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-   -   My other 1303 GL (https://www.germanlook.net/forums/showthread.php?t=11118)

Steve C January 7th 2011 07:22

My other 1303 GL
 
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Hi

I've been building a 1303 for the last 6 years. I just got it back from the paint shop.

I used to have a build thread on my car clubs website but thats gone now, so I will add what I can here.

Basically its 1973 1303, it was given to me 2002, I started working on it on & off in September 2004.

Ive fitted the brakes from my old 1302, 996 rears on the front with 930 rotors, Boxster rears with 944 rotors.

86 alloy arms, G50 transmission & 2003 2 litre STI, 18x8 Simmons wheels etc

I stuffed up the suspension height.

Steve

jeroen021 January 7th 2011 14:35

Already looking good :cool:! More Photos/info please :)

NO_H2O January 7th 2011 19:31

Very nice. That should be a fun ride. Don't forget to swap the front wheels around.

Steve C January 8th 2011 00:36

Hi

You spotted my deliberate mistake, not really the panel shop owner was really keen to shut up shop and go home, so I just grabbed the nearest wheel.

Steve

onixbonilla January 8th 2011 12:49

As you stated on other thread you had been a long time on these. I take my hat off on your work. I simply love your new project. With all your experience on these projects it would be a serious headache for a lot of those new "Sport Cars"!!!:D

dub_crazee January 8th 2011 16:36

i like this car a lot! id love to see more pics!

wrenchnride247 January 8th 2011 23:08

Looking good Steve!!! :)

Clatter January 9th 2011 21:17

X3 on seeing some more pics.

Looking inside there at the back seat area, i can spy a G50 house..

Would love to see how this all got fabbed up!

Steve C January 12th 2011 08:15

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I've been putting in some late nights getting my bug finished.

I haven't taken any more progress shots but I will post some of the earlier information on the car.

I originally had a 1302, I bought it 2nd hand in 1973 when it was 6 months old. I evolved this car with a turbo 2.1 Wasserboxer, 944 rear end and with brakes I've now fitted to my new 1303.

John Polden the original owner of the my "new" 1303 and I worked together for some time at a Sydney performance VW shop called Powertune. We have remained friends over the last 30 odd years and when John decided to move to Queensland Gold Coast I was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time to obtain this car. The was sold to V Force and stripped of its goodies then Richard at V Force gave me the rolling shell.

I've kept a lot parts from my 1302, brakes, suspension, seats, cooling system parts etc. Rather than use the water-cooled Transporter engine again, I have purchased 2003 Subaru WRX STI engine which has only done 13,000 kilometres to fit to my new project. 195 kW+ from the factory should make for an interesting ride. In place of the modified Type 1 box I'm now using a G50.

John Polden the original owner of my 1303 competing at Amaroo and Silverdale Hillclimb in the early 1980s, it was a street car then, running a 2180 cc Type 1 motor with 48 IDAs, it gained many FTDs at various speed events and it used to do the 1/4 in mid 13s back in the early 1980s. John later fitted a Mazda 12a rotary motor that first saw duty in a Group C touring car, John then ran the car as a sports sedan. The Beetle was put in his shed in 1985, when John decided to move to Queensland he sold the car to V Force, then I acquired it from V Force.

Steve

Photos, yellow bug is my old 1302, blue bug is the one I'm rebuilding and is now orange

Steve C January 12th 2011 08:25

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More history, sorry if I'm boring anybody.

This car had not been driven since 1983 and was virtually rust free, I acquired this car in 2002 and then brought it home in September 2004 after it had been sitting in a friends shed, I had sold my yellow 1302 earlier in 2004, I always wanted a 1303.

The previous owner had fitted rack & pinion from a 75 bug. and cutout the spare wheel area to house a radiator.

Steve

Steve C January 12th 2011 08:33

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More old photos.

My STI motor had only travelled 13000 ks and my G50 came from a low mileage Jap import.

I moved the motor and transmission forward 100mm, had to cut the torsion housing and I ended up using 40 hp length 26 mm sway away torsion bars, I had a stroke of luck, the G50 shift rod turned out to be exactly the correct length.

