Aircooled VW South Africa

When I say finger tight it should be to a point here the setup is not loose, but can allow a little movement under pressure.
Up on the highveld a 32 deg advance will ping, guaranteed, stick to 28 max.
Stock dizzy under the seat is cheap insurance, the trick to this ignition set up is to fit a resistor with the coil, and not use a elec. ignition coil, a new points specific coil sure helps, don't get the wires mixed up, and as you already know don't leave the ignition on while motor is not running.
I had had one of these on my Spyder for 4-5 years reving to RPM 6700 until I sold the 1835 cc Sub assembly, had about 18000 kms on it. It was then put on a buddy's beetle with same setup, still running some 3 years later.
Another has been running for about 5 years on Joe's beetle.
A front disk upgrade will be an upgrade I will allways recommend, big time, braking performance will allways be there when you need it, even a well seup drum is only setup for a short time then will need to be tweeked again, often to keep it that way, disks you fit & forget about it.
Disks is the best investment you can make on any aircooled.

calooker wrote:When I say finger tight it should be to a point here the setup is not loose, but can allow a little movement under pressure.
Up on the highveld a 32 deg advance will ping, guaranteed, stick to 28 max.
Yup 28 deg is the winner
Stock dizzy under the seat is cheap insurance, the trick to this ignition set up is to fit a resistor with the coil, and not use a elec. ignition coil, a new points specific coil sure helps.
Yup manged to get one over the weekend...Will put a picture of it up tonight...and will show it to you when I see you just incase its wrong
I had had one of these on my Spyder for 4-5 years reving to RPM 6700 until I sold the 1835 cc Sub assembly, had about 18000 kms on it. It was then put on a buddy's beetle with same setup, still running some 3 years later.
Another has been running for about 5 years on Joe's beetle.
I imagine it's a nice to have going the full electronic ignition route and not a necessity...no change in performance

Thanks!

SouL wrote:

Tony Z wrote: This makes it a system you can forget about.

That was my whole point of the "upgrade". So what do I need now to achieve this...

Square coil
Harness
Ignition Module
Injector plug
???

No. stick with what you have bought, but be warned that they can last from 1 min to plenty thousand km
Then if you want full electronic ignition oneday, go with a 1900 setup, but remember there too the bits are old
Honestly the entirely best option is to go with stock everything. Dizzy, points, coil, plug leads....

I agree that discs are worth it, all my ACVWs have discs up front except my Notch. However, on a buggy, you will not shorten your braking distance from a well set up drum, and even three block down the road the drums are not perfect anymore, the point remains, and saying different confuses people into thinking that if I lock the front wheels with disc brakes vs locking them up with drum brakes (something easily achieve with a shit set-up) will some how cause you to shorten your skid marks. Come on... Furthermore, the amount of foot pressure you need to lock your front wheels is the same too unless you alter things like slave cylinder diameters etc.

In my English, an electronic ignition includes an electronic swith if it switches my ignition. Whether it is a complicated MSD system with bells and whistles and USB ports and all that kak, or a simple thyristor (diode) switch, it's electronic, like it says on the box. It's semantics.

If you have an vacuum advance signal available from your carb(s), you should use it by using a dizzie with a vacuum advance. It is like changing a PID controller to a PI controller and for this purpose a PID is better than a PI. Especially if you're going to spend oodles of money on a fancy MSD system, give it a chance by installing a decent dizzie. 009s are for engine set-ups without vacuum signals, i.e. twin IDFs. (although I have seen articles where it is shown how to machine a port to get a vacuum signal off a IDF in the correct location)

I know up there in the stratosphere the O2 is a bit thin, but the point I was making is to adjust the 009 up to 32 or just-not-pinging which ever comes first, never further. AFAIK, you could even run less than 28, maybe there's not enough power running in that oxygen devoid atmosphere to have a flat spot... Maybe you okes are in a permanent flat spot up there, hahahaha!!!

Anyway, all this has been discussed before and to the n-th degree, enough from me... Good luck with it all, seriously.

Well came home early to give the shifter another bash in getting it right and still no luck! I manage to get it shifting into all the gears sort of ok..just that first gear is hard to find and then when trying to find 2nd from 3rd I end up grating the gears as for some reason I can select reverse without even pushing down on the shifter!!?!?!? I am dumb f#@$ed to what the problem is!

As far as I am aware the plate does not show much wear and I do have it in correctly??? Maybe it's best I take it to some one to have it sorted out

Soem how the plate does not seem worn, as if it is I'll visit volksapares and see if they have a replacement

Perhaps these pics would help - but remember it is for a LHD, so the 'P' (Passenger) and 'D' (Driver) is actually switched around, but the plate stays the same

Thanks pine..that's exactly how I have it...and the plate seems in good nick?

Your plate looks fine - is the spring not perhaps worn? Does the gear lever still have its little 'lip' at the bottom?

Wouldnt know if it's worn..... not sure which lip you taking about....wierd thing is that befor I unbolted it, it used to work fine...so I'm not convinced that it's a worm part as it would have been the same before I unbolted it to replace the bush?

All your parts look fine.they are much better then mine, and mine work well.
Loosen the two bolts that hold the gear lever, just so that you can move the plates by bumping with a screw driver.
Select 2nd gear, make sure it is 2nd, else you have to do it all over.
move the top plate, the one that holds the gear lever, to the position you would like the gear lever to be. (normally this is upright)
Now tap the bottom plate hard up against the gear lever, towards the drivers side.
Now tighten the two bolts.
test gears.
If not right, try again.......
You will get it.
Good luck
Herman

Thanks retrovan...going to give it another "bash" tonight, to be honest I have only been concerntrating on the positioning of the bottom plate and not the top plate Just wierd that I can select reverse without pushing down on the shifter

retrovan wrote:Now tap the bottom plate hard up against the gear lever, towards the drivers side.

To the Drivers side and then up, down or middel?

I live in Randburg if there is possibly a bother in arms who is willing to assist if I bring my bug to you?

Well decided to take the bug into a guy who specialises in VW beetle and he pointed out that the top bracket is from an early model (rounded ends) and the bottom bracket is from a late model (lipped flat ends) No one even spotted that lol
He managed to find the right bracket which I dashed off home to fit!
None the less going to have to take it back again and hopefully he will be able to sort it out as it's still giving the same problem. Can't wait to get over this issue so I can continue with posting moving forward and additions made

Top bracket shown in the picture below is basically meant to fit with the bottom bracket Pine showed above

Not that I noticed it, but maybe nobody pointed it out because it makes no difference? Which by your account it didn't.

Did you pay for the "right" plate he supplied which actually made no difference?

I should add though, that I also messed around with that little spacer under the gear shift and even when I did get it right, I was unimpressed with the results. Sure, the throw is a little shorter, but the feel didn't improve, even with all new bushes. I eventually bought an EMPI shifter, a long one initially and then I found a short one for a buggy. The long one is in my Ghia. The EMPI shifter did impress me. Set up correctly, it shifts very nicely, and I think the pull up ring for reverse looks good. I actually liked the long one in the buggy, it was always right there by my hand, but my knees and it clashed a bit too often.

I have several of those spacers hanging of a rafter in my garage, which is the best place for them actually. IMHO...