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SS100 "replica" Kit Kar
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Ulu
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 26, 2020 10:51 pm    Post subject: SS100 "replica" Kit Kar Reply with quote

Hello Sambanistas and Sambanastoids. Wink Welcome to Ulu's Garage.
We're remodeling a bit, and it's clogged up, but I recently pushed the hardware, lumber, furniture and tools aside to make room for this.
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This historically inaccurate "replica" of a 1937 SS100 Jaguar is from Antique and Classic Automotive Inc, of upstate New York. Anyhow, it's been defunct since about 1995.

This car is a total joke. It goes like crazy, but every bolt is loose. Half are simply missing. Also several brackets are nowhere in sight. It's like he builder gave up. Yet somehow it became a running car, that launches like a scalded cat, but shakes like a wet dog when the front suspension settles back down. Thankfully, it only appears to have been driven in parades and shows, as it only has 366 miles since construction. Anyhow it's not all cracked, and it's not very faded either, like it's been covered most of its life.

So WTF is Ulu? I'm a retired computer guy. I built a computer kit in the 1968, and went to engineering school. I designed trusses, and aluminum extrusions, but was mainly in structural engineering. I designed tools, ran welding and fab jobs, programmed machines etc. I've had a variety of 24 vehicles, and modded every one somehow. I still own 7, so would be car poor if they all ran. one is in parts, one is in storage, and then there is this:

This is only my second VW project (my first being a '66 fastback I hopped up back in the 80's). It seems to be a 1973 type 1 pan, but beam, trans, column might be 1974. Engine code is '73 type 1
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Back in 1973 I was working at a VW shop, between semesters at USU. I built some engines and worked on a few buggies, but it was mostly an engine exchange shop for stockers. This one appears to be 1600 dualport with 'full IRS, balljoint beam, and drums. Nice new carb. Electric pump. Lots of pep still in this one, but the breather tube is missing, and it wants vapor recovery.
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In those days, I was fixing all sorts of cars and motorcycles, and doing some custom paint. My family had 7 vehicles, and I was responsible for keeping them greased and oiled too. Dad was grateful, and he bought me a used Yamaha, and an ailing MG midget, and a '66 Ford project in the early '70's. Also I learned to wire a car, and the fellow who did this one sure could have used my help.
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It's not just with wiring. The messy wiring is just the tip of an iceberg of things wrong with this car.

If you give a monkey unlimited life time, and an unlimited supply of blue quik-taps, will he eventually put one on every wire in the universe?
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My dad hated tire shops, because they never clean the wheels right. I used to clean and repaint his rusty wheels. I had a bicycle pump and a bead breaker set and a mallet, and a gallon of rubberlube. At 65 y.o. I can still do a tire by hand.

This car has nice 2010 date code tires on it, and foofoo wheel covers. They gotta go! It has a pretty good pan with just slight evidence of rust at the passenger's toeboard. Except the seats are in the pan's back seat.
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When this car arrived on the trailer it was running but leaked gas, so I only drove it one block. The gas had got into the carpet, so I removed the whole interior.

More on that iceberg:
Adding to the excitement of driving a car from the floor of the back seat (the seats are low...) is the fact that the wheelbase is extended with a welded appliance that bolts in place of the front beam axle, then the axle bolts to it. This increases wheelbase by about 13.5".
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Somehow this makes the steering a bit slower, but more predictable. It increases the turn radius, but it's a total gas to drive. In fact, I've always wanted a car of this style, and the few minutes I actually drove it were the happiest I remember in recent history.

But this baby is a flexible flyer, even if you don't count that all 4 bolts on that frame extender were loose! You can tell when you jack it that it's just not all there. also the front stabilizer bar is still on, and the front torsion bars are stock AFAICT. This is making the front suspension pretty rigid.

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Is this the brake buzzer?
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Ulu
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 27, 2020 12:38 am    Post subject: Re: SS100 "replica" Kit Kar Reply with quote

This car came with a cheap non-foam fuel cell, (already removed in my photos) and a seeping AN fitting arrangement, but the thing that doomed the carpets and pad was gas sloshing thru a bad gasket on the Wisco fuel cap.