Steve

Steve C January 12th 2011 08:44

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The G50 is very hard to keep stable on a jack, so I made this bracket to hold it on my jack.

I've used the stock G50 alloy mount, I welded some tabs onto the chassis for it bolt onto and I had move the mounting slightly using some aluminium blocks.

I cut the centre spline from 2 chassis and had an outer sleeve made

I welded the splines in with "rose bud" welds so that 40HP / 1500 Beetle length 26 mm torsion bars poked out the correct amount to mate up with 944 spring plates.

Steve

Steve C January 17th 2011 08:42

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I'm trying to keep this build thread chronologically correct.

I will get to the newer stuff soon.

This is how the reinforcing started off on the torsion bar housing.

Steve

Steve C January 17th 2011 08:52

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I widened the engine bay area around the bumper bracket, my motor has variable valve timing there is a huge lump on the left rear cam cover that I had to be careful to make room for.

These motors are real tight fit and are also a pain as they want to fall off the jack all the time, that's why I made motor dolly with wheels, even when the motor is sitting on the floor it wants to fall over onto the flywheel. You will notice that I have jack stands under the engine dolly, this is to prevent the weight of the motor tipping the car over backward, might not happen, just being careful, it actually did happen to me while fitting a motor to Notchback that no front-end in it.

Steve C February 11th 2011 19:48

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I used this Bay Window Kombi transmission frame that I bought at the Valla swap for $5.00 to give some extra support for the transmission, this will also be useful to keep the transmission steady when the motor is removed.

Here you can see how close the cam covers come to the rear apron, even with the motor 100 mm forward.

Steve C February 12th 2011 02:30

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A friend had a had a PWR air 2 water inter cooler that he wanted to sell, as it was too big for his project. Its a 6 inch by 10 inch unit which is rated to 650 hp. Needless to say, its ideal for my car. I have mapped out the charge air path with green arrows.

I finished the inter cooler pipe work today, Brad a Westside Mufflers in Padstow did a great job with aluminium welding, I will only need to plumb in a blow off valve now. Now I can concentrate on getting a firewall made up to cover all this stuff up. It made it much easier working with everything exposed this way. The back seat will need to have a bit of a hump in it. I will be using the Grocco water pump from my old yellow car and a Subaru RX intercooler radiator in the front of the car. As you can see the charge air will have a very short path.

This is the Grocco water pump from the yellow bug, which I will be reusing to circulate the water in the inter cooler system.

Steve C February 12th 2011 02:33

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1303 or L bugs as they are called in Australia, have a history of body damage being caused when the circlip that holds the bonnet/hood falls off. To overcome this problem I drilled out the original circlip stud and fitted a bolt instead. This is fairly easy on passenger side, but on the drivers side I needed to cut a larger hole with a hole saw.

Steve

Steve C February 12th 2011 06:52

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As Im running a bit of angle on my CVs I had the 944 stubs altered to take 930 CVs.

I was going to use some replica Porsche 17x7.5 23ET wheels that I bought on Ebay. The 23 ET is an unusual offset, I believe that these were made to suit early 911s and 944s as a 7 inch Fuchs or Cookie cutter has the same ET. So these wheels being a 7.5 they protrude an extra 6 mm each side of a 7 inch Fuchs.

On my old 1302 I used to run 7x16 23ET inch Fuchs on the front and 8x16 10.6ET on the rear. I know the fronts will be OK, so after adding in the wider track that the rear alloy 944 arms give me and doing some calculations with an online wheel offset calculator, I worked out that these wheels should fit OK. I did a trial fit today with an Aero mudguard held in place and it all looks OK.

Steve C February 12th 2011 06:59

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I planned to put a Beesting radio aerial on the roof from a late model VW, but I was worried about future access to the aerial.

On the later VWs it's possible to pull the hood lining down to repair or service the aerial. That's not possible with an old bug, so I came up with the idea making a frame that will sit under the hood lining but will accept a standard Beetle interior light, so if I need to service or replace the aerial I will only need to remove to interior light to gain access to aerial securing nut.

I had a friend make these pieces up to weld into the A&B pillars to give the body some strength. I made a cross brace between the B pillars, a bit like factory cabrios use.

