My 181 - Kubel - Trekker - Thing

[Chris]

At this stage of the fight,I feel like moving to CT

[Tom Bishop]

Here are a couple of pics showing the 181's progress.



























After starting the motor we found that the pulley was hitting the tin plate. It took 3 attemps to solve this problem.


Got the kids involves in making the floor mats.




Getting the Kubel home. Thanks HR for helping get my Thing up on the truck.






Engine rubbers in place. The small front one took about 2 hours to fit. The larger rear one about half an hour.


Body on. Again Thanks HR for the help.


Still hoping I will be able to drive to George.

[beetlefanatic]

Nice work Tom. I would love to see the car in person when it's finished.

[Barry]

Looking good Tom!


You hold & I'll hit - that's a brave boy you got there......

Here are a couple of pics showing the 181's progress.

Got the kids involves in making the floor mats.






......Still hoping I will be able to drive to George.

Hope you do!!

Barry

[EtienneB]

Tom,

A few days ago I browsed the forums here and came across the thread about the Suebrew Bug you were doing. But the link to the pics on the Beach Buggy forum made me feel like the Talking Heads when they wrote the song "Road to Nowhere".

Still cant see them, even after I registered on that forum ...

What to do?

[Dutch_Diver]

Come Tom, you and I have to both complete before next week otherwise we will be sitting in HR's buggy being towed behind his car and pretending! That's not cricket

[Tom Bishop]

Today I got the body bolted to the pan, Steering shaft and column fitted, Heater system fitted and windscreen fitted. This does not seem like much but it took the whole day.

Much easier to write than do.

Tomorrow I want to go hunt for beetle wiring looms. I need at least 2. They will be pulled apart and be used to make a new loom.

EtienneB. Sorry about the Suebrew pics. I will repost them on this forum. Good news is this project goes into full swing in June.

[Pine]

Thanks HR for helping get my Thing up

Noooooo.... he didn't! Did he?

Looking good Tom, can't wait to see it at George! Have you got a yellow Matchbox Thing yet?

[Bugger]

The "Thing" is coming along good what have you found on the oil to use for the LSD I am still waiting for Edge company to come back to me

EtienneB. Sorry about the Suebrew pics. I will repost them on this forum. Good news is this project goes into full swing in June.

If you have not lifted the Gear lever Place ment yet for the mod you did by lifting the tranny I got a trick you can try what one of the Yankies have done to acomodate the Nose cone of the Tranny that sit higher now

Hope to meet you in person in George and have a lekka chat

[Tom Bishop]

After browsing The Samba, asking Engin and Castrol I went for 80/90 with GL-5.

Yesterday I fitted the Side airboxes, the rubbers in the doors and other things to keep me busy for a good 12 hours. This week I have put in +45 hours of work into this 181 and am still 50/50 if its driving or being trailered to George.

[Tom Bishop]

OK. Tonight I am peeved off.

I don’t say much but tonight I need to get this off my chest.

Today I started with the electrical system. Somewhere along the line somebody butchered this 181’s wiring loom. The loom was cut to pieces and joined again all over the place. This loom needed to be replaced.

Now the other problem is I am fitting a golf steering column to enable me to have electric wiper washer fluid on the column. BTW the complete unit consisting of the ignition switch and stalks fits quite easily onto the Beetle/181 steering column. You just need to file the hole, which secures the unit, a bit larger.

Now I needed to check that the pins on the 181’s wiper motor matched the plug coming from the column. The numbers on both corresponded but that is not definite proof that it would work.

So onto the net I jumped and found a picture on the Samba that someone posted, to a similar question, showing the motor connections, with labels added showing the pin numbers and what there functions were. The number seemed a bit odd but I converted the golf wires and connected them to the wiper motor. When I tested, things were wrong.

So onto the net again and I found the same picture with the same labels that someone had corrected as he stated two functions (constant power & park) were in the incorrect position. I tried this and things were wrong.

Eventually I took the motor apart and with the Golf and Beetle wiring diagram and the stripped wiper motor I figured out what the pins on the motor functions were. From the second picture constant live and low speed were in the incorrect position. Once this was sorted the numbers on the motor matched the column and all was well.

The problem with this story, is I am under pressure to get this car on the road and I spent the whole day trying to figure out this motor because somebody x2 posted incorrect information on the net. It took 9 hours to resolve this problem where it should have taken an hour.

Today there was no progress on the Kubel. I now have a stripped wiper motor that I must assemble before I am back to where I was this morning.

The Samba is a useful site and I have been lurking there a lot, finding info about how certain parts fitted. But on the Samba site and this site, I am Fcukin Pssed off with people that post advice based on their own theories or what they have heard about. They offer advice not to help you but to let themselves look good in front of other members.

Please only post advice if you have done it yourself or shut the fcuk up . Go away. Curl up and die.

A day lost. Yes, I am not a happy chappy tonight.

[Tom Bishop]

Figuring out the golf column wiring to work with the Kubel loom.


Wiper motor stripped to see how the contacts work.


Casing sandblasted ready for painting.


Front finished, ready for the fuel tank.


Air boxes fitted. The should be pop rivitted but I chose self tapping allen head screws. I think it looks better.


Badge back in place.

[1972]

hi tom must say your car is coming along nicely maybe when u done you can post something on the rite way to do these things that most of us know are hard to find correct info on im sure in the future it will help others on this forum to

[Tom Bishop]

The 181 is taken the easy way to George. Its being trailered.
This week I had to do a bit of work to pay for this hobby so not much was done.

I will still be riding in the convoy on Friday and will see the rest of you in George.

Hope you all joining us Saturday for the braai at the school and for some good er... coffee.

[vader]

I'm there like a square bear!!!

Chop and dop.eerrrr coffee!!!