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AlteWagen
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Joined: February 23, 2007
Posts: 8501
Location: PNW
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 Posted: Tue Dec 22, 2020 12:02 am Post subject: Re: 1756 to 1835 in 1978 |
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Got chills bro! Almost the same VW life story in SoCal but a decade apart and a bit north in the SFV. The car club days were from 87-93 for me and looks like the OG Valley VDubz are still around in Gen III mode. Picked up an oval baja down the street from the clubhouse for $40 and proceeded to lower it a (also select a drop) and make it back into a street car. Also had a 90x69 but with NPR pistons and 1 3.8 header and dual 36DRLAs. Also wanting more stepped up to a 1914 with a nice STD 68 "H" case with all the machine work done at ARAO. No kidding about the not knowing dont hurt days! The trans was the secret to success, almost the same too with 4.37 stock 1/2, 1.48 3rd but instead a 1.12 4th. Threaded diff, shot peened HD axles from Transaxle Engineering in Chatsworth. Most of the parts were from Small Car on Reseda, United in N. Hollywood and of course Car Custom in Azusa. The 1914 eventually got IDAs and merged S&S and was a BLAST on the street!!! Only had centerlines on once but mainly ran polished cookie cutters. Around 92 is when I picked up my bus which mainly purchased as a parts runner to support the oval. Best $300 I ever spent. At that time all the tracks were shutting down so only street racing was the usual. San Fernando road down by the junk yards or up by Juvy hall. Tommies by the Brewery was the place to pick up some real action against the serious racers.
Unfortunately had to sell the oval 10 years ago due to marriage. Another oval and a nice 70 vert also suffered the same fate. Still ave the trans, IDAs, fumio heads, S&S header but sold the engine about 5 years ago as a TW 1835.
Here is a pic of the ol girl right before she had to go
Here is a pic of the bus and the oval in the background of Martys 58 vert
Glad yours is more of a happy ending after all these years!! Sold mine to a friend and just hope Im in the position to buy if he ever sells.
You brought back a lot of memories and folks I havent thought about in decades.
Thanks again for sharing, nice to see others were able to enjoy such a rich life all due to this little car most thought nothing about.
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Dan Ruddock
Samba Member
Joined: October 25, 2012
Posts: 3594
Location: Sarasota, in my adopted state of Florida
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| Posted: Tue Dec 22, 2020 1:58 pm Post subject: Re: 1756 to 1835 in 1978 |
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| AlteWagen wrote: |
Got chills bro! Almost the same VW life story in SoCal but a decade apart and a bit north in the SFV. The car club days were from 87-93 for me and looks like the OG Valley VDubz are still around in Gen III mode. Picked up an oval baja down the street from the clubhouse for $40 and proceeded to lower it a (also select a drop) and make it back into a street car. Also had a 90x69 but with NPR pistons and 1 3.8 header and dual 36DRLAs. Also wanting more stepped up to a 1914 with a nice STD 68 "H" case with all the machine work done at ARAO. No kidding about the not knowing dont hurt days! The trans was the secret to success, almost the same too with 4.37 stock 1/2, 1.48 3rd but instead a 1.12 4th. Threaded diff, shot peened HD axles from Transaxle Engineering in Chatsworth. Most of the parts were from Small Car on Reseda, United in N. Hollywood and of course Car Custom in Azusa. The 1914 eventually got IDAs and merged S&S and was a BLAST on the street!!! Only had centerlines on once but mainly ran polished cookie cutters. Around 92 is when I picked up my bus which mainly purchased as a parts runner to support the oval. Best $300 I ever spent. At that time all the tracks were shutting down so only street racing was the usual. San Fernando road down by the junk yards or up by Juvy hall. Tommies by the Brewery was the place to pick up some real action against the serious racers.
