Invader GT

[akokarski]

Hi,

I have an invader gt that I acquired more than two decades ago as a non running project. I don't have much documentation on it and previous owner had it parked for 20 something years before I got it. It had some ignition key issue and that never got fixed. I bought it and tore it apart did all mechanicals and floor pans, this was at my friends house, but he moved so I never finished it. fast forward to now and I figured, let's get this thing back, try to get it running and functional, engine running, brakes, parking brake, electrical... I did some work on it over the years but it's all kinda gotten too rusty and crusty over the years.

I wanted to start a thread to track some progress, there were a few on invaders but I think only one really got to the finish line... I want to get this thing in a functional order then see if I can get it re-registered and go from there.

here are some pics of how it stands right now.

Yes, it is missing doors, and back lid. it used to have a louvered black thing, which at the time I thought was hideous and tossed it. Driver door was cracked, I only have a passenger one to template from.

Some corrosion on the case, but I think it seal ok, I've put a new drain plate, plug and strainer. Old one was warped from over torqueing...

This is not an original engine to the car, I bought a running replacement from Sunnyvale bugformance. It seems to run strong, and even after sitting for years it didn't take much to get it started!

I have pulled the carb off for a rebuild.

even with all that junk it ran, obviously it wouldn't idle once it warms up but it ran non the less.
I do have some stock tins that I can use to swap the chrome out. It was a first vw that I got, what do you expect

Originally these kits had a shifters like flat 4 eliminators to clear the parking brake as shifter was moved back. Shifter looked like garbage at the time so it got tossed as well... My plan was to put a parking brake under the dash but that never came through so my parking brake was lost.

this is the hackery that was left behind... I have no idea why such a huge jagged rectangular hole needed to be put in the tunnel. It was riveted over with a piece of aluminum.

Today while carb is hanging out with Mr. Berryman, I focused on getting shifter moved over closer to the driver side and getting parking brake back in. I've used airkewled one since I have no braket. It came with a few tech screws which was helpful.

this is the end result, I can apply parking brake, and I can shift into all gears. It is a total nightmare to get this shifter adjusted with shifter rod hanger not attached to the tunnel.

Once I get the carb back on and can test that all gears work, I will patch up the tunnel and get shifter hanger welded in. I am thinking going with type 3 approach where bracket is bolted in.

Here is my short to do list
1) carb rebuild
2) swap engine tins, I don't have an extra thermostat, so we'll just lock the shutters in the open position.
3) bleed the brakes. It's easy since I've moved reservoir from inside the wheel well and added an access door.
4) sort out steering column there is a bit of misalignment and hole needs to be opened up to get the column straight. I also have an exuberant number of connectors between the column and the steering box
5) sort out rear trunk bottom and remount my temporary gas tank.
6) finish up electrical to get lights and everything functional.

Stay tuned!

Anton

[akokarski]

Today I made a new floor panel for the "trunk", Old one I made from thick abs plastic, but it warped and I wanted to go back to the original sort of speak panel.

I also started going through my fan shroud and flaps and quickly realized that I have a problem.

I have 2 of 1/2 side flaps, rod is from an earlier shroud that does not have the dog house... So swapping shrouds will have to wait until i can find the right pieces. I also have to fix throttle tube hole on the front and reweld 1/2 cylinder tin...

Now I am waiting on my carb rebuild kit, and can probably address the steering column fitment.

Cheers!
Anton

[akokarski]

A bit of progress and a little bit of set backs. I was able to source all cooling bits and even a thermostat! The only thing I am missing is a Hoover bit.

Today I tried to put my carb back together and get the volume screw hole fixed which appears to be beyond repair and will need a replacement.

I did fix up my fan shroud and made an old repair on 3/4 side a bit better

Fan shroud had two issues, waddled out hole for the throttle cable tube and one spot weld break off on the inside.

I took two washers 8mm and 10mm and welded them on top of the hole, tried to keep it kinda at an angle instead of flat.

then ground it sort of smooth. I think this will do.

reattached the tab with a two fusion welds

3/4 side had a crack before and I globed it up before, while I had the welder out I decided to make the globs a bit less ugly.

Not perfect but should keep the air where it needs to be

This corner spot is pretty tight to get it ground down. so unless I cut it all out and start with fresh patch, it won't be perfect.

I think next it would be good idea to just pull the engine, swap the tin and go from there.

[oprn]

Good on you for not giving up after all those years!
_________________
Our cars get old, we get old but driving an old VW never gets old!

[akokarski]

In the past couple of days I was able to source a used EMPI 34 pict 3 carb, clean it up and it fired out. Ran really nicely. It even got out of the choke on it's own!

