Dave's 1971 1302 Not-So-Secret, Secret Project Build

[owdlvr]

Originally Posted by chug_A_bug

Looking Great Dave... So we going to See the Body with the New paint Sitting on that Sexy pan by Sunday
what are you going for the engine you Staying with the Spec of the Rally car or just going Balls out...lol
Chris.

I actually pulled the 1776 engine out of my 1969 beetle before I sold it. That will be my primary engine, for the next little while since this project ran out of money about...oh...two months ago? :P I've also got a 1600 I'm building up with every trick I can think of, mainly for our club's "stock motor challenge" drag night, but also just in case my Beetleball record falls. Then I'll have a stock motor to go back and reclaim.

There is a type-4 engine in my storage unit, I picked it up last summer knowing that eventually you guys were going to pull me into a turbo setup

Originally Posted by vw1303

Loving the rally themed livery. Going to look sweet. Are you planning on running a Kafer Brace in the rear to help support the shock towers/ bracing the frame horns at all?

Yup, I've got a Kafer brace, but haven't even mocked up the brackets. I figure that these are 'relatively easy' to install with the body on, and I have far too many other important things to nail down first. In order to keep the stock heat, though, I'm going to be running a 3-bar setup. Definitely risky, especially with rallying. Might switch to a 5 bar setup and sort out a solution for the heat. The car will have a gas heater, but they're so on or off it's not ideal in the fall/spring when you just need a bit of heat to keep the navigator from whining too much.

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Today has been a pretty long evening/night/morning in the garage. So many hours, in fact, that I'm really having trouble remembering what it was I accomplished.

There was rebuilding the second axle, installing brake pads, checking clearances, bending brake lines, discovering my clutch cable won't work, hating my bent brake lines and redoing them...anyways, the list goes on.



Test fit one of the rally tires on the chassis. Plenty of clearance for the suspension, lets hope they clear the fenders!



Shortly after dinner time...which reminds me, I forgot to eat dinner. Anyways...I was about to head to Vancouver to borrow a trailer when I called in my buddy Scott to take a look at three of my problem areas. I showed him a couple of issues with the clutch cable, and we discussed the double-plating of the suspension mounts. By the time I got back from the trailer mission, about 2 hours later, Scott had the following ready for me:

Clutch cable adapter and adjuster, in Stainless Steel.


Spacers for my suspension mounts...


And finally, a Bowden Tube extension. Now I can use the factory 911 bowden tube mount, and the factory beetle Bowden Tube. Not 100% this is going to work for me, as the bowden tube does have a fairly significant "s" bend...but if I'm lucky this will keep me from making a custom bracket (which would likely route the tube in a similar S)




So the suspension now has grade 8 studs, set into the chassis with red loctite and an M10 nut. From there I placed the spacer, my second plate and then a second nut, this time with blue loctite. the setup with a stud should be much stronger then just a single bolt with a spacer. If I start tearing these off, I've got much bigger problems!



Pan is dropped on the ground, still needs rear shocks so it's resting on the bump stops. From there I went looking for front suspension parts...I really hope I can find the steering box, because so far I've had no luck at all. I seem to recall the best time to put it in is while the body is off the pan. Found two bad ones, but not the good one.



Well, off for a few hours of shut-eye, then tomorrow it's off to see the paint job!

-Dave