Hi all
i got a 71 bay window with disc front/drum rear with no booster
Is that oem in Australia?
Looks like all the US ones have a booster
The Bentley manual also mentions booster on all disc braked bays
No booster braket on front beam
I have a proportioning valve in the system

No, around 1971 did not have a booster.

Non boosted is on our '71.
It works really well. No need for boosted in my opinion.

I got my 71 brakes boosted last year, and I gotta say it makes driving a lot more enjoyable. No more bracing yourself against the steering wheel and seatback for hard braking, and no more white knuckles.

It's a little complicated.

The Bentley manual is an official VW manual, but published for the USA market. The USA always imported fully-built up VWs from Germany, but because of their strange tax laws on imported commercial vehicles, after the mid-'60s they only imported Microbuses for sale in the USA. Not pickups, Kombis or delivery vans. They were therefore the most deluxe models in the Type 2 lineup, and for 1971 this meant the new 1.7-litre Type 4 twin-carb engine. The brake booster was fitted to the 1.7-litre vehicles. For the UK, which imported both 1.7 and 1.6 Kombis in 1971, the booster was only fitted to the 1.7, even though they both had front discs.

Australia was different. Our Kombis were not imported from Germany, but from 1968 were locally assembled in Melbourne from a mixture of German CKD kits and some Australian parts. In 1971, only the 1600cc version was available here, so it didn't have the booster.

The 1.7-litre engine was not available here until 1973, when VW Australia added it to the range (together with larger front discs and an auto trans option) for the first time. Only then was the booster fitted. VW Australia released this model with a brochure and ad campaign called 'More Power To The Workers.' It went up to 1.8 for 1974. The local 1600 was also fitted with the booster, and was discontinued in 1975. For 1976, only the 2.0 engine was available here.

I have a '76 1600 UK-spec Kombi here at the moment with non-boosted brakes.

Thanx for the answers
Thats what i thought too
Since the bus is staying std,i will keep it as is
Chris

My 71 deluxe had boosted factory brakes and so did my mates 71 deluxe - maybe it was just deluxes that had the boosted brakes in 71.

Both were early 71's too with the small oval tail lights and crescent shaped air intake vents.

I have a question, just thought of it during the night (dontcha hate that?).

I always thought the 1600 Lo-Light Kombis had a different engine bay compartment than the '72-up models, due to the upright cooling arrangement. But if they were actually used all the way through to 1976 locally (Huh! I never knew that.......), does that mean that the Kombis from '68 up till '76 had the same engine bay? All the '68-79 Kombis had the same engine bay? The '76-up had a lower top engine hatch due to only flat motors?

The big engine bay in in bays started with the big taillights, late lowlights had big tailights. The later bays all had non removable rear aprons

As Steve said.

The engine bays from 68-71 were basically the same with a removable rear valance and with the 72 the rear changed a massive amount with the fixed valance, large tail lights, enlarged square intake vents, squashed engine hatch etc.

The 1600 engines just used a special design of tinware to blend them into the larger type 4 engine bay. This tinware is getting hard to find now.

Thank you guys.

Someone should start stamping out new 1600 tinware for late bays.

If I recall, the non boosted MCs were 22mm, and the boosted ones were 24mm.

If fitting 24mm into a non boosted disc brake setup, feedback is that the pedal is much stiffer. Not sure if it'll 'break in' so to speak.