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NewTechnicIan Samba Member
Joined: May 28, 2013 Posts: 367 Location: Burlington, VT
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Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2016 9:43 am Post subject: Re: 73 Rolling Creamsicle |
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Gotta be this one. Whew, that last page was a doozy. I gotta break things up a bit more.
If you haven't seen the paint job on the last page, I love it and you should see it. Here's a tasty taste:
Go Kart Day
The thing I think I love most about the bug is that, except for a jig to hold the steering wheel in place, you can drive the frame around the block without ever putting the body on. I've been dreaming of Go Kart Day for 3 years and all the next steps were to make sure it happened.
First, the E Brake. This shouldn't have been hard. It WAS hard because I'm swapping my 73 body onto a '69 frame. That meant that the E brake cables changed length and my old 73 E Brake cables were too short
So I finally got new ones and set them back up and enjoyed the new stopping power this allowed me.
Follow the link for my enjoyment in my driveway:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BEJ6FozIEjP/?taken-by=pfeiffer_pfotos
What's next? I hooked up my transmission and cleaned up my CV joints and axles according to the Bug Me Videos, painted the axles down to the ribs where the boots hook up to. Putting them back together went pretty well although I really had to hammer the things back onto the axles to get them to the point that the circlip would sink into its groove.
Not many great pictures of things all together. It started raining just as I was getting things screwed in and I ran the frame inside to protect it.
Things to Definitely Remember:
Put the boot and washer on first!
Definitely get that specialized socket for installing the 12 pt allen heads. Stupid socket if you ask me, but it's definitely necessary
_________________ My 73 Standard build - It's painted! It drives under its own power! Time to get it wired and upholstered!
My 1679 Engine build.
Last edited by NewTechnicIan on Mon Jun 06, 2016 9:57 am; edited 5 times in total |
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NewTechnicIan Samba Member
Joined: May 28, 2013 Posts: 367 Location: Burlington, VT
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Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2016 9:50 am Post subject: Re: 73 Rolling Creamsicle |
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Anyway, Go Kart Day
I gotta drive this thing around the block without the body on it a few times before I seal it once and (hopefully) for all.
So I have an E-brake, a Transmission with axles, but no brakes. Had all new brake lines and bent them up. No good pictures until I had everything hooked up and worked on bleeding the system. Had my reservoir jigged up reaaaal securely
Got all the bubbles out of the system and with discs on the front of the thing, this guy stops great.
Oh, so I bled the system by myself. It's not ideal but can be done with the piece of wire you see in the picture. I used it to hold pressure on the brake pedal while I walked to the bleeder valve and opened it. Could definitely have been done faster with a friend, but it was a random Tuesday or something.
I then realized that my old master cylinder had a leaky seal and just gave it up for dead and got a new one. So there's a shiny new master cylinder now instead of that rusty bastage. _________________ My 73 Standard build - It's painted! It drives under its own power! Time to get it wired and upholstered!
My 1679 Engine build. |
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NewTechnicIan Samba Member
Joined: May 28, 2013 Posts: 367 Location: Burlington, VT
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Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2016 10:03 am Post subject: Re: 73 Rolling Creamsicle |
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I installed the shift rod shortly after this and of course took no pictures
I ran into some problems here and I'll put some notes down though:
'69 and '73 frames have different shift rods. I needed a '68-71 rod for this frame and of course that part is No Longer Available. A local VW shop had a 71 in their yard that they let me scavenge a shift rod out of though!
With my new, correct length shift rod I had the shifter in in a matter of minutes. Pretty easy job when you have the right parts
This was also the first time I had a chance to see if the transmission could even shift through all the gears. It could, so that was good since I couldn't remember from 3 years ago. Still wasn't sure how the internals were gonna work since I wasn't gonna tear it apart for no reason. Another reason Go Kart Day is important. Still easy to take the transmission out and bring it somewhere if there's a big problem. _________________ My 73 Standard build - It's painted! It drives under its own power! Time to get it wired and upholstered!
