Crackin the seal...

It's been a while since I've blogged on the oval, but it's been getting plenty of driving action. I've been on an extended leave of sorts and I've been cruising all over the place. For the most part it's been really, really nice.

However today's tail is of the other sort... although I guess all's well that ends well... in a way.  I've been down to visit my brother this weekend in Goulburn. I'd been invited down to play a gig with his band. The plan was to leave on friday, before the weather got too hot. The forecast was for 37degC so I was keen to get going asap to keep the engine temp down.

I'd got up early on friday morning and set the tappets before I got going. I thought about replacing the tappet cover seals, but I've had no dramas with them before so I left it. I hit the freeway and all was well. There was the faint smell of oil, but I didn't think anything of it. All of a sudden, the engine started losing power. I pulled over near the Picton exit. The passengers side tappet cover was dropping oil and it was all over the underside of the car and back guard.

Needless to say I wasn't happy...

I pulled it off and tried to seal it up. No dice. As soon as I started the car again, it leaked terribly. So I filled the motor with oil again and limped into Picton hoping to find some gaskets. The autoparts shop was helpful, but they had nothing but gasket cork sheet and silastic sealant.

I was kicking myself all over the place. Coz as per usual, I had at least 4 gaskets at home sitting in the draw, but none with me. So here I was parked in a gravel carpark lying on the ground in 35degC heat. I managed to cut a seal out of gasket sheet and silasticed the whole thing back together. Thankfully it sealed fine once it set and I was able to run the motor without leaks... which brought me to the next issue.

The car had too much oil in it.

I'd put too much in it before leaving the side of the freeway. I crawled under the car in the gravel and started loosening the sump plug. I figured if I could get it to drip a little into a rag, I could drain enough to bring the oil level down under the top mark. But no, life doesn't work that way.

The sump plug came out.

I was scrabbling around in the rag trying to grab the plug and stick it back in as fast possible. Amazingly, it went back in post haste. Even more amazingly, the level was exactly on the second mark when I checked it again. So after a short conversation with an interested retiree, I was back on the road.

Along with the heat, I had another surprise. Headwinds.

As I was filling up at Bundanoon, I turned the car back on to find the oil light flashing a little at idle. Hmm, not good. The car is already using 40w70, ie. the heaviest oil I could buy. I knew it only meant one thing. The motor was flogged.

Great. Would I make it?

So I plunged on trying to do 55mph and not over do it. I knew there were a bunch of nasty hills. Third gear and patience. The closer I got to Goulburn the bigger the headwind got.

It was a relief when I got there...

The weekend and the gig went well. However, in the back of my mind was the certainty that I might have dramas on the way home. I started the car on Saturday morning to here some rod knock until it warmed up a little. It didn't sound real good.

How would I get home? 

My brother, his wife and I discussed it. If I broke down before Pheasant's neast, they'd come get me. If I made it beyond that, I'd get a friend from Sydney. But really that was worst case scenario. 

What I really needed was perfect conditions for engine temp and load.

The weather forecast was looking promising. 18degC, South-westerly wind. Just for a laugh we threw a few of these in the passenger seat. Although really, if I had this issue again, I'd been calling the NRMA or someone with a tilt-tray.

So I climbed in the car and prayed. Then I topped the tank (98 octane) and prayed again. The first 20km were torture. I pulled over and checked the motor and nothing was leaking. Sure, it didn't sound awesome, but it seemed fine.

In reality, the south-westerly wind literally blew me home in ideal conditions. When I got near Sydney, the wind changed to an Easterly and it blew me the rest of the way home. In the end, the trip took just over 2 and half hours and consumed just over half a tank.

I don't want to sound twee or stupid, but I really had to thank God. There is no other way to account for such mild weather conditions and tail winds at just the right time in just the right places. Especially at this time of year. By rights it should have been 30degC again.

So, another adventure in driving... and praying. It's amazing what an old car will do for your spiritual life.

And yes, I'll be taking tappet cover gaskets in future.

Take a seat - Part 5

Time to do some more work on the seat. After a few measurements, I decided I needed to find out if the seat base was going to be wide enough for my hips (kind of crucial). So I sat on the floor and scratched marks either side of my bum on the ground with a screw. Phew, exactly right!

So I drew myself a drawing and headed off to Bunnings for supplies...

After umming and ahhing a bit, I came home with a few wire wheel type devices and a sheet of 9mm plywood. All this was mostly paid for with some old gift cards.

I would have bought steel, but Bunnings now doesn't stock any raw (un-galvanized) steel beyond 1" square tube (painted blue), which was useless to me. So I headed to Masters on the way home and found this...

What we have here is 3m lengths of 40x5mm and 32x3mm flat bar. I had originally wanted some 20mm tube, but I'm happy I didn't buy that now. This is particularly helpful coz Bunnings is miles away and Masters is just round the corner.

The next trick was a lot of grinding old paint and rust off the frame before welding. It was considering beginning welding when it occured to me that it would be a lot harder to trace the seat base and back on the plywood once I'd welded them together...

Hmm, good thinking Sherlock. So after some jigsawing and sanding, I was left with this...

I'm pretty happy now that I cut these out before I started welding for another reason. I'd forgotten just how stiff 9mm plywood is. I know this because a few years back I build a lightweight speaker box out of 7mm. I remember being astounded at just how much stiff the 9mm ply was. The back timber will be recessed into the frame, but the seat schwab sits on the top of the frame.

I did this for two reasons;
1. It's going to need every bit of support it can get with 95kg sitting on it.
2. I want as much width as I can get for my hips.

