordingly. if you encounter pinging, back off to 28*, and if you dare, you can go as far as 32* (according to some).

No, when I said above that a type 3 engine cannot take a Type 1 dizzy, I meant to say that since they are not specific to type 3 you will have a hell of a time to get them to fit and possibly time it.

Here is a good post in the samba that describes the process and also includes timing charts and photos of where 30degrees may be in your engine.

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=265340&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=009+timing+photo&start=0

Thanks a lot for the advice Octa. I had already read on the internet about the 30 degrees total timing with a light, but I don't have a timing light. I can easily borrow one but I was hoping to hear some extra tips from personal experience. Most importantly, why does my 009 only have one spring and one weight, when there are two arms?

I was hoping that there wasn't a Type 3-specific distributor, but I suppose it must be the case. Looks like I'm stuck with the 009 for now then, as I would rather spend money on my S-bug and sell the Type 3 rather than rebuild the Type 3 to my liking. At the end of the day I like to flick my VWs quickly through the corners and the Type 3 Squareback is just a little bit heavy for that! The S-bug should go well though, especially once I get a decent exhaust and carbs on it.

Okay, belated update time! Does anyone remember my S-Bug?



I bought it as a rolling shell, as seen above. It seems to have been sitting around for several years since it was stripped and painted, so it needed a bit of work to get it going again. My good mate Rex and myself have brought it mostly back to life by transplanting bits off my crashed 1500. So far we have changed the front brake calipers and pads, rear brake shoes, wheel cylinders and drums, clutch and engine. I also fitted up the door hardware and windows, and it's now got a new bonnet seal, door seals, a swap from MPH to KPH speedo and plenty of other bits and pieces. Here's how it looked today after being rolled out into the sunlight for the first time in a long while.







On the hunt for the old car owner's perpetual enemy, I stripped out all of the old sound deadening material, and sure enough I managed to find some ferrous oxide festering away. I'm part way through treating this now.





For some reason, the front-left corner is almost the only area affected by rust. There's a little bit of pitting in the battery mounting area, but that's to be expected.



The rear luggage area has already been painted, and most of this was taken back to bare metal with a paint-stripping disc on an angle grinder. There are quite a few rather large holes drilled in the rear luggage area for some reason though, perhaps a huge sub box was mounted back here at some stage?



The engine bay is pretty much all sorted. The engine starts on the key and runs beautifully, although I think the ignition wiring might be the wrong way around as it only starts when you let go of the starter! Wiring has been the biggest headache in putting this car back together, as so much of it was ripped out when the car was disassembled for painting.



I think this car might be sitting a bit too high for a stock Super Bug, as I've currently got 28cm of ground clearance at the front of the running boards, and 29cm at the rear! Good for off-road work, although perhaps a touch high for street duties. I may look at adjusting this, depending on how it drives. I'm very tempted at this stage to make a bull-bar for the front of it, put some nice chunky tires on my set of Sunraysia-style rims and go for an off-road style!

So that's progress so far. I painted the rest of the floor this afternoon and it should be dry by now. Tomorrow I will probably put a driver's seat back in it. Work will then need to continue on the wiring loom. Any auto electrical experts out there who would like to lend a hand? I may be in over my head with the electricals on this car! I definitely know that I need to buy an indicator flasher and a headlight relay, and then comes the big job of working out what all the pins on the back of the steering column do! How can there be 16 pins just for indicators, wipers and high beam?

First wash ever today!



Looking good! Shiniest VW I've ever owned by a long shot. I got my sister to hold the engine lid while I lined it up, I think we did a pretty good job.



Looking good with a shiny new number plate bolted on. It still looks way too far off the ground though. I might have to drop the rear by one spline, even for off-road work!





I'm finished painting the floor for now, so I've now put in the front seatbelts, driver's seat and the rear side trims.

I bit the bullet today and did something I've been a bit nervous to do, which was to cut down the splash guard/backing plates on the front discs so that my large collection of 14x6" wheels will all fit on my car now. I just ripped into it freehand with a 1mm cutoff wheel on a 4" grinder, and all came out okay. No damage to brake calipers or anything, and the wheels fit without hitting the brakes or suspension. Whew!



Tried the wheels on and pulled it outside for some pics in the fading light. Today was also a milestone, as the garage where this car will live is finally tidy enough to put the car in, so it was moved to it's new home.





