Funco Resto Running when parked or High Jumper RS

[kingjason2]

So, I am a singe seat guy. I have been dabbling in VWs for years, so when I saw this come up I thought why not. I was told it was running when parked....................4 years ago, but I am thinking 14. I think it was broke down fuel that came out of the crank case before the sludge! We will see how it goes. It has some good bones and a lot of decent parts on it, albeit the motor is questionable and I might as well go thru the bus transmission since I am going to pull it apart to paint it. I may have to learn how to build a fiberglass/carbon body as I may build a Tamiya clone. It came with some aluminum panels but who knows. I only had to drag it down my driveway 6 times to get the brake drum busted loose. I ripped out the pedals that covered the floor and ordered a Jamar set with roller throttle. I also ordered a adjustable plate so the wife could drive it. I may need some part ID help from you guys. Going disc in the back and I think the standard wide 5 set up should work. Also assuming I could race it in vintage class with just a few mods?

[oprn]

Ah yes! Running when parked indeed! Fair bit of water damage there, one wonders how many gallons went down that exhaust.
_________________
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)

[kingjason2]

It had a coffee can over in the pictures! May have been that fancy breather set up. What's a couple of quarts among friends.

[liquidrush]

Two classic used car lines.....

1) All it needs is ....
2) It was running when I parked it. Might as well say it was running when I shut it off.

Looks like a good skeleton to work with.

[dustymojave]

1. It's NOT a Funco.

It's a Hi Jumper RS3. Early 80s vintage. VERY COOL! The fabricator would have been Mike or Kent Brown, or both. The brothers were the fabricators at San Fernando Buggy when this frame was built. The frame was originally intended for desert offroad racing. But would have worked fine for short course racing too.

2. The shocks are at least that old in terms of offroad race cars. And people almost NEVER order new single seat buggy frames to build a play buggy.

3. The single port engine suggests that it MAY have been used as a limited 1600 class racer at one time. NOT a SCORE class Baja 1000 racer, but probably a midwest short course offroad racer, Like SODA or whatever in your area. But the engine is likely to have been just an engine a previous owner had handy or found cheap.

4. The front drum brakes are fine. Just take them apart and clean them up. Put them back together with semi-metallic shoes if you can find them.

5. The front beam is +6". The stock steering box will work OK. You can clean it up and put in some fresh gear oil or light grease and go. The front Rough Country shocks are equivalent to Rancho or Pro-Comp. KYB Gas-A-Just will also work. Or upgrade to more expensive Fox or King.

6. The front wheels are fine. 7.00-15 tires are appropriate, extra traction or highway tread works. Similar tires to what's on there are available from Mickey Thompson Tires. The E78 Mini Mag would be a good choice or the bigger Sportsman. Those front Centerline wheels are mounted inside out. It will be easier to steer if you turn them around as they're supposed to be. If you don't like them throw them away in my direction. I can use Vintage parts like that.

7. It looks like 3x3 rear arms. That should all be OK. Just needs to be taken apart and cleaned and put back together. It has VW rear hubs. Looks like Type 2 CVs.

8. The low profile short course rear tires are probably Sprint car/Modified/etc. short course circle track tires. I expect they're done from sitting out. I suggest narrower rear rims, like 7s with taller tires for general offroad use. For horsing around in a plowed field, tires like that are fine. I expect they're appropriate for short course offroad races in your area.

9. The car used to have a set of side nerf bars like sprint cars use. That's what the sockets on the side of the frame pointing out are for. Use 1" OD x .065 wall tube. Pin them in with 1/4" through bolts. They make it a lot easier to climb up to the roof to climb in.

10. The body panels were probably aluminum side panels, floor and roof. The roof would have been hinged at the front with piano hinge and latched at the back with simple home made toggle latch. I can help you with that when the time comes. The front hood was available with matching side panels out of fiberglass. The nose looked a lot like that on my Hi Jumper in my avatar, built the same place by the same guys a few years earlier. Same fiberglass as mine on this Hi Jumper Ascot 2

These hoods have a single raised rib down the center. The RS 3 hood had a vee shape of slightly raised area with the point of the vee at the top of the angle nose and tapering out to the upper rear corners of the fiberglass at the A pillars of the cage. Kind of mirroring the diagonal braces under the hood. But if you're making your own out of fiberglass, you can make it however you want.

11. The oil cooler is beat and the mounts are very kluged (hacked up, made by someone who is a very poor fabricator). The battery mount is very high up and also kluged. Most racers would want something that heavy mounted low behind the seat. Cooler could be cross-wise near where the bottom of it is now.

12. The shoulder bar behind the seat is VERY LOW. With the shoulder belts mounted that low, if they are ever needed, they would tend to break the driver's back in compression. I suggest cutting out the cross bars behind the seat and installing a new one about even with the driver's shoulders. About even with the top of the lower set of upper rear shock mounts.

13. I would make the exhaust collector turn down, whether you install a muffler or not. It will keep out rain and other unwanted moisture. Lots of VW racers these days have a down turn collector with a megaphone with a Super Trapp on the end. Just buy a 2" u-bend from Jeg's (I did for my Baja) and replace that upward pointed end.

14. Since the engine had a lot of water inside (water sinks below oil, fuel absorbs into it), it will need to be completely rebuilt.

15. While you're tearing the engine apart, take a sawzall to those heater outlets on the sides of the fan shroud and remove them flush to the face, and put sheet metal over the openings. Beer cans cut apart and flattened then riveted in place will work.