For those of you thinking, 'that's gonna be a pretty hard seat', you're absolutely correct. What I'll need to factor into my supports and foam is enough support to avoid breaking, but not too much so the ply can flex just a little.

Finding the right foam at the right price will be another challenge. Hmm...

Take a seat - Part 4

I have too many project. There I said it...

Still, like many things in life, project management is a matter of chipping away at things. A bit at a time. So lately I've been playing around with the seat when I have a few minutes.

The first thing that became obvious was, it was bent...

I've realized that this is a common problem on seats of this era. Get a heavy driver and the door side part of the seat back bends backwards warping the whole frame. In my case, it had bent back so far that the lower tube in the seat back had broken off at the weld. I think this car had also been in an accident, so that wouldn't help.

The first thing I did was bend back the tabs and throw the old back springs in the bin. I wasn't using them again. Although I have to say, they were well attached. The lower tube was pretty rusty though, so I just cut it off. It was already fatigued, why keep it?

I had a few goes at straightening things. The first go included a butane torch, but not much success. In fact the only thing I did successfully was burn one of my knees quite badly when I brushed the hot metal.

I gave up on the torch and spent a while trying to figure out where it was warped. Again, had no success with that. A friend of mine said, "maybe it's just twisted in the corners". She was right. Literally 30 seconds in the vice and a bit of a twist got it straight again.

With that all done, I was left with all the tabs and hooks that hold the springs and upholstery on to the seat. I'm not going to be using them and I knew they get in the way, so I drilled out the spot welds and knocked them all off with a drift and a lump hammer.

This took an hour or so and the welds on the back had much better penetration than on the base, so there's still a little cleaning up of things to do. But basically, I'm left with this...

Two tidy frames with all the hooks gone ready for fabbing up braces and the like. I should say I was pretty impressed by the quality and strength of the seat bass. VW really had their act together. I know the temptation is to invent new seat bases for aftermarket seats, but I'd advise against this. The factory seat base is very good.

So this is where it all begins in a way. Now, how to get from my nasty old seat base to this style of seat from a 56' Ferrari?

The temptation is to over-engineering things. By that I mean create something is better than factory, better than period, and better than a million bomber seats I see on the interwebs. So I need a few criteria to begin with. To get them I should ask this question...

It's the late 1950s, what would a club racer build in his backyard? 

Or better still...

What COULD a club racer build in his backyard?

This rules out a bunch of things; no CNC, no Complex sheet metal, no shiny powdercoating... If I wanted to be strict, I'd get rid of the MIG welder and braze it together, but I think I can get over myself there. So I think it's something like this...

1. As few welds as possible.

2. As little extra metal as possible.

3. Keeping the majority of the factory frame and fittings.

4. Strategic bracing.

5. Plywood backing for the back and schwab.

6. Maybe some speed holes, but nothing ostentatious.

7. Most of the structure hidden under the covering. 

So, with all that in mind, let the games begin!

Trailing behind - towing with 25rwhp

A few years ago my father in law offered us his camping gear. My inlaws are in their early 70s now and hadn't camped in a long time. In fact the last time their canvas tent came out before we inherited it was around 1985... and it still was water proof after more than 20 years in storage!

Along with the camping gear came their old camping trailer.

I don't mind telling you I've been lusting after this little beasty for some years. I had plans of putting larger offroad style tyres on it to tow behind my old dunebuggy. I'm glad I didn't now coz it fit's the oval's profile like a glove.

My father in law built it some time in the late 60s/early 70s. It came as a kit in the UK. He built it and then used it to tow the aforementioned tent all over Western Europe. Spain, France, Belgium all had visits from it at different times behind different cars. Austin 1800s, Morris Minors, etc, etc. When the family moved from Manchester to Sydney, he packed it full of tools and stood it upright in the shipping container. So you could say there's some family mojo in the old thing.

It's not the roomiest trailer in the world, but it is super light and reasonably weather proof. Our diesel wagon barely feels it, the oval is another story but I'll get onto that later. You get a good idea for the room of it below.

As you might know, I'm a pastor. Each year we run what we now call "Mancamp". It's a camp for any male from the school age upwards. It used to be called 'boys and dads', then 'boys and blokes', but the point is we want to take guys away for the weekend and do guy stuff. We build weapons, burn things, catch yabbies and eat hideous hot chilli con carne and way too much bacon. This year my wife needed our wagon so I needed to take the oval... plus a whole stack of other stuff. So I started hatching a plan.

What if I could take the trailer behind the oval this year?

A while back I bought an oldschool tow bar for a beetle off eBay. What I didn't have was the support bar to go in between. So thursday (my day off) I spent most of the day fabbing up the barwork til I had this...

By 11pm that night I had the wiring mostly right as well. Friday I was planning to leaving about 1:30pm. A quick testdrive revealed dramas with tow-balls and fanbelts.

By 3pm I had it sorted so we loaded up and drove to get some fuel... which was when the battery total gave up the ghost. Seriously. The autoparts guys said, "not you again!".

It reminded me so much of these guys... on Roadkill.

I told the boys, "ok, so NOW we're on an adventure". After we'd run up the road (literally) from Seven-Eleven to buy and fit a new battery, we were fueled and aired up and ready to go. So the trip out to Picton began. I was still having the odd wiring issue, but we had indicators and some tail-lights and it was still light so all good.

So what's it like to tow a trailer with a 25 rear wheel horsepower beetle?

Umm, I think the best word to use is, "Slow". I could have used the freeway for part of the trip but I thought better of it. I stuck to the back roads and tried to take our time. We were already 4 hours late so why rush now right?

