Getting ready for the long haul

[oprn]

My bad! I assumed the failure was from the stress the engine put on it not defective parts design.

I am contemplating a 10 hour trip to an event in the next province in our Manx clone pulling a sand rail with us. There will be no back up vehicle and this transaxle does want to pop out of 4th now and then. No time to fix that, will be leaving Friday night.

If everything is guaranteed where is the adventure?
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We had the stone age, the bronze age, the industrial age and now we are in the age of mass deception and mind control for corporate profit. (The mass media age)

[clonebug]

It's not like it just happened after the install. I have 5600 miles on the super diff and even went on a 1000 mile road trip last August.
My guess is that with the luggage rack holding about 75 lbs or more and sagging the rear axle slightly to the negative camber side along with two people, full gas, luggage and ice chest instead of being straight....... that it caused a little more heat which finally reared it's ugly head. Climbing grades for 5 miles at 3-4 lbs. boost in 100 degree weather might not have helped either.
Needless to say....the transmission is on the ground ready to deliver for inspection and repair. That is scheduled for Saturday morning and I'll wait while it's fixed and be back home by 3:00-5:00 pm at the latest.
If I bust ass I can have it back on the road by Monday or Tuesday and still take it for a 3 day cruise back up to Leavenworth to finish out our vacation in style.

I had to replace my helper to lift off the body.....my daughter moved out.......

I can now pull the body, engine and transmission without any other help...

I should have done this years ago. Harbor Freight might have junk but some of the stuff you just can't beat for the price.
This winch will lift 1350 lbs with the doubled cable and that is good engough for me.
A little fabbing with some scrap on hand and I had it adjustable and hanging from the rafters.

Now the garage has crap everywhere again.......

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[oprn]

You are going to wear out those body bolts but I certainly see the attraction of doing it that way!
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We had the stone age, the bronze age, the industrial age and now we are in the age of mass deception and mind control for corporate profit. (The mass media age)

[clonebug]

The buggy is back on the road......put about 60 miles on it this afternoon with a drive to a favorite local Brewery...."Stemma Brewery". They have a Guava beer and a Marmalade beer that is pretty awesome. The wife likes their "Gose" beer.
Actually....all their beers are great.....if you are ever in Bellingham check them out. They are right along the freeway and easy to find.
We also drove out to the Bay for dinner to top off the day.

We are still technically on vacation so we might as well live the life locally......
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[dustymojave]

Shame you couldn't make it to Big Bear this year. I live pretty close and I didn't either. Too much life getting in the way.
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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.

[clonebug]

[oprn]

Looking like our plans for a road trip are going to be drastically altered too. Parts delay will mean the engine won't be back in the Manx clone in time so we will just flat tow the sand rail to the event with the Forester instead.
_________________
We had the stone age, the bronze age, the industrial age and now we are in the age of mass deception and mind control for corporate profit. (The mass media age)

[clonebug]

Buggy has 600 miles on the 10 tooth stock spiders and everything is feeling good.
I've been driving it to work and back every day along with a few trips for pleasure.
We even entered it into a car show but I can only look at cars and sit for so long. We left at noon. The buggy isn't a trophy magnet anyways...

I just requested a day off for our anniversary in a couple weeks so if the weather is good and we can find a hotel to stay at we will travel over the mountains for a weekend and 750-1000 mile cruise.

We have finally gotten some rain and it is a welcome relief......hopefully it doesn't stay too long. Need another month or two of somewhat dry weather to get my buggy fix in.
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[dustymojave]

[clonebug]

When I got my Trans repaired last month my builder also handed me the crank and rod bearings from my AE engine that I had him go through this winter. This engine was built in 2012 from an AE case that had unknown miles but needed no machine work to build my 1679cc engine from.