Steve C February 12th 2011 07:05

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As I'm getting old and soft, I'm fitting air conditioning.

The evaporator will sit in this box behind the dash, I will need to move the radio, maybe to the bottom of the dash.

Steve C February 12th 2011 07:12

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Measuring up for some custom axles, had these wooden ones made from 30mm dowel

Brad (Westy) at Westside modified my Subi sump for me.

Steve C February 12th 2011 07:24

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Gotta love Ebay, I bought some 18 inch OM (open mesh) Simmons 8 & 10 inch wide wheels, these wheels were my end game, the 17 inch Turbo Twists were a temporary solution.

I have friend who is the approved Simmons repairer, he's about 2 suburbs away from me, we've already worked out what rims I need.

I want to go 7.5s or 8s on the front, and 8 or 9s on the rear. I'm going to call my engineer soon to see if I can run 9s on the rear, I know 8s are legal, but I'm using a 1987 Porsche 944 rear end and this may allow me to go a larger wheel legally, its all about exploring RTA rules and using them to your advantage.

The other thing that I don't like is that the front Simmons wheels have the centre protruding on the edges, I will be fitting a wider outer rim on the front wheels so this will sit back in more, just like the rears do now.

So I will need to change the inner and outer on the front wheels and the inner on the rears and get the centres painted silver.

I also bought on Ebay a month or so ago a single 18x8 in the same style, so I have 5 wheels. I sold the Turbo twists on Ebay

Tyres all fitted to the refurbished wheels. Tyres are Federal 595RS-R, street legal track tyres in 225/40 ZR18s and 255/35zr18s. I had to stay with 8x40ET all round to get the car approved for road use, the rear tyres are having a muffin top moment, I might get the rear wheels taken out to 9s after its all registered and on the road

Steve C February 12th 2011 07:44

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After seeing the success that everyone is having with smaller radiators I ditched the massive one that I used in my old 1302 in favour of one from an 1983 Audi 100/200, I also already had a fan and housing from an earlier Audi 100 5E. it bolts up to that later radiator OK.

I'm happy to be going back to this Audi fan, when I used it last on my old 1302 bug, when it came on it was like blowing compressed air on the ground, chip packets, dust and sticks would blow everywhere.

The great thing about the Audi fan housing is the "speed flaps", the rubber flaps blow out at high speeds allowing more air flow over the core, when the fan comes on the flaps sit flat on the fan housing making sure than fan can draw the maximum amount of of air through the core

Steve

Steve C February 12th 2011 07:50

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I know whale tails are not considered cool, but they do have a benefit, larger engine bay and better cooling, not mention increased downforce at high speeds. This tail also has a pod to force air into the air cleaner.

I've got the old familiar fibreglass itch, I had to cut the gills in the top.

There is another section to go on the top as well, this will be adjustable.

Steve

Steve C February 12th 2011 07:57

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I also fitted some Toyota Kluger side markers to the front 1/4.

One of the jobs I needed to do is fit the new "air con" front apron. As can be seen it comes with pre-installed rust, that's why I like idea of Mexican seals. Our cars nver came with air con so we never had the vented front apron used on US bugs

Steve

Steve C February 12th 2011 08:01

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I had the body soda blasted to remove the paint, I was very happy with the outcome, no surprises.

Its a very gentle process it even left the factory seam sealer in the drip rails, it wont remove rust or thick nicky.

This body has not been driven since 1983, there was no rust at all in the rear window area.

The finished photos don't do it justice, the finish looks like you see in the factory assembly line photos.

Old repairs can be seen as a different shade to the rest of the body.

I've just been around at the panel beaters rust treating all the bits I welded in firewall area with some product from Wurth, now on with pan.

Steve

Steve C February 12th 2011 08:09

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In a previous life this car was sports sedan running a 12a rotary motor

Ther pan took a lot of work, there was about 18 holes where various things were mounted to the floor pan, roll cage, the muffler and battery were mounted on the passengers side floor with big hole in the floor where the muffler exited, these have now all been fixed up.