The car still sits WAY higher than I would imagine a stock Super Beetle should. It has probably 15L of fuel in the tank and no spare wheel or back seat, but it's still a lot higher than I want it, even though it will be used off-road. Is this really stock height?!



I do have a front bumper for it and it will be going on as soon as I get another bracket for it, as I only have the right one!





So there you have it! All it needs now is a passenger seat, a lot of wiring and a front bumper bracket, then it's ready to hit the streets. I can't wait!

bout time jeez, haha, nah looking good dude, thinkin i mite hav to settle for a later model bug now, as there easyer to come by

SVD_Tys wrote:bout time jeez, haha, nah looking good dude, thinkin i mite hav to settle for a later model bug now, as there easyer to come by

G'day Tyson! You're welcome to come round and help wire it up if you want to see it on the road, mate! I'm hoping to sell the wagon this weekend so the Superbeetle will be on the road asap. Let me know how you go with the search for Beetles, but don't be tempted by the dark side! Torsion bars ftw, these coil-sprung cars are too new-fangled for my liking. :p

The two cars together.







Oh, and the tatty old carpet from my old bug is in the Superbug now, too.

Exciting update today but nothing to take pics of. The Type 3 wagon has now been sold for a couple of days. The bug had a lot of wiring problems sorted out by an auto electrician, and I went for the first drive today! Drove to the servo and filled up on petrol. A couple of problems have emerged though. The most annoying is that the starter motor solenoid has stopped working somehow and although it still clicks loudly, it's now not connecting the contacts for the starter motor. I'll be fixing this tomorrow. Also, the wiper motor is either seized or burnt out, but the one from my old car is good. It has different connectors though, so I may have to swap it in and cut up the wiring loom a bit. Exciting stuff indeed!

First impressions from the first drive: this car is good! The steering wheel is 90 degrees to the right whilst driving in a straight line, so perhaps a wheel alignment may be in order! Brakes are alright, but could do with bleeding again for the fourth time. The engine, gearbox and clutch seem pretty good and the car feels quick and lively. Can't wait to fix some of the problems tomorrow and take it for a real drive!

is this car getting a run at motorkhanas? you know there were factory 1302 rally cars back in the day?

http://www.rallybugs.com/

Well pete, the original plan from the beginning was to khanacross the car, but with paint this nice it's almost too good for off-road work! If I wanted to preserve the nice paintwork then I could lower it by about 10cm and then use it for hillclimbs and concrete motorkhanas, but I did enjoy the dirt track stuff last time I did it. I'm definitely aware of the rallybugs site though, one of my favourites. I've been through that site many times. Many things to think about, and whilst I've never been precious about hurting body panels before, by the same token I've never competed in a straight car with decent paint! Decisions, decisions.

It's time for an update of pics! I've spent the best part of today polishing up the paint and bumpers, polishing up a bonnet badge and putting it on, and getting a few other little things done. I thought that this deserved some photos, especially since I haven't even taken a photo with the front bumper on yet!



Why on earth do so many people put running board trim strips on with the protective plastic still on?! My last car had this as well. It infuriated me so much that I took the whole trim strip off after taking this photo to get all the plastic off properly. The trim clips didn't go back on as tightly and will never be the same again, but it was worth it!









The interior is still a work in progress. Currently stripped out with no sound deadening or rear seat, and only the front carpet in place. I've swapped the stock steering wheel for my leather Formuling one, and made up a new centre from aluminium plate to replace the missing horn button. I don't have it hooked up yet though, as I couldn't figure out a good way to connect to the factory horn ring contact arrangement. On my old 1500 the horn wire just ran up the centre of the steering column, what on earth was wrong with that arrangement? A much better design in my opinion.







Everyone loves a VW bonnet badge! Hopefully nobody else will decide they love this one more than me.



Here is the shot which best shows my current biggest problem: wheel fitment. The wheels I have on it at the moment are definitely 14x6", in pairs with two different offsets. The front pair has a greater offset, which leaves only about 2cm clearance to the spring, but the 195/70R14 tyres still stick out of the sides of the guards by a couple of centimetres. The rear tyres sit further out and are way off, perhaps 3cm outside the guards. I'm sure that going down to narrower section tyres would help, but I don't know whether it will be enough to get these rims to clear the stock guards. If money wasn't an object I'd like to keep the wheels and get wider guards, but this seems a bit of a waste of the excellent paint on the current guards.

theres some nice pics her

bug scrubbed up well 👍

with the horn button all you need to do is one side hooks to the copper contact ring obviously and the other just grounds to the steering wheel itself

the older earth wire up the shaft had a tendency to break from the constant movement so it was simplified in later bugs

the steering wheel being metal is bolted to the shaft, which is bolted to the steering box which is bolted to the body so its all grounded, no need for the earth wire.