My 1679 Engine build. |
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beetlenut Samba Member
Joined: May 27, 2009 Posts: 2980 Location: RI
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Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2016 10:09 am Post subject: Re: 73 Rolling Creamsicle |
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Hey Ian, looking good! This will be the year that you get the it registered and driving! I'm hoping for the same for mine. Just got the body back on the pan of my 74 Super. So many things to try and remember how they go/went together! With enough coats of clear, your finish will come out fine.
Keep charging! _________________ scrapyards are for quitters
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Wetstuff wrote: |
... I spend more time shaking it than directing it?! I get a pretty decent blast for 8sec. then have to shake it again. |
- Words to live by right there!
My 74 Super rebuild thread: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=6507104#6507104 |
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plotch Samba Member
Joined: December 22, 2004 Posts: 537 Location: jeffersonville, vermont
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Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2016 6:20 pm Post subject: Re: 73 Rolling Creamsicle |
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Wow! Ian it looks good. A lot different than day one. |
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NewTechnicIan Samba Member
Joined: May 28, 2013 Posts: 367 Location: Burlington, VT
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NewTechnicIan Samba Member
Joined: May 28, 2013 Posts: 367 Location: Burlington, VT
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Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2016 9:53 am Post subject: Re: 73 Rolling Creamsicle |
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OK back to engine things.
Well I wanted to make sure of my rocker geometry before I started assembly so I could be pretty confident in all this stuff and build the long block quickly and start it up within a couple days of bolting it together.
I screwed something up of course
While I was mocking up the crank and cam and followers to start looking at the rocker geometry I pinched two bearings. Ugh, I guess that's what I get for not thinking about engine stuff in a while and running through steps
So I needed a new bearing set and lesson learned. The engine actually rotated fine enough when I put the crank onto the correct dowel holes so I used it to start checking valve geometry.
Since I'm using swivel ball valve adjusters I needed to grind down my rockers to accept them and still have clearance.
Before:
After:
A couple pictures of the oiling holes too:
I used the shims that came in the pack with the adjusters, they were .030" each, 8 total. That gives me .060" shims under each pedestal.
So I bolted on the rocker assembly to see what that got me. It turned out I either needed to take more off the rockers or shim the assembly higher! The assembly bolted down and already had started pushing valves even at TDC. This was using stock pushrods So I figured I would need to make an adjustable pushrod and figure this out for real. _________________ My 73 Standard build - It's painted! It drives under its own power! Time to get it wired and upholstered!
My 1679 Engine build. |
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NewTechnicIan Samba Member
Joined: May 28, 2013 Posts: 367 Location: Burlington, VT
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Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2016 9:58 am Post subject: Re: 73 Rolling Creamsicle |
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OK so I got my geometry figured out although I got a little frustrated at what appeared to be good geometry. For some reason my total valve lift was off by about .006" between my intake and exhaust lobes, when my cam card says they're all supposed to be .344". I was getting .338" on my exhaust lobes but it was consistent across the board so I didn't see much reason to worry, especially since I'm building a mild engine on purpose.
My geometry looks great though, as I'll show you now.
I ended up shimming up to .09" on the rocker bases to get the adjusters in a good position with a few threads showing and to get the swipe pattern centered on the valve stem.
Zero Lift:
Half Lift (with geometry lines showing great alignment):
Full Lift:
Swipe Pattern on the Valve Stem
The swipe pattern shows that I'm pretty much on the money here, knowing that all my other ducks are in a row. _________________ My 73 Standard build - It's painted! It drives under its own power! Time to get it wired and upholstered!
My 1679 Engine build. |
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NewTechnicIan Samba Member
Joined: May 28, 2013 Posts: 367 Location: Burlington, VT
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Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2016 10:18 am Post subject: Re: 73 Rolling Creamsicle |
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Well, with my geometry set, I did a mockup of the full engine assembly (no pictures, sorry) just to make sure I had all my parts and engine tin. I did! So I started assembly of the short block.
Put in distributor drive shaft WITH THE WASHERS!
Facing the right direction for the distributor to be set up correctly:
I'm using a DVDA distributor so that is my correct orientation for #1 TDC.
Dropped in my crank shaft oriented with #1 at TDC after putting assembly lube on all my bearings:
Inserted my lifters with some thicker oil into their galleries and put the camshaft in, rolled to match the crankshaft timing:
Put assembly lube on all my lifters and cam lobes:
I had already put on my case stud O-rings, but it should be mentioned that those were in place before I put together the short block!