I've compiled a list of things that are your friend. Some may surprise you...

Things that are your friend when towing with an underpowered car.

1. 98 octane petrol
The biggest enemy in all towing is HEAT. My engine is supercharged. Anything that can lower the heat during burn will help. Which brings me to the next friend.

2. Cool temps
I could feel the car was pretty warm as we were driving along. It wasn't unhappy exactly. It was working harder than usual, but not complaining a lot. It smelt oily. In the cool night air. I wouldn't want to do it on a 35deg day is what I'm saying.

3. Three quarters throttle
Now this was the thing that surprised me. The temptation when hitting a big hill was to drop the hammer and flog it up the hill. But lets face it. The motor is already tired. On the way to camp it was pulling about 200-300kg more than usual. What I found was, by giving it 3/4 of the throttle it was slow, but it wouldn't get anywhere near pinging. You'd also get 95% of the power, but without the extra stress.

4. Third gear
If you got below about 50mph, you need third gear. Sure, you can leave it in fourth but it just slows more and gets hotter faster. So, back to third, be patient and 3/4 throttle.

5. Medium speed country road
The car was really at it's best doing between 45 and 65mph (yes, my speedo reads a bit too fast) on country roads. The trailer worked great at this speed too.

6. Downhill
I only really learnt this properly on the way home, but basically if you come across a downhill section, stay in the throttle. Coz the rules of physics tell you if something goes up, if must come down... or vice versa. So if you wanted any hope of getting up the next hill, you better commit to the one you're currently travelling down. By the end of the trip I was really enjoying this and learning how to work the hills to keep the momentum up and the motor cool.

Things that are not your friend when towing and underpowered car.

1. Suburban roads
Anywhere I drove where there was traffic and or 60km/h it sucked. The trailer might try to wag the car a little. The suspension didn't soak up the bumps. There was no momentum. Silverdale was the worst. Dead straight, 60km/h, pothole filled road. Yuck.

2. Big hills
There is a hill coming out of Walacia heading for Silverdale. And of course it was 60km/h too wasn't it. Three words. Second gear forever. Sad face.

Still we arrived at the camp eventually. And the new battery is AWESOME! When I arrived at the campsite I had to restart the car to blow up and airbed. All of a sudden it was running on 2 cylinders and had a nasty rattle on start up. Was that rod knock?! I was seriously concerned and feared I'd killed the motor. Turned out the bootlid was rattling and the plugs were a little fouled. A right foot tune up and it was purring again fine.

Today it was time to come home. Before leaving I checked the oil to find it had hardly lost a drop on the way up. That is a miracle! Started straight up and ran great. The ride home was a lot better. Much less weight in the trailer and a driver who knew what to expect. Again, I filled it up with 98 oct. Some cool tunes (Queens of the stoneage) and two very tired little boys.

We made it home in under an hour and enjoyed the drive. I have to say, I LOVE the sound of the homemade vintage speed pipes on the back.

And because it rained most of Saturday afternoon and evening, the car has also had a wash. lol.

Take a seat - Part 3 (the rethink)

Ok, so it hasn't quite worked out like I'd hoped. After all the dramas I had with the fibre glass, followed by the thought of spending over $100 on resin before I could hope to cover the seat... Well, let's just say I started re-thinking things.

Maybe I could fix the fibreglass on the old seat?

No, been there before. It's a dead loss and only good for a mould. Hmmm.

Maybe I could find a cheap, oldschool racing seat on ebay?

Again, been there. The only thing that looked similar was a speedway seat that was over $300 and needed lots of work. I still wasn't convinced it would work. Hmmm.

So the other night I was lying in bed finding it hard to sleep. I got to thinking about the whole seat situation. I tried to think out of the box. Maybe I could build something out of plywood using the base I have as a starting point. Or maybe some aluminium sheet instead. Either way, I'd need some sort of frame to attach either material to, to hold it in place.

Which was when it hit me. I already had a frame to attach it to!

The factory seat frame.

Sometimes I'm a bit slow. As I thought about it more, it was ideal. Strong, the right shape, pre-bent and welded. All it needs are few more members and some bracing.

I'm not sure if it will continue to fold forward. I suspect not. However, whatever way I go, this is more oldschool race than anything else. More hotrod, more outlaw racer.

Can't afford a fancy racing seat? That's ok. Pull apart the stock one. Cut it up, weld it up and recover it the way you want it.

The added bonus with this being it will look pretty close to stock and factory. Coz it is stock and factory.

Only I won't fall out of this one going round corners... seriously.

Roadtrip hits - Albums that survived 900km in one day

For some reason, I've never really got on board with iPods. So even though at one stage I had an MP3 player, it's long since died and our car stereo doesn't have an AUX input either...

So I take CDs on long trips.

We're also totally devoid of in-car DVD players. Yeah, I know, it's like sooo 1995, right? In fact our car doesn't even have a stacker so it's really oldschool. When I say our car, I mean our diesel family wagon. I hope that doesn't mean I'm straying from the bounds of our usual blog about the beetle, but forgive me... coz I think you'll find this entry interesting anyway.

Last week I drove home from the Gold Coast.

On the way up we split the trip by staying with family at Port Macquarie. However, we wanted to get home faster. So we drove all 900km on one day with three kids in the back seat. For 10 and a half hours... In fact the only times we stopped were to collect some lunch or swap drivers. We even ate in the car. The trip was pretty good and the kids were pretty well behaved.

I reckon our choice of music was part of the key.

