Yeah its all ready to go. Well I have the bonnet off again cause there was a strong wiff of fuel. should of replaced the feed pipe when I done it but was too lazy. Regretting it now!

Theres a big car meet on the 2nd at Halfrauds so hopefully the bits will be here in time so I can go, plus my work have been funny buggers with my shifts, only noticed they had been changed but they "forgot" to tell me. Not to happy! Was meant to have the night off but they've put me on nights, haha no happening!

Lol cool so did you get to halfords show ?? I was through Arbroath meet couple guys fae the Aberdeen beetle forum I'm on works out there's a car meet in Arbroath beside McD's ect every Thursday so nipped through for a nosey wasn't that good a turn out due to rain lol

Yeah I was there. Was bucketing it down haha! Had to buy a towel in tescos to dry the seat before I went home haha! Cool. Might pop over one day once i've sorted the fuel leak. Got a new tank on order as I've replaced all the hoses but it still smells. Must be a tiny hole in the tank somewhere at the top, so just gonna get a new one as its pretty rusty inside atm.

If you are on that "beachbuggyforum.com" forum you can get 10% off coolairvw if you need new bits.

Small update..
The rear suspension of my buggy has annoyed me since day 1. The camber has been really +ve and makes for driving over 40mph to get "interesting" especially on uneven roads as the car pulls left to right and back as the road changes. Not good at all.

After much advice from people on here, and other mechanics who I've had do small jobs I firsly dropped the coil over suspension down onto the lowest setting, but this did nothing to change the camber. Lowered the car about 30mm or so but it was hard to notice.

I eventually bit the bullet and bought new boge shocks and fitted them in their place. All went smoothly and the rear ride was sorted out fine! Looked great as the camber returned to "normal" However as the camber pulled the tyres inwards unnoticed to me as the car would happily roll back and forward in the garage I didn't notice the lovely treat instore....

Last night I took the buggy out and turned it around on the drive way, so I could wheel it down the road a bit before starting it up at 730am to take it in for its MOT. During the roll around the car felt fine, got out the drive turned around and reversed up the drive.

Snap to 7am, I think I'll take the buggy along and drop it off for its MOT so I can pick it up after I finish uni. Roll down the drive and as soon as I jump in to start it I hear it, that sound of misery and disapair. The noise of "this is going to be expensive" Which ironically alot of noises this car makes sound like that!!!
The suspension had dropped the car down enough to cause my tyres to start to rub against the inside lip the volksrod has for running cables (I suspect) in a hidden fashion to the rear of the car.

FML.

With me out the car pushing its great, but soon as I'm in scrape'y mc'scrape. So.. drove it back around chewing the edges of the tyres a little and back home for 20 past 7am. My neighbours must love me.

Options...

Cut/Sand into the lip to allow the tyres to clear..
Get new smaller tyres for the back (hopefully someone will want BFG's got loads of tread, can sell them to help pay for new tyres)
Put coil overs back in and embrace the mad camber.

You can see the lip as it tails off around the rear 3/4 to the back. Its about 20mm and I can shave it off, but I suspect if I do this it will be ok for me in the car, but if I add a passanger or any decent weight of luggage it will probably come back. Plus I dont really want to mod the shell. its a good one and I dont see any reason to chop it up... Not to mention I have only got 10 litres or so of fuel in. filling the tank will add another 30/35KG to the weight of the car, all be it up front but this will take an effect as well with the extra 80kg or so for a person and say 10kg for luggage...

New tyres. I think I should be able to get away with 30x9.50 tyres as they are one inch less in width and diameter. or I could go with 235/70's which are smaller still. Just need to get rid of the old tyres but I dont know of anyone who would want/need them really. Could always put an ad up here but with no one being close I duno if I'd be sitting on them for a while.

Back to the old shocks. Nah the camber annoyed me enough as it is, plus I dont feel confident doing a spline re-adjustment.

Flush fit yo!


All ready for the MOT in the morning...Will remove the spot lamps from advice here. Might see if I can relocate them slightly further apart.

Adjusting the rear camber is a simple enough job and is covered many times in books and on the web.you are to far away to offer help but if you want to talk it through 07952901250 is my mobile or 01386 446771 land line. 
An easy enough job.

Cheers snoopy. Yeah shame im in the foreign land haha! I will read up about it and see if its something I can do. If I get stuck I'll take you up on your offer! Cheers!

A simple explanation is wheel off, bottom shock mtg off,  remove hand brake cables and pull them back through about a foot, spring plate to axle bolts off, pull axle back out of plate, remove end plate bolts and lever spring plate free past casting taking car not to get hurt, mark line along top of plate onto casting and also spring plate position on torsion bar. Base setting marks so you know where you started from.
Pull off plate leaving bar in rotate up one or 2 splines pull out complete with bar and rotate down one or 2  splines then reassemble. To longer bolts are handy to help align the end plate sometimes.

Peter has a spline chart on his site for ride height difference and the number of splines each way to get it.

Cheers snoop. I seen that on Peters site. Very nice as there was a few buggys getting done at once. One ended up with lots of -ve camber, blue one I think. I would imagine to raise I just go the opposite from lowering.

Awesome to meet a few at the haggis hunt.

In the mean time I got tyres delivered while I was on holiday in the isle of skye, highly recommended! So a quick show of my new tyres compared to the old...
Going from 255/75/15 (31/10.50/15) to 235/60/15 basically



And a birthday goodie from my brother. One for the gamers on here!

Little bit of an update...

Ok, took the buggy in for an MOT and it failed on poor rear brakes, loose wheel bearing and steering wheel play.