I used Yamabond for mating my engine cases, it seems like it's doing a great job sealing everything up. I sealed my cam plug and put the cases together, torqued to their 28 ft-lb setting.
Then I put all my case hardware in and torqued it to spec, following the Wilson book. I put in my oil pump next, it's a Maxi 2 Oil Pump from CB Performance for some extra filtration over the original oil screen. I know people have issues with these because it's in the path of the hot air running over the 3/4 cylinders but I'm not planning on running that engine too hot anyway, I'm not an aggressive driver.
I had to pull my studs out for this pump, so I put sealer on the bolts:
On the case:
Put the Gasket on but did not seal that:
I forgot to take a picture of the thing with the oil pump installed while it was still in the basement. Then installed the flywheel, FIRST putting in my shims and checking my free play (.003"), then installing my flywheel oil seal and torquing to spec with a torque meister.
Then, after 2 years sitting in my basement, I finally brought the thing outside to sit on my frame for final assembly. I would have left it on the engine stand but wasn't sure about carrying it outside alone or fitting it through the basement door _________________ My 73 Standard build - It's painted! It drives under its own power! Time to get it wired and upholstered!
My 1679 Engine build. |
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NewTechnicIan Samba Member
Joined: May 28, 2013 Posts: 367 Location: Burlington, VT
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Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2016 10:20 am Post subject: Re: 73 Rolling Creamsicle |
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First I gotta apologize about the next few photos with the classic x-rated film "greased lens" effect, I didn't realize what was going on until after the pictures were uploaded
OK, so I got the beast outside and mounted it on my transmission to start putting pistons in and heads in:
Cleaned and re-oiled everything to help it slide a bit as I put it all together, especially my piston pins, and then oriented my rings before using a ring compressor to put my pistons in the cylinders ahead of time.
Used Yamabond to seal the cylinders to the case:
Installed the cylinders:
Installed the tin to block air on the underside of the pistons!
Installed the heads (I removed the tape eventually, it was just to help me keep my heads matched with my rocker assemblies):
Installed the pushrods and pushrod tubes, though I'm hearing now that they can leak over time so I may switch these out if they get to be an issue. They are the metal kind, not the nylon but still if they leak I'll probably replace them.
Installed the pulley tin and pulley:
We have an assembled Longblock!
_________________ My 73 Standard build - It's painted! It drives under its own power! Time to get it wired and upholstered!
My 1679 Engine build. |
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NewTechnicIan Samba Member
Joined: May 28, 2013 Posts: 367 Location: Burlington, VT
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Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2016 10:20 am Post subject: Re: 73 Rolling Creamsicle |
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OK so the pistons and heads were in, Now we gotta seal up all the places I could lose a washer into the internals
First I painted my engine tins:
Fuel Pump:
Oil Cooler:
Alternator Stand:
I got some aftermarket tins so we needed to take a day and trim them nice so I would stand a chance of being able to take things apart when the engine was in the car someday in the future. Here's us hemming and hawing about the tin fitment:
Intakes and mockup of the alternator:
And with the Doghouse installed:
About time to add the plugs, wires, and carb and get that bad boy running _________________ My 73 Standard build - It's painted! It drives under its own power! Time to get it wired and upholstered!
My 1679 Engine build. |
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NewTechnicIan Samba Member
Joined: May 28, 2013 Posts: 367 Location: Burlington, VT
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Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2016 10:30 am Post subject: Re: 73 Rolling Creamsicle |
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OK, well after a couple days fighting with it, I got the thing to start up!
Here's the first start on the thing. It only just barely ran at this point so before you say it sounds like crap or something, realize that I've gotten it way better tuned at this point for the reasons listed later.
You can skip to the end for the sound of it running while we drive the frame around the block!!
Anywho, here it is!
https://www.instagram.com/p/BFAyCj-oEm2/?taken-by=pfeiffer_pfotos
You can see the smile on my face like "I really can't believe it started, but hey, what do I know?"