Also before you get to much dash reassembly done one suggestion, remove the 2 dash speaker grilles either side of the speedo and cut out some black vinyl the same shape and put it betweem the grilles and the body.
even with new hood seals the wind that will come through it on to your hands in winter will drive you nuts, looks neater too

I did that with my 71 after too many frozen fingers driving to school in winter
another of my pet hates with flat screen bugs 😂

Bug looks great! Makes me want to get another one to play with! Best finish my current project first though....

Great stuff mate,
Just finished reading the whole post theres a lot there 👍. Keep going it looks great. About the wheel you could lower the front and put thinner stiffer coils on. That way you could put more of the tyre on the inside and have a tighter font end. Def lowetr the rear too. I would take the spring plates out and have a go yourself. Its nott too hard, just doo some pre reading and away you go. I think the rule of thumb is the rear one inch lower than the front for good handling... i may be wrong.

Good luck

PS there is such a thing as a 4 wheel alignment, but i don't know who can do a Bug well in adelaide.

Love your stuff indeed, I was wondering what type of seats are they that you have put it, they look great! Also you have made me want a square back now!

Agreed with the seats, what are they from, how much and how did u fit them!??

Wow, this thread has had replies while I wasn't watching! Thanks all for your interest.

The rear end of the car has now been lowered, with the help of my uncle. We used new torsion bar rubbbers and an original VW protractor. The people who had set it up beforehand were crazy, they had so much preload in there that it was sitting only a milllimetre or so off the lower stops! We took about 8 degrees out of each side to get it back to approximately factory settings, so it's not low, but it rides and handles much better and looks good. For some reason I haven't taken any photos of the car since the lowering, so they might appear later.

I'm not sure why there is so much interest in the seats, they're just cheap rubbish! I scored them for $100 the pair, already welded on to Superbug rails, so I chucked them in. They're quite flat and the fabric is rough, grey and cheap. I don't know what car they're from originally but it wasn't a coupe because they don't flip forward. I assume that it would be some kind of Aussie sedan, possibly a Magna? They're also a bit wide for the bug so they actually touch in the middle of the car making access to the handbrake quite tricky. When I feel inspired I'm going to swap them for the ones which I had in my white bug, which I don't know the origin of either.

Aussie Dubbin, there's a wheel aligner called John at Fred Vella tyres who was trained on doing VWs properly back in the day. He knows how to set them up right. Unfortunately he wasn't able to get mine tracking straight! I think it needs a few new parts and maybe a bit of a tweak to the right rear torsion bar tube to get it all back in spec. I don't really care because it drives nicely and doesn't scrub out the tyres.

Wow awesome reading and very inspiring. Might have to get mine out from under the tree in the yard and get it going 😎

Thanks mate! Glad to hear that I've inspired you. Have some photo updates to keep the inspiration going.



Here it is all polished up for the Day of the Volkswagen a couple of weeks ago.



And at the actual show.



And here is my new polished stainless steel Sidewinder exhaust which I lashed out on at the show! It sounds awesome now, but backfires a lot on the over-run. It also sticks out a very long way, so I'm probably going to shorten the tip of it by about 100mm or so.

i think thats for a kombi dude??

DieSchnelleKafer wrote:i think thats for a kombi dude??

Yep, that's why it sticks out so far. I'm going to cut the tip off it, but can't decide whether or not to get the droopy bend welded back on.

I would leave it off, I was stuck behind a Kombi yesterday in a VW run with the tip angled down like that and the bloody thing was stirring up so much dust.

so your a member of SDCC??

ive done a few runs there with the rovers and my brother
but i mostly play in the northern suburbs and further afeild

pickstock wrote:so your a member of SDCC??

ive done a few runs there with the rovers and my brother
but i mostly play in the northern suburbs and further afeild

No mate, I'm a member of the VW Club of SA. They're CAMS affiliated so I can get my L2 non-speed licence through the VW Club and then compete at multi-club events hosted by SDCC and a couple of other clubs. SDCC have by far the best setup though, in terms of owning their own track. The VW Club did organise to borrow some land from the Murray Bridge Junior Motocross club and we ran a few events there but now that arrangement has ended. I believe that the Tailem Bend khanacross track, at which the Nissan-Datsun Car Club used to host events, is also now out of action. So if you want to do khanacross now then Lanac Park is where it's at, so it makes sense to join the SDCC.

