Aircooled VW South Africa

Had a good day yesterday.

Pulled the last of the harness through. This is all tucked up high against the firewall, so that you won't see anything. The cables will be attached with extra P-clamps that I have lying around. At R12 each, I'm planning on using all the old ones that I had left over. I also got my cover for the expansion tank in place to clean things up.







Decided to start on the scoop for the front. This thing looks huge. I had some hardboard that I mocked up to the right size and then hot glued the lot together. After this weekend I can get an idea of how much of the lower section of the bumper will have to be trimmed. At the end of the day, I'll have a radiator opening about 40cm x 10cm.







And how much of this do you exactly see when the bumper is back on?





Obviously the bumper section will be trimmed below the belt line, but the scoop, (which will be made in 1mm galvanised plate) and then painted black will be able to poke through. Very chuffed with how non-evasive the install looks. A few little projects to kill before the weekend, but we're getting there.

Looking good Gary ! the end is near keep going ,that is going to be a blast to drive !!

ta man, yeah she's getting there, slowly but surely.

Loads of R&D in this cabby.......hence the time.

Getting there.

Braised two bungs onto my radiator pipe work int he front and back, 1 for the temp gauge that's found it's way under my dash and the other in the front for the fan switch.

The one for the temp gauge is tapped into the back before it goes in the engine.



Will take some new pics once the car is out of the garage as we only finished late. I also ran the cable for that as well so that we're sorted in that department.

The second bung was braised to a pipe that will fit to the radiator pipe in the front of the car.





Both of the work was done prior to clean up and painting, so it looks pretty neat and blends in with the rest of the water pipes.

I also found out after mock up that my wiring wasn't going to work out as the harness is made for a VW golf, so I had to proceed to pull off all the insulation tape upto the firewall and then split up what I wanted and what I didn't need and then clean it all up again.





I also had to make up some plates for the grommets to go through the firewall as the fibreglass is too thick fot it to seal properly. I was thinking of painting them silver, but they look neat. I'll maybe get them powder-coated at some stage.

The ECU is mounted on the other side of the firewall and then the rear area will be split in two, one for the battery which will be vented to the outside and the other side which will house all the cars electronics.



Then finally it was finding a decent spot for the water temp gauge. Requirements were simple, must be inb clear sight and not too far away, but must be pretty much hidden from onlookers. With the 3 porsche guages that are going on the dash and with the layout of the 356 dash, there was no ways that it was going on the dash, so I had to look underneath.

Here it is installed.



Yup, from where most people will stand, you can't see it. I was first thinking of mounting it to the fibreglass panel that runs under the dash, but then changed my mind as it was too far forward. The speedster has a steel beam that runs the length of the dash and this is about 20cm behind the bottom of the dash.





Will snap a picture of the view from the driver and you'll see it's spot on.

The plans for the week is to fab up the steel intake flap for the front and then wait for the weekend.

nice progress

My arse is itching............I want the motor in now......lol.

awesome awesome AWESOME weekend, but, she's still not running......will get down to that now-now.

Willem picked me up and we were off to Engine Den in Pretoria West to have a look see at what they had, I'd glad that I waited, because 3 weeks ago they got in a stash of at least a few hundred 2.0 8v units. I was spoilt for choice.





Straight away 4 units caught our eye. Not only because they were new looking (which you should never go by), but they we're sealed up properly, still had all the stickers on the engine as well as soft and supple rubber hoses and almost brand new looking water channels and also had perfect cam covers which are an agent only part and it's what I wanted, and at a few hundred for the part it was a no brainer.



Cranked each one over to check for compressed and this one by far was the best. The dude was trying to talk us out of buying it and rabbiting on about book and cover yadda yadda yadda.

Willem gave me the look and said that this by FAR was the nicest one here, it also had it's power steering pump, starter, AC pump and all the sensors. The sensors I wans't too phased as I've bought new, but it's always a bonus to have some spare. Plus once the 30 days are over I have a buyer for the starter, ac pump and ps pump which will recoup R1000 of my money. We had the tappet cover off as well as the spark plugs out and we were both happy with what we saw....so we bought it. R4950-00.

Got the motor to Willems house to start stripping it down. Most of the stuff we won't be using, but it was the perfect time to replace the plugs, drop in oil and a filter, the camebelt, tensioner and sensors will be added once I know that the motor starts and that there is no knocking or smoking.





This is about half of what came off.



The adapter went on without a hitch as well as the pilot bearing and the crankshaft seal and then the flywheel. Gilo has made some primo gear and it all was very well made, well worth the R2600-00 that I paid.





Then problem, the 1.8 kombi kit that I was given by goldwagen was not the correct clutch kit. It was for the 1.8l inline 4 watercooled and not the 1.8 for the flat 4 type 4. Bummer, I took the clutch kit back this morning and got a refund, wasn't cheap at R1395. But I was able to track a 1.8 flat four kombi unit locally for R1500 that I'll collect this afternoon. No-one else has the clutch. So will know for the future to have one handy before I swap out clutches.

So the rest of the day was spent tying up some loose strings and getting the car jacked up on stands so that we could run through the routine of testing everything. Fan switch set at 80 degrees, thermostat, ecu, the Honda fan and all my connections.

Now the waiting game again.

Sweet motor there Gary , supprised GW did not have the clutch I have them in stock @ R1270-00 for SACHS the GW part number is A1476

Cheers bud.......you sure that's the 1.8 air-cooled clutch?

GW have the A1476 listed as 1.8 watercooled in-line 4 for the kombi. That is the same one that I've just had that doesn't fit.

flatfourfan wrote:Cheers bud.......you sure that's the 1.8 air-cooled clutch?

GW have the A1476 listed as 1.8 watercooled in-line 4 for the kombi. That is the same one that I've just had that doesn't fit.

Sorry bro my mistake , that is the clutch for 1.8 watercooled not the a/c version , we do not list a type4 kit .

No worries, I called Gilo to check anyway and it's the R49MK clutch kit which is for the aircooled 1.8 bus. I did tell the guys from gilo that maybe it's time to look at the machine work for the conversion for the beetle gearbox as the aircooled kombi stuff is a bit hard to get a hold of.

Got the clutch kit yesterday and test fitted it last night.........it fits 100%.

Not an easy clutch kit to get a hold of in South Africa. I think that when it's time for a new one, I'll send it in and have one built up from it. WOuld work out about R1000.

sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo close, yet sooooooooooooooooooo far.

The Motor is oficially in. Willem told me that the intake manifold, exhaust manifold and alternator had to come off in order to get the engine in.





From the side shot, you can see that it's going to be a tight fit. But I had a feeling that most of the inner skin of the decklid would have to be cut away. No real concern there. But you can see that this is still going to be a squeeze. I can't imagine doing this all under the boot lid in a beetle engine bay.





And plus I still have to get an airbox in there. My plan is to keep the polo upper box and the trim of the bottom and then make a lower section that will go to the bottom of the car. The exhaust that was made for the ride was also too big and it hits against the pulleys, so it's got to go back to the shop this weekend to have the last rear peice and a new tip fitted.

We'v also had to pull the wiring again as we want to hook up the factory plug that will allow, quick plug and unplug of the system.

Eish you must be a happy camper, this is great progress That IS quite a tight fit !

While I'm chuffed at the results so far, there's still a long way to go. I'll be moer chuffed when I take it for the first drive.