Things that I needed to do to get it from first start to fully running and nice:
I had the hoses switched on the fuel pump so I only ran until the carb bowl ran dry For those who are interested, my fuel pump has the INLET on the TOP and the OUTLET on the BOTTOM
The engine was stiff to turn over. Still hasn't fully taken care of itself but it's a lot better now than it was. I used my Corolla battery instead of the Beetle battery since it had more Cold Cranking Amps to encourage it to turn. I did check all my clearances, and my oil after the run in. No metal flakes, I just think it's a fresh engine that needs to loosen up as it runs more.
You can see more of my startup attempts and tough turnover issues here:http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=653744
Looking at that thread, you should see that I did a compression test just to make sure everything looked good while I was trouble shooting. The results are:
#1-115 psi
#2-120 psi
#3-125 psi
#4-120 psi
Put some WD40 in the cylinders to give everything a smooth ride on the cylinder walls to start. I did oil them ahead of time but I figured it wouldn't hurt to give it some more lube.
I eventually got the thing running well enough to do a long run-in and drop the oil. Aside from a ton of Zinc Additive and Cam Lobe Lube, it looked like good oil! No metal on the magnetic drain plug or in the oil so that's awesome too!
Once I got the thing started I still had trouble shooting to do. I had to hold the throttle way open and couldn't get it to Idle.
You can see the thread I started about this here:http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=655193
Big Takeaways were:
No one tells you to hook up power to the coil AND the fuel shutoff solenoid on the 34PICT-3 Carb! That meant I wasn't getting fuel from my idle circuit. No wonder the thing was running way lean!
My DVDA distributor turned out to have a broken vacuum retard which made my timing wonky. As soon as I put a timing light to it and fixed that along with the idle circuit, we were in business comfortably idling!
Some things that should be noted for details on anyone looking at this thread too:
I was chasing a vacuum leak for a while and realized my intake boot connecting the dual port manifolds was torn and while that didn't make a big difference at the time, those worm drive clamps are not recommended. That's definitely what cut in and tore the boot.
Once I disconnected the vac. retard I plugged the vac retard port on the carb to make sure I didn't have vacuum issues. How does everyone plug theirs Currently I just have tape over it.
I did put my muffler on eventually
I found my vertical section of tubing for my carb's vac. advance port so I'll plug that in soon instead of the wonky setup you can see me using right now.
Finally, a video of the first time we had the thing in gear, because I mean it was idling and we had all the other systems working except the steering wheel. quick little jig and we could drive the frame around the block
GO KART DAY!!
https://www.instagram.com/p/BF6wOcWoEqH/?taken-by=pfeiffer_pfotos
And a quick one of me too. You can also tell I'm not great with stick yet This will be my first stick car
https://www.instagram.com/p/BF6uhPRoEk8/?taken-by=pfeiffer_pfotos
I got a bunch of friends to come over and celebrate and take turns driving the thing around and toast to success, and toast to friendship, and toast to beer, and toast to each other until we were well and truly toasted.
What a day. I glow thinking about it. _________________ My 73 Standard build - It's painted! It drives under its own power! Time to get it wired and upholstered!
My 1679 Engine build. |
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TX-73 Samba Member
Joined: January 04, 2013 Posts: 1133 Location: Texas
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Chochobeef Samba Member
Joined: May 01, 2013 Posts: 811 Location: Ft. Worth, Texas
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Posted: Thu Jul 21, 2016 7:20 am Post subject: Re: 73 Rolling Creamsicle |
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That's a fine bit of work there. Looks like you have some good support and a good head on ya. Hope you can keep it up. |
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calvinater Samba Member
Joined: September 06, 2014 Posts: 3306 Location: 802
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Posted: Thu Jul 21, 2016 8:27 am Post subject: Re: 73 Rolling Creamsicle |
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Body on yet, When its done cruise up to montgomery, would love to see it. _________________ "Albatross"! |
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NewTechnicIan Samba Member
Joined: May 28, 2013 Posts: 367 Location: Burlington, VT
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plotch Samba Member
Joined: December 22, 2004 Posts: 537 Location: jeffersonville, vermont
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Posted: Fri Jul 22, 2016 5:33 pm Post subject: Re: 73 Rolling Creamsicle |
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Ian; Looks good dude! Like the dude pushrod tubes. |
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NewTechnicIan Samba Member
Joined: May 28, 2013 Posts: 367 Location: Burlington, VT
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Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2016 8:19 am Post subject: Re: 73 Rolling Creamsicle |
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Hey Thanks Plotch! I'll see how they work as they age, I hear they're a little leaky but I like the idea of being able to work on push rod tubes without having to pull the whole friggin head!
