New to VWs could anyone answer some questions?

[Ridenourd]

So I bought a project sand rail and I’m having some trouble identifying what everything is on the motor and other general stuff(mounting seats, petals, battery, etc.) for now my only questions are how do I mount the seats(it’s a two seater with fiberglass seats) and what it the pipe that runs from the top of one head to another, and looks like a pipe may run into the exhast on the backside of the motor. Also it would be nice to figure out the year of the motor! Thanks
Rail

Rail

Pipe?

Pipe to exhast?

[cbeck]

Fab/weld something to mount the seats to. A lot of people bolt to floorpan. Search crow harness mounting for proper belt placement.
Carb heat, hooks to exhaust. To prevent carb icing.
Motor serial #is stamped in block under generator stand.
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My cut in half and rebuild thread
www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=647779

[Dark Earth]

[veeweeman]

Only way to tell the difference between 1500 and 1600 is to pull the heads off...the 1500 had 83mm pistons while 1600 had 85.5.

[Mal evolent]

take the sway bar off the car, cut it where is starts to bend, and hammer it into the tie rod

The book: https://www.amazon.com/Baja-Bugs-Buggies-VW-based-...ff+hibbard
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73 Beetle Baja, Ghia front brakes, Type 3 rear brakes, 2220 ( 94 X 80 ), Weber Progressive, Bosch SVDA, '97 Mustang seats

Baja Bugs for Volkswagen Virgins: Index

[dustymojave]

[dustymojave]

Your front suspension is link pin style. 1965 or earlier. For offroad use, that a good thing. But it's stock, so no big difference with all stock.

Looking in the background of the 1st pic, I see the transmission. You have a swingaxle transmission and rear suspension. IRS that doesn't have those long axles is considered better. But swingaxle can be pretty good. You aren't going to be racing the buggy are you, so it won't make that big of a difference to you, especially as a noob.

My old offroad race buggy that you can see in my avatar is pretty much like yours. Link pin front and swingaxle rear. It takes some money and some knowledge of what you're doing to upgrade it to that point. But mine is still much the way it was in the late 70s and early 80s when I was racing it. It still works pretty well and surprises people who are used to much fancier buggies. It can still be more fun than most people would think that the law would allow.
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Richard
Offroading VW based cars since 1965
Tech Inspection 1963 - 2012 SCCA/SCORE/HDRA/MORE/MDR +
Retired from building Bajas, Fiberglass Buggies and Rails in the Mojave Desert. Also Sprints & Midgets, Dry Lakes, Road Race cars. All types New and Vintage
SoCalBajas Member
Kicked Cancer's A$$...1st and 2nd round...Fight ain't over yet.

[Ridenourd]

Thanks everyone for responding! I already know I’m going to love this forum . No I don’t plan on racing it, there’s old gravel pits, dunes, and bigger hills (don’t wanna call them mountains per say) I just wanted something to work on and fill my free time!

[Ridenourd]

Any recommendations on pedals? I want to go with a master cylinder on the pedal, but do I need a slave cylinder? And there are two wheel and four wheel peddles I have found on appletree, I’m just not exactly sure what to get! And how do I hook the shifter linkage up, I have a shifter rod and shifter already but there is no bracket that it’s meant to sit in already. Thanks! I also got the swing axle welded on today and the motor in!

[cbeck]

Any buggy supply should have a shifter box. The box has holes to mount the shifter and to allow the shifter to engage the shift rod. I made a bracket that bolted to the box and allowed me to mount my super shifter. The super shifter has a u joint instead of a stock coupler that allows more angle so it could be mounted closer to steering wheel.

_________________
My cut in half and rebuild thread
www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=647779

[Ridenourd]

I know there’s probably a bunch of other threads that have asked similar questions but it’s hard to nit pick threw them finding the same symptoms at this point in time, so I’ve been playing with the shifter rod that comes out of the transaxle(haven’t got shifter linkage hooked up yet) and just by moving it I believe I can find 1st, 2nd, and either 3rd or fourth, but it seams to not want to go over to reverse and it won’t go into either 3rd or 4th( over to the passenger and into transaxle) I might have it backwards in my head on which is which it’s kinda hard without having shifter linkage hooked up. I believe it’s a sedan transaxle any help would be great!