I've got a few albums just sitting in the door that got a listen on the way up... but it was the following ones that really got us home I think. The top of the list was this, Jeff Wayne's 'The War Of The Worlds'.

My kids are 10, 8 and 5. They loved this double album. And I mean really LOVED it. My brother gave it to me as a present a few years back and it is without a doubt the best roadtrip album of all time. Great story, excellent vocal actors, music ahead of it's time, classic rock, freaky effects. It's got it all.

About 30 minutes after we got across the border from Queensland, my oldest started asking for it. And really, it's not hard to tell why. If half the things that happen in this were in a movie it would be MA rated for sure. As it is, it's more like an audio book with an amazing soundtrack. It also goes for over an hour, which in a long trip is a boon.

It kept me awake and the kids enthralled at the most difficult time of the day, 2:30-3:30pm.

My next most fave album from the trip home comes from one of my favorite bands of late. Seawolf. I discovered them via Noisetrade and downloaded half of this album for free. I loved it so much I ended up buying three albums via Seawolf's webstore.

Expansive, layered, cinematic and yet at the same time slightly vulnerable and folky. This album played through at least three times during the ten and half hour journey. Check out "Priscilla"...

The other album that got lots of play and singing along from the backseat was from a band I wouldn't have expected so much. I can't actually remember if we listened to it during the journey home, but during the entire holiday it was on high rotation.

Catchy, poppy and lots of fun. The kids were singing along in no time at all. It will stay in the car for sure.

There were however some failures.

At the top of the list was this album. "Once More 'Round The Sun" by Mastodon, their latest release in fact.

Now, let me start by saying, I LOVE Mastodon. They're my fave metal band recently. I saw them live in February and (even with a torn calf muscle that made me shuffle like an old man) I loved every minute of it. They are epic.

It's just that this album didn't work for us, and some coarse language on it didn't help.

I'd only picked it up a week before and to be honest, it's taken me a while to get my head around it. I'm sure once I'm more used to it, it will be fun driving music, but even at low volume it sort of hurt my head on the trip home. There are some catchy tunes on it the kids started singing along with, but much of it was too intense for the journey last week.

Anyhow, hope you get a chance to hear some of this stuff. Better yet, grab it all and take it on your next roadtrip. Let me know how you go!

Impossible jigsaw puzzles - the postscript

So, remember last time, when I told you the starter motor was buried at the back of my engine...

Werl, I was wrong.

Yes, I feel like a complete tool. Turns out it was right at the front and my mechanic gave me a vague description of where to find it. Also shows I don't know weird modern french cars.

Happy I didn't rip the exhaust off trying to get to it. Phew.

P.s. still doesn't change what I had to say about planned obsolescence though.

Impossible jigsaw puzzles

As you've probably worked out, I don't mind doing a little wrenching on cars. In fact, given the time and space I quite enjoy it.

But not today.

It's not wrenching or the time today. It's packaging. For a few reasons I wanted to have a quick look at the starter motor on my wife's car. It's not that the starter had died. Rather I wanted to check a few things and just make sure everything was as it should be before we go on holidays in the not too distant future.

EPIC fail.

I'm not a specialist when it comes to Peugeots. However, I'm usually able to identify the different parts and put my hand on connections and bolts when looking any car.

I say, "usually able", but not this time.

After an hour of pulling the battery out (which meant pulling the airbox out first), jacking the car up and climbing all over the front end. Fail. My usually mechanic told me it was on the back of the engine against the fire wall. I knew that.

All I could make out was 2 square inches of what I believe to be the mounting flange. That's it.

Heck, I'm still not even sure that it WAS the starter motor. It might have been something else, because it was buried behind a maze of exhaust manifolds, front subframes, pipes, wires and other assorted plastic junk.

 
Here's a pic of the top of the engine. Underneath is immeasurable worse.

Now I know French cars have a reputation for being a little kooky. Sometimes the kooky is 'good kooky'. But not in this case. When you have to pull the whole front end of the car to get to the starter that is BAD.

Don't get wrong, I understand packaging can be painful.

Prior to my current beetle, I built a dune buggy with a late model Subaru engine. I learnt a LOT of lessons about packaging, many of them I learnt the hard way. I also know that those crazy French car guys are used to packaging engines. In fact, a number of manufacturers have been known to make it hard to stop people taking them anywhere but the dealer service centres.

STOP IT!

Sorry, I don't usually get worked up, but the car is 8+ years old. The dealers don't really even want work on it now. Which brings us to another issue. What this all turns into is... Planned Obsolescence.

Planned Obsolescence really is a serious problem.

As the car gets older it needs more repairs, the more money it costs to fix a hard to maintain car. This means people will tend to throw the car away/wreck it, rather than fix it.

Frankly, it's TERRIBLE for the environment.

Here's the interesting thing about my beetle. Next to this Peugeot, it's like building mechano.

Really it is. Which is why I'm always shocked when people tell me they're hard to work on. Ok, sure, you have to bend down a little. However, you can still fix a beetle without owning a proper hoist or thousand of tools.

The upshot of this is EVERYONE fixes beetles.

For all that beetles are not common road vehicles these days, they will outlast our current car purely because they are like lego to work on. The sad thing is, in the mean time, millions of otherwise useful and fixable cars will be tossed aside like plastic coke bottles because...

They're impossible jigsaw puzzles.

Could it be that cars destroy our planet not by emissions and everything to do with pointless and avoidable waste?

Unexpected motorsport - the results

I opened my phone to find an email from the car club today. That meant just one thing...

RESULTS!

Now, of course, no one is racing for sheep stations (trophies), however, it's always good to see how you're going and how far off the pace the car was across the day.