I had to call on expert help from Brad a Westside mufflers to weld up my alloy mirrors after I cut the attaching legs off. The mirrors need to be painted with rest of the car so Brad kindly fitted this fiddly job into his busy schedule. It was made fiddly because these early Falcon GT replica mirrors appear to be die cast and were bitch to weld.

I'm using the stock mirror mount holes and using cutdown stock mirror stalks, this way I can change mirrors without having to drill new holes in the door, I ran the same mirror stalks on my old yellow bug but with XA falcon (Mel Gibsons Road Warrior car) mirrors.

I'm fitting air con to the car, so the inlet grilles were welded up as well as the LHD wiper holes. The extra holes in the bulkhead is where the stock dash fan will draw in air.

Hows this for a rust free air box? I'm going to use the stock air box drain tube on the evaporator housing and I've fitted a smaller OD drain hose in case any moisture gets into the air box.

Steve

Steve C February 12th 2011 08:13

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I relocated the brake master cylinder 30 mm to the drivers (right) side, this gives me enough room to fit a clutch master in next to it.

I now have to move the lever on the brake pedal over 30 mm as well and fit rose joint attachment to the clutch pedal to operate the clutch master cylinder.

I had Brad (aka Westy) weld some fittings on the tank. 1/2 outlet and and 2 x 3/8 return lines into the tank, while he was at it I got him to fill in the LHD part of the tank for some increased capacity, I think maybe 2 - 4 litres gain.

I bought this tank from a wrecker in about 2002 for my old yellow 1302, it was a genuine VW German replacement tank that looked almost new.

Steve

Steve C February 12th 2011 08:26

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1st bit of paint on the body, I'm not sure if I said earlier but I went with Porsche blood orange after many test batches of paint ranging from purple to yellow.

I dug all the dreaded foam out of the shell, I've saturated the area with Lanolin and stuck wool offcuts in all the cavities.

Steve C February 12th 2011 08:34

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I had to chop the chassis up a bit to move the G50 forward 100 mm. I used 26 mm Sway away short torsion bars

Steve C February 12th 2011 08:40

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A few more photos of the brake pedal setup.

I moved the brake master cylinder over to the right 30 mm so that I could fit the clutch master next to it.

Nothing was open over the new years break to buy anything decent to make the clutch m/c clevis with so I had make do with what I had.

Steve C February 12th 2011 08:51

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Fitted some new rotors 930 turbo to my 996 rear brakes that I use on the front. I originally had extreme cross drilled rotors, I'm sure the engineer wouldn't have liked them, these rotors and hubs were originally on the Dak to the Future car.

I've also ran all new soft & hard brake lines. I'm thinking about moving my bake fluid reservoir down lower nearer to master cylinder along with the clutch master, I hate the tube arrangement that RHD bugs got.

Is this anal? I went and ran a torque wrench over all chassis bolts.

Steve

Photo explanation, all the brakes and some of the suspension were on my old yellow bug, the extreme cross drilled rotors when they were on my yellow 1302 bug

Steve C February 12th 2011 18:17

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I lined the engine bay with some house type insulation and covered it with XR6 type insulation which I bought from Repco

Audi radiator fitted with the Subaru RS Liberty inter cooler radiator at the front

Steve C February 12th 2011 18:24

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I cut the chassis fork away so much that I couldn't use the stock E brake cables, I used the 944 cable and hooked them up to a bug E brake lever, I made bracket that I welded to the chassis to secure the 944 cables

Craig S February 12th 2011 21:15

Good to see more of the history of this Beetle up now Steve, I look forward to seeing it in full flight shortly

wrenchnride247 February 13th 2011 00:03

WOW! :shocked: Thats alot of updates all at once. Its looking very nice so far. Keep at it!

volkdent February 13th 2011 05:32

Looking really really nice! Keep us posted!

Jason

NO_H2O February 13th 2011 11:08

Lots of nice work. I still think you RHD guys have it made when it comes time to mount a clutch MC.

aircured February 13th 2011 11:53

Steve, looks awesome, keep the pictures coming. :eek:
Now if I could just get started, I'd be unstopable.... :lmao:

dub_crazee February 13th 2011 14:01

cracking car :D and love the colour choice lol


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