I’ve been spending most of my time lately working on the 1990 Coupe quattro project, but seeing as the pile of parts for the beetle is growing…I best start working on it again! Well, that and I’m sick of working on the Audi.
A while back I did the design for my vertical handbrake, or rather the ‘first’ design. I know I will need to drive around with it and refine it a bit before doing the finished version, so did a basic outline of the handle for now. The problem is, without being able to physically sit in the car with it, how do you know you’re “close”. It dawned on me, while cutting decals, that I have a relatively smart rapid prototype option right here at home. A quick true-size sticker, and some cardboard and…
Voila! A test unit that can be tried out in the car. Without having the base mounted it was pretty tough to “try”, but at the very least I figured out I was close enough to send the drawing out for water jet cutting.
With a few additional bits stolen from a Rocket Rally horizontal handbrake, and a Honda clutch master cylinder, I have myself an inexpensive hydraulic handbrake to try out. The last step was to lathe up the pivot bushings, and drop the handle off with Nick at Rocket Rally for some TIG welding. As soon as I get it back, I can weld in some mounts on the transmission tunnel.
In the meantime, I’m trying to plug away on a number of the little jobs I never seem to do. I’ve had this idea in mind since before the car was finished, but never got around to it. No time like the present!
Pull cable and radio antenna, when combined, become an external battery-cut-off switch. Now, I suppose I should mention that when I bought the pull cable there were two options. This one, which is a shorter “front of the car” length cable, and the longer “back of the car” setup which I knew i would have to cut down quite substantially. I was prepared to buy the more expensive longer version, but the shop owner convinced me I was wasting money and this one was long enough.
It’s not.
Well, it is. But only for
one cable routing option. It’s not long enough to try various options and ideas and then decide which one I like best. Mildly frustrating, but only because I will never know if this one “is” the best :P Still need to make a couple of bits for it, and then I’ll finish the install.
The Porsche tach, or rather the way the needle bounces on downshifts, has always bugged me. I have a 3 3/8” Stewart Warner tach doing nothing, so why not have a precise tach in my car? Well, the mounting of a small tach in a big hole is a problem. Last year I came up with a pretty good idea, and then crushed an old 914 housing in the lathe. Oops. I figured it was because I disassembled the tach and weakened the body too much. I recently found I have a plastic-faced 914 tach which has seen better days, so time to try again!
Step one seems to have gone fine. I now have hole perfectly sized for the SW tach, and keeping the Porsche unit assembled definitely makes it more rigid. Now I’ll just flip it over, and use the lathe to cut the back end off the tach…
Oops.
Well, lets just move onto other things then. Voltmeter replaced by cylinder head temperature, using a NOS VDO gauge I found at last weekend’s swap meet. Once I confirm it works, I’ll paint the outside rim silver, and touch up the panel behind it. Installing the gauge was a colourful language affair, since I had to run sensor wires all the way to the engine bay…frustrating when I
know I have spares hidden in my wiring harness. Just can’t use them as the cylinder head gauge requires using their wires without cutting. Sigh.
I did solve the tach problem though. Spent just a wee bit of money and dropped a 5” Monster tach into the dash. I’m planning on taking the car down to the VW Classic show in June, and figure this will buy me some street creed with the Cal-Look crowd. :-) But in all serious, it solved the problem was the closest match I could get to the current gauges and allows me to button the dash back up.
So I finally decided I need to replace the Throwout bearing which was overdue for replacement three years ago. Have you priced one of these things out before? $149 USD! That’s painful. I recalled reading about an alternative option a few years back, but figured I better run the proper bearing for those first few transmission tests. This year, however, I returned to Google to try and search for the solution. I found it on the 356 registry, or did I? Turns out the 356 crowd converts their throwout bearings to the early 911 style because it shifts better and is
significantly cheaper then the original option in their cars! Guess I know why I play with VW’s instead of Porsches! Sigh, alright…I’ll order the expensive bearing.
Starting to cross things off on the list, which is good. I have to have the car ready and tested by March 31st, as I could be away for all of April. Our Spring Thaw classic car rally is April 25th, and the car MUST be ready for that! At least I’m starting to cross things off…
-Dave