Before you ask, no, I didn't win outright.

What I did post was a respectable 20th outright, and 10th in the most popular class on the day. I'm pretty happy with that. It put me a little over halfway up the field with another 22 competitors behind me (42 all up).

Here's a pic of the results...

The overall win was taken by a WRX that was pretty well driven. The next two places were taken by two great drivers in front wheel drives, both in my class.

The cool thing is that every car above me (and behind me) had at least double the power. Also, as you can see, my record is completely clean with no 'WD's or 'f's. It pretty clear that a good number of the drivers ahead of me would have done even better if they'd avoided flags and gone the right direction.

As far as pace, werl, the car seems to have little if any.

At best it was 6 seconds off the pace, which is not bad. However, mostly it was a whole 15 seconds or more slower than the fastest time. I guess the good news in this is, I can only go up from here in... and the car has already shown some improvement.

A quick phonecall to my engine builder today confirmed the new motor is still some way off. Oh well, I guess I'll have to work on other things til it's ready.

Unexpected motorsport

On Thursday, two days before the event, I noticed a facebook post announcing there were no places left at the skidpan motorkhana on Saturday.

Fantastic (sarcasm).

The only skidpan I could get to in months and I find out about it then. I vainly posted a request to keep me informed in case a spot became available at the last minute.

Yeah right. Like that was gonna happen. These events fill up super quick. :o(

Friday night, I was playing a fill in gig in a band on the other side of Sydney. To my surprise, the organizer texted me to let me know there was a space. Needless to say it wasn't a hard decision to make.

Woo hoo!

So on Saturday morning (after not enough sleep), I loaded a jack in the car and fueled up. I arrived 10 minutes before the end of scrutineering, but no dramas and I was ready to race. As per usual, there was a mix of cars there from a Lambo to WRXs, mirages, an evo, bimmers, skylines, MX5s, a boxster, a 180sx, a commodore, an early MR2 and even a Datsun 180b.

My beetle was by far the oldest, slowest thing on the paddock.

I was initially a little worried about blowing the car up, but I reasoned, "it's only 8 sets of 2 minutes". There wasn't much that could go wrong on a wet skidpan with no power.

The overall aim for the day was consistency.

The biggest concern in motorkhana trials is going the right way around the cones. After that, you want to make sure that you don't hit cones/flags or overshoot. Every cone you hit is an extra 5 seconds. The wrong direction (WD) means you get the slowest time plus and extra 5 seconds or so. Overshooting the stopping area is another 5 second penalty.

Hitting one or two cones, plus over shooting can push your time out by 15 seconds. Do that in a few tests and you're right off the pace... and way down the field. I spent much of the day trying to help a young guy in an overpowered skyline fix these sorts of problems.

So I worked hard on the basics.

After the first run, I tightened the handbrake cables and remembered I had to have my seatbelt super tight. This helped me to be able to throw the car better without falling out of the seat. I also found I couldn't get the car to slid unless I'd got into 2nd gear, speed wise.

What was letting me down (besides lack of power) were the 135 tyres on the front. I'd aired up the back 165s with 44psi in the morning leaving 32psi in the front. Even still, with the weight on back end, the front was scrabbling round and I could feel it struggling to hold on.

Here's my last run before lunch.

I learnt a few important things from this run. Firstly, I could push the car harder. Sure the front end was understeering slightly (a typical beetle trait), but the car wasn't ploughing or leaning over much, unlike a number of AWDs and FWDs on the day. Secondly, if you get up enough momentum coming into a tightening corner, the car will lift-off oversteer and you get off the throttle.

Normally that's what causes swingaxle cars to roll over, but the camber compensator stops that happening.

$100 well spent there. It also meant on the next test I could lift-off oversteer the car round the final cone without the handbrake or slowing down.

By halfway through the day I was consistently getting (a little) quicker while other drivers went the wrong direction or hit cones. I was trying to throw the car a little more and drive harder, but the 135s made that pretty useless, so I just got on with being as clean and neat as possible. The fact that I was getting consistent understeer also demostrates how much more confidence I had over the last skidpan session.

The other thing I noticed was the need to change back between 1st and 2nd gears at different times. I think more than anything it's a mark of the narrow power/torque band of the motor... and just how worn out it is.

The poor old thing just doesn't want to rev and it was blowing a little smoke all day.

After a big figure eight style test we finished up just on 4pm and headed home without hitting any cones, no over-shoots and getting the direction right in every test. By this time, people were starting to take notice of the car and even the own of the lambo remarked on how well the beetle was doing. This is one of the cool things that seems to be changed.

People love seeing the beetle compete.

A few people in the club were telling me a few months back it was inappropriate and the car was "too good" to race. That isn't happening anymore. Instead, they're genuinely pleased to see it out and being driven properly.

Many of them have a new respect for it I think.

At the same time, I'm hankering for more power. My new trans arrived freshly rebuilt this week. There are host of other new parts just waiting to go on the car. I'm really looking forward to getting them and the new motor in the car. Can't wait to see how much better it is on the skidpan with that.

Course the other thing I should probably looking into is fitting a front anti-roll bar and some better front tyres, like some decent 165s, hmm.

I'll be interested to see the results too...

Ok, I get it - Miles Davis & Peak hour driving

It's pretty clear from this blog that I like old things. Let me rephrase...

I LOVE old stuff.

What might surprise you is, there are various parts of old cars that I just don't get. In fact it's not just that I don't get them, I openly mock, disrespect and in some case, despise them.

I despise carburetors.

