Getting ready for summer

[oprn]

Guys, never ever buy a car from the rust belt even dirt cheap for parts! I spent all afternoon trying to beak loose the bolts on the spring plates and only got 3 out of 5!!! Every nut and bolt on this 944 has been a major battle!
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Our cars get old, we get old but driving an old VW never gets old!

[oprn]

Summer has arrived and the Buggy languishes in the garage fulfilling my signature! The onrush of life once again got it's way. So... having given in to the drought once again I have abandoned the garden and yard to it's ravages. There is a cold front moving through right now with temperatures only 8* F above freezing at night and winds bent on taking the shingles off the buildings by day... and only a hint of rain...

Let's see - I was working on getting brackets welded on the torsion bar tube and ran into some differences between the Beetle IRS and the 944 IRS. Contrary to popular belief they are not the same on this end! So... what to do...

To start with the 944 bracket is more narrow and the bolt going through is smaller so put the cut off blade on the table saw and cut the EMPI bracket in half and took off the nut.

Now I am going to use the 944 outer bracket because it has the correct hole size for the bolt. Cut it off the torsion tube.

The 944 bolt is too small and slides right through the EMPI jig so I make a sleeve out of Delrin to center it properly.

Now bolt it all together and weld the 944 nut in place.

A trial fit shows a big gap between the 944 bracket and the Beetle torsion tube. Of course there would be, the 944 torsion tube is a larger diameter! There is going to be some gaps to fill.
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Our cars get old, we get old but driving an old VW never gets old!

[oprn]

Rain today, well a light mist, we will call it rain so a chance to get back at the Buggy. Final grinding and fitting of the inner 1/2 of the modified EMPI bracket. The Jig now fits flush on the torsion bar end and the bracket end has no pressure points so time to weld it in.

As you can see by the above, the outer Porsche bracket is intended to fit a much larger tube. My solution is to notch the bracket, squeeze it in and weld it up.

That worked out pretty well! Now to weld it in place.

Done with the jig, remove it to finish welding.

Oops! Forgot about the wiring harness! Rooky mistake!
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Our cars get old, we get old but driving an old VW never gets old!

[oprn]

All welded up and a shot of Tremclad.

Clean up some suspension bits and see how it all fits.
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Our cars get old, we get old but driving an old VW never gets old!

[oprn]

A little more progress, another problem. It appears as though the adjusting bolts on the 944 spring plates are going to drag on the torsion tube end casting.

Hmmm...

Built this aluminum spring plate spacer to go between the spring plate and the rubber bushing. I will see that that looks like. I will lose a bit of usable spline on one end or the other of the torsion bar but I don't see that as a big problem.

Ok, now I found a thread here on the Samba that deals with what I am doing. I was using the wrong word in search for 944 trailing arm conversions. I should have been searching 944 brake conversion! Here is a thread that covers it all very well. https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=...mp;start=0
Yes there is a 3mm interference, it appears that these guys thinned down the bolt heads to fix it. They are pretty thin to start with so I am going to go ahead with my fix and see what happens.

By the way this thread addresses the brake bias issue and master cylinder sizing with some very intelligent conversation. Well worth the read for anyone upgrading brakes!
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Our cars get old, we get old but driving an old VW never gets old!

[oprn]

The spacer did the trick. There is a wee bit of clearance now for the spring plate to cycle without rubbing.

The next problem is the bolt on the inner end of the trailing arm won't thread in. It seems the angle on the 944 trailing arm is different from the angle on the EMPI jig! I kind of saw that coming. Not sure what the best solution is. It's looking like I need to cut one of the brackets off and reweld it using the 944 trailing arm as the jig.
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Our cars get old, we get old but driving an old VW never gets old!

[oprn]

A couple drawings to explain the problem.

The next thing I need to do is mount the tire and see if it is actually parallel to the Buggy + - a few degrees. That will determine if this EMPI jig placed things close enough to get a toe adjustment.
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Our cars get old, we get old but driving an old VW never gets old!

[oprn]

That is how much the misalignment is.

Dremel fixed it up.

Tapered the end of the bolt to help with alignment. Built a washer to weld in place to take the slop out of the hogged out hole.

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Our cars get old, we get old but driving an old VW never gets old!

[oprn]

Here we have the final check with the wheel on. I must say I was not expecting this degree of failure!

Camber looks fine but the toe? Not so much!

And that is with the wheel pulled all the way forward on the spring plates! Looks like a good 3" of toe out to me!

I now need to review my regrets:

1) Buying the EMPI jigs.
2) using the EMPI jigs.
3) not trusting my gut feeling when I thought the jigs were wrong
4) welding the brackets in solid instead of tacking them in place, then assembling everything for checks.

The only thing I am glad of at this point is that I only competed one side!
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Our cars get old, we get old but driving an old VW never gets old!

[oprn]

I set the toe in adjustment back to mid range, pulled the inner trailing arm bolt and eyeballed the wheel. It looks like the inner pivot point needs to be a good 1" further back!

The plan at this point now is to move on to building a back step and mini deck for the house!
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Our cars get old, we get old but driving an old VW never gets old!

