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 !!!

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?

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

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

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

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