Since then it has seen 46,000 miles of abuse put on it.....in 2017 we did at least 20-25 pulls on a chassis dyno making 187 hp and 200 lb. ft torque to the wheels at 20.5 lbs boost and this past winter it saw 40 plus pulls at up to 26.5 lbs boost and put out a best of 226 hp and 255 lb. ft of torque at the crank.
It has gone on many 1000-3500 mile trips as far as California and gave us up to 30 mpg for a best mileage with 26 mpg being the usual average. It's never let us down and with the turbo and FI it's been flawless for many years. It's been revved to 5800 rpm at a max but has seen 6300 on a missed shift or two.

Here are some pics of the bearings......The thrust was still perfect on the case.

We gave it a line bore even though it could have gone like it was but since it was apart anyways......it was cheap to do since it was opened up.

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[oprn]

Well Clonebug, you have converted me from a doubter to a believer. I would never have thought a bone stock bottom end would take that!

So - there is no need whatsoever to use anything better than stock rods. Those rod bearings look perfectly normal. And I assume you re-used the rods.

The mains to me look a bit stressed. Not terribly so but a little. Maybe like there was a bit of crank flexing? Just going by the small shinny spots on the two extreme end bearings but the even wear on the #2 one. Far, far less than I would have expected though!

As for the align bore you did... well... if it wasn't really needed... you just lost one rebuild in the future of that case. But, that's just the conserver of old parts part of my nature.

Thanks for posting those!

All those nay-sayer N/A experts in that recent "turbo a stock 1600" thread need to have a look at these!
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We had the stone age, the bronze age, the industrial age and now we are in the age of mass deception and mind control for corporate profit. (The mass media age)

[sailtexas186548]

Pretty good looking rod bearings, mains were working hard!

Aluminum main bearings? Selecting proper bearing hardness vs crank hardness is important, cast iron is “grippy” compared to forged/hardened cranks so using a Harder bearing material like aluminum Vs tri metals is usually a good move on stock cast cranks
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it's more fun loud and dirty

[clonebug]

[clonebug]

The buggy season is coming to a close it seems. Last year it was the middle of September when it started raining and didn't seem to quit.
This year it's today and rain is forecast for the whole week.
We managed to put just over 4000 miles on it this season so far but October usually gets pretty wet so I doubt I'll get more than another 100 miles before I park it for the winter.
My Wind Wings have turned out to be a nice addition and while they don't look the greatest they were cheap enough and I'll keep them especially for our cross country trips. They are easy to take off so I can remove them as I please.

The new 10 tooth diff is doing well but I haven't been beating on it too hard and I mostly just drive it to work and back. I have 1400 miles on it and not one peep out of it.

Big Bear is a possibility for next year so it is something to look forward to.

I'm thinking of some kind of upgrade for the winter but the buggy doesn't really need much.
The seats are starting to show their age. I might need to get them recovered after 15 years of use. They were the best upgrade I've done besides the turbo and EFI.

I hope to upgrade my ECU to a MS3 which will open up a bunch of new options and allow me to track front and rear wheel speeds. That will also allow the ECU to calculate speed and fuel mileage along with setting boost by gear and other cool stuff.
I already have the wheel speed sensors installed and it will be easy to connect that to the new ECU.

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[oprn]

I’m curious to know what you would gain by having wheel speed sensors front and rear unless you are trying for traction control.
_________________
We had the stone age, the bronze age, the industrial age and now we are in the age of mass deception and mind control for corporate profit. (The mass media age)

[clonebug]

[oprn]

You have progressed beyond a hobby Clonebug, that’s a career! 😄😄

Enjoy!
_________________
We had the stone age, the bronze age, the industrial age and now we are in the age of mass deception and mind control for corporate profit. (The mass media age)

[clonebug]

[oprn]

The attraction of the old air cooled VWs for me is their simplicity quite frankly. A few wrenches and a screwdriver will take you a long way... I tend to go with the simpler the better theme. But different strokes for different folks. If we were all the same it would be pretty dull.

I am about ready to throw in the towel on my RC planes. That hobby has gotten stupid complicated from the radio gear to club rules right down to governments trying to regulate us right out of that hobby!
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We had the stone age, the bronze age, the industrial age and now we are in the age of mass deception and mind control for corporate profit. (The mass media age)

[clonebug]