New Owner Seeking Sage Advice

[marsalon]

I am the new owner of a 1974 Thing that we brought home on a trailer yesterday. I always wanted one of these since I first saw the TV commercials when I was a kid. The Thing I purchased has just been fully restored so it runs/looks very nice. As far as I can tell, it is stock. It did not come with a cloth top but did come with a fiberglass one and plastic side windows.

What types of things would you recommend to improve safety, reliability, smoothness, mileage etc.. I am not a stock purist so I don't mind deviating a little from the original path. This is my first VW but I do have considerable experience working on and operating Lycoming and Continental aircraft engines, so I understand some of the air-cooled issues.

Thanks in advance for your input!

Signed
Completely ignorant newbie.

[amishman]

Congrats! I just towed one home myself this last weekend. Was a fun adventure.

Do post some pics of it for us all to see.

I am also a Thing newbie so do not have many answers for you but I have owned VWs for about 3 years now myself. Before I really start driving any older VW I would check for the basics. Making sure the brakes are working well is important. Old VWs can burn up also if gas leaks all over a hot engine so I would make sure the fuel filter is nice and snug, no leaks in terms of gas. I myself will be doing a tune-up on mine and make sure the brakes work well before getting it on the road.

As for Thing specific, did yours come with roll bars. Mine did not. I would thing for safety sake, Things with roll bars are more safe than ones w/o in terms of if you will ever take it off-road and possibly roll it. So a roll bar would be nice I thing.

tj

[chinarider]

Congratulations on your new Thing!

Ralph Nader will probably agree in saying that the Thing is not exactly the safest design on the road - especially when we find ourselves surrounded by giant SUVs, being driven at insane speeds, by distracted drivers. At least that's the way it is here in Cali. There are heaps of different ideas that you can pursue to improve safety - everything from racing roll cages to disk brake conversions, and even air bag installations. From a practical (and financial) POV, you may want to just keep it simple, though.

I gave some thought to this when I bought my Thing, and I took a fairly simple approach; I bought a Thing Shop "showbar" (aka rollbar, but I believe they won't call it that for liability reasons), and three-point, retractable OEM VW front seat belts from btlmex. I used the rollbar as a mounting point for the seatbelts, and used hardened grade 8 fastenings to hold them in place. I also replaced the rear seat belts while I was at it. This system seems to work well, though I hope to never find out for sure.

High back front seats (out of say a 72 super beetle) will also give you an added measure of safety, in a rear-end collision (low back seats lend themselves to back/neck injury in a rear-end collision). It's also well known that VW seats can pop off the pan in rear-end collisions. There are different fixes for this - the most common being u-bolts fastened from the seat rails through floor pan.

Steering and stopping are also paramount, when it comes to safety. I find that the original 4-drum brake system is fine, when well-maintained. I've given it plenty of use on the mountain roads and freeways here in the San Francisco area - and we all know how steep some of these SF roads can be! I replaced my entire brake system when I first got my Thing - just didn't want to take chances, or leave anything up to the imagination. Check your steering box, front axle (from spindle to spindle), and see what needs replacement. Jack up the front end and give the wheels a wiggle - if there's play, chances are you'll need to replace your bearings (you don't want them failing when you're driving). If your thing shakes/shimmies at speed, first balance the wheels, then (if that doesn't fix it) replace the stering dampner.

To avoid fires, make sure your engine's clean, check to see that the fuel input sleeve going into the carb is not loose, and use clamps on all fuel lines. Some suggest not installing an in-line fuel filter in your engine compartment. Others say it's ok. Still others mount them to the fan housing to ensure that they don't shake around. This seems to be a matter of preference. Always carry a good fire extinguisher, and don't drive with your rear lid locked.

I have a stock 1600 in my Thing, and I find it both reliable and fuel efficient (it gets better mileage than my 2004 VW). I went through several bad Brazillian carbs before finally buying a good German one - I highly reccomend a good-quality carb. I also run an SVDA distributor with the stock breaker-point ignition. It's predictable, reliable, and if I can't work on it, it won't throw any curveballs at anyone who'se familiar with VW engines - my mantra is "stock is simple and good".

New tires & a smooth-running drive train will help you get the most mileage out of your Thing. I also installed a VDO oil temperature gauge, so I can have a better idea of how efficiently my engine's running, and an early indicator of when something might be amiss.

Hope this helps.

[TimGud]

The above advice is good. One thing I do different is installing a petrinox ignitor rather than run the points. It is a fairly simple installation and the dwell is always near perfect so the plugs tend to stay clean alot longer. Been running ignitors for close to eight years on all my cars including my daily driver which has just over 100,000 miles on the same ignitor.
New, good quality, well balanced tires, and new shocks and an alighnment will help alot if it hasn't been done in a few years.
Replace the fuel lines and filter annually even if they look good as they crack below the braiding and cause engine fires.
Buy a LARGE halon fire extinguisher and keep it in the thing just in case.
Have fun driving it, it's a blast doing so as they get alot of attention on the road. Welcome to the club!