The dealer filled the gas to the top, then put it on a trailer where the car was nose-high. 2200 miles later we were lucky the thing didn't burn. Look back at the wiring!

When I climbed in this car to put it into my garage, I smelled the gas, but I thought it was cold and the choke was stuck, or the delivery driver had just flooded it, but there was raw gas in the battery box and in the tunnel too.

The wiper switch was loose in the dash and it jiggled as I started the engine.

Later I would find the broken switch, with the hot lead from the wiper motor non-insulated by some drooping, ancient tape, mm away from the bare column support bracket. It might have made a grand spark If I'd hit the wrong bump.
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Ulu
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 27, 2020 12:57 am    Post subject: Re: SS100 "replica" Kit Kar Reply with quote

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Ulu
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 27, 2020 12:59 am    Post subject: Re: SS100 "replica" Kit Kar Reply with quote

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Ulu
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 27, 2020 1:00 am    Post subject: Re: SS100 "replica" Kit Kar Reply with quote

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The undertail "structure".
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Ulu
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 27, 2020 1:02 am    Post subject: Re: SS100 "replica" Kit Kar Reply with quote

Are you folks laughing yet? See those bolts? That stereo job?

I'm still laughing.
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(not a video)
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vwracerdave
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 27, 2020 9:49 am    Post subject: Re: SS100 "replica" Kit Kar Reply with quote

Really nice vehicle and I'm sure would be a joy to drive.

The main problem with those type of kit car is that the engine compartment are all an enclosed box with absolutely no ventilation. The body kits were never engineered correctly to give the air-cooled VW engine a healthy chance to survive. While driving all the heat stays contained inside the engine box. All the heat from the exhaust is recirculated around the engine. The normal life expectancy of the engine is less than 5000 miles because of severe overheating issues. You need fresh air intake louvers so the engine has a chance to survive.
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BL3Manx
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 27, 2020 9:51 am    Post subject: Re: SS100 "replica" Kit Kar Reply with quote

That really does sound like a blast to drive.

That long hood and big grill just cry out for a Jag XK6 engine up front.

Get that one safe and reliable and drive it.

In the mean time, find an old 50s-60s Jaguar chassis, drive train and wire wheels, go through it front to back and then swap the SS100 body on it.

I think there's a guy in Selma with everything, but lots of old Jags in California
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Ulu
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 27, 2020 12:14 pm    Post subject: Re: SS100 "replica" Kit Kar Reply with quote

Jaguar? Oh heavens No! I don't want it any more of a Jaguar than the cat on the hood. Maybe a Supra or similar. I'm not putting rare parts on this car.

No wires either. I watched my LF MG wire wheel pass me on the inside, going up a canyon road once. I crawled into the passenger seat and drove it on 3 wheels to a dead stop. Didn't even bend the backing plate when it dropped at zero MPH. Then I had to retrieve my wheel and nut from the forest.

It wasn't too long, but the splines took over an hour to dress off with a screwdriver and buck knife, before the wheel would go back on. I literally chamfered the hub with a rock. I don't wanna have knockoff nightmares!

This will be a custom, because it is already. It's no replica, in any sane sense of the word.

It may not stay a VW. Imagine that Krome ABS grille shell gone and replaced by a big V twin, Morgan style, right up front, so the leaking oil lands in your face. LOL I've imagined a Morgan type project for years, but my wife would die if I did that.

@vwracerdave

I'm cool on the cooling issues. This one has an oil temp gage, but not too much ventilation with the cover on.

I will likely do several things to improve airflow, including ventillating the cover. First, it needs all the heaterbox junk scrapped pronto. I ordered j-tubes to patch the borla-style add-on exhaust. The air intake may get a boot and remote inlets, and the engine house needs plenty of attention for structure etc.