[Dale M.]

The pattern at transaxle shift rod (facing front of transaxle) should be:

Rev 11:00 and out
1 st 12:00 and in
2 nd 12:00 and out
3 rd 1:00 and in
4 th 1:00 and out

Yes its exactly opposite as shifter ....

Dale
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“Fear The Government That Wants To Take Your Guns" - Thomas Jefferson.

"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 ...

[Ridenourd]

So I got my exhast in today thinking that it came with the heat riser connection, and it doesn’t, i was just wondering if it would be alright if I just blocked them off with the heat riser block off kit. It’s a single port, single carb, I believe it’s a 1600, and I won’t be running in and temps colder than say 45 degrees.
Also the crank pully bolt seams to thread half way in perfectly by hand and then it just stops, no matter how hard I try to tighten it won’t tighten, the threads look fine on the bolt, any common issues with this?
Below is a piture of the exhast and I decided to paint it red😎

[Fenix]

[FeelthySanchez]

That new color is sharp!
Be advised that heat risers are necessary for proper fuel atomization, & to prevent intake plenum "icing". The risers also support the manifold: think of a table w/ only 2 legs.
There may be a commercial kit for this, but if not: how good of a fabricator are we? Cutting, drilling & welding is required. A crafty fellow could easily cobble-together the bits needed.
Re crank pulley bolt: suspect some FOD, or thread buggery. Remove it & clean/inspect the threads on both the bolt & crank. If no damage, reinstall bolt w/ some anti-seize paste. If it still stops @ same spot, run a tap into the crank's threads to clear any debris/thread damage.

[Ridenourd]

So with the heat risers, the exhast gas is going through the pipe up to the part under the carb correct? I have an idea how to connect it but I’m just making sure that I do have to cut holes in the exhast pipe and connect to the heat riser pipe For it to work as it should.

[YDBD]

Yes the exhaust should flow through the heat risers. Hard to do with headers, the original muffler set up had the pipes connect at different places to force flow.
_________________
'56 pan Dune Buggy since '69
don't live in the past...but when I did:
'67 bug
'64 baja
'60 dune buggy
'73 Personenkraftwagen Type 182 "Thing"

[dustymojave]

Support for the intake manifold is needed. That can be achieved using a piece of strap stock with 90° bends at the ends, fastened at the bottom to a fuel pump stud, and at the top to the carb stud at the manifold flange.

Whether heat risers to heat the manifold are needed is a subject of a substantial amount of argumentation. And I fully expect somebody to argue with my comments here about it.

My Baja was run for decades with a Solex carb and no heat risers. In weather as cold as -6°F. Never noticed any icing trouble. This was in the relatively dry climate of SoCal, much of it in the desert. Those who live in soggy climates just might have more need of manifold heat. There are those who insist icing is a problem even in warm weather. Something tells me those folks are not fans of the application of Nitrous Oxide as it increases horsepower by chilling and thus densifying the intake charge.
_________________
Richard
Offroading VW based cars since 1965
Tech Inspection 1963 - 2012 SCCA/SCORE/HDRA/MORE/MDR +
Retired from building Bajas, Fiberglass Buggies and Rails in the Mojave Desert. Also Sprints & Midgets, Dry Lakes, Road Race cars. All types New and Vintage
SoCalBajas Member
Kicked Cancer's A$$...1st and 2nd round...Fight ain't over yet.

[YDBD]

Yup heat risers do better for support than transfer heat...

I did have my Baja with a Holley Bugspray freeze up on HW 152 one early foggy morning, the motor just bogged and died and I sat there in the cold, dark fog...pretty freaky. I ended up pulling off the fresh air heater hose and run it from the under the pushrods straight into the carb. I think preheating is better than heat risers.
_________________
'56 pan Dune Buggy since '69
don't live in the past...but when I did:
'67 bug
'64 baja
'60 dune buggy
'73 Personenkraftwagen Type 182 "Thing"

[Ridenourd]

Thanks for the help on this, I am going to try what dustymojave said with supporting the intake and not hooking the heat risers up as it will be easier than trying to fab my own heat riser connections and risk ruining my exhast (as I’m not very expierienced with fab work yet). If I do expierence problems I will attempt to fab some connections.