The 1500 'S' back in the day

Some awesome news.

With the benefit of Face Book (it does have some uses!), I managed to track down the lady I bought my 1964 1500 'S' notchback from some 23 years ago.

I told her the car is still in the same condition as when she sold it me (it's better actually!) and forwarded a couple of recent photo's to her.

It must have come as a happy surprise, because I have just now received a copy of some original photo's of the car from when it was near new and some history on how her grand-dad bought the car in 1965

The car war produced on the 9th of September 1964, sent to Australia on the 15th of September 1964, delivered to Light Motors Adelaide (the big VW dealer here in Adelaide, South Australia) on the 27th of November 1964 and used as a display car until it was bought on the 4th of May 1965.

The photo of the roof rack explains the touched up paint on the roof gutters!

 

Proud new owner with doggy sitting on the hood!

 



 

 

 

I am looking forward to learning a bit more from Christina about how it all came to be with her grand dads car and some of the story's behind the photo's. It's probably one of the best documented 1500 'S' notchback's anywhere and with original photo's like these, I consider myself very lucky indeed.

 

It was only recently that I found the original number plates and gave them a very good detail - one day they will go back on the car where they belong. For now they sit polished up in the display case.

 

A big thank you to Christina for the photo's.

 

All the best for 2013 folks.

October 2012 update

The '56 oval is just about ready to be dropped on the replacement '56 floor pan now. I have stripped almost every part from the body except for the fenders and doors. I suspect the bolts would snap off from the fenders, so they can stay there. The doors need a bit of work too to get rid of rust and I need to replace the lower hinge area of the body so for now, I am leaving well enough alone.

The original pan had some major rust where the frame head attached, so I have stashed that away for now and will use this other '56 pan as donated by Finn.

This is not a key project for me, just something to work on in the future as time permits.

And a preview of the engine currently in the engine stand. More on this later.

Wow Greg, that is a big cam you got there!

NOS VW-1500 Abarth

Big thanks to Jason, Bob and Rod for their efforts in getting this NOS VW-1500 Abarth exhaust sent to me.

Appreciate it boys. It's new home will be a worthy one.

1 owner 1956 Oval

As some of you may know (now you do), I have a 1958 LHD gloss black beetle stashed away (well, it's a body and floor pan only) and it needs every single bolt on part you can imagine.

It is believed that the car came to Australia during the early 1960's with the original owner and ended up owned by a very well known VW man during the 1970's, Mr Ken Virgin. I would love to see some images of the car from that time period and wonder what engine was in it back then.

Anyway, after a while the car was bought another very well known VW man during the 1980's, Mr Roy Williams. It was when Roy owned it (I believe) that I saw the car at a VW show in 1984 or 1985. It was fitted with a 40hp Judson engine from memory and that was it's last public outing. Both Ken and Roy have now passed away so getting photo's of the car from back then is a bit of a task but I will continue that search some time in the future.
 

So, skip forward about 25 years and 5 or so owners and I bought the car. Almost every single item that is needed has been sold or taken off the car and I am in effect owning a body and floor pan- still almost no rust or damage but yes, missing a lot of parts. So when I got a phone call a couple of weeks ago from a VW shop telling me about a complete 1956 oval window for sale, I thought wow, this is my opportunity to get the LHD sort of complete again. Excellent.

I called the owner and drove out to look at the car that night (in the dark and yes it was raining - not ideal!). After a couple of minutes looking at the car, it dawned on me that although the oval needed both heater channels, both lower 'A' pillars and various other sections of steel including some of the deck lid and front hood, it was in remarkable original and complete condition.

It has not been hit anywhere majorly either. The girl selling the car then told me it was her uncles car and he stopped driving it about 20 years ago when something went south with the engine. Hmmm. And he bought it brand new and was still alive. Hmmm. This car should probably be kept together and not dismantled was the impression I was now getting. We did the deal and I then went back last Sunday to collect the car.

As soon as I got the car home, I removed the engine, the wheels, the interior, the windows and most of the small items like speedo, coat hooks etc.

I am pricing up the repair sections at the moment and also working to dismantle the engine down to the crank case (it's a very sad looking engine with mud, dirt, rust etc all over it).

On the road again

After a smll delay, I got my USB to serial cable this week so I can use the lap top with the EMS ECU in the black car. Cool. The hand held controller was just not doing it for me any more.

I also installed my wide band o2 sensor into the exhaust to get a better idea of what was going on. It's running quite rich at the moment!

No major programming changes were done today, I just went through the motions to ensure it's all going to work and I hope to have it altered within the next month or so.

I re-torqued the wheel bolts, tightened up various bits on the car and installed the rear axle split pins, so with that, the black car is basically ready for action.

Hard to believe this car has not been washed for over 7 years huh?

Friday the 13th

Been a long time since the last post...

The 2028 cc is now running and looking like this:

I retained all of the stainless steel tin ware that was hand made for the 2276 cc but have altered it to fit (a lot of grinding!). Having the Porsche length rods on the 78.8 mm Scat crank tends to make for a narrower engine than the 2276 cc that was in there.

A huge thanks to Andrew for altering the CB performance 48 mm throttle bodies - he cut them in half (height) then milled them to make them flat again and then welded them back together to drop them down about 20 mm. The result is a pair of 48 mm IDF pattern throttle bodies like no other and it all fits perfectly under the lid. Excellent job and I wonder when someone will make them commercially available.

As can also be seen, I have removed the generator and installed a new Smallternator. I had it fitted up within about 10 minutes and with only some minor wiring changes to bypass the regulator it works perfectly. I thoroughly recommend it and a benefit that I didn't consider initially is the reduced weight of the engine. The only pain in the arse was the MSD distributor cap interfering with the alternator. I spent a bit of time with the power file on the steel housing that unbolts from the back of the alternator so I can now remove the MSD cap without too much bother. I doubt if many people are using an MSD or Pertronix on a Type 3 anyway so if you were to run an 010 or 009 etc I doubt this would be a problem.

And just because I could, I have replaced almost every coloured item on the engine with either black or grey items like hose ends and plug leads. Thank you to Rhys for the proper MSD crimper to make up the leads!

The engine runs quite well (considering it's using mostly the 2276 cc ECU mapping (sort of)) and as soon as I get my new cable to connect the serial port of the ECU to the USB of the lap top I will alter the programming to reflect the new engine. Should be relatively simple (!).