Restoring a flipseat SO-35 Westfalia

[thuestis]

Just discovered this great thread on a really cool & rare SO 35.

[oakman]

[DJ Pierre]

Photobucket finally came to there senses! Nice!

[Z]

[DJ Pierre]

Seems like photobucket destoyed my resto topic. Not shure if they will change their minds but i'm not paying $400 a year for this. It's a shame and a lot of work to repair...Means i have to restore a restotopic. Weird...

[DJ Pierre]

Idle was a problem on my engine too. It's a lot better with a proper solex instead of the bocar i used before...

[Danwvw]

Yeah, I hear what your saying. I could not get my dual port to idle right with the Solex 34, I would imagine with that CB-2239 Cam a lot like the W-100 I used yours may not idle very well either. I think I will go to dual carbs of some kind on mine. Oh by the way I Like your photos and videos.
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1960 Beetle And 1679cc DP W-100 & Dual Zeniths!

[DJ Pierre]

[Danwvw]

Whatever happened with the Zenith Carburetor?

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1960 Beetle And 1679cc DP W-100 & Dual Zeniths!

[Eric&Barb]

[DJ Pierre]

[oakman]

Awesome! I love your bus. Thanks for the update, great to see you guys enjoying your Westy to the fullest! Can't wait to start camping in mine soon.
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Brandon

[Eric&Barb]

[Alstrup]

Hello.
His engine will hit 5000 rpm easy. With the Porsche pulley the fan speed becomes, well, interesting. I doubt it will blow since stock fans hold up fine with 6000 rpm and stock pulley ratio´s. The Porsche alternator pulley and the type 4 cooler together should make some difference. Something like 5 degrees worth for the oil cooler. Dunno how much for the pulley. The reason is that the cooler cannot use its extra surface until about 5700 rpm (at the fan) because the metered air is designed for a type 1 cooler, so the air simply gets saturated and cannot exhange more heat until the air speed/volume is high enough.
Nice to see a bus that gets used, - and maintained.
Serge, get the engine dialed in first. There is a good chance that the temps will drop a little after that is done.

T

[Eric&Barb]

While the type 4 cooler will not drop over all oil temp, it helped up not to have sudden spikes of oil temp so much from changing load on the engine in same hot weather. EG going up a long not so steep up hill into a head wind, going North from Sacramento to Redding CA. Used to have to slow down to 2,800 and sometimes even 2,500 RPM to keep oil temp just below 220F. Next couple of trips after type 4 cooler and Porsche pulley could drive same route at 3,000 RPM.

Only risk of blowing the fan is if you wind the engine way up in RPMs. We keep to a limit for short bursts at most 3,500 RPM (which is 70 MPH or 112.6 KM), and that high of RPM is almost always used to avoid lugging when up shifting, especially on a steep hill. Zero problem for us with un-welded fan for all this time. That includes even the engine before that used same fan for over 80,000 miles (128,000 KM). Even so, it is not impossible to find or lots of $$ to get a balanced welded fan.

2.1 ratio with Porsche pulley @ engine 3,500 RPM = 7,350 fan RPM.

1.8 ratio with Stock VW pulley @ engine 4,000 RPM = 7,200 fan RPM.

Both of the above with the dog house crankshaft pulley.

So doubt if 150 RPM increase between those two will blow an un-welded fan.

In stupider younger days hit 5,000 engine RPM on occasion in the 1963 KG when doing 90 MPH (144.8 KM) with same stock pulleys, big bore 40 HP, .82 fourth gear, and never blew the un-welded fan.

1.8 ratio x 5,000 RPM = 9,000 fan RPM

Personal guess would be about 8,000 fan RPM is well in the safe limit for fan that is un-welded.

8,000 RPM divided by 2.1 ratio = 3,809 engine RPM.
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In Stereo, Where Available!