I didn't even adjust anything, because engine was coming out.

Today I pulled removed exhaust, I don't think engine will come out with muffler or the header. I did a rough mock up with new exhaust

still sticks out quite a bit but at least it's not so massive.

then I pulled the engine, here it is in it's full rusty glory!

and I got the fan shroud with alternator off

I think tomorrow I will be battling with the fan nut. I want to get the alternator plate off because I want all the tin to be black. Hopefully I can mock it all up make sure everything aligns. Then clean clean up the tin and shoot it with black paint. There is a lot of cleaning though, everything is super chalky and rusty.

[akokarski]

Making some progress with the engine.
Fan was not an issu, but came off with a few sips of impact gun

But one of the tin screws was tight and allen stripped

Tried to drill it out and broke the drill almost at the end eventually hogged it all out epoxied and put a thread insert

Almost all tin is in place

Now sanding and painting then assemble everything back

[akokarski]

Today I got all tins cleaned up and painted

Here are some of them waiting to be painted

I had a bit of a trouble fitting the fan and ended up mixing different backing plates but it doesn’t rub so we are good

I also changed out cooler seals

Used a new Hoover bit from cb but it required opening up the holes as they were too far apart

Also trimmed some intake gaskets to size

Fitted most of everything back on just ran out time to get the thermostat in place

Now it’s looking like an engine

[akokarski]

i could've swear i did a post yesterday with a video anyway, so yesterday I wrapped up last bits on the engine. like exhaust and started it it up.

Before engine went in I checked crank end play and it's 0.005

I also took a peek inside one of the cylinders and could see crosshatch marks, some carbon on the pistons but overall nothing nasty. I will need to do compression and leak down test to see how that's looking.

this is the front side all sealed up

this is how much place there is in the engine compartment no drama getting at anything in here...

here is our thermostat

and some vroom vrooms right after startup, if you look closely you'll notice that I have a sticky throttle cable

Link


Today I tidy up some wiring in the engine compartment, regulator was hanging out somewhere where battery supposed to be, so I mounted it on the left side of the firewall and got the + cable separate from that bundle and got rid of few useless wires.

I may rewire the whole car again, and if I do that, i will use vinyl tubing instead of split loom


I also pulled out throttle cable, greased it and still have a sticky throttle, I think i will need to ease up on the tension if that doesn't work, then pull again and figure out how to get the throttle cable tube cleaned out.

Then I tried to move the car out of the garage and realized that I cannot get into reverse, spent over an hour trying to adjust the shifter, move it back to original position, take out the parking brake and realized that because I moved shifter so far left, shift rod comes into the coupler at an angle and that does not allow it to go into reverse. Tried to swap out urethane bushings with German rubber and it did not help.
This is how far to a side i have moved the shifter

checking on other threads it doesn't seem like i have shifter in a super extreme position compared to others but it looks like the solution to this issue is to put a bend at the end of the back of the shift rod so it would go straight into coupler instead of at an angle.

Maybe I can try that... so I can get a bit more space between the parking brake and shifter

Other than that, it's moving under it's own power around the driveway. Kind of shifts and stops.

Cheers!
Anton

[oprn]

Do you kit car guys do anything to separate the engine compartment from the hot exhaust and hot engine cooling air discharge like VW did? Or do you just let it all mix and recycle through the fan?
_________________
Our cars get old, we get old but driving an old VW never gets old!

[akokarski]

It depends on the kit, but I can’t speak on all of them. Something like 356 would have a seal, not sure about others. In invader it’s like a Baja bug a lot of open space but I think it’s not impossible to build a panel to separate top from bottom.

This did cross my mind as I was adding all the right tins, flaps and thermostat in a car with this configuration. It maybe easier to just duct the intake for the fan instead like a type 3

[MrGoodtunes]

Learn'd the hard way about how important cool air is with my Mini-Camaro. So, I did both...

An engine heat skirt:
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=9680323&highlight=#9680323

And, cooling air input duct:
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=8739263&highlight=#8739263

[akokarski]

Small update on the little progress. I finally wrapped up my shifter using a universal coupler. Had to fabricate a new rod and patch up the hole around the shifter.

Not perfect but came out decent enough and functional.

I can find all gears including reverse. I think because I am using "wrong" style shifter or shifter cup and shifter are mismatched I have no up/down movement in the shifter and had to add some washers. I am probably going to have to make a spacer to fix this.

Next I need to get the fuel tank sorted out with the filler and move onto electrical.


