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  #391  
Old September 17th 2012, 10:33
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Originally Posted by 2.7911E View Post
I was with my brother-in-law in the orange turboed '68 from Calgary and was wanting to show him your wiring. heh heh I know it was pretty busy for you and I didn't really introduce myself. It was neat to talk to the owner/builder and see the car and I had only read about. Michael
Ahhhh yes, fully remember now. Too bad I didn't have more time, I would have liked the opportunity to fully check out your brother's car. From what I saw it was very intriguing.

-Dave
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  #392  
Old October 2nd 2012, 02:17
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Well, I continue to use the bug as much as possible! Over the past two weekends I've done 3,496km on the bug...plus whatever I drove during the week. Last weekend I did half of that in just 30.5 hours, including sleep, while I setup the route for Classic Car Adventure's "Fall Freeze Adventure".


The event itself was just over 1400km, but with the start 5 hours from my house, and the finish 3 hours away, the kilometers added up pretty quick. Prep for the event was supposed to be pretty simple, but quickly escalated into a long list of to-do items. First up, was tearing out the front suspension to figure out why the front strut was loose. A broken top spacer (likely caused by a loosened strut cap) was swapped out and everything put back into place.


I also decided not to risk another event without a jack, having had to wait for Sweep to arrive with one on the Rush to Gold Bridge. A temporary mount was worked out, and later this week I'll figure out how to make it permanent in the car. It would be easy if I was willing to wreck the paint with welding...


I was doing work on the rear suspension and ended up removing the skid plate. I was curious to know what the relationship between engine/oil heat and the skid plate would be, so I left it off for the first weekend of driving. Interestingly there was a significant difference. With the skid plate the engine reaches operating temperature much quicker, and runs between 200 and 220 deg F depending on how hard you're pushing the engine. I was seeing temps as high as 240 before I moved and insulated the oil lines (as per a previous post). Pulling the skid plate results in oil temps 15-30deg cooler, depending on the ambient air temperature. More testing is required to determine if I will need to change the plate shape, but going into the colder weather I don't think I will worry about it until spring.

I also took care of some more simple items, like grip tape on the floorboards.


The Sparco seat has funny story. The last job on my list of preparation was to swap out one of my Cobra Imola2 seats for a wider seat. My dad was flying in from Toronto to co-drive the event for me, and I knew my seats would be uncomfortable for him. On his 60th birthday I called him up and told him he needed to go "race seat shopping" to find one that fits! A Sparco seat list arrived in my email box, and I went and snagged one out of a buddies rally car. Only after I had it all fitted, did I actually read the list that dad sent me. "Sparco Corsa - too tight (nasty!)" Well, crap. I ended up doing an emergency run down to Vancouver to borrow a Pro2000 out of another buddies rally car. By the dimension charts they are almost identical...but hey, whatever makes Dad happy. On Thursday I picked him up at the airport and we made our way off to the start location in Kamloops. I was pretty sure dad wasn't going to survive in the car for the whole weekend, it's bloody loud inside and he was commenting before we even left the airport! To make matters worse, the intercom stopped working Thursday night as we neared the hotel. I bought a butane powered soldering iron, foam earplugs and hoped for the best!

The event started with about an hour of 'normal' roads, nothing too twisty, or where it was twisty it was populated so speeds are heavily controlled. Soon we were out into the unpopulated areas, and as the first set of twisty corners were fast approaching, I figured it was a good time to test how well Dad was going to do as co-driver. I lifted, so that we were dropping in at about 60% of what I would have normally done, and without brakes drove into the first corner. "Uh, David, these things do roll."

First corner, fail.

Second corner, onto the gas and drop it in faster...maybe Dad will be impressed with the cornering ability of the bug build? (Dad has owned over 30 beetles, but all of them bone stock)...."daaaVID!!"

Hmmm, second corner? Fail.

I drove conservatively until our lunch stop, where I proceeded to swap the Driver's seat for the Passenger seat so that dad could take a turn at the wheel. I figured that since I had driven all the roads the weekend before, it was easier to just let Dad drive at a pace that made him comfortable vs. trying to convince him I was being perfectly safe. He drove for some of the afternoon, and when the noise was finally too much he jumped into one of the other entrant's BMW 2002. I took the opportunity to jump into John Hinde's 2010 Intermeccanica Roadster, and instantly realized that my next bug is going to need a 2.3L engine like Johns!