[DJ Pierre]

[Eric&Barb]

If you have doubts of the alternator bearings, then get new quality ones installed. Engine will not run too cool if you have the flaps and thermostat in place. Have had plenty of miles in our cool Western Washington wet weather. Plus does not take more than 15 minutes if you want to convert back to stock VW pulley for Winter weather. Type 4 cooler conversion is easy today with some welding.

Have now over 150,000 miles (241,000 KM) since last rebuild on our 1641 cc single port with FF 3.875 R&P transaxle, type 4 cooler, 356 Porsche pulley in our 1960 panel camper conversion. Bigger cooler and smaller pulley helped a lot to keep from getting oil temp from peaking too high. Even in 95 F (35 C) weather in N. Cal. with loaded bus doing 3,000 RPM for cruising at 60 MPH (96.5 KM) have kept temp below 220 F (104 C).

After all you want to cool the entire engine, not just the oil. Otherwise you can easily start burning up heads and pistons. A little higher fan speed will do that. Also make sure all casting flash is cut out of the head cooling fins and holes. Plus that you are running 35 mm wide (inside measurement) cooling fan.
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In Stereo, Where Available!

[DJ Pierre]

The pully thing wont be very helpfull, that way the engine would run too cool on lower speeds and i have doubts about the alternator bearings.

Type4 oil cooler is a way to go but also a lot of work from this point. I don't like oil lines that could leak also but found a neat cooler from Setrab.

Still too hot for now, so something has to be done

[Eric&Barb]

Did you install type 4 cooler?

356 Porsche pulley would help to make a little higher fan RPMs. Have not tried to install one of those on an alternator so you might want to borrow a pulley and see if it will work.

That way you can skip oil hoses that can fail.
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In Stereo, Where Available!

[DJ Pierre]

Indeed, its’s been a long while since i posted an update...So here’s a big one!

Well, lots have been going on with myself and with the Westy. I didn’t make any big trips but lots of small ones. Many music festivals, weekend campouts and citytrips have been made in the camper.
But also a lot have been changed on the Bus. It’s been quite naughty to me so I had to rebuild the engine and gearbox.

And reached the 100.000km

What happened with the engine??

Rings on barrel #3 broke, replaced it with with a new set of pistons but these weren’t measured close enough so I destroyed this set also. Then I found a set of OG Limbach 90mm pistons but these didn’t come with the proper rings. So big oil consumption but no damage this time. Turned out that proper rings are not obtainable so eventually “JE” made a new set for my engine. These are aluminum barrels and I wanted to keep them. All is good now. There where some minor changes done during rebuild also:
- Recoated 90mm Nickies with new custom made pistons and rings
- Rebuild Limbach SP heads, flowed intake and bigger(37,5) valves. 12mm ¾”plugs.
- Rebuild center, fully balanced Limbach 78.8mm crank. Dilled for Full Flow
- CB 2239 Camshaft
- Custom made, bigger SP inlet manifold, modified Solex 34Pict3 (29,5mm venturi), K&N oilbath mod
- Pertonix electronic ignition
- Nos old style fuel pump
- 38mm heaterboxes and VintageSpeed exhaust where re-used
- Stage2 cluch

Still to do:
- External oil cooler with thermostat. It’s running a little hotter as wanted on high(110km >) speeds.
- Modified Fram filter housing for modern oil filtering with classic looks.
- Professional tune-up, power analyse

The gearbox was popping out of 2nd gear sometimes and so I decided to have the unit rebuild again. It’s totally new inside now and had 3.88 R&P icw big nut boxes.

I installed an Anti-Roll bar on front. And decided to install a brake booster. Disk brakes without booster is not ideal..

A new radio is installed since the old one gave problems. This is the Model 2 one with Bluetooth streaming and such.

And a hidden sub

Last but not least, I did enjoy the Westy as intended. Not as much as I wanted but still happy times!

Best interior price at Splitbus Nation!

Campouts and festivals:

At last, a new cooking unit scored!