Sound like a weird thing to say, but I reckon carbs (and points) are the things that make old cars evil. They get junk in em, they foul, they wear, they ice up. They're fiddly and they're about as complicated as a toilet...

Of course I'm exagerating, but carbs as we know it do generally work, like a toilet.

The 'needle & seat' arrangement in the fuel bowl works in the same way a the valve in a toilet works. A float rises and stops the fuel bowl overfilling with fuel. While that happens, air rushing through the carb pulls fuel out through the 'jets' where it mixes with the air.

Sounds simple right?

And for the most part it is. The thing is, carbs are just not that efficient. They do a few things well but, unlike EFI, they can't be tuned properly across the whole rev range on any engine. They become an impediment. So I really hate them...

Well at least I did, until other day.

Sydney traffic is pretty awful these days. Peak hour lasts 2-3 hours. I found myself sitting on a 'motorway' for an hour and a half to do a trip that should have taken 30 minutes. All in a 60 year old car with around 25hp at the wheels and a piddly carburetor. Which is when it hit me...

"For modern traffic, this is all I need"

That's right. No heater, no air con, AM radio, 3 pedals, a gearshift and a steering wheel, and that's it. If I put big tyres on the back it would be similar to driving a tractor. Not once during the 90+min trip did the carburetor fail to deliver everything I needed to get home. Not once did I need to accelerate faster than the car could manage.

So Miles Davis was right.

During the heyday of 1950's motoring when my car was made, he created with a new form of Jazz that totally flew in the face of the music of the day. Spartan, open, less notes and yet every bit as effective as John Coltrane's supercharged bebop.

Less was more, than enough.

Why was I building a 120hp engine when this got me home without an issue? Why was I swapping over to EFI and intercooling when I couldn't have used it on this journey?

Needless to say, I felt like a tool... again.

Smog tests and modern regulations have killed the carburetor in the west. No doubt about that. But I am left wondering if we've done something silly in demanding systems we don't need to fix issues that didn't need fixing.

Sorry little carb, you are owed all my respect.

Course, the next morning I realized why I was building a newer stronger engine when I checked the oil. The current engine is drinking it like a camel at an oasis...

Apparently; less power = using more oil.

Oh well.

Personal space

I was just watching teev with my boys when I saw Honda's new add for the City model.

Apparently it's time to "reclaim your personal space".

To wit, a good chunk of the ad seems to be about fitting your new, "compact" Honda into difficult parking spaces. (The rest of it appears to be people buying a car to escape all manner of awkward situations where people invade aforementioned personal space.)

What an old idea the parking thing is.

Smart came up with a better solution about 20 years back with a car you could park nose first into the gutter. Mini before it had similar ideas... which have been the subject of many Mr Bean sight gags.

But really what I instantly thought was, I do that all the time...

Would you believe, motorcycle parking

The thing is, early beetles are very compact. I regularly park it in crazy small parking spots. (The one pictured above is super small hence me taking a pic.)

But they fit.

So Honda, stop pretending you invented compact. My 60yo leaves you for dead every day of the week (even if the oval rear window and blinds ruin rear vision).

By the way, try fitting a whole family in an Austin 7 some time. It was regarded as a 'compact' family car in it's day.

Sneaky stuff

So I call my mechanic/engine builder this morning to check on progress. He tells me the case and crankshaft are off getting machined and it will take a few weeks. After some discussion about boost levels and other details I ask...

"So which crankshaft did you end up using?"

He replied, "I can't tell you."

And we both roared with laughter. So who knows exactly what he has hidden up his sleeve there, but no doubt it will be pretty cool.

Sneaky, sneaky...

P.s. My new AB trans is also in the throws of getting rebuilt. Superdiff, billet sidecovers, strong internals. Should be good. Wanted a LSD but couldn't afford it. Oh well.

Winners, losers and well, lepers

When I was in my mid teens our family went to have lunch with the family of my youngest brother's friend. It was a slightly odd experience for us in a few ways. The family lived in a totally unfamiliar suburb. We hardly knew these people. And finally, myself and the other 'older' brothers were instructed to "watch yourselves and don't cause trouble" with extra comments like...

"This is for your younger brother." Whatever that meant.

As it turned out, there wasn't any great dramas coz the man of the house was a motorbike and car fan. So my twin brother and I wound him up and let him talk off all his years of motoring stories.

It was pretty cool.

At the centre of them was the fact that he had once worked for Leyland Australia. To be specific, he was there in the final days of Leyland and worked on this car.

The Leyland P76

The P76 is an interesting part of Aussie motoring history. It was 'computer designed', had a [shock horror] 'all alloy V8 engine' and heck, you could fit a whole 44 gallon drum in the boot (on purpose). But basically, it killed Leyland Australia. 

This poor guy we were talking to that afternoon was lamenting all the good things about the project, specifically the new sports coupe he helped design that never got finished but, "would have saved the project". He told us all the finer points of the car and at the time I believed him. But well, it was worse than a loser. 

It was a leper.

Not that's not to say that P76's didn't sell, coz they did. However, between the price of the development, the poor production and the low sales, it all fell apart. British Leyland hobbled on and died a similar death some years later in the UK.

The interesting thing for me is how unpopular P76's continue to be. Of course, there's an owners club. A few people have done them up and thrown stupid money at them to make some cool projects. Even still, whenever you see one on the street (like almost never) or at a show (more often) there are the snide comments, the pointing and laughing, the general atmosphere of the schoolyard victim.

I've got a mate who until recently owned an early (narrow light) Morris Minor. In fact, he'd owned it for many, many years. He's a church pastor and found it was a great way to strike up a conversation and get to know people in the community.