Cheers!
Anton

Anton

[jspbtown]

On my Avenger I simply cut two sections out of the tunnel and swapped them. I then shortened the shift rod by the same amount right at where the rod and shifter meet.

[akokarski]

There is nothing for me to cut and swap

[oprn]

The last picture you posted of the engine it was still missing 4 bottom tins. There are two missing that bolt on the bottom edge of the top cylinder tins at the very back. Then you need what is called industrial tins to separated the hot air from the J tubes from the cooling air blowing down between the cylinders. Vertical pieces that take the place of the heat exchangers in directing the cooling air to the rear.

The industrial tins are especially important for proper operation of the thermostat. They keep the thermostat sensing engine temperature otherwise radiant heat from the J tubes (high temp reading) give a false reading around town and cold air blowing in from the side (false low temp reading) on the highway.
_________________
Our cars get old, we get old but driving an old VW never gets old!

[finster]

just read through this and had two thoughts
- wouldn't it be easier to put a dogleg bend in the handbrake lever and keep the gear shift as per vw?

- never throw anything away unless you're sure it's beyond using
_________________
"we're here on Earth to fart around" kurt vonnegut

nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect...

[Blue Baron]

I like how you kept the old Motorola alternator.

I was thinking about the Invader GT, which prompted me to look in this forum, and I found this thread! My dad and I thought about building one back in the day, and went as far as sending away for the brochure. I still have it buried away in a tub of old papers, and this is prompting me to go look for it.

Edit:

I went out tonight, dug through the tub of old papers and found it! I must have sent away for it when I was in middle school. It's the original 10-page prospectus!

It's in good condition, and still has the 10 cents postage on it!
_________________
We are striving for perfection, to make our cars run forever, if possible.

Heinz Nordhoff

[akokarski]

Wow I didn’t realize there were a few replies here. On the shifter front. It’s basically a done deal and I didn’t have shifter section of the tunnel…. I need to go back to it to close the opening with an access plate. If you can believe it, the tunnel was hacked up and closed up with thin piece of aluminum and riveted in place. I am also not sure how and why opening ended up so jagged. It’s like it was cut out with some massive can opener.


Right now I am rewiring, rather slowly, but it’s moving along. Hopefully I can wrap that up and have a solid electrical with hazards and high beam relay.


That alternator came with a replacement engine that I got back in late 90s from bugformance Sunnyvale.

I am not sure if I have same brochure or smaller one and a popular mechanism edition with an article about invader

[akokarski]

it's been a while since I did any updates. It's been moving along...

Shifter is sorted out, universal join at the tail end did the trick. I am able to get into all 4 gears. I think shifter itself is out of ghia, it's short and fits the cup.

I also completely rewired the whole car. Started with buggy/universal kit and added more to it mainly because the headlights need ALOT longer wires. and I have more circuits than that basic loom. I added emergency switch, yes the 5 pin dealy, it works with key off as well. A headlight relay with highbeam switch on the turn signal stock, it's a stock t3 column too. Short of the wiper motor I am all set. I need to workout the return on the wiper...

Besides this, my tank is done. I had to reweld a new filler neck as the other one was at impossible angle and there was no way to make the 90 with flip cap work. So i just settled on a neck with cap. Had to extend it with a section of the an exhaust pipe. Ended up too much welding at all sorts of weird positions and a ton of tig brazing to seal it up. I need to get a picture of it installed. But it uses an existing hole. I do need to get a grommet for it though...

Next is to close up that horrible hole in the tunnel forward of the shifter... Plan is to have two windows made, one for inside and plug weld it to the tunnel using existing holes that are left over from the riveted aluminum sheet. Then another outside of the tunnel with an inspection cover.

I got the inside one already widled out of 11 gauge steel. and getting it to form to the tunnel. Opening is all jacked up like it was made with a can opener so there is that part to over come too..

Getting closer to finishing up the fit...

One other thing I need to get done is find some replacement lugs. Somehow between two moves, I've lost 4 and what I had on there is not the right stuff.

These are 14mm mag bolts but searching has not yield anything...

I may have to find nuts instead and use studs instead.

Cheers!
Anton

[Wolfgangdieter]

You're making great progress! i had a friend years ago who had a Bradley GT without the plexiglass one-piece doors. He had a friend with a pizza shop, so after hours he went by to use the oven to heat the plastic. He made a wooden buck, softened the plastic and formed new correctly bent clear doors. The pizza shop had a special next day on PCB pizzas.
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CMC '57 Porsche Speedster Replica and Dolphin boat tailed full pan VW MOD-T Street Buggy