[oprn]

Time to finish up this thread. I got totally discouraged with this project and it sat for most of a year. We missed a whole summer of driving the Buggy as a result. Looking back I could have avoided the whole thing if I had listened to joescoolcustoms told me to trial fit the jigs on the 944 torsion tube and correct them. Well I did fit them on and no they didn't line up but I thought the problem was because the 944 torsion tube was a different diameter than the Beetle tube.

Anyhoo... back at it again a couple months ago. I tossed the EMPI jigs in the corner and used the 944 trailing arms as jigs. Enough of the EMPI crap! This is the thread that details the journey with the IRS conversion. https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=778212&highlight=

So... long story short, the IRS conversion is finally done. I love the look of the Fuchs, I dropped the ride height adjustment on the rear to the bottom extreme to get the car off the bottom suspension stops. The ride is definitely firm but not unbearably so. The front is still stiffer, I need to pull a few leaves on it.

I remounted the seats so that they can now be taken in and out with 4 easily accessible bolts. I added a slide to the passenger seat. I had a bit of a struggle with the charging system, all sorted out now. https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=791311&highlight=

Tidied up a few odds and ends, is the car finished? No, are these cars ever "finished"? I have done a few short trips and am confident now that we will not miss another summer of driving it. The Missus is very excited as am I!

Plans now to go to Prince George to see our Son and family and my 2 cousins and their families (11 hours one way), Calgary a couple times (3.5 hours), attend the Lethbridge , Red Deer, and Findlater Show and Shines (4 hours, 2 hours and 4.5 hours).

Looking like a busy summer!

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Our cars get old, we get old but driving an old VW never gets old!

[oprn]

Just an update, the first major trip of the summer went off reasonably well. 10.5 hours from our home to Salmon Arm, British Columbia. We stopped at Rimbey, Alberta for a wedding, then on through the Rodgers Pass. It rained off and on most of the way with sleet at the summit.

The 8 day stay resulted in a rattle can striping job on the Buggy due to boredom.

The only problem we had with the Buggy happened when we were touring around the area. We stopped for a visit with some folks that lived right on the highway. Normally I give the car a warm up mile or so before hitting the loud peddle hard but in this case their driveway exited right on a very busy narrow 2 lane highway so it's get on it or get run over.

It was about 4 miles into town and part way there we smelled hot oil. At the first lights the idiot light came on and the pressure gauge read zero. Revved it up and the light went out and I had 15 psi so I limped it into a gas station and shut it off. Engine oil all over the back end of the car and a big puddle forming under the transaxle!

What the heck?!

Turns out the 1/4" plastic line (rated for 150 psi) I used for the mechanical gauge on the dash 6 years ago had an aneurism just above the nose of the transaxle. It did not like that full song cold oil launch! A vice grip on the line and 3 quarts of oil and we were back on the road. Quickest oil change I ever did! Even after a trip to the wand wash the car dripped oil for two days!

The trip home was clear and sunny...

...with a quick stop in Calgary to see our daughter. This resulted in a near international hijacking incident averted only because the little terrorist could not reach the peddles!

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Our cars get old, we get old but driving an old VW never gets old!

[slayer61]

Is there an advantage to using a mechanical pressure gauge?
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[oprn]

Just cost and simplicity really. When I do the wiring/dash upgrade I will likely go electric. Until then I have half a bushel basket full of new gauges and a hundred or more feet of tubing from a major stock downsizing at work. They were going to toss them all in the garbage along with about $2500 worth of 1/4" ss tube fittings.
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Our cars get old, we get old but driving an old VW never gets old!

[oprn]

Did a valve adjustment, idle screw tweak, topped up the oil. I have a 3200 km driving schedule to meet in the next 5 days. Weather forecast looks hot! Getting loaded up... leaving at 5AM.

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Our cars get old, we get old but driving an old VW never gets old!

[oprn]

Sometimes the best laid plans go awry! Made it here to Prince George but the back of the Buggy is oily. Another leak.

Well this time there is no patch and go it looks like. The upper cylinder cooling tin wore a hole through the main oil gallery on the case…

Hmmm… only 992 km from home! Need to strip the engine down and weld it up.

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Our cars get old, we get old but driving an old VW never gets old!

[BIGMIKEY]

I have seen groves cut into the case by vibrating tin and some cut quite deeply. Always wondered if the groove could cut deep enough to reach vital fluid. Sorry it happened to you and so far from home but thanks for bringing it to light.

Mike T
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BIGMIKEY

Deserter Series 1 project.
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=787047&highlight=

1973 Beetle Driver, Marina Blue.

[oprn]

Maybe this picture is a little clearer. I have a prybar jammed in there to move the offending tin out of the way and you can see the slot it cut.

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Our cars get old, we get old but driving an old VW never gets old!

[slayer61]

In my best Homer Simpson voice... DOH!
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[clonebug]

How did this all end????
If you would have gone south and west I could have possibly lent a helping hand......
Did you get it fixed and drive on or did you get towed home????
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