Aircooled VW South Africa

Hey guys I got pretty tired of my vw 1600 motor breaking down on me, so i have decided on a nissan 1500, everything has been going according to plan, but im stuck, I need to find info on a bell-housing adaptor, or how i would go about it.

Eish, I hear what you are saying about the stock VW motor... However, I have been through what you are doing now with my own Bug bqck in the dqys, qnd I was REALY disappointed with the outcome. The Nissan motor just did not deliver... I regretted my decision not sticking with the AC motor. To get EVERYTHING working properly, just as muc money was spent than what a proper rebuil on my stock motor would've cost. But hey, good luck anyway.

Well the thing for me aint power but reliability as i had my motor more out repairing than driving, 1st exhaust valve cyl3 broke, replaced head 8oo0 ks later valve guides fell out, replace head, 600 ks later intake cyl 4 broke, (luckily replace valve only broke at retainer) 7000ks later bearing knock started couple of ks later instant bearing failure i.e con-rod bearing non existant, i just didnt want to go through buying a new motor with the same hassels.
but thanx for the advice

No worries. I just wanted to point out that you might have troubles of other kinds. Overheating, leaks etc. But worst of ALL is if it is not properly mounted, or you dont have a good quality adapter plate, you will have MASSIVE engine/cluth shudder and there is a big possibility of miss-shifts due to not properly mated cluth and bearing... Just a few things to think about. If it was me and I was going to watercooled, I would've rather tried to find a Wasserboxer or another (stronger) VW 'wet' motor. But thats just me Best of luck!

Good advice been given here, overheating is going to be a big issue, there are 3 dudes at our club running nissan motors and all have overheating issues, one in a buggy and 2 in bugs. It seems that a 1400 water pump just cant cope regardless of larger rariators. Clive is the only dude who has no overheating problems but his radiator is mounted where the fire wall was it's a open top ride with the radiator 80% in air flow, but he has had clutch issues.

I can be a bit more positive than my fellow forum members. I have a nissan motor in my buggy and have had no issues what so ever in the two years after the conversion. One of the main cooling issues I had heard about before doing the conversion was that you piping had to be of 32mm pipe. The other main fault was to make sure you got your resiviour bottle above the highest point of your radiator. And also to make sure you got rid of any air bubbles in the cooling system. As far as clutch shudder goes, You just need to put a washer next to the C - pipe to give a better bend in the pipe. As far as adaptor plate and fly-wheel goes I just walked into an engineering firm and told them I wanted to convert a Beetle to Nissan and hey presto the gave me all I needed. As far as I'm concerned there is no better motor as your torque is nearly the same as 1600 beetle and there is only a slight increase in rev's in 4th gear. I am very happy with mine, in fact 2 Nissan powered buggies have just done a 2500 km round trip from Cape Town and Upington and back with mine being one of them.

Best of luck mate.

HR, it is not that I am being negative, I just wanted to make sure that all care was taken and no regrets later..... I 'suffered' two bad conversions. A Nissan motor in a Beetle, and a Alfa 1.8 twin carb motor in a Notch (this would've been a KICK ASS conversion, if it was done right!) I had SO much power, but could only use it in first gear(that is if I managed not to loose all my teeth on the launch). I could never get past second(traffic light races) because it would never engage properly. Badly set-up clutch/adapter.

By all means, it *can* work if done properly

Zero the shift problems you had was propably due to flex/movement of the transmission/enigine.... I had a Nissan GX twin sidedraughts in my fasty with no rear engine support....
On hard launches the engine/gearbox would twist or go down.. which means that your gears are not where they are supposed to be when you try to change up....

No sweat Zero. It was just that I personally read only negatives in the posts and I have only had positives from my conversion. I suppose its just like buying a Monday or a Friday car compared to a Wednesday car.

A Monday car built while recovering from the weekend and a Friday car built while all thoughts are about the weekend ahead. If you get my drift.

well i appreciate any advice as far as the motor goes, i just had 1 problem so far the 1400 water pump does not fit on the 1500A motor

Eben, I understand the logic behind it.The set-up in the Notch was badly done... full stop. I had to be extra carefull shifting, even al 'normal' speeds. I tell you what... The guy that di dthe conversion, next time he tries to get even within 1m from my car, just to peek inside, I will f-n shoot him myself

HR, no worries

Hexadane, I have replaced my waterpump but had to modify the pulley. I just took the 2 water pumps to a machine shop and all was sorted out. Where abouts are you in this big round world.

I am from Pretoria, well i suppose i could fix my waterpump issue myself as i have got acsess to cnc machines as i work for an engineering firm

Still in good nick

Hexadane wrote:Still in good nick

Price and will it fit a split bus

Pierre 082 600 8663