Aircooled VW South Africa

Piet wrote:Ah, at last an RSK with the engine in the correct place! It makes working on the gearbox so much easier too
Alfaquad, I'm building a 550 and would like to know what type of gearbox linkage is used. I cannot recognize anything in the photo in that regard?

Hi Piet,

Finally managed to take some pics of the gear linkage setup for you.

This is at the back - the rod runs all along the bottom of the motor and gearbox.



It then joins up with a bush behind the cockpit in front of the motor...



Then it's a single rod in a sleeve that goes forward to the gearstick, which has a rose-joint to make sense of the gears.

A quick update on the car...

I was driving the other day when I heard a loud clank and then scraping noises. The front-right shock-mount had broken off (welding). I pushed the shock into an upright position and limped home. Sorted out the shock-mount, then when I wanted to go test it I made it to the street corner before the thrust bearing came off again.

So I took the gearbox off, again, this last weekend and found that the one spring holding the bearing on had come off. I made sure to hook on the springs properly this time. I'm hoping it stays on now!

While the gearbox was off I decided to cut off the exhaust making it a twin-pipe instead of a 2-into-1 at the back. The muffler was ugly, and the exhaust was forever in the way when working on the car. I replaced the plugs as the car started missing badly, and I played with the H30/31 PICT carb a bit as it was overfuelling quite heavily. What a difference this made! The car now revs clean and strong, with no black smoke and no hesitation. The open exhausts also sound a fair bit better than the previous setup, and it looks better.

I need to replace the mechanical fuel pump with an electrical one asap. It's leaking and electronic fuel pumps just work better cause I can hear when there is an issue with fuel then.

It's been a bit of a frustration with the car, but I just have to go through everything and fix/replace what is faulty. It stood for 10 years, so there are bound to be teething issues. I'd love more power, but to find a set of IDF Webers seems like a very costly exercise

Before I cut the exhaust...

Here is a drawing of the original gear linkage, yours looks definitely easier to copy

Love your ride, very nice.

Sorry for asking a stupid question but how do you get this Porche to have 4 gears forward and one reverse.
I so hoped someone else would ask this question and have been following this hread from the beginning and could not hold it anymore

here is your answer http://www.loumash.com/GS/2012b/trans.html

german wrote:Sorry for asking a stupid question but how do you get this Porche to have 4 gears forward and one reverse.
I so hoped someone else would ask this question and have been following this hread from the beginning and could not hold it anymore

The crown wheel is turned around so that you effectively have 4 reverse gears and one forward gear... But since it's upside down anyway, it works like it should in the mid-engined configuration

Thanks for the link John!

Thanks. Shows you how clever the oaks in those days already were with their desighns

I played around in the garage a bit tonight after cleaning it in anticipation to take out my race car's motor... Then I decided to take a pic of the Porsche using the 'painting with light' technique - I illuminated the car using a key-ring light... Here is the result.

@tonyz,if you open pic of the month for January,here's a clear winner

german wrote:Thanks. Shows you how clever the oaks in those days already were with their desighns

It was designed like that to be used in the kombis with reduction gears

Stunning Picture..

I put a new set of tyres on the car on Monday. The old tyres were a minimum of 15 years old so felt like rocks and 2 of them had a slow leak. The new tyres have made the car even more fun! The tyres actually scream now when going round corners

Drove it the other night with the old tyres and went into a 90 degree corner a bit too hot under braking - rear end stepped and required an armful of opposite lock to get round the corner, then at the next corner, a big circle I went round it with excessive throttle drifting the little thing through there like a go-kart. I love this car! Epic car around town. I take it to the shops and when I have errands to run, and that Beetle motor is easier to drive in town than my daily drive's!

Can't wait to take it for a drive to a nice spot where I can take some decent pics of it!

Jealousy makes me nasty.
Must really start making an effort on mine again

My car stood most of winter and when I tried starting it during winter it wouldn't.

I did a few check and confirmed that I was getting spark and all that. Carb was leaking a bit so I got a service kit from Volkspares in the week. When I took the carb off yesterday I cranked the motor to see if it was getting fuel. Not a drop. Mechanical pump must have died.

Today I installed an electric pump and I put the carb back on without changing anything but the manifold gasket. It fired up on the first swing!

Man it was nice to drive it again. It goes better than ever. No more flat spot when pulling away or anything!

Took a quick pic of it, but want to take it for a proper shoot soon!