That's my old EZ...good to see it...Jambo, hope you have to get under it, serves you right for lowering it

Ben

jambo wrote:looks a bit like this being running it around all last week, mostly round that end of town,

Well, i was just out at lunch thinking how great it`d be to be have my van out on the road in the sunshine, but what should fly past at the asda roundabout, but the above cool slammed split - you were just rubbing it in weren`t you jambo!?

here`s my old van which you may have seen knocking about yeovil a couple of years ago when i rebuilt it -





I`m waiting on parts at the mo, but hopefully should get some bits today. Fitted some new rear wheel bearings in the hubs last night - one step closer to getting that rear end back on the floor!!

falstaff wrote:That's my old EZ...good to see it...Jambo, hope you have to get under it, serves you right for lowering it

Ben

Thats what ramps are for ! Hows it going ben ? pm me your new number plus got a few miles planed for it this year and the box need a bit of work so in when the rancho box and boom

63CorvairSplit wrote: Well, i was just out at lunch thinking how great it`d be to be have my van out on the road in the sunshine, but what should fly past at the asda roundabout, but the above cool slammed split - you were just rubbing it in weren`t you jambo!?

here`s my old van which you may have seen knocking about yeovil a couple of years ago when i rebuilt it

I need to level it out but have to swap the exhaust as the one i have on is a bit low, can't remember seening your van but theres some thing about the logo so maybe ?

jambo

I didn`t have the van that long to be honest - i rebuilt it, had it a couple of months, then sold it to some guy in poole.

I had a ruby red notchback for a few years which was one of my fave cars i `ve had and i used it to travel to yeovil all the time in, but that was probably 5 years back now - that was an ace car!



Well, enough about my other cars - a much interesting photo of my trailing arms with new wheel bearings!

Just waiting on my new spring plates to arrive, then i can get the rear wheels back on finally!



Can`t wait to get the new wheels on!

Got some parts delivered today!



It was quickly getting dark quickly, but i really wanted to see if i could get one side loosely bolted together!

Here we are -

I needed to get it together so i could work out what size tyre i need to fit under the arch. The wheel is a 7 inch cookie cutter and will fit, but the big fat 215 tyre is too wide, so i need about 15mm less - probably about the same width of the wheel which is 177mm - so about 180 width tyre?

what do you reckon?

In this pic, the trailing arm is on the outside of the spring plate, but i moved it to the inside as i couldn`t get the tyre on easily.






Also realised that the wheel studs are about an inch too long so stick out!


I have to admit (although i shouldn`t really!) - over the last few weeks , i quite grew to like the look of the stock steel rims, but i`m not aware of anywhere that makes porsche to wide 5 adaptors? Is this possible? I`d have to check the caliper goes under the steel rim mind...

Finally got a bit more progress - not much done this week - cracked my ribs kiting then caught a stomach bug - not much luck really!

Managed to get a bit done today though.

I finally got back to my driveshafts. I`m running a beetle gearbox with standard type 1 output flanges and then the porsche hubs have slightly larger cv joints - the same as a trekker (or thing) which are the same as a type 2 but have more movement in them.

So i had 2 driveshafts from the 944 donor and 2 which luckilly came with my gearbox i bought.

Here`s the beetle and porsche driveshafts - can you tell which is which!



And after taking all to pieces, checking and regreasing, a pair of driveshafts with beetle and porsche cv`s

I also got round to trial fitting the suspension parts for one side. The main problem here was that the heater tubes don`t allow the IRS clamp to sit right up against the gearbox cradle fork. I had to remove this and will reroute the heater pipe further to the outsidewhen i`ve got everything in place

You wouldn`t believe how difficult it was to cut that heater pipe out! angle grinder won`t get in, you can`t get a hammer in. I ended up using a hacksaw, so i still have to clean this up properly.

I also got the spring plate in place - although i `m not enbtirely sure where it should go angle wise at the mo. Given that the bus was on reduction boxes prior to this, i set the spring plate at an angle further upwards into the van. Logically, this should lower it, but i`ll only know when i put the wheels down (carefully!)







