An ongoing tale of learning from mistakes,
mostly those of other people!
Part Deux
First job as always, break out Mr. Stihl my two-stroke best mate
Cutting off the back end was easy enough as it was the third time we had done it, we just had to make sure there was a surplus of metal to allow final trimming when we came to bolt on the wings.
Me and my two-stroke mate Mr. Stihl
Mr. Stihl in action – notice complete absence of ear-defenders, goggles, gloves, commonsense,
maturity etc.
The red paint, although faded was a good base for a new paint job, except on the roof which was deeply cracked like the baked earth you see in those pictures of African droughts.
Anyhow, the weather was fine and there’s no motivator like a quick-fix paint job……
On the roof we actually removed the paint back to bare metal as the white underneath was also shot –very strange.
We applied two coats of green primer and two coats of an olive-green coloured paint I snagged from work.
Painting was made easier by the fact that the glass was still out.
The paint itself is very close in colour to the “Camo” green Man-John has used on his Transit van.
It is an MIO (Micaceaous Iron Oxide) paint, the type we put onto lighting columns that are exposed to all weathers and motorway traffic – It’s good stuff.
Primer coat
Top coat
We took a look-see at the engine, the previous owner had removed the sump plate and drained the oil. Presumably to prevent the oil draining out when it was up-ended into the back of the car?.
Two of the six sump studs were stripped and would need renewing, no problem on five of the six, but one (one we needed to swap) also holds the oil-pump pickup pipe inside the engine.
This can only be swapped when the engine case is stripped and split into two halves.
We weren’t about to go to all this fuss on an unknown engine, so with amazing skill and dexterity we managed to cut off the damaged portion of the thread and (working through the sump hole) also managed to tease a little more thread out of the engine case.
The other stud was swapped in a couple of minutes
We fitted another sump-plate, an earlier one with a drain plug as for some reason all later engines use just a plate with no plug and require the plate to be removed to drain the oil.
- Rant time -
A sump-plate with no drain plug? -This has never been a good idea, repeated removal and replacement of the plate during servicing would surely lead to failures of the relatively small 6mm studs, oh it did? – well well!. I am sure VW probably saved a good few pennies on each engine by this illogically backward step but I am equally sure that any mechanic who ever changed oil cost them those few pennies back (and many more) with stud repairs, bandages and clean up costs associated with having a sump-full of hot, dirty oil dumped in one big rush from the underneath of cars and vans across the globe.
-Rant over-
With the sump sorted we turned our attention to getting the engine bolted to the gearbox.
Well we would have, if the studs that secure the engine had actually been in place.
The bottom two studs had seized-on nuts and had un-threaded themselves from the engine case during removal, taking a lot of the internal thread material with them.
Magnesium alloy is none too tolerant of cack-handed stud removal
(a little WD40 would have allowed the nuts to undo as intended without pulling the studs – maybe the last owner had never heard of WD40?)
The seized nuts were removed and the studs re-fitted into the engine with a drop of stud-loc (a sort of thread glue which hopefully will also make up for any lost metal)
Next the top studs, on later engines the stud behind the oil cooler fastens to a steel insert in the case itself rather than with a nut. (this is because 1300 and 1600 Twin-Port engines use an offset “dog-house” oil cooler for improved airflow to number 3 cylinder and there is no access for a nut/bolt arrangement, obviously all engine cases (including the 1200) after a certain date used this method)
This stud must also have seized and had been removed with the aid of Mr. Angle Grinder, cutting through the metal of the engine case, bolt and insert in the process.
Now don’t get me wrong, Mr. Angle Grinder is a really good mate of mine but he was not the best man for the job in this case…..
A small repair to this area involving a longer bolt, nut and washer allowed the engine to finally bolt up to the gearbox.
Now to try and start the thing.
I have always reasoned that any engine which will allow two complete revolutions by hand will actually run…. However poorly.
So we gave it a go..
A drop of petrol in the choke of the carburetor, a tap to the starter solenoid with a medium sized hammer and the engine turned over. Encouraging.
A little more cranking and the engine fired up, a bit lumpy and with no idle.
Replacement of the vacuum advance hose and slight adjustment of the points soon improved things.
Mally logic prevails again!
Rejoice! The car now moves under its own power.
Now for the clutch adjustment and brakes not to mention the Baja kit to attach etc etc.
Fastening the fibreglass panel work to the Baja proved to be a real ordeal, a lesson was (re)learnt here; don’t buy the first Baja kit you see, quality and fit varies wildly and we picked a bad one.
Take the wings, you might think they would be an easy bolt-on right?, wrong again.
I have never encountered such poorly made pieces of poo in my life, the mounting flanges were moulded to the wrong angle and do not fit flat to the body even when bolted up tight.
The front bib-panel, whilst coming from another flat-screen beetle of similar vintage is approximately 20mm. too narrow and has had to be packed out to meet the front wings.
This involved lining each panel with gaffer tape, packing out with fiberglass filler, allowing to cure and then removing the panels and tape.
Tom prepping bodywork for the front bib
Front bib attached and secured
Front bib and the gaffer tape solution – building a support
Packed-out with fiberglass filler
The bonnet is also too narrow and was too flat with no natural curvature to follow the front scuttle panel (the bit where the windscreen wipers sit) and has had to be pulled together and braced with threaded bar to maintain its shape.
I could go on but it’s a pretty boring tale of triumph over adversity.
On the plus side we can now work convincingly with fibreglass and body filler.
Overall, the car turned out to be nearly as good as first appearances suggested but a little body work has been required – no real surprise.
It needed some minor surgery to both front inner-wing areas, specifically where the A-pillar and front quarter panel converge, a small repair to the rear of the driver’s side heater channel and a good sized patch to the front of the driver’s side floorpan around the pedal area.
Removed rot - o/s
Repaired panel – o/s
Filled repair – n/s
Painted repair – n/s
All of this structural work could have been left for another day but has served as a useful exercise in fabrication and welding and has turned a mostly-solid shell into a rock-solid shell.
As this is written the Baja now needs some serious attention to the braking system, it doesn’t have one……..it’s entertaining using the handbrake and throttle alone to manoeuvre upwards of a ton of metal about the place.
There is no hydraulic fluid in the brake master cylinder so there’s a good place to start
Hopefully, when the brakes are done we can take it out for a shake-down session.
We already know that the rear suspension will need re-indexing and the gearbox mounts are soggy but these issues will be addressed in good time and not before we have had a chance to have a play….
Future plans, as well as the above include front suspension lift via weld-in adjusters (sway-away type) and at the same time a disk-brake conversion.
One thing at time
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