Unfortunately had to sell the oval 10 years ago due to marriage. Another oval and a nice 70 vert also suffered the same fate. Still ave the trans, IDAs, fumio heads, S&S header but sold the engine about 5 years ago as a TW 1835. |
I worked at ARAO engineering for three years 1989 to 1992 and right across the parking lot was Jeff Fields of Transaxle Engineering, learned a lot about gear boxes from that guy. Jeff of TE sold his shop, is now retired to flying small airplanes and Russel Arao got into trouble with the law and now I have no idea what he is doing, I wish he would call me. We might have crossed paths. Great memories.
Dan |
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AlteWagen
Troll
Joined: February 23, 2007
Posts: 8501
Location: PNW
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| Posted: Tue Dec 22, 2020 3:04 pm Post subject: Re: 1756 to 1835 in 1978 |
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| Dan Ruddock wrote: |
I worked at ARAO engineering for three years 1989 to 1992 and right across the parking lot was Jeff Fields of Transaxle Engineering, learned a lot about gear boxes from that guy. Jeff of TE sold his shop, is now retired to flying small airplanes and Russel Arao got into trouble with the law and now I have no idea what he is doing, I wish he would call me. We might have crossed paths. Great memories.
Dan |
Thats right, he was on the back side of the lot. Glad he was able to retire, its been a while! What ever happened to that oval rag baja that was in the parking lot? Looked like a good race car project, too far cut for resto at that time.
Im sure we did as that county paycheck allowed me splurge a bit. If a set of fumios didnt fall in my lap I was about to pull the trigger on some ported heads so was able to talk to the dad, russel and counter guys for parts and such. What were you driving at the time? Im better with cars than names. I miss the adrenaline of racing a lot these days. I feel bad for the kids today, is it possible for them to have the same great times?
#makevwlifegreatagain
#notaboomer
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Dan Ruddock
Samba Member
Joined: October 25, 2012
Posts: 3594
Location: Sarasota, in my adopted state of Florida
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| Posted: Tue Dec 22, 2020 4:12 pm Post subject: Re: 1756 to 1835 in 1978 |
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I drove dark green POS type 3 automatic. I kept my 356 in my garage at home for safe keeping. Latter in my stay at ARAO I drove a brown primer 58 T1 with a 2332 and 48 dells. I sold the 356 about a year ago. More pics of it in my Gallery. Don't remember the rag oval baja, chopped up bugs never interested me. Moss, Russel's dad is no longer with us, boy he was a character.
Dan
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56Cabrio
Samba Member
Joined: May 22, 2008
Posts: 1899
Location: San Fernando Valley, CA
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| Posted: Wed Dec 23, 2020 11:49 am Post subject: Re: 1756 to 1835 in 1978 |
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I remember you taking me for a ride in that oval when you were living next door to that guy with a black oval also in San Fernando,crazy fast. The pic of your bus and Marty's vert does bring back memories, last time i was at ARAO engineering Russel was trying to weld a case for me but couldn't fix it.That was about 7-10 years ago,he mostly had Harley stuff there.Super cool the OP got his Oval back.
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1956 Rag Top owned since 1988
1956 Convertible owned since 2000
1963 Hard Top
RIP Dad 4/20/1951 - 2/4/2023 |
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SBD
Samba Member
Joined: October 24, 2012
Posts: 3269
Location: SOUTH DAKOTA
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| Posted: Sat Dec 26, 2020 3:06 pm Post subject: Re: 1756 to 1835 in 1978 |
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| AlteWagen wrote: |
| Im better with cars than names. |
This reminds me of me in high school. 
Do you know so-and-so?
Maybe.  What kind of car does he drive?
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| mark tucker wrote: |
| I wouldent waste $ or thyme on building a small motor. build it big so it dosent have to work hard.remember it's only as fast as your foot alows it to be unless you build a small turd then it just stinks as it squishes up through your toes when you step on it. |
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Matthew
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Joined: January 29, 2004
Posts: 1760
Location: Eastern Tennessee
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| Posted: Sun Mar 28, 2021 8:53 am Post subject: Re: 1756 to 1835 in 1978 |
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Cool story b-man. I’m happy that you were able to locate and buy back your car. I hope you will update this thread with your progress.