16. While the engine is apart, drill and tap the end of the oil galley to make the oil system "Full Flow". Taking oil out and back in at the stock oil cooler ports on top of the case only cools and filters about 1/3 of the total engine oil flow. It works...if you're not using it hard and the weather isn't real hot.

17. For Vintage class racing, it might have to get a small fuel cell. Look at Jaz or RJS. Side filler would be better than fill at the top of the tank where it's hard to get at and likely to spill gas on the engine.

18. The seat belts would obviously have to be replaced. Get the hook and latch type, not the quick insert the tab type. The quick release belts don't release when they get dust or mud inside.

19. The steering brake is good for quick turns. Standard stuff for short course offroad racers for decades. So rebuild it.
_________________
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.

[y2kbaja]

All of what dustymojave said is true words of wisdom.
We took a single seater, a Funco copy, and finished, yes finished, the NORRA 1000 in 2015.

[dustymojave]

Cool looking "Funco".

It looks like a cross between a late SS1 and a Hustler. Roll cage was the prime difference between the 2 models.

SS1 had a front hoop laid back at about a 45° angle, and entry/exit to the cockpit was through the windshield opening, the visor flap was usually hinged at the top and latched at the bottom edge. The C-Pillar was a hoop, in early SS1s that hoop came up from the back of the frame above the bellhousing. There were B-Pillar vertical bars from the top rail of the frame up to the underside of the C-Pillar hoop next to the bend to lateral. The rear bumper in these cars was an add-on, often aluminum plate and upper horizontal tube. In later SS1s it was sometimes a C-Pillar hoop coming up from the back of the frame at the built-in rear bumper cage behind the engine. But in some, there was a B-Pillar hoop above the torsion housing with rear braces going back to the rear bumper cage. That style was common in the cars that got the upper rear fiberglass side panels such as yours has.

The Hustler had a cage that was left and right fore/aft roof bars with cross members connecting them, with vertical B-pillar bars from the top rail up to the roof bars.

All of this is no help to the OP I'm sure. Perhaps only noteworthy to myself. But fun for me too, remembering it.

_________________
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.

[kingjason2]

I guess I don't get notifications.

1. The gentleman I bought it from insisted it was a Funco, I was just looking for a single seater. Although when I was eyeballing funcos they had the same weird stacked breather set up.

2. Yes I have the aluminum body panels. There is a hood, side panels and a roof.

3. I destroyed the engine but I bought another VW that came with a dual port rebuilt engine, and a single port. three carbs, a few manifolds, etc. I am currently soaking the Weber 40 IDF that came off this and it may make a come back. Not real sure about running when parked, it had a piston hitting the plug on number three.

4. The seatbelt was hilarious , attached with chain links. I will be changing were the harness attaches. Since this thing is not a cool Funco it will be getting some personal touches. I figured if I ran a lithium battery were it sits would be ok.

5. I have ground off all the crazy pedals and have a Jamar hydraulic set up with adjustable mount which will be fabulous.

6. So far, going through the roof is my go too.

7. 930 axles? Now I am going to have to go eyeball type 2 axles. I got the clutch arm freed up, guy at Vdub folks, told me to flush it and run it, hard to kill the bus trans he said. He laughed that they haven't done air cooled in years but that is where I use to get all my stuff. My dad and I built a bunch of bugs and dune buggies back in the day.

8. Shocks still worked I was going to clean them up, ok, I kid I kid. I have considered everything from Bilstein's to Kings. Probably just go with something in the middle.

9.Yes, smaller rear wheels and tires. It will fit perfectly on my 6x12 trailer with 15x7s. I know the wheels are on backwards but it makes the outer of the front wheels even with the back I figure he had it that way on purpose.

10- Been working on my wifes single seat UTV Ace 900 XC, and some other projects but when this gets moving it won't take long. I dropped in a PRP and a 4 point harness to hers over the weekend. I enjoy ringing it out when not on the KTM.

11. Seriously, people that have never driven single seaters don't know what they are missing. I ran Pilots back in the day also, so I have always had a single seater fetish.

[kingjason2]

Dusty for the win.

I stole these brochures from another post that Dusty put up. So, if the RS2 and RS3 had a baby, the shock mount area is throwing me off? I am a little disappointed, I was into the Tamiya theme, hell I owned those cars. However, from everything I have read these things were built like tanks. Someone described watching one go end over end a few times, maybe some side rolls, and it just bent the guys stinger. Not saying he didn't hurt the next day!

Less or more desirable then the Funco?

Its funny though because can you imagine any Polaris being rebuilt in 40 years.

My other project, but I need to focus on the buggy as it will be an easy restore. I have a off-road park close to me and they well let whatever run there, like I said I bought it mainly to follow the wife around. I just hope I don't get bored with it.

Oh and the rear tires were stored indoors but clearly out of date. They are some old good year sprint car tires or something. They actually have a Goodyear Phone number built into the sidewall, I want to call it and see who answers. I use to pit crew a sprint car in my youth and they are close to that for sure. I actually thought about pulling the fenders on the rag top and seeing how they looked on the back, like a rat rod. However, the hubs are drilled for those Porsche wheels.

[dustymojave]

These buggy frames were not built in mass-production style. Each customer could order variations from the "standard". My own Hi Jumper Ascot is not per the catalog. Note that the RS2 and RS3 in the catalog do not have the curving bar from the torsion housing up to the rear bumper. But some customers LIKED it that way. So that feature got carried over. Just as my Ascot has different rear shock mounts than standard, yours does also.
_________________
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.