1960 VW Beetle - Bagged

Look at it like this :

If your budget allows do it.

Its better to have it and have that piece of mind. Than wishing you had done it and have it come loose and tear up something.

I always had it on any engine I built larger than 1641.

Eric - did you mean to add a link? I dont see it. JB

I think your carbs will be fine for your set up. I would do the 8 pin if you can afford to (thats what I am doing) but you don't have to. Who is going to do the machine work for you and how much? We can do it at our shop if you don't have somebody already.

Gary - I haven't decided on a machine shop yet. I thought about taking it to Hurrell's but they close at 5pm and I get off work at 5:30 pm so it limits when I can get there. I thought about Pro-Flow Performance which is just down the road - I'll probably have the same issue with getting there before they close. If your shop can handle it, it will actually work out better because I can run over there on my lunch break. Is the shop open tomorrow? If so, I am going to come by during lunch.

I was reading back over my "How to Rebuild and Aircooled Engine" book on align boring. It says that an align bore is only necessarily when the saddles get out of round and when the bearings don't seat in the saddles. If that is the case, I don't need the align bore. The saddles are discolored but the new bearings that were in the case and on the crank, seat well. One of the saddles has a hump down the center that matches up with the oil passage around the circumference of the bearing.

So what I need is:
- Case cut for a 1776
- Heads cut for 1776
- Rebuild the heads.

On the flywheel and crank, if I go with the 8 dowel, I might purchase the the $30 tool and do it myself depending on the price of having it machined. Or I might just pickup a new lightened 8 dowel flywheel at CIP http://www2.cip1.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=ACC-C10-5096. Trying to get it before the end of the day on Wednesday while they are still running the 15% off sale. I think that I am going to go with a stage 1 clutch plate: https://www2.cip1.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=C13-4080 and disk: https://www2.cip1.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=ACC-C10-5132

Eric - when you get back on - let me know what you were talking about in your earlier post. It is missing the link or whatever you were trying to indicate.

Thanks,

Yep we will be there tomorrow. We can do all of the work for you if you want. We just did a block for a guy before Christmas. We cut it for the 1776 and full flow. Just come by and talk to Bobby.

Jason

I was just meaning look at your options

If you truly do not know the history of that case , have it machined. Not only aligned bored but the thrust needs to be done as well. This is where most of your wear is going to be found. The engine has been rebuilt before and if the brgs are all standard in there then it sounds like to me that some one just put new brgs back in. (not recomended) The main brg. which has the thrust on it takes a licking beeing the first brg. behind the flywheel. To much wear or end play will beat the brg. and/or case out here.

If you are spending this type of money then spend a little more and do it right !!

Aligned bored and thrust cut. !!!!


I have built many engines in my past and I treat each one like I am doing surgery. I have never cut coners . I am still driving one in my German Look that has 75,000 plus miles on it and still going strong. The convert I have for sale for my father n law has one in it as well.

Eric - Dropped it off at Gary's shop today. It is being flycut and align bore to .020 etc. I need to verify the thrust cutting though. We did not talk about it - I just assumed it was included with the align bore if needed.

I picked up the metal from Hurrell's on Friday. Today (Saturday), I started work on the first piece to get rid of the suicide doors and get them back to normal.

Starting point.


This is with the driver's side striker plate area cut from the car.


Bad metal on the left. Good metal on the right. I took the sandblaster to the replacement piece to clean off the rust and paint. I did a little welding warm-up on the bad piece. You might be able to see it in the picture. I am far from an expert welder as you will see in the forthcoming pics. I need a lot more practice.


New piece held in place with magnets so that I can tack-weld it in.


Tacked in. As you can see I did not cut the new piece perfectly. Which means a lot of welding and filling in the voids with the molten wire. That all translates to lots of grinding. I hate grinding.




Grinding


More grinding - did I tell you I hate grinding?


This is how I left it. More grinding to do sometime next week. I'm going to try my best to cut the next section for a better match so that I don't have to fill with molten steel and then grind, grind and then grind some more. Do anyone know of a good base filler to put over welds that will fill pin-holes etc?

Looking good man! Grinding is always a pain. It's loud and your hands shake for hours afterwards. It's bad enough on flat surfaces, but you had some tight corners to get into there! Great Job.

Did you remove the back seat before or after you burned it?

71_georgia_beetle wrote:Did you remove the back seat before or after you burned it?

Nice!

I removed it to get the rear panel out with my speaker in it so the magnet does not catch debris. I don't care about the covering on the seats or carpet. They are all to be replaced.

Looking good. Looks like you are moving along pretty good. Are you painting it back the same way when your done or are you going a different route?

I'm going to eventually repaint the entire car - keeping the sides white. For the majority of the paint it will either be metal flake blue (like it is now), a bright chrome-like green or bright candy yellow with metal flake. I don;t know yet. I already decided to do a light tan leather interior.

Nice grinding Jason
Seeing that you like it so much, I will call you when I'm ready to grind

I spent a little time on the striker area again today. After I finished grinding I found some areas where the metal was thin so I went back over it with the welder again. I put the first coat of body filler on it and sanded it down with 60 grit. Then I hit it with some high-build primer and left it at that for today. I need to put another coat body filler and then do some find sanding next time I can get to it. Here is a picture of how she looks now...

Nice work!

Looks good, grinding and paint can make a novice weld look perfect

Got my engine case back from the machine shop this week. It was align bored and had the cylinder openings cut to 90.5 mm for a 1776 CC engine. This picture was just before using engine degreaser and then hot dish-soap water to remove all grease.


Engine case painted with high-temp ceramic flat-black paint and then mounted on the engine stand.


Here the case sits ready to accept the crank and cam.


Here is my new 69mm counter weighted crank. I couldn't get the cam drive gear all the way on using the heat trick. I'll have to take it to the shop this week to get it pressed on.

Looks good.
I got the carbs today They actually sent me the 44's instead of the 40's.

I have a press at my shop, if you would like a freebie i could do it for you... unless your getting it done free anyway, 404-825-6205 call if you want it done I live in douglasville now so you could drop it off ill take it to work and have it all done in less than 24 hrs, so if you dropped it off today you will have it tomorrow nlt 1630 but probably earlier... since we work so hard

Thanks for the offer. However, Eric Knotts is going to help me pull it off and try again to get it on. I'll let you know if that does not work out.

Thanks,

Jason

Hey Jason, Where did you get the Crank and what did it cost you? I want to install a counter weighted crank. It looks like I'm up for a engine build also, Darn!!

This is where I got it: http://www2.cip1.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=C15-10692

Thanks, most of my car came from CIP. Some of their stuff is low quality though. Looks like my 1776 w/dual 40 IDF Webers will run me close to $1800. That includes a lot of extras, nice header/ muffler the dual carbs, etc.

This past Saturday...

Eric Knotts from Dripin' Drivers helped me get my Cam & Distro gears on my crank.

Eric heating up the cam gear for my engine crank for installation.


Installing the gears onto the crank.


Got the crank assembled. I test fit it in the case and I have minor rubbing on one of the lobes on the inside of the case. I am going to have to take some material out of the case with a angle grinder or something to make it clear. I got a couple of the rods on wrong. I need to take them off anyway to fix the rubbing issue on the inside of the case.


I resprayed the case this time with semi-gloss ceramic black engine paint. I had flat black on but it is more likely to show grease smudges etc. Looks much better to.