Length comparison 915-shortnose G50

[rioprelude]

Ricola - I'll send you a pm. Thanks!

[Jim Andritsakos]

I have an correct shortened bellhousing and mainshaft that we can maybe trade ?

Jim

[graham]

Blimey another night not sleeping thinking about parts mods for my car :roll eyes:

Wally did you have to machine the gearbox for the TOB because you removed the first rib off your box ? if I am not removing the first rib do you think I will be able to just make an adapter plate to fit the Audi/VW TOB ?

out of my depth here again

[Wally]

Yeah, when your engine sits further back due to not shortening the bell housing, I suppose that gives you more room for the hydraulic TOB.
Since you're using one of those inferior watercooled jap engines however , your dimensions may change in more then one way, so carefull measuring with a (dummy) engine seems neccessary anyways.

The original G50 bellhousing does have a lot of room though, so you probably won't need to machine the area around the intake shaft

[graham]

Thanks Wally much appreciated.

[rioprelude]

Quick question about mounting the G50 to the Beetle transmission cradle. It looks like the OEM rubber mounts are used, and then a metal plate with a tab, to connect the rubber mounts to the G50 bolt holes on the bottom of the transmission.



Is this plate custom, or is it from an OEM rubber mount (the bottom plate)?

[Wally]

I think it was a custom plate I fabbed up, actually just a piece of scrap metal ;-)

[Wally]

Since I heard a few of us use this thread for info on the G50 swap, I just wanted to give an umonth update on how it worked out over all the past years.

Reason to do this now is that something in my hydraulic clutch set-up has malfunctioned for some (still unknown) reason.
Sympton was a fall of hydraulic pressure so the clutch would not release. This happenend right after first start up of the newly assembled engine with the biral cylinders. Very annoying! But better in the garage then abroad as I did Santa Pod drag racing end of last season, where all was still good (10,58 quarter mile so it worked perfect then).

Main clutch cylinder (still the original Saco unit in the tunnel) looks leak free in the tunnel, so took a picture of the slave in the bell housing (G50 has an inspection hole, works perfect for a small I-phone hehe):



I suspected that it must be the slave, even though I could not see a leak.
So, removed the old unit, bought a new LUK slave, shortenend the arm, tapped NPT thread again, installed it all, but noticed I used a 'temporary' mounting back then, which had hold till now, but I was not assured it could be used as is the second time... (just a M6 tapped into the alu of the bell housing in 3 spots, one of them in too thin material).
Result was a sudden 'snap' after installing engine and a dramtic loss of hydrau fluid under the bell housing... The bottom of the unit was broken out of it due to maybe not seating flush or was it a quality control issue?
Oke... maybe the old unit was of better quality?
Mounted that, same result.. I was further from a solution now then before.
retrieved my old Saab (model 9000 I know now) out of the parts box and tried that again. Nice parts, didn't understand how that would seal itself after disassembling everything, but hey, I am no Saab TOB expert right?
As the Saab unit was about 8mm too high, I has a friend machine the parts so it would be smaller. As I need to start the operating range all out at the bottom of the 'stroke', trimming some excess stroke didn't seem a problem.
Looked good installed. Never knew M12x1.0mm connections existed, but thats what the Saab unit works with... Oke, got those suckers and installed them on some new lines.





Still here?

[Wally]

Right, turned out the Saab unit did indeed seal on the bottom with a rather complex rubber seal that sealed off the outer and inner sleave.
No matter how I mounted this: with little or a lot pre-load or with or without silicon sealing added, it would fail instantly pressure was put on it.
I have never removed and mounted the engine block so often this last week.

After 6 or so failed attempts, I binned the Saab TOB and ordered 3 others (I am pressed for time as a trackday (Bilsterberg, Germany) is in less then 2 weeks) which looked low enough form their pictures online.

One is a Ford Transit unit, the other two are SsangYoung and Deawoo units.

The Deawoo unit is actually great, but its diameter for the (G50) pinion axle (1.0 inch) is just a tad too small (24,0mm).
The Ssangyoung unit fits the diameter but its base is too wide for my adapter plate. Both seem low enough though!

The Ford Transit unit however is lowest of all, fits all around and only has a weird line feed (press-fit?), but I think/hope that M12x1,0mm thread can be cut into the arm at a lower position.
Ordered the M12x1,0 taps, so fingers crossed it all works and solves the problem I had..

[Wally]

Well, I owed you guys (?) an update:
The old existing adapter plate I remade for the Ford Transit TOB:


And it works perfectly! (finally)

and this is how it looks finished, not much to see, but there you go:


Lemmeknow if this was any help to somebody?

[Hulken]

Looking good! No G50 for me at the moment, but I rather go for a G50 instead of 915

[Wally]

Very much agree mate! I've driven both in my 1303 and the difference is such that you'd better skip the 915 all together ;-)
Dream of mine would be a G50 in a 412 2-door hatchback... but I sold my 412 long time ago..