Tomorrow, i`d like to get the other side setup, so i can put the rear end back down on the floor and get the front up - i can get those spindles off then ready to be sent off, refurbed and dropped

Back on the floor tonight - wurhoo!

Next stop - engine in.. which is an intersting colour...

Found some tinware to match my bumpers!!!

The matching rest goes on tomorrow!

Well, i carried on rebuilding the engine this morning. The first thing that screwed me a bit was that i realised my tinware wasn`t fitting properly.

I noticed yesterday when looking at the engine, that it is a bit of a mixture - it has a case with a doghouse oil cooler (twin port), with tinware from a twinport, then single port heads, inlet manifold and carb!

On the plus side, it does look like its been completely rebuilt - even the pushrod tubes don`t have surface rust and its nice and dry - a first for an engine for me! I`m hoping its been rebuilt well and runs ok, when ii get round to starting it.

Anyway, the first problem was that the twinport tinware i `d been given with the engine didn`t fit the single port heads - so i improvised them with the cutting discs and now they fit, sort of!



Finshed building the rest of the engine up - the fanhousing took a bit of 'persuading' to fit into the head shrouds - glad i did that out of the van!



Then before i put the engine in, i torqued all the bolts up, filled the gearbox with oil,fitted up the driveshafts and spacers and got my fuel lines and throttle cable ready.

A bit of a push and shove later and all is in!





If i get time later, i`ll go and check the clutch and adjust and maybe have a look at the wiring

Looking soo good mate
Love the colour of the tin wear

I must of missed it but why not use the Corvair engine?

Keep up the great work

Cheers Matt

cheers - the corvair will be installed again, but not until after the van is registered and mot`d. Its currently sitting waiting patiently next to the van. It needs a very good clean (unless ilike the smell of burning rat sh*t - imagine it all jammed deep down between the fins on the heads and cylinders!! ) and it also needs a few mods such as tinware creating (works same way a vw engine), external fuel pump, oil cooler, and then i have to get it running right and tuned well.

Time is in short supply at the mo as we have a 4 month old and i just want to get the van running and then i can get the corvair running at my own pace

And the lambourghini orange tinware - i was a bit apprehensive when i heard the donor engine came with it(!), but i actually think it suits the van really well and pleased with it

here`s my new son Sam helping sort the deliveries out - - i think he`s saying - 'dad - surely this is for a flat 6 engine and won`t fit a standard vw engine!!???'

I needed some wiring to finish the engine so before the halfrauds opened, i thought i`d look at the handbrake - i had to sort out a way of connecting the vw cables to the porsche 944 handbrake mechanism.

I didn`t get a picture of the porsche handbrake mechanism but its basically a pair of shoes which push against the inside of the disc - genius!

The porsche handbrake connects to this with a pin. I cut a slot in the back of the mechanism so the vw cable could hook round it. I then had to make some highly engineered custom tubes to space the handbrake out. Oh - but i don`t have a lathe and some nice tubes so some copper piping and duct tape had to do

Obviously i `ll get these properly done before the mot! But for now its better than no brakes at all!







Finished the engine off this morning All good and running! Bit of a shriek from the pulley but that was soon sorted out with a quick hammer applied to the tinware behind it !



I would have liked to get the van moving which meant reconnecting the gear shift but unfortunately the connecting bit between the gearbox and rod was the wrong that i`d been sent, so i concentrated on getting the front end in the air and the front spindles off ready for refurbing and flipping.

When i came to the drums, somehow and i`m not sure how, there was rat sh*t even inside one of the front drums! Anyway, i got them off with not too much trouble - they`re up for sale on the forum now as they didn`t llok too bad - no scoring in them.

I reckon this van must have been used for offroading in the desert mud or something as the fron suspension has about an inch of dried dirt all over it - i was literally prying off chunks with the screwdriver to get at the bolts!

Great update - not long till on the road - keep updates coming

Cheers