My 181 project pics

[KAmes]

Hi all! Here is the air pump for the air shocks:

The process for operation is as follows:

Step 1- poise finger over switch
Step 2- ensure spouse wife has hands firmly clamped over ears
Step 3- engage switch

Omitting step 2 causes... excitement. Who would guess screwing a vibrating device to the bare metal floor of the dumpster car would be so interesting?
It's time for a change.

I bought this new pump already rubber mounted inside a bracket.

My ill conceived plan is to jam it in here, where the sound will blend with the many smooth engine noises:

I made a backing plate similar to the one the accusump is mounted on:

And there it is, it took me all day.

I put an air tank in here for more volume:

And new switches for fuel pump, accusump, and the air pump.

Although they all power on with the ignition, I wanted control options. Now on to somehow stopping the sweating air conditioner expansion valve from dripping on my wife's shoe.

[KAmes]

[KAmes]

[KAmes]

[Captain Pike]

What color Tan? I'm now in the primer stage.
_________________
LEARN TO SELF RESCUE
59 Panel bus, 1966 Single cab. 73' 181. 73 Westy. 91' H6 Vanagon 3.3L.
....Bad Sneakers....

[Semper_Dad]

[sportin-wood]

Just came across your thread as I recently purchased a '73 Thing project for my wife. I read it from the start to now. I have to tell you your skills are very impressive, to say the least! I'm realizing that knowing how to weld would serve me well, but at 57 years old, I'm not sure I want to take the time to learn! I was looking for some kind of "mind blown" emoji, but TheSamba doesn't offer anything like that! Thanks for the inspiration, explanations and numerous photos you've posted - I know they'll serve me well.
_________________
.
1966 Bug project
1973 Thing project
.
"Relax, all right? My old man is a television repairman. He's got this ultimate set of tools. I can fix it." --- Jeff Spicoli

[KAmes]

[wbailey2112]

The previous owner of my Thing installed these exact seats in my Thing and although they do not look like the originals, they are much more comfortable and adjustable.

The previous owner was very tall and had shortened the Scat mounting bracket on the driver's side and I wanted to return it to the standard height. After some research I found out that the Scat '71-'72 Bug brackets (P/N 81384 (driver side) & 81385 (passenger side)) were compatible with the Thing with no modifications to the Scat brackets or to the original seat rails on the pan. This seemed counter intuitive to me since the Thing uses Ghia pans but apparently the rails on the Ghia/Thing pan are different between a Thing and a Ghia.
_________________
'74 Thing
'83 Westfalia

[KAmes]

Just a couple posts ago (2020) I was messing with the seat tracks. Now I've gone and replaced them altogether with somewhat budget Scat Pro-90 seats. I used '73 - '79 beetle brackets which do not fit the thing at all but were easy to adapt. They feature more forward and rearward travel than the stock seats, and have some lumbar support. I used the no headrest version of these in my dune buggy. Now to go and drive around.

[KAmes]

Good grief, has it really been three years since I've done something to this car? I had better screw with it.

Inspired by Mondshine's setup I decided to experiment with an accusump pre-oiler. After the car sits for a time starting it produces some unnerving engine noises, just for a second or two until it builds oil pressure. It has always done this, then it runs fine. I wonder that a bearing or something was machined out of spec, I won't be surprised if this eventually leads to the engine's demise.

After some indecision I crammed it in here, doesn't look hard but it took me all day.

I removed the old oil pump and replaced it with this CB Performance full flow out/in pump. The little cut out in the pulley tin was for the previous Maxi 2 filter pump, it happens to match nicely.

The oil filter ended up here.

The accusump feeds into the system through the blue fitting. I held off installing a check valve under the thinking the oil would not tend to backflow through the pump, this seems to be the case it's working well. Per the accusump instructions I did find a filter without a bypass valve to protect the unit from contamination.

I went with an electric valve wired to the ignition rather than a manual valve. Turn the key on and oil goes in then oil warning light goes out. Start the car and the unit refills with oil while running, turn off the key and the valve closes holding oil for the next time. It's working well, no more "rattling" during start up. I imagine eventually I'll have to address the problem, probably just buy a new engine.