Until recently that is. Recently lots of people started making fun of the car and asking, "can it do a burnout" instead of just chatting. It got so bad that, as I said, he sold it. So the humble and dependable old 'Morrie' has gone from a quaint old machine to a total loser in just a few years. 

Weirder still is the next car. In so many ways, it should be a winner. It should command mass appeal and respect wherever it goes.

The Citroen 2CV. 

But it doesn't. The 2CV is a sort of automotive joke between the French and Ferdinand Porsche. The car was being designed at the same time as the VW beetle (or KDF wagen). In fact, if the engine was in the other end of the car, the 2CV would be a beetle. There are so many parallels. It had a long and effective production life, it was a true 'people's car', it's rugged and agricultural, it is a work of flowing art, etc, etc. 

However, it is a loser.

Sure, there are clubs, there are barnfinds, some people love em, but they don't really draw attention. And that is the real measure of winners. When I say "draw attention" I don't just mean attracting bearded, cardigan wearing, car nerds with an encyclopedic knowledge of anything ever made (especially the rare stuff). 

When I say drawing attention I mean this; Little kids waving as you drive by (or playing punch buggy), young tradies hanging out their windows checking the car out, older people telling you, "I had one just like that", girls smiling at you as you park the car. All of these things are daily experiences driving a beetle. 

VW's strangely, are winners.

I say strangely, because they're no more incredible than the 2CV or the Morrie really. At the end of WW2 they might have easily gone the way of the P76, sinking into history, being mocked all the way. Only Ivan Hurst and Heinz Nordhoff saved them.

The motoring world is an odd place, that's for sure.

Take a seat - Part 2

Having filled, sanded, filled, sanded, etc, the seat. It was time to throw some paint on to get things started for fibreglassing. One of the tricks is to get the surface as flat and shiny as possible. Given that the surface was never gonna be that flat, putting on some gloss paint was the trick.

Yes I know, it's bright red.

One of my boys told me it looked really good. It did, from a distance, especially if you didn't look for all the nasty stress fractures.

Basically, having rummaged through the garage to find some usable gloss paint, Killrust red was the best I could do. Two coats of that later and I was ready to start applying something to aid removal after fibre glassing.

PVA is a great mould release agent. It's also cheap and I had plenty of it lying around. So two coats of that are also going on the seat. After this, I'll probably put release wax on too. Basically the more ways you can guarantee the seat won't stick to the resin, the better off you are.

Till next time...

Stolen days - Roadtrip

As I mentioned a few posts back, sometimes my work situation can be very stressful. Other thing being, I only get 4 weekends off a year. There is an upside to the position though...

I can take days off during the week.

With our kids on 2 weeks school holidays and me having had a big few months, it seemed a perfect opportunity to grab my 2 boys and take them off for two days. Initially the plan was to take them camping, but the last time we did that it was a bit of a disaster so I went looking for another alternative. Glad I did now.

[Warning; long post, pic heavy.]

So on monday, after lunch, we loaded up the car and headed off...

NOTE: Loading up the car really means "filling up the oil and checking the petrol". I put nearly a litre of oil in the car before we left as well as topping up the Marvel Mystery Oiler. Then we topped up the fuel and put 34psi in all 4 tyres.

Off down the freeway and then up Lapstone hill... making sure it didn't ping and ending up in 3rd gear, just... almost 2nd. Up through the mountains to Katoomba and to Mt Victoria.

I ended up booking this place on Friday night and very glad I did now. The Victoria and Albert was built in 1914 and is an awesome place to stay. Full of so many cool things...

Old school getaways have been happening in the blue mountains for many years. This recent long weekend was the busiest for some time apparently. Not a great surprise because the weather has been sensational.

Not long after arriving I also discovered the Chef (Roman) was a total guitar tragic. He and I got on like a house on fire. If you're even partly interested in guitars, you'll love the restaurant. However, I had two small boys still full of energy after a long car drive, so we went in search an ATM and some snacks.

Along the way there was of course, some glorious amateur photography thanks to my sons. 

Mt Vic is a beautiful place. So many cool things to see, lots of long streets. A good place to walk off energy and we did just that. After a fantastic dinner at the guest house, the boys went down hard and slept like stones, only waking up after me the next morning around 7:30am. 

Having had a walk and a quick breakfast, we hopped in the car and headed off for Katoomba looking for a phone charger. Basically, whenever it gets too cold, my phone battery goes flat. Topping up the fuel in Katoomba, this car rolled up next to us. A 72' with a few details designed to make it look old. Like mine, it's a daily driver. The owner is part of a web forum I belong to.

In fact this beetle was the second cool VW we'd seen in Katoomba. We passed a nice green ghia on a round about as we came in. It seems as though the mountains are still a place where old aircoolers are liked. No great surprise as I was told later of a community in the mountains who live 1950's style. Weird, but different.

At this point I got totally conned by the two boys. The Edge cinema is at Katoomba and they harrassed me (ok, not very hard) to take them to a movie. I'm glad I did now. The Edge has $8.50 tickets for everyone before 5pm on a tuesday. That's about half the price of anything in Sydney. We saw the Muppets and had a great time.

By the time we got out and got going it was lunch time. We had lunch at Browns Siding Cafe. A great little place just across the railway line from the old Hydro Majestic Hotel. The food is not cheap, but it is very, very nice and the feel of the place is great too.

As we came out from lunch, there was a family with tiny, twin babies eating lunch outside. I decided they'd prefer lunch and babies without a cloud of white smoke, so I rolled down the hill and clutch started the car well past the cafe.