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b-man
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Joined: May 20, 2008
Posts: 499
Location: So Cal
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| Posted: Sun May 30, 2021 9:11 pm Post subject: Re: 1756 to 1835 in 1978 |
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Update.
I spent some time during my time off for the Christmas holidays tearing down the car to get an idea of the condition of everything and to try to decide what was going to be usable and what would be sold off to help finance the project. I did make the decision to rebuild the car using a swing axle rear suspension. This car was always raced and street driven as a short swing axle car so I won’t be using any of the IRS parts including the transaxle that came with the car. The current 2” widened fiberglass rear fenders will be replaced by stock width steel ones as well.
One of the first orders of business was to source a new floor pan to replace the heavily modified drag race only pan with the Deano tube front axle. I was able to find a mostly complete mid to late September 1957 rolling chassis, just about a month and a half into the 1958 model year production that has just about all the same features as a 1957 model year chassis would have.
The floors were dented up pretty good from off road use and surface rusted fairly heavily to the point they began cracking in few places, not to mention the seat rails had been removed. I was able to confirm that it still retained the original date matched front beam and split case transaxle thanks to the technical information archives here on the Samba.
Stripped down, cleaned up and ready for floor pan replacement. Everything other than the pans themselves survived quite well. I’m happy to get my hands on this nice early chassis, all in all it’s in great shape and complete with most of the hardware I need to complete the build.
I picked up some Wolfsburg West pans and delivered the pan to a local sheet metal guy who’s more than familiar with vintage VWs, Jason Bird.
Old pans removed, new pans fitted and ready to weld.
Pan replacement complete, stashed for now while I figure out the next steps. The body will be placed on its new rolling chassis temporarily to get a few repairs done. Jason will handle the front and rear apron installation along with replacing the body mount braces by the shock towers that had been cut off. Welding up a number of holes drilled in the body during its previous transformation into a track only car will also need to be taken care of.
I picked up a nice clean 1963 beam that will soon have a pair of Airkewld adjusters welded in. In 1977 I had a Select-A-Drop in this car that worked beautifully, it went down a full 5” from stock and would go back up to stock height anytime I needed to use a tow bar. I did all the cutting and fitting and my friend’s dad (a welding instructor) welded it perfectly using an arc welder. I probably would have put another stone-age Select-A-Drop on it if they were still available. This car will be an ‘old school’ build that won’t get a narrowed beam or drop spindles and will retain factory drum brakes all around.
The unexpected roommate, making do with cramped quarters for the time being.
That’s all for now.
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Rome
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Joined: June 02, 2004
Posts: 9641
Location: Pearl River, NY
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| Posted: Mon May 31, 2021 8:25 am Post subject: Re: 1756 to 1835 in 1978 |
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| Jason will handle the front and rear apron installation |
Do you plan on going mostly for a restoration so that you'll install a 36 hp engine? Or go with something slightly stronger such as a dual-port based? If DP, I suggest going with a later 40 hp era rear apron instead of a body-original H type. Your drag setup had a removable H apron which greatly sped up engine removal. But if you have a weld-in H apron, installing and removing a DP engine is quite a struggle. The 40 hp apron does not come up as high so that you have bout 2 inches more room clearance front to rear for pulling the engine back off the transmission. |
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b-man
Samba Member
Joined: May 20, 2008
Posts: 499
Location: So Cal
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| Posted: Mon May 31, 2021 2:33 pm Post subject: Re: 1756 to 1835 in 1978 |
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| Rome wrote: |
| Quote: |
| Jason will handle the front and rear apron installation |
Do you plan on going mostly for a restoration so that you'll install a 36 hp engine? Or go with something slightly stronger such as a dual-port based? If DP, I suggest going with a later 40 hp era rear apron instead of a body-original H type. Your drag setup had a removable H apron which greatly sped up engine removal. But if you have a weld-in H apron, installing and removing a DP engine is quite a struggle. The 40 hp apron does not come up as high so that you have bout 2 inches more room clearance front to rear for pulling the engine back off the transmission. |
At first I plan to run a 36 horse and split case transaxle just to get the car driving while I’m getting a performance oriented 48IDA engine and close ratio transaxle built up. This car has always been either a street racer or a track car so it’s going back to being a hot rod that I can drive pretty much anywhere.