I will start with the steering wheel play..
the play in the wheel was only a small amount, maybe 2mm but I decided to swap out the bearing after recommendations here. (Thanks guys) With the steering wheel and indicator switch off I was left with only the bearing, and a rather messy steering column shaft. Looks like whoever put the bearing in hated the car as much as I do right now

Anyway lots of swearing later it was out and replaced. this time with the spring, locating washer and C-clip. A few more swear words and hammer love it was in and all sorted. However... The old bearing had a hole in the outer race where my indicator stalk would be secured to with the little hole for the bolt/screw. I shall have to find another way of securing the indicator stalk to the steering column... Yay....but there's no more movement or play in the wheel so I cant complain too much (but I will anyway, im scottish)

Now.. The brakes! For a while I have been umming and awwing at getting a full conversion to discs. Not just to look cool but because drums are a pain with the constant adjustment. Well, it was to look cool mostly but hey ho!
I ordered an EMPI kit from coolair and it arrived all nice an secure. The delivery boy wasn't impressed with how much the kit weights! Jeezo! hefty big of kit but comes with everything you need for an installation including bearings and new flexy lines.

Installation was alright. I'm no pro mechanic but the instructions are good. A few things got me confused about removing spacers which weren't there. Perhaps the kit gets updated every so often and the instructions dont.... Anyway all good.
My only problem was the rear of the discs werent machined deep enough and would just catch on the lower (I think king pin) housing. I'm sure if I let it they would have worn a groove out but the noise was horrible. So a few seconds with a dremel on the lower part of the pic and it was fine. Just 2 seconds was enough! Re-painted the part and installed the disc on.

The rest went on great with no problems and the wheels are back on...

The rear disc kit i ordered from a supplier who shall remain nameless now, but have a good reputation, have let me down big time. The kit was advertised in stock and money taken... A week went past and no news about delivery so a phone call later and my items, which are still listed as in stock now, were "missed" from an order from the states to come in. So I will have to wait for the next order to come in. Very disappointed and annoyed but the kit is a higher quality than the empi so I hope its worth the wait.....

Also a big word of advice when it comes to residual pressure valves...

Standard beetle threads on the brake pipes are m10x1 which might be of help. The EMPI kit pressure valves are not threaded to this, they are some weird and wonderful thread... I would avoid these and get other ones which are threaded for m10x1. ebay has a few of them but email just to be sure!
Wish I did that before hand but oh well!

Little bit of grinding was done under here....



I like the silver black silver look 

Eeeek!  Rear discs Anyone want to stick these on my buggy?

Well I got some free time today to work on the rear brakes. By spare time, I mean not doing my uni work Made a deal with myself to do one side at a time, once a week. As not to distract me completely and to stop me from getting annoyed I wasn't making progress on the buggy.

Not much in the ways of progression pics, but I have a before and after! I noticed that my rear brakes were absolutely drowned in oil. The shoes were soaked in the stuff, so I guess I have an bearing seal leak.

Anyway after lots of too'ing and fro'ing I got the discs and calipers mounted up. Replaced the paper gaskets on the seal. Will check in the morning to see if any oil has appeared but im hopeful it wont... A little bonus from painting the caliper mounts Fluro Orange haha! Good deal on paint at "The Range" £5 a can cant complain! I done my daily drivers wheels in silver and they look pretty decent after 3000 miles so I expect these to last well. Was a toss up between fluro yellow, orange or pink. I might do the exhausts in it but I dont think it will take the high temperatures... Always worth a punt! Orange Exhausts! Ahaha!

I've gotta say the castle nuts were on super tight. My 1000w clark impact gun of death struggled to get it off. Needed a good 5 second trigger hold to get the nut loose which is quite a lot as it puts out 450Nm's at 3500 hits a min. Usually the gun just looks at bolts and they come out, but its much cheaper than an air setup, or faffing around with lots of breaker bars and contraptions that bolt into the drum/disc. Putting it back on was a lot less of an pain than I thought too. I bought a 300NM torque wrench from the Halfords Pro' range on the cheap from a few vouchers I had and its great. Didnt need to strain too hard to get it at the magic 215ft/lbs. The kit sugguests 250ft/lbs once the wheels are on so I might do that which will be the wrenches max.

You can see on the pic of the caliper that they gave me a tiny little flexy brake pipe to fit onto the hard line. I'm not keen on this at all, so I have ordered a longer (280mm) flexy line to replace the hard line and this little piece of poop. The hard line is connected to the axle, just where you can see it bend behind the exhaust, so it wont be too long but will look alot more professional.

I just have to put the handbrake cables in (and shorten them a touch) and this side is done!

Does anyone have tips for feeding them through and catching the cables inside the tunnel? I am going to clip the threaded ends off and use the shortening kit that came with the discs.

Old drum set up


New caliper, oohhhahhh

Nice     

So is this normal? Grinding noses when I rotate the caliper, a little bit of bite while rotating. Not as bad when the tyres on and will rotate pretty easily but still makes the noise...

Just new pads & discs needing bedded in or alignment of the pad issue?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14OaIKz0j_Q&index=2&list=UUtlbILXvtXYLGOb0q0dhEAQ

So is this normal? Grinding noses when I rotate the caliper, a little bit of bite while rotating. Not as bad when the tyres on and will rotate pretty easily but still makes the noise...

Just new pads & discs needing bedded in or alignment of the pad issue?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14OaIKz0j_Q&index=2&list=UUtlbILXvtXYLGOb0q0dhEAQ

hahaha, wrong video link!!! can't edit it... This is the correct one. Doh!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgQBdg4qm7w