Alright, so I haven't updated but we've been hard at work on the thing. Next thing after go kart day was to break down the steering jig and get the body mounted on the frame so we could put in the interior and start wiring.
I had one nut in the heater channels come loose on me when I was test fitting the body last year but I followed Pistol Pete's 74 rebuild thread and he was talking about using rivet nuts to mount his running boards. It occurred to me I could do the same with this body nut!
I had to drill out the body hole to fit the OD of the nut:
Hammer in the Nut:
At that point it wasn't held very well in there and I didn't have the fancy riv-nut gun to compress it the ideal way but I did use a cork-backed ruler, washers, a nut and a bolt to compress it myself:
The idea is that if you thread in this assembly, you hold the bolt steady and run the nut down hard with a box wrench. The cork ruler helps you make sure that you're holding the rivet nut-ruler-washer assembly steady while the nut rotates and compresses the sleeve of the rivet nut. I got it nicely set in the end so now I had complete body nuts!
Dropped the engine onto a dolly and got the body seal attached around the perimeter:
Dropped the body onto the frame, remembering just in time to put in my bakelite heater inlets and Y-tubes. Had to massage the openings with a dremel for a bit and sealed them to the body with RTV to make sure that was waterproof. No pictures of course
And I didn't take pictures of the body freshly on the frame since it was rainy that day and I was cramped in the garage, but here's a pic of a week later:
HEY HEY! And with fenders on it too! Good stuff!
We also put down Quick Roof type stuff from Home Depot as a cheap waterproofing/Sound and Heat Deadener. I know people go back and forth on this stuff but it seems to stick well. It also actually seems to peel pretty clean with a little effort so it wouldn't be the end of the world to peel it off at some point.
Good stuff! On to the next thing _________________ My 73 Standard build - It's painted! It drives under its own power! Time to get it wired and upholstered!
My 1679 Engine build. |
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NewTechnicIan Samba Member
Joined: May 28, 2013 Posts: 367 Location: Burlington, VT
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Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2016 8:29 am Post subject: Re: 73 Rolling Creamsicle |
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While Carol, the lovely lady in the photos, was working on laying down the interior of the car, I was working on some side projects - painting the dash, wiring, and installing seals on the body.
Carol wanted to use the original padded dash which was in OK not awesome condition and it seemed way easier to use it than go through a lot of trouble with massaging all the dash vents to look good, but we didn't like black with our color combo on the car. So we took 600 grit sandpaper and scuffed up the old dashpad and used some vinyl primer and paint to make it a lighter gray color to match some of the interior:
We actually ended up using 2 1/2 cans of paint, I think because the vinyl was real dry and it seemed like it was soaking the stuff up, and also because I got a little close on a bunch of coats and it gave the dash a spotty appearance in places. Finally got a nice even couple of dusting coats to finish the thing up and it looks really nice and even. The vinyl is tough and doesn't peel or chip or break down when rubbed. Seems like it'll be a nice piece all in all! _________________ My 73 Standard build - It's painted! It drives under its own power! Time to get it wired and upholstered!
My 1679 Engine build. |
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NewTechnicIan Samba Member
Joined: May 28, 2013 Posts: 367 Location: Burlington, VT
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Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2016 8:32 am Post subject: Re: 73 Rolling Creamsicle |
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I installed the engine seals with a minimum of muss and fuss, though I have no idea how people without a removable rear valance manage to do it. I had so much lube on that seal and still had a hard time getting it through the channel. Anyway, the engine seal I got had extra material on either side that needs to be trimmed down. I ran the seal in on both sides and trimmed it, then test fit the rear valance to tell where to snip the rubber for a minimum gap between seals. Worked out nicely.
_________________ My 73 Standard build - It's painted! It drives under its own power! Time to get it wired and upholstered!
My 1679 Engine build. |
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