I don't know how loose this engine really is. I drove it 1 mile like a slot car, not having more than 60 seconds of warmup. But I think it's got 366 miles on it without a breather hose, so sucking dirt the whole while. The air filter wasn't sealed either, so sucking at its breather tube.

Anyhow I launched it as hard as possible thru 1st and second and it wound right up to it's max RPM twice without blowing up. It was do or die for that engine. The clutch was like new. Smile I was suitably impressed.

In my mind the VW running gear will need improvement, but may yield to the water cooled world in the end.

I also once owned a brand new 1600cc Subaru . . . Wink . . . we live in the desert . . . There's this thing called an Aspencade . . . see I want it to stay boxer rear engine. The worlds most exotic cars are all rear engine. I can accept running coolant. Maybe.

But for now the engine is the least of issues.
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Ulu
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 27, 2020 11:06 pm    Post subject: Re: SS100 "replica" Kit Kar Reply with quote

I started to say something about my Dad hating tire shops, and I dumped it all

Dad hated them, because they never cleaned the wheels well enough for him.

I recall some magazine laughing about the M Benz service manual that recommended stripping and repainting the wheels when mounting new tires.

I did it for Dad by hand, with a bicycle pump, tire irons, a bead breaker set, a mallet, baby powder, and a gallon of rubberlube. I stripped his wheels and repainted them, and mounted a new set of Armstrongs. More than once, and ditto my own cars.

It's a filthy job, but anybody not willing to get filthy for what they want isn't a mechanic on the most necessary level.
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Ulu
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 27, 2020 11:29 pm    Post subject: Re: SS100 "replica" Kit Kar Reply with quote

BTW, the whole car seems to sit crooked in the back. I think they hit the edge of the ramp loading/unloading, because the rear subframe is bent up at both ends. I need to straighten it up pronto, as it's warping the body.

It's clear in this photo.
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It's sort of fortunate they didn't anchor the body better. This could have ripped the body up.
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 28, 2020 4:28 am    Post subject: Re: SS100 "replica" Kit Kar Reply with quote

Great project and great looking car!

As Dave said, make triple sure the engine compartment is completely sealed so that no air from below and behind the engine can re-circulate. Then vent the top of the engine compartment sufficiently So that the cooling fan is not starved for air. The further forward you can get these vents the better. The back of the engine cover in the least desirable place as it will bring in road dust and hot air from underneath the car.

Yes it looks like a very fun car to drive!
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 28, 2020 4:05 pm    Post subject: Re: SS100 "replica" Kit Kar Reply with quote

oprn wrote:
Great project and great looking car!

As Dave said, make triple sure the engine compartment is completely sealed so that no air from below and behind the engine can re-circulate. Then vent the top of the engine compartment sufficiently So that the cooling fan is not starved for air. The further forward you can get these vents the better. The back of the engine cover in the least desirable place as it will bring in road dust and hot air from underneath the car.

Yes it looks like a very fun car to drive!


Thank you . . . please read on.

From my spare tire thread:

oprn wrote:
The engine lid on that car is not authentically correct anyway so why not mount the spare back there? I think it would look all right.


The truth is I was considering a system where a spare tire is attached to a tip-up chrome luggage rack (anchored to the frame structure on the tail of the car) concealing a high powered ventilation fan with a thermostat, that would blow air forcefully through the engine compartment. We could certainly have an air filter.

There could be multiple fans. I do have room for some enormous custom housing with oversized fan, as well as lots of ductwork under the body (being that there was a large space between the transaxle and below the bodywork.)

But don’t color me finished just yet because there are other ideas percolating in my brain. This car is not gonna have any heater or heater ducts, & the shroud is going to need some custom tin and rubber to deal with the engine compartment size itself.

But I too would like to have the air intakes as far forward as possible and that means some kind of a ductwork unless I want the intake right behind my ears. Actually there was nothing on the back of the speakers when I took them out and these speaker holes now communicate directly from my ear to the Volkswagen intake Venturi!