At this point the boys were keen to get out and have an 'inventure' (as my youngest says). We drove back to Blackheath and out to Shipley Plateau to the look out. Most of it was tarmac, but the last 5 Km or so were dirt... and not very good road at that.

The boys loved the corregations, which sort of surprised me. In fact, the as soon as we hit the dirt, the youngest one told me, "now, we're on a real inventure!". The drive was worth it.

The views of Megalong were amazing. 

Coming out was another story. About 200 metres from the lookout, we had to climb a really steep hill the dirt road. I got the car up to about 40mph to make it up. When we hit (I say hit) the hill I realized the road was full of soccerball sized potholes. Great.

Most of my CD cases started falling out of the cargo webbing in the roof and hit me in the head. The car was bouncing all over the place and the boys were laughing hysterically. We got to the end, but I did wonder if anything had fallen of in the process. Thankfully it hadn't.

On the way back from the lookout we stopped at this shed. I though it would make an ace spot for a few pics with the beetle. There is a bit of a story with the shed though. On the road outside the shed stood a real estate sign for the property in which the shed stands.

The shed is the most developed bit of 13 acres that are for sale. Later on we looked at the ad for the land in a real estate agent in Blackheath. The current owner is looking for near on a half million dollars just for a falling down shed and a whole bunch of wild bush. Hmmm.... crazy thing is he'll probably get it.

With that done we headed down to Megalong valley and ended up a Old Ford reserve. A lot of rocks were thrown in the river before we realized the good bushwalks were further back up the road.

I took the boys on a short (15min) bush walk that took 10 minutes. Yes, you read that right. Lots of running away and having to be asked to stop, but no one died so all good. I couldn't help taking this pic with two other modern VWs. How Volkswagen has changed over the years.

I should say at this point, the road down into Megalong is a lot of fun, even in an underpowered car like the beetle. The road itself is in pretty good condition and very windy. It's actually much better suited to a small car like the beetle than the larger cars that most people were driving.

We headed back up to Blackheath and grabbed some afternoon tea then, after looking at a lookout, back to Mt Vic again. My youngest told me, "I'm tired". This is a miracle in itself.  It was still too early for dinner, so we checked out the Imperial hotel for a bit.

Drinks before dinner... yes, they were a little crazy after all that sugar.

The boys didn't last long on Tuesday night. Roman served up a great roast pork dinner and after some desert they hit the sack with very little mucking around. I read a bit and then went to sleep early-ish.

Wednesday morning started with a little breakfast, checking out and then filling up. The previous day we'd used just 5 litres of fuel. Again, I was accosted by an ex-VW owner drooling over the car. He was so keen his wife drove off before he noticed. lol. Across the last few days, lots of lot of people have pointed, waved, smiled at and talked to me about the car. It a bit of celebrity all on it's own.

As we left the service station we spotted another nice VW. A late type 3 notch back on classic alloys.

I'd decided to come home via Bell's Line of road. I was a little concerned the road would be too fast and steep for the car, but we did fine. In fact, it was heaps of fun. The road is now 80kmh in most places. I know some sportsbike guys hate this, but it's ideal for the beetle. There were some sections where I had to floor it down a hill to make it up the slope on the other side. A few slopes resulted in 3rd gear, but mostly it was really nice and the car seemed to cope well enough.

We were in Kurrajong much sooner than I expected. I will say though, this is the right way for the beetle to go. If we'd had to the climb the steep sections coming the other way, it would have been too much for the car. As it was the car smelt pretty oily.

After a short bit of sightseeing (you know what I mean) at Nth Richmond, we headed home and arrived by 10:30. The boys were so comfy that they sat in the car playing DSi's for 10minutes.

I consider the trip a complete success. Some quick (approx) stats...
300km
35ltr of fuel
2 ltr of oil
A few hundred bucks
No breakdowns
Fun roads
2 happy boys

The last of those, the 2 boys is probably the biggest success. They're 5 & 7 years old as I write. I know that I'll blink and they'll be teenagers. Blink again, and they'll be men. Time is precious, if I don't steal times like this to spend with them, I'll miss their childhood. I don't want to make that mistake. As Ferris Bueller once said...

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."

I've probably said this before, but the car is largely flogged out mechanically. Motor, trans, front end, etc, are all not at their best. The brakes, thank goodness, are ok. I've come to the conclusion that buying something old usually means replacing these things, no matter what the previous owner said about they're condition.

Even still, the car is a lot of fun to drive. Really the mountains are ideally suited to car for this reason. 80kmh are about as fast as you can go most places with only one 100kmh section on the Bell's Line.

I was watching Chris Harris on Youtube talk about his old Citroen. He made the point that finding a road to really drive a new sports car fast is nearly impossible now. Where as, driving an old car fast is more involved, easier to do at lower speeds and more fun. This is definitely the case with my car.

I was pondering this as I took in Bell's Line today and wondering what the new upgrades would do to the car. Would they ruin the feel? Would they make it faster past the point of low speed fun? Am I making a mistake?

I've decided the answer is "No". This is because, at the heart of what I'm aiming to do is make the car safer and more reliable. More efficient. The chassis won't be significantly changed. It will just mean I can make up hills without having to down change all the time and hold up traffic. I realized today, mid 90kmh sweeper corner, that the camber compensator I've already added was cheap insurance.

I reckon the same will be said for; disc brakes, a superdiff, more CCs and EFI. They don't change what the car is, they just make it more fun and more safe to drive.

And that's what it's all about. Drivin'