Since this thread has been dragged up again, I may as well update it! I have now cut the excess off the tip of my exhaust pipe, so it sits just under the bumper. More interestingly though, I've been making some purchases.



I've bought two of these!



And all of this!

The Webers are a matching pair of 36mm IDFs which I bought out of the For Sale pages on this forum. Thanks kdubb! All of the rest I got from Vee Dub Parts Unlimited in the USA via the magic of the internet. They offer pretty reasonable postage. I got the whole package of CB Performance manifolds, 'Original' hex-bar linkage, air cleaners and a Pertronix distributor for well under $450 including shipping. I'm going to have a play around with them on the weekend.

Looks like you've got yourself a nice little red one over there!

Can't wait until I can see this build with her dual carby setup, is going to be mad.

Definitely have to catch up, let Zelda meet a red counterpart xD

This has been a long time between updates. I haven't been completely idle though. I fitted the Webers and distributor at home with the help of my mate Rex. Because I had a day off from work coming up, I ambitiously booked it in for a tune before we had even finished fitting the carbs. Then, I attempted to get it running and drive to the workshop. It didn't run. I couldn't fix it, so I stuck it on a tow-truck and sent it away. I'm hoping to get it back this week...







Some clearancing had to be made on the right-hand side of the engine bay!! ;D



The beast lurks within! The carbs have been rebuilt and rejetted at the workshop. The carbs came with 32mm venturi but they've been changed to 28mm to better suit the engine. Can't wait to get it back in a few days' time!

Looking good Mark!

Pity you couldn't get her running, could it have had anything to do with the lack of fuel last time? :P
You'll have to upload a video when you get her back up and running, would love to hear her!

Sebastien, the used Webers which I bought were never going to run again without a thorough rebuild. I had tried to wash them out with kerosene in my parts washer, but it wasn't enough. Bob at Volkscare has rebuilt them and some of the accelerator jet pump valves were so clogged up with junk that they had to be drilled out. If I ever do Webers again then I will be buying brand new ones from the US, as it would've been cheaper than getting these old ones rebuilt!

SebastienPeek wrote:Looking good Mark!

Pity you couldn't get her running, could it have had anything to do with the lack of fuel last time? :P
You'll have to upload a video when you get her back up and running, would love to hear her!

Here it is! Just under 2 years and she's back. It fired up for the first time tonight. During the VW's time in the shed I had a WB Holden ute, which was good fun but also very heavy on the steering and the fuel consumption. I have now sold the Holden, so it's time to get the Beetle going again. I picked up a used single Weber 44IDF kit from an ad on Facebook (either AVD or VWCSA group) and today I fitted it with help from a couple of mates. Unfortunately the air cleaner is just slightly too tall and the engine lid won't fit.



The next job is to unbolt the sidewinder exhaust and seal it all up so it won't backfire as much. Then it needs a good tune and a battery so I don't have to steal one from my daily driver!

what happened with the twin carbs ?

Craig Torrens wrote:what happened with the twin carbs ?

Well, I couldn't make them work, and the workshop that I sent them to couldn't do it either. After that point I thought it wasn't worth risking any more money on them. I could have bought a brand new pair of 40mm IDFs, but I thought that was a bit overkill for a stock 1600cc engine. I was looking seriously at buying a single rebuilt 40DCN from eBay, but it was a bit expensive for my taste. This 44IDF just happened to pop up and I rang the seller straight away and grabbed it based on a Facebook photo and a price.

Later on down the track if I end up building a hotter motor, then I will pull out the twin-carb kit again and buy a new set of IDFs for it.

Some update photos.



The S-Bug is currently on hiatus in the shed, but I did manage to get to one motorsport event in it! After working until about 2:30am the previous night, we made it to a bitumen khanacross last year. The car barely passed scrutineering by the good grace of the club, and some hasty modifications were required with gaffer tape! At the end of the day we did have a lot of fun, but the car is not fully up to scratch and needs a lot of work done to it. I'm not particularly keen to get the work done at the moment, as I am distracted by other cars. One of which is my 1990 Toyota Celica ST185 GT-Four, which I plan to use for motorsport instead of the Beetle. If I ever get off my backside and wash it, then I might take some photos for a thread!