I will be putting an H rear apron on the car and probably will leave it removable, I really don’t like the later aprons on early cars purely from an esthetic point of view. I’m pretty well aware of the difficulties associated with running a later engine in an early body.
Back when I first had the car driving in 1977 it still had the original H apron intact, I was running my first hot VW engine (90x69, Engle 110, twin 40DCN-14 Webers) in the car. Putting the engine in without any tin or exhaust system on it was the way I did it then so leaving the apron removable is going to be the best option I’m thinking.
I have just purchased both the front and rear aprons from Wolf’s Parts in Sweden, I’m just waiting on delivery right now. From what I’ve read they’re the most correct and highest quality available. They don’t make the ‘56 and later H apron but for what I’m doing the ‘55 apron with no exhaust pipe cutouts is better suited and cleaner looking. The front apron won’t have the overrider holes, just the bumper slots. I don’t really plan on running bumpers on the car, only some T-bars if anything. No running boards either, I never ran any back in the day and they’re just more unnecessary weight I don’t need on a lightweight hot rod.
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1966 Velvet Green Single Cab
1957 L41 Black Oval Window Beetle |
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NJ John
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Joined: September 21, 2007
Posts: 2222
Location: HdG, MD & NJ
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| Posted: Fri Jun 04, 2021 5:31 am Post subject: Re: 1756 to 1835 in 1978 |
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Awesome story and pics! That’s what it was all about and still should be.
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1973 standard, yellow, lowered, 3” narrowed front, 1600 blo-thru turbo w/single dell 15.4@86, so far
11.41 et buggy. Long gone
Let’s go O’s! Let’s go O’s!
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AlteWagen
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Location: PNW
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spencerfvee
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Joined: August 19, 2004
Posts: 3071
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| Posted: Fri Jun 04, 2021 9:38 am Post subject: Re: 1756 to 1835 in 1978 |
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ok guys here is some of my 1970s race cars . the blue 1964 bug was my friends race car. after a year we both teamed up . and we raced as a team . yes the wheels are nos BRM wheels . theres a story on the wheels my friend went to a yard sale in 1971 and in this guys shop. was 10 BRM wheels nos in the org. boxes . my race friend bought all 10 wheels for $125.00. back in 1971 that was a lot of money . to fund are race car my friend sold 4 of the brm wheels to gene berg for $450.00. when we went to a dragster my friend sold the other 4 brm wheels to dyno don in cal. for $1,800 they then went to japan . the bug ran 14 teens in the 1/4 mile . over time we got it to run 12.30s 1/4 mile . the bug went to a guy in PA. my first race car was this open pipe buggy i had a lot of motors in that pipe buggy over the years .i had it . i had a 1835 motor with 42 dcnf webers with a fk89 cam shifting at 8,500 rpm it ran 12.80s 1/4 mile with the frount wheels 3 feet in the air. when it was in the air i shifted into second gear and the frount end would come down slowly lol the red bug with that hippy looking guy . yes thats the other two brm wheels that my friend bought that was my street and drag car .i sold the wheels with the red bug . the orang bug was my last street car and race car . and show car. it made hot vws and vw trends just a small photo but it made the mags lol at the bug out show in mich. old school rules lol spencerfvee
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NJ John
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Joined: September 21, 2007
Posts: 2222
Location: HdG, MD & NJ
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| Posted: Sat Jun 05, 2021 10:31 am Post subject: Re: 1756 to 1835 in 1978 |
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What’s up with the roof on the blue car?
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1973 standard, yellow, lowered, 3” narrowed front, 1600 blo-thru turbo w/single dell 15.4@86, so far
11.41 et buggy. Long gone
Let’s go O’s! Let’s go O’s!
