Refreshing a 61 Dune Buggy

[82westyrabbit]

Hi Everybody,
A friend of mine bought a Dune Buggy about 8 years ago which was supposed to be "ready to run." However it never has run in those 8 or 9 years. I am trying to help him get the Buggy up and going.

The car looks gorgeous. Unfortunately, it needs one of each - meaning everything. I started by taking apart the brakes.

The wheel cylinders have been leaking and have made the brake pads delaminate from the shoes.

While I am re-doing the brakes, I hope to install a late model master cylinder so that I have a duel brake system instead of the original brake system from '61 which was only a single brake system..


The car appears to have a stock '61 front end and brakes. The front wheel bearings are still ball bearings. The parts catalogues only show tapered bearings not ball bearings. It would be nice if somebody knew whether or not these are interchangeable. Can I interchange the ball bearings with the tapered bearings which are now available?

The rear end appears to be out of a '69 Type 2 which means it has an IRS rear suspension, the Bus 002 transmission, Bus CV joints, and Bus rear brakes. This was all welded in as a unit with various re-inforcements to hold it all in place.

Most of the electrical system is inoperative, but I found that the car runs much better since I've disconnected the lead where somebody had connected the starter activation solenoid to the alternator field wire. Now the starter doesn't intermittently engage and disengage when it feels like it.

The engine runs, but poorly. That's very low on my priority list right now as I have enough parts left over from other VW projects I've done in the past, that that shouldn't be a big issue.

Last, but not least, there appear to be some shims missing in the left lower link-pin. This leaves a little more in and out play than I would like. I don't think I've touched a king-pin link-pin front end in 45 years. I am going to have to re-school myself on them.

Thanks for listening. I will post progress as I move forward.
John

[EVfun]

[82westyrabbit]

Thanks EVfun. All the front wheel bearings are junk. I will order a new ones with all the brake parts. Thanks John

[oprn]

Someone built a show Buggy (all bling and no go) and now the new owner wants to drive it! Excellent!

I too am saddled with helping a friend turn a bling Buggy into a driver but it will not take near as much work as your project. This one is mostly poor engine tuning choices.... and some steering issues.

My next question to him would be "Where and how do you want to drive it?" That will determine the suitability of that Bus transaxle. If it's mostly around town and some trail riding he is good to go. If he wants to take some trips on the highway... he will need to change it out for a type 1 transaxle or run some really tall rubber. And... those transaxles are stiff shifting with the short Beetle shifter, a bit like a grain truck.

As for the brakes, I have that exact combination on my sand rail. Early Beetle front drums with Bus rears with an early Bus single master cylinder. I am running 14" x 24" tall rear tires and 15" x 27" tall fronts. That combination results in tail happy braking. The rears lock up long before the fronts. Those rear Bus brakes are very effective. In my case I need to go to two master cylinders with the smaller Beetle one on the front brakes or switch tires and have shorts on the front and tall ones on the rear.

I will be very interested to see how the brake balance works out on that Buggy. It could well be a really good match with the right tire sizes. I will be following with interest.

Oh! And he will get a bit sick of the stiff ride with those coil overs!
_________________
Our cars get old, we get old but driving an old VW never gets old!

[82westyrabbit]

Yes that’s exactly what happened. I think it was built by a thirteen year old with an unlimited budget for bling. I can’t say if it has ever been drivable since it was built or if it got poorly restored at some point and hasn’t been drivable since then. The paint is excellent and it looks fantastic. I am the third guy to work on it since the new owner bought it nine years ago. I drove it seven miles home. It was terrifying. I have a pretty good handle on what’s going on with it. It’s within my skill set to make this a reliable street legal vehicle. I will just go through each system one at time starting with the brakes. John

[EVfun]

[82westyrabbit]

Brake parts and wheel bearings ordered. On to oil leaks and lights unit parts arrive and making it shift. John

[82westyrabbit]

Finally i've had some forward progress. I've replaced the link-pins. The buggy is registered as a '61, but apparently the front beam is '60 or earlier. So it required some research to realize that this front end requires the 10 shims instead of 8, and it does not use the grease seals that come in the later front ends. Of course the fact that it only had 6 shims per link pin might have something to do with all of the looseness. I installed all new brake shoes, brake adjusters, and wheel cylinders. I am still waiting for the brake drums to come back from the machine shop.

Of course with each step forward you take two steps back. The brake master cylinder is missing the spacers that keep you from collapsing the sheet metal. Every place a rubber line meets a metal line the brake line clips are missing. Every place the hard lines go through the chassis all of the rubber grommets are missing.

I am going to make all new hard brake lines for the car so that I can clean it up.

I guess while I am waiting for parts, I will replace all of the fuel lines and start working on the electrical system.

[Dale M.]

JUst buy a hard line kit, its much easier than making up lines yourself....
_________________
“Fear The Government That Wants To Take Your Guns"
"Kellison Sand Piper Roadster" For Street & Show.
"Joe Pody Sandrover" Buggy with 2180 for Autocross (Sold)
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All suggestions and advice are purely my own opinion. You are free to ignore them if you wish ...

[EVfun]

[Dale M.]

This is what I used when I did my buggy....

https://www2.cip1.com/vwc-113-698-996-a/

With a shortened pan this is how you deal with line to rear...

_________________
“Fear The Government That Wants To Take Your Guns"
"Kellison Sand Piper Roadster" For Street & Show.
"Joe Pody Sandrover" Buggy with 2180 for Autocross (Sold)
============================================================
All suggestions and advice are purely my own opinion. You are free to ignore them if you wish ...

[82westyrabbit]

I change all the fuel lines. Got the drums back from the machine shop. Installed new wheel bearings and the drums and adjusted the brakes. Still waiting on stuff to make the brake lines. Yes it would be easier to get premade lines but nothing is standard so I will just make them. I need a few days off to work on some other projects. I will probably get back to it on Monday. John

[Q-Dog]

Order the stock VW lines. The long one is the only one that needs to be altered, and all you have to do is make a loop or two in it to take up the extra.

_________________
Brian

'69 Dune Buggy
'69 Beetle Convertible
'70 Beetle

[82westyrabbit]

I made up my brake lines. The job is not that bad. I made all the lines for my Vanagon a while back. The font end is all set minus an alignment. The brakes are done and bled. Now I am working through the electrical system I have all the lights working. Now on to the alternator that does not charge and the oil pressure light. That will leave me with the messed up shifter and making it run properly. It’s always good when you can check parts off the list. Thanks for listening. John

[82westyrabbit]

Other projects that are more important keep showing up so progress is moving slower than I would like. The electrical system is all set. I had to completely rewire the alternator. No power to B+ and the field wire was connected to the starter activation lead. The made for some interesting issues. The lights were just standard changing bulbs and bad grounds. The buggy has an interesting intake manifold. It appears to made by Empi. It’s three piece like a dual port manifold going into single port heads. This would not be a problem except that it doesn’t ground properly so the automatic choke won’t open and the idle cut off plunger will intermittently close. That makes for some interesting drivability problems. It has an after market electronice ignition distributor that advances the spark by 50 degrees so that’s not going to work. I have pulled the distributor out of my beetle to install in the buggy until I figure out what distributor I am going to replace it with. The Empi short throw shifter doesn’t have enough movement to select all the gears on the bus transmission. I will have to figure out how I will take care of that. That’s at least some forward progress. John