Right now most of the air is going to come right through the wheel wells, which do not seal to anything anywhere.
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 28, 2020 4:19 pm    Post subject: Re: SS100 "replica" Kit Kar Reply with quote

Several people have told me I was an idiot for buying this car, but others have asked about buying one.

I do not know how many were manufactured 40 years ago, but I do know the A & C A, Inc.of Buffalo NY, downsized and moved either HQ/Sales or operations (or both) to a smaller town near by. They made other styles which may be even less known. The company changed hands and vanished AFAICT.

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I was so lucky to get the complete assembly manual, which shows how to build a really inferior car (a level that mine doesn't even meet) but I'm thrilled to have it.

I am also almost as thrilled for this included 19th ed. of John Muir.

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I got a 1974 owner's manual, which may be because this was a late '73 or just the wrong manual.
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 28, 2020 6:25 pm    Post subject: Re: SS100 "replica" Kit Kar Reply with quote

TV trivia time . . . Rolling Eyes What TV commercial said, "The closer you get, the better we look"?

Probably 50 years ago . . .? Well I can't recall offhand myownself, but they were not talking about my car.

Is this spring stock? I can't recall...It holds the cover up, so it's can't be right.
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The loose cover was secured by fine synthetic carpet.

Wherever I look, I start to laugh. It leaks a little oil. It's missing screws from the tin.


As I look closer, I laugh harder. The entire length of the tail rests right on the muffler! Tight, and full contact.

Clearly, nobody ever ran this car long enough to burn the shine off the finish. Also, fiberglass is a much better insulator than steel. But it still burns.

The exhaust needs cutting back, and I will have to re-weld it once the j-tubes arrive. This has borla-style cross-flow oval cannister add-on exhaust, and still has heaters and flappers, and I forget what that duct is on the front of the shroud.

There's lots of room for air ducts and I'm cogitating on where the air comes from. I am considering bringing it back thru hollow steel running boards. Right now, wood supports the fiberglass off the steel subframing.
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Ulu
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 28, 2020 6:49 pm    Post subject: Re: SS100 "replica" Kit Kar Reply with quote

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Lots of open space and not a single brace from VW body mount to body.
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 28, 2020 7:02 pm    Post subject: Re: SS100 "replica" Kit Kar Reply with quote

I have determined that the engine cannot come out with the muffler on, and the muffler can't come off with the body on.

I must pull the engine house off. There's no connectors for the wiring, but I was going to re-mount the tail lights anyhow. Time to fish or cut bait.
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 29, 2020 4:29 am    Post subject: Re: SS100 "replica" Kit Kar Reply with quote

No that spring on the shifter coupler is not stock.

Yes the engine compartment needs to be re-designed to separate the upper and lower air streams. I would say that design has never been intended to be anything more that a show/parade car.
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 29, 2020 5:57 am    Post subject: Re: SS100 "replica" Kit Kar Reply with quote

At the back I think the first order of business is to figure out a sanitary way to make the entire trunk box either hinge up or slide up and off of rails or slide up and off of pins. Probably an up and off scheme will be the only thing that works as the bumper will make any hinge setup a problem.

Or a combination of slide up on rails until the lower part of the body will clear the bumper then hinge upward. This would be the slickest setup. Not really hard to implement. Needs up locks to keep it from bashing you in the head on windy days ( voice of experience speaking here ).

Then once you have easy access to the whole top of the motor things will be much easier to deal with.
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 29, 2020 8:32 am    Post subject: Re: SS100 "replica" Kit Kar Reply with quote

oprn wrote:
No that spring on the shifter coupler is not stock.


I have a feeling that someone put it there because the transmission was jumping out of reverse. So far I’ve only driven it about 10 feet in reverse,But I was going very slow and there was no problem.

I cleaned up the shift yoke and reassembled it, And the shifter seems to work just fine, With the car up on jacks. The shaft bushing in the front of the transaxle is a little bit worn and like an idiot I didn’t order a new one. I think it will be OK for now.
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