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spencerfvee
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Joined: August 19, 2004
Posts: 3071
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| Posted: Sat Jun 05, 2021 12:25 pm Post subject: Re: 1756 to 1835 in 1978 |
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| NJ John wrote: |
| What’s up with the roof on the blue car? |
.................................................................................................in the 1970s we found the blue car in a guys yard with no motor . we bought it for $35.00 no title it had 35,00 miles on it i know you vintage guys are going freak out. it was a 1964 bug . with a sunroof. we junked the sunroof that was like brand new .we installed a alum. cover over the sunroof opening it all so had rear pop out windows. we trashed them too . we junked the seats that we like new .back then no one cared or wanted vw parts . spencerfvee |
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NJ John
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Joined: September 21, 2007
Posts: 2222
Location: HdG, MD & NJ
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| Posted: Sat Jun 05, 2021 12:38 pm Post subject: Re: 1756 to 1835 in 1978 |
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Got it.
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1973 standard, yellow, lowered, 3” narrowed front, 1600 blo-thru turbo w/single dell 15.4@86, so far
11.41 et buggy. Long gone
Let’s go O’s! Let’s go O’s!
https://www.youtube.com/@AirSpooledGarage |
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b-man
Samba Member
Joined: May 20, 2008
Posts: 499
Location: So Cal
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| Posted: Mon Jun 21, 2021 5:20 pm Post subject: Re: 1756 to 1835 in 1978 |
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Wolfparts front and rear aprons arrived today, with a little bag of goodies attached just like from way back in the day when I used to order stuff from Gene Berg.
Well-packaged for the trip across the pond, the panels arrived in perfect shape.
Also had FastFab make up a set of T-bars. Nice welds, I’ll leave them raw.
It’s only money. 
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1956 Dove Blue Panel
1966 Velvet Green Single Cab
1957 L41 Black Oval Window Beetle |
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evanfrucht
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Joined: July 24, 2016
Posts: 2180
Location: Laurel Canyon, CA
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| Posted: Mon Jun 21, 2021 6:52 pm Post subject: Re: 1756 to 1835 in 1978 |
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It's always nice to see an Oval done right Seems like you have a vision. Keeping it old school I see
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azmonsoon
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Joined: August 01, 2006
Posts: 7
Location: Gilbert, AZ
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| Posted: Thu Nov 04, 2021 9:32 pm Post subject: Re: 1756 to 1835 in 1978 |
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Great story B-man, I remember you, I was also a kind of charter member of the Volksmasters back in the late 70's. The club president Bruce Lowry lived down the street from me and the Sargent at arms Phil Reisdorf lived around the corner from me in Simi!! Phil would take my brother and I to the bug-ins to help with his green racecar and Bruce's white lightning super beetle racecar.
I remember going to meetings in the San Fernando Valley and hearing the stories of you smoking corvettes and other cars around Van Nuys Blvd in your oval window and your squareback with the buick V-6 stuffed in the back!! You'd get on that squareback and we all thought the wheels would spin right off of that thing....awesome.....Those were great times and man your cars were fast!! glad you and your oval are re-united!!
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b-man
Samba Member
Joined: May 20, 2008
Posts: 499
Location: So Cal
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| Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2022 9:11 pm Post subject: Re: 1756 to 1835 in 1978 |
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Yesterday I looked up one of my junior high school friends and fellow Volksmasters club member that I hadn’t seen in 4 decades. We had a great afternoon catching up on things and when we went into his garage he showed me this trophy. He was the last one to hold it so he ended up as its caretaker for the past 40 years.
I was the fourth member to hold that trophy, I was so stoked to get my first 13 second time slips at Bug-In 22 on April 22nd 1979. By sometime around 1982 the Volksmasters club had disbanded.
it’s been so many years that I’d forgotten that trophy ever existed, it really made my day to become reacquainted with it.
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1956 Dove Blue Panel
1966 Velvet Green Single Cab
1957 L41 Black Oval Window Beetle |
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