[KAmes]

Almost from the beginning when I set up the steering wheel placement in this car I've had this festering idea (festering?) to remove the rear stops on the seat tracks allowing the seat back farther. I spent the last five years wondering if this would be stupid, I have no idea. Let's find out.

Each notch in the track adjustment is roughly 3/4 inch or a couple centimeters. One notch further than normal still allows two adjustment teeth to remain engaged. This feels about right to me, allowing a little more leg room.

If my seat and person suddenly shoot off to the back of the car I'll report here for appropriate ridicule. Or you could laugh at me now.

[Semper_Dad]

[KAmes]

On the subject of fire damage, I installed my Blazecut fire extinguishing thingy. It's placement was highly influenced by those three bolts already being there.

[KAmes]

[flat4Imp]

Can't tell you how much I enjoyed this thread. I'm preparing to start on our 74 over labor day weekend. It was rear fire damaged and I'll be grafting a new rear clip first. Then addressing the rest of the build in stages.
_________________
"Often immitated, never duplicated."

[KAmes]

Warning: The following is too long to read. Proceed with discretion.

I had some trouble with my good pal the always popular off idle flat spot while driving at make believe kubeltreffen. Maybe my car had a bad altitude! (rimshot) Sometimes it drives fine but sometimes it falls flat when I look at the gas pedal. I've been into advance spring rates, vac advance, idle timing vs total advance, carb float height (dual 40 IDF), accelerator pumps, some stuff I forgot, and good old fashioned cursing. All of these things affect it to some degree (except the cursing), yet the bog remains. I've become used to "driving around it". Due to something I read I found myself thinking about idle to main jet transition again. Not really expecting it to make much difference I upped the mains from 115 to 120. It's like somebody turned on the magic power switch, well you know by Thing "power" standards . It's fun to be surprised! I'm onto something now, the hesitation shows a little when the car is started cold then quickly vanishes when it warms up. It seems to cruise easier at speed too. I'm about that close (holds finger and thumb almost touching) to buying a wideband meter and really trying to figure out how this works. It's running pretty good, I should probably just drive it.

[KAmes]

Doin' the left side. Fender off.

I "think' you might be able to do this with the fender on if yours won't come loose. Especially if you don't need the torsion bar out. I don't know for sure, 'cause I took the fender off. You would think (or maybe you wouldn't) that you would slide the spring plate out a little to clear the stop then lower it down. This doesn't really seem to work, too much tension, and is probably a good way to explode the spring in your face. Maybe everybody knows this but I learn the hard way.

I lowered it while prying here:

Once it clears the stop I wiggled it back a little like this:

Then lower the rest of the way and pry it off. This time the torsion bar stayed in.

I measured the angle like before, in addition I traced the angle with a marker. This is all I really needed.

Start the cap on with longer bolts then change them one by one when finished. The official vw manual says to do this. See the line? One spline seems to move it a noticable amount, I think this would be hard to get wrong.

Back together.

I bought new spring plate covers from cip1, they are supposed to be the right ones. The four holes are off by one or two millimeters so beware. It would have been hard to put them on. I used the originals, there's nothing wrong with them.

The splines are back together exactly where they were, however doing this still raised the car most of an inch. Apparently the bushings being perished allows it to sag that much.

[KAmes]

The rear suspension squeaks. It has always squeaked, but now it SQUEAKS. I have never done rear spring bushings, here we go.

I drilled this shallow little divot to measure from, so I can put the alignment back.

Copying Gary Mondshine's method.

Measuring angle so I can put the splines back the same.

I didn't trust that method so I did this also.

It came out easy.

See the shiny rubbings? There's my squeak.

Rubbing against here

Back in. Same spline first try.

Pry a little here while raising the spring plate. As you can see, I also traced with a marker for alignment, I wasn't sure I would be able to see it.

Almost done

No more squeak!

I'll do the other side tomorrow.

[KAmes]