Dad and I finished up day one together in the Bug, and were having a quite a bit of fun by the end of the day. I was text messaging my best friend from the passenger seat, and they're pretty funny:

2:30pm
45km into dad driving and he's starting to get comfortable with the car. "Don't lift! It will corner at that speed" ... "Whoa, it sure does."

2:45pm
60km into his stint and he's finding the light side of the limit. "Oops, that was a bit too fast."

3:15pm
"Dad, I think you're one of us now". "That didn't take long, did it?!"



I left the seats as they were for day two and day three. Dad lives on the other-side of the country and hasn't driven any of these mountain roads before. Day two was full of left foot braking, and discovering just how well a beetle can handle. By day three, dad was dropping into corners and making ME grab for the 'oh s%&# handles'! It was an absolute blast. He was pretty impressed with the build, and the bug held up trouble free. And, really, what better way to spend a weekend with your father???


Checking the oil level in Greenwood BC


About to test the traction circle...


Father and Son driving team


The group lined up on the Kootenay Lake Ferry, morning of Day 2


Group dinner at Tin Horn Creek winery


Dad/John with the bug

-Dave
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Last edited by owdlvr; October 3rd 2012 at 03:12.
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  #393  
Old October 2nd 2012, 05:12
70Turbobug 70Turbobug is offline
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I really love this project! Very well done and fantastic pics!! Thanks for sharing!

Mark
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  #394  
Old October 3rd 2012, 01:43
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1302 Not so secret,secret Project Build

Quote:
Originally Posted by 70Turbobug View Post
I really love this project! Very well done and fantastic pics!! Thanks for sharing!

Mark
Well said Mark ,what a great car/thread amazing information and stunning images, brilliant.
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  #395  
Old October 3rd 2012, 17:31
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Awesome report, glad to see your dad having some fun too I recently did the grip tape stripes on my floor like you did after slipping around with wet feet getting in and out of the bug.
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  #396  
Old October 4th 2012, 07:06
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Looks like it was another great event.
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  #397  
Old October 11th 2012, 16:36
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Last weekend I was digging through a guy's Volkswagen parts collection when he showed me these. Wouldn't take a penny for them, but they'll display quite well with the car



-Dave
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'71 Type 1 - Rally Project
'58 Type 1 - I bought an early!?!
'73 Type 1 - Proper Germanlook project
'68 Type 1 - Interm German 'look' project
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  #398  
Old October 16th 2012, 00:54
Clatter Clatter is offline
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Dunno if you have ever looked at the skid plate that came on the Thing, or Safari.
It is more of a cage than a plate.
Always thought that the air moving under the car across the sump was helpful for cooling...

Maybe something like that would be helpful.
Top build.
Thanks for taking the time to post this all up.
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  #399  
Old October 18th 2012, 03:47
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The operating temperature of my setup is heavily influenced by air temperature, skid plate, traveling speed and/or oil cooler ducting. One downside of my situation is that I haven't built an absolute race car, nor have I built a street car. The setup is initially quite sensitive to air temperature, and flow through the duct over the oil cooler. I'm starting to get a good feeling for the relationship between the two, and thus have different 'block-off-plates' for the duct opening in the side window. Once I mounted the skid plate, however, the block-off plates became unnecessary as the engine runs hotter and thus becomes fully controllable (temperature wise) by the oil cooler and fan combo. The hot summer days we got at the end of August, however, were causing oil temps of 240 when I was really pushing it. I anticipate I'm going to want a couple of skid plate options available to use. A solid plate, whenever possible for maximum protection, and a second plate with more airflow for the hotter days. Going into winter, though, I think I'm going to need to look at installing an oil-tank heater to speed cold weather warmup!

And, speaking of warmup, I started working on dialing in some items for winter today. The stock heater linkages were interfering with the Kafer bar setup, so the first job was under the car to shift things around, bend a bit of the stock heater linkage and confirm it all worked. No photos, as I think I've put enough of that area in this thread already! Following that, it was onto the gas heater where I simply had to adjust the ducting, and add some foam to try and stop the cold air blowing around the ducts into my lap. The air-conditioning was nice in the summer, but it's getting a little chilly in the mornings now!

