Below are some highly polished linkage components… the standards are high here, maybe thats why its taking so long =) The one to the left is as it came out of the package, the other two I’ve spent a good few hours on.

I also bought an SVDA vaccuum advance distributor to replace the OEM distributor on the Wasserboxer engine. This SVDA’s advance curve is matched to the vaccuum provided by the twin Dellorto carb set up so it should offer an optimal advance curve for my setup.

The Buggy was successfully transported to its new home in the UK and with that, Phase III is in motion. The cooling system, the roll bar cover and a windshield are left to finish the car itself. The engine is still missing various bits, but so far the fuel injection has been replaced twin Dellorto 40’s.

Above is the Buggy in the new garage and the engine with Dellorto carbs fitted… that was until I realised that I had made a terrible mistake by reusing the stretch type bolts on the connecting rods. On a Wasserboxer engine, these need to be replaced when they are loosened as they stretch the first time they are tightened and slightly loose their elasticity. So I had to go back a few steps and decided to have some new connecting rods custom made for the set up, this time with ARP bolts. These things what happens when you rush =/

Taking a Mensa test sorts the men out from the boys!

I would to take the opportunity to thank everyone who has been involved in this project… my fiancé Magdalena for her patience and most of all, my VW friends in the Twin-Peak-Boxers garage in Sundsvall who have given me inspiration and support to go a step further and carry out a full restoration. Thanks Grub, Janne, Matte, Nicke, Nobbe, Rogga, Roman, Simon, Thomas, Otto and Patrik.

The buggy is finally being transported to its new home in the UK, keep an eye on the web site for coming updates… a lot remains until the buggy is finished and many more modifications will be done… cheers =)

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Two weeks left and loads left to do, but I’m getting closer… Being an electrical engineer I’m just not even aloud to think about leaving the electrical system as it was. So I rebuilt it with only new parts and I have to say, It looks and feels much safer now. Bellow you can also see the new engine being fitted to check clearance against the body. And oh yeah! the body is back from the pain shop =)

The exhaust had to be rebuilt to allow clearance against the injector tubes. What’s left now on the engine is to connect all the coolant pipes, fit the shims for the flywheel, mount the needle bearing on the crank and small details here and there. On the buggy I have to mount the bonnet and the windshield, cover the roll bar with vinyl things like the steering to be adjusted, that’s it =)

A lot have happened since the last update, but I still don’t have a drivable car… perhaps I wasn’t prepared for such a big project… but I won’t give up, so I keep working as many hours a day I can to finish it. Fact is I only have one month left to work on the buggy before I move to England. Then the project is left aside for an unknown period of time.

The body is being sent away for the paint job in less than a week, the engine is 90% finished and the only thing I don’t have is more time to spend in the garage. I’ve built a new dash in aluminium with a customised speedo (thanks Nicke) and I just found a very nice pair of rims to go on the front. The “only” problem is that they were everything but straight so I’ve sent them to the machine shop to get them fixed but its going to cost me more than the rim themselves…

After a 3 week break, the project is back on track. My beautiful assistant have sanded most of the body and prepared it to be painted. The body will be painted in a beautiful orange colour with a pearl effect. In the mean time, the radiator have been mounted and the air intakes on the bonnet drilled out.

The new rims have arrived from the US, but it will be hard work to find studs and lug nuts for them in Sweden as every measure is in inches… bloody Americans for not using metrics. The brake drums have been re-drilled to fit the 6-lug pattern. The engine case have been washed and inspected to detect any cracks, as I couldn’t find any the next step was to paint it with a heat proof paint.

The pan is finished, grounded with epoxy paint and body and painted with a very resistant black machine paint. The rear axle have been reinforced with stainless steel bars (thanks Roman), these are mounted in the same mountings as the roll bar is now. The Roll bar and the windshield frame have been lowered 11cm to give the buggy a much more dynamic look.

The seats were mounted as low as it is possible to keep the heads of the passengers under the roll bar, just in case. I have also rebuilt the front of the bonnet and there are two reasons for that, I wanted it to look it does on a Manx buggy and most importantly because I have to make room for a radiator in the front. The fenders in the front have also been modified to allow more clearance now that the car has been lowered.

To sand the pan properly on both sides, I had to remove both the front beam and the rear axle with the gearbox. I mounted polyurethane bushings for the engine and new break leads in the rear. I lowered the rear of the car a spline and dropped spindles were mounted in the front to achieve the looks I want.

The gearbox was thoroughly cleaned and painted with a hammered silver paint. Down on the left you can see the “new” engine taken apart. The bearings on one of the connecting rods had damaged the crankshaft so I had to send it to the machine shop. When I get it back its time to start re-assembling the 112Hp engine that its going to give new life to the car. More updates will be posted as I make more progress on the car. Stay tuned.

Here we go again… here are some pictures of the work done during winter 04/05. It all started with the pods finally being mounted, the car was going to be re-sprayed and the engine was to be upgraded to a 1600 AS engine. But one thing led to another and my garage mates didn’t do things easier as they all were pushing me to go trough with a complete rebuild.

Before I had even started the 1600AS engine was replaced by a much more powerful 2,1L Wasserboxer engine that is to be completely rebuild and tuned with a Engle 120 camshaft and straight cut cam gears. On the pictures above you can se the pan being thoroughly cleaned and sanded before it is painted. Everything will look like new when I’m done this time.

2003/08 The buggy is finally MOT’d and road legal. I had to improve the front suspension with a set of coil-over shocks as I noticed the fenders were making contact with the wheels every time I braked. The coil-over shocks solved the problem and improved handling, which is always nice.

The pictures above are taken in a gravel pit on a sunny day in the middle of august. What is left to do until next season is to mount the side pods so the whole car can be re-sprayed. The engine will also be inspected in the future and perhaps even tuned a bit. For now the buggy is just great fun to drive on sunny days =)