[ztnoo]

Dittos on all of the above.
Also, jack the back end up and check out your cv bolts.
See my thread: "CV Joint Bolt Torque Specs?"

[Towel Rail]

[Captain Spalding]

[Big Luni]

I'm very disappointed to hear all this blasphemy. Three-point seat belts? For shame. Reduced personal safety is the price Thing drivers gladly pay for "Keeping it Real."

[chinarider]

I don't have any photos right now, but I whipped up this illustration of the way I set mine up:

Of course, we're talking about safety here, and it should be noted that this is not a tested system, so use it at your own risk, and have anything inspected prior to use.

While I feel safer with this setup than with the stock lap belt, I did notice several potential problem areas, and I'm considering switching to non-retractable 3-point belts. Specifically, I noticed that if the seat is pushed back too far, and it comes in contact with the seat belt spool/reel, it affects the reel's ability to feed properly. This may also affect it's ability to lock when needed. Since I'm an average-size guy, I don't need to put my seat all the way back, and it does not come in contact with the reel. I also make sure that my passenger's seat is not too far back. Foot room in the rear is also slightly impacted by this setup. The shoulder point is not adjustable in this setup, so a comfortable location should be chosen carefully. Also, I'm not happy with the proximity of the shoulder mounting point to my head - would much prefer it to be outboard of the rollbar, but this affects it's ability to feed. These are the main reasons I'm considering switching to fixed (non-retractable) 3-point seat belts.

[markie61]

Very nice ! I hope to do something like that one day.
Mark
_________________
Whut is that-there Thang!?
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Chicks dig my Thing - so what if it's little and yellow...!?

[Captain Spalding]

Nice whipping. Did some of my own:

Based on the comments you made regarding your own installation, I came up with this. Rather than bolting through the tubing, I thought it might be helpful to weld a couple of tabs onto the back edge of the bar to create mounting points for the belt hardware. The changes are obvious, and I hope address the issues you cited.

My questions: Do you think these modifications adequately address what you feel are the limitations of your current setup? With the seatbelt takeup spool spun 90 degrees, do you feel the problem with the seat/spool clearance would be solved? Based on my drawing, how much do you think the vertical run of the seat belt would intrude into the rear door opening? Do you forsee any other problems with this setup?

Thanks for posting your drawing, and for your input.

— Spalding

[Captain Spalding]

[secretaryrick]

I had this system (the first drawing)on my 73 thing when I brought it home, but as was mentioned, the proximity of the hardware to the head of the driver seemed much too dangerous. Any wayward bounce and your head could/would hit the mounting bolts etc. Nasty buzz killer. I removed it and re-foamed and have replaced it all with simple VW lap belts.

[chinarider]

Nice work! Did you do it in Illustrator too?

Here are my thoughts on functionality:

1) The shoulder point would probably work well, mounted on a welded tab like that - you'd probably have to mount it a little bit higher on the rollbar, though, since the same position mounted further back would create more of an accute angle over the shoulder. I like it, though - I don't think it would get in the way of rear passengers' heads.

2) The spool, spun and mounted 90 degrees like that, should not take up any measurable difference in rear foot room (it's essentially the same dimensions front-to-back and side-to-side. My biggest concern, though, would be the spool's ability to attenuate in a head-on collision, when mounted sideways. I just have no idea if they're designed to do that.

3) I very much like the idea of mounting all of the parts on welded tabs, thereby eliminating the need to drill holes in your rollbar. This is something I stressed over when installing my own setup - I did not want to compromise the integrity of the rollbar. Still, I ended up doing it pretty much out of necessity; I had to take the Thing on a long trip, and couldn't possibly have any welding done beforehand. In fact, the only holes that would really compromise integrity are the upper ones; the lower holes are between the floor pan and the side member mounting points, so the side member essentially acts as a sister frame & shares the load in that area. That said, I was very careful to ensure that the holes I drilled were the smallest diameter possible to safely accommodate appropriate seat belt bolts, and I was very careful to make sure that there was zero-play between the bolts and the holes (idea being that a very tight fit would help cut down on the bar's ability to crush in a rollover). Also, these holes run from left to right (rather than front to back), so there's more metal where it counts in the event of a rollover. Bottom line is that it was a judgement call: am I more likely to need rollover protection, or seat belt stopping ability?

4) Make sure the welds are done right. They have to stay intact in a crash. If possible, I would do a metal sleeve (fab one up like a large compression fitting, with metal tabs on the open end) around the rollbar, and weld it in place. It may be overengineering, but you can be pretty confident in it's ability to work.

5) I don't think the vertical run would get in the way of back seat passengers, or the rear door opening.

What do you think?

[Captain Spalding]

[Towel Rail]

Well, if I install non-retractable 3-pt seatbelts, I'll retain *some* of my VW cred.

...right?

- Scott
_________________
1974 Thing -- under the knife
1967 Beetle -- spring/summer/fall driver
1996 Subaru OBW (EJ22, 5-speed, AWD) -- winter car, 3-seasons "don't feel like biking today" car

049 > 070 > 053 > 009

[Captain Spalding]

[Towel Rail]