You might, at this stage, think I've got more then enough heat in the car...and you're probably right. I've had my racing seats in my daily driver for the last 9 years, and ever since I popped them into my Audi I've missed the heated seats. I always thought about putting elements into the racing buckets, but it almost seems like blasphemy. A few weeks ago, when I was on the Fall Freeze, I was thinking about how nice heated seats would be on a sore back, and how much I loved it driving home from skiing. I suppose the 3500km in two weekends helped me remember what a sore back was like! As luck would have it, a friend Geoff was selling some heated seat kits when I returned home. Well, why not?

But first, we must do a temporary install on one seat to see if I really want to do this...



The elements were laid into the seat for initial trimming. On this first install, I'm going to install them behind the padding instead of right under the cover like a traditional seat. Traditional seat covers, whether fabric or leather, are usually fairly heavy. The covers on my race seats are almost t-shirt thin. The foam padding, before you sit on it and compress it, is only about 1/4-3/8" thick...so I believe the heat should pass through. If I get a bit of warmth, but not good and hot, I'll try the elements right under the cover. But for now, this temporary fitting requires no holes sewn.



This probably isn't FIA approved...but the switch is convenient to reach, and subtle enough to not be noticed.



I thought this would be funny to post. Not my usual wiring standard! Since this is a temporary test, I left the kit wiring harness intact. If I decide to keep the warmers, I'll trim the harness down to it's bare minimum, mount it to the seat frame properly and put in a nice connector. At the moment I wired the seat heater into the reverse light circuit, since the relay right behind the driver's seat and I can go without for a day. Tomorrow morning should give me a good test to see if I'll keep 'em.

-Dave
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'71 Type 1 - Rally Project
'58 Type 1 - I bought an early!?!
'73 Type 1 - Proper Germanlook project
'68 Type 1 - Interm German 'look' project
'75 Type 1 - Family Heirloom
'93 Chevy 3500 pickup - Cummins Swap
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  #400  
Old October 18th 2012, 12:03
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You know, once you kick that on during a particularly cold morning it's not coming out of the bug right? I really miss heated seats and that is a must have for my new project.
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  #401  
Old October 18th 2012, 22:07
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DORIGTT DORIGTT is offline
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Hey Humble,

Still interested in that Eberspacher BN2 I've got? That'll provide some heat!
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  #402  
Old October 19th 2012, 13:30
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oh yeah! might end up using that for my new project
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  #403  
Old October 22nd 2012, 03:07
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Couple of minor updates...

Forgot to post up the pedal set a while back. I do a tonne of left foot braking, and have always loved a larger middle pedal. I mounted these up a while back, but forgot to post some photos. The angle cut lets my size 12 shoe escape the gas pedal for those times when I need to heel-toe.


I also decided to man-up this week. I have no fear of anything mechanical, but tuning the carbs still makes me lose sleep. I guess its like my last frontier...I can get 'em running, and do some gross adjustments, but I set 'em up rich to avoid melting down the motor. Time to step up my game!


...course, fitting this into the bug is going to be interesting. Innovate's first instruction is "zip tie the LC-1 under the car..." um, no. That's not going to work.


Oh hey, I think I'll install a gauge, shouldn't be too big a deal!


The first 15min...


An hour later (not exaggerating), and the harness is through. Stupid foam.


Tucked up beside the carb, away from the rocks.


And, somehow, it would appear I forgot shots of the dash. Whoops.

-Dave
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'71 Type 1 - Rally Project
'58 Type 1 - I bought an early!?!
'73 Type 1 - Proper Germanlook project
'68 Type 1 - Interm German 'look' project
'75 Type 1 - Family Heirloom
'93 Chevy 3500 pickup - Cummins Swap
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  #404  
Old October 29th 2012, 13:13
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Clatter View Post
Dunno if you have ever looked at the skid plate that came on the Thing, or Safari.
It is more of a cage than a plate.
It is my understanding they are an exact fit on Type 181-coded engines specifically. In order to use it on another upright Type 1 engine code, one must do some drilling to the engine block to make it fit.

Since Thing's and Iltis's are included in my search pattern, I would think a solid skid plate like that of an Iltis would be better for someone who has to endure more robust circumstances whereas the Thing accommodation would be plenty for someone like me.
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  #405  
Old October 30th 2012, 17:05
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Back "in the day" the amateur rally enthusiast Peter Noad fitted a tow bar to his bug to act as a sump guard. It works pretty well and he drove over some tough terrain. My brother copied the trick on his (volkworld featured) rally bug and grounding out on rough farm tracks was no problem.
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