Looking good. Didn't think you where so wide on the front

Cheeky Git 

Changing the rack has been fairly straightforward so far, but its the bits that you never think of that are proving proving to be the biggest problems. Take for instance the windscreen washer bottle. Most are fitted to the bulkhead, but you can see here that I have very little room to play with and nothing I can find commercially available will fit in this space, let alone allow me enough room to open the cap to fill it.




Although the bulkhead looks fairly clear, with the tank sitting almost against it, any usable space is taken up by the steering rack. Most of the universal washer bottles have pumps mounted on them and are huge, and the ones that don`t have pumps either tend to be quite tall or have a removable bottle for filling. I just don't have any wriggle room at all for anything like that.




My original water bottle was an old modified oil catch can from a motorcycle, so I had a good trawl on Google to see if I could find something similar. What did we do before the Internet? I have no idea what the official requirement capacity is for a washer bottle, but I found an aluminium bottle with a sight glass on the side that was 1 liter capacity. The oil feed pipes were removed and blocked off, and a 4mm barb outlet was added.




Its going to be a real pain in the backside to refill this when I need to, but I can just about get my hands in there to remove the lid and can fill it up using a short length of pipe. It clears the tank which is the most important bit. If the truth be told, I still had a load of green liquid in my old washer bottle that has been in there for the best part of seven years as it only ever gets used for the obligatory MOT squirt.




Washer bottle sorted, but I am currently stumped for what to do with the remote master cylinder reservoir. I have limited options of space, and the most obvious area to the left of the column would allow me to access it like the washer bottle. The problem is that I do not have enough space for anything to fit and the original Beetle reservoir sticks out into the wheel arch by just over an inch. I need a dual outlet reservoir as there is not enough width for two separate chambers. There is a triple chamber one in CBS that would just about fit, but I'm not happy about potential leakage from blocking off the third outlet, and most of the dual round ones I have found are so tall that the pipework hits the steering rack. There are some small Motorcycle rear units that may be the last resort, but I would rather something with a larger fluid capacity suitable for a car.

I really didn't want to relocate the reservoir in the first place - and this is why.

Could any of it fit in the passenger compartment?

Could any of it fit in the passenger compartment?

As an absolute last resort, yes. The trouble is that my partner, Lisa is partially disabled and needs room for her legs to move about and any walking sticks she may be carrying. When I had the washer bottle in there before it got such a beating that I had to relocate it. I could put the Beetle reservoir inside if it came to it, but would far rather find a bulkhead solution first. I have put a few feelers out to the agricultural and plant guys I know to see if they can come up with anything. The other option would be to move the washer bottle and put the brake reservoir in its place. There are a few possibilities yet, but just trying to find something a bit neater.

Early beetle single master cylinders had quite a small squarish fluid reservoir. Could you fit 2 of those in somewhere?

Early beetle single master cylinders had quite a small squarish fluid reservoir. Could you fit 2 of those in somewhere?

Good call, but side by side they are actually a few mm wider than the dual one 

I'm obviously not familiar with your buggy but in theory the washer bottle could be a long way from the screen, even in the engine bay.

I'm obviously not familiar with your buggy but in theory the washer bottle could be a long way from the screen, even in the engine bay.

I did consider a water pistol on a rope for a while   

  Where would we be without Google ?

Most of the dual circuit racing / kit car master cylinder reservoirs are far too tall to fit, and putting two side by side just doesn't fit with the room I have. The small motorcycle ones looked good, but didn't really have much in the way of capacity - and given that the sole purpose of a reservoir is to hold a decent amount of fluid, they just didn't make any sense. I have trawled more pages of google than I care to mention over the last few weeks, and when you see where my eventual solution has come from, you may appreciate just how many hours I have spent on this.




I found this picture (with measurements I may add) of a 250ml reservoir from a Czechoslovakian Tractor called a Zetor 7011.   
It goes without saying that it was not local but £13 and 5 days later, it arrived from the Czech republic.





The plastic bracket that came with it was about as much use as a chocolate teapot, so I fabricated a new one out of a bit of stainless strip I had kicking about. As you can see, it fits perfectly




It is visible enough to be able to check the levels very easily, and there is just about enough room to get the lid off and fill it up with a pipe. To be honest though, if it needs filling up, then I probably have bigger problems to deal with and the tank comes out fairly painlessly anyway. The outlets just miss the steering rack bellows, although I may add some pipe spacers in there just to keep everything safely to one side.




Fingers crossed, that should be one of the last major hurdles to overcome, and I can now get on with bleeding the brakes before dropping the tank back in.

Just keep an eye on it Dave as a lot of tractors use mineral hydraulic oil for their brakes rather than nasty old plastic-melting brake fluid. Jus' sayin'

Tidy. 

Just keep an eye on it Dave as a lot of tractors use mineral hydraulic oil for their brakes rather than nasty old plastic-melting brake fluid. Jus' sayin'

Converted my buggy to dot 5 mineral a few years ago and apart from the yearly 1 pump of the pedal bleed on each corner it's a win all round.

Don't mix the 2 though or you may die.

I just wish I had more free time to spend on this at the moment as summer is here and the Buggy is still in the garage.

The tank was very gingerly dropped into place, and as luck would have it, the outlet at the bottom nestled beautifully between the rack and the mounting bar. Like the original setup, I'm not sure how easy it would be to get to that bottom joint to connect the fuel line, but I have a short length of hose connected to it which joins to a fuel filter that is a bit more accessible.




The original tank fits perfectly - no fouling or hitting anything whatsoever. If the truth be told, it fits better now than it did before.   




I plan to make a larger capacity fuel tank at some point in the future, and without the steering column, you can see just how much extra room I am going to have to play with.




Which is more than I can say for the amount of space I had when the wheels were put on and it finally touched the floor.   




Even with the coil overs wound out to the max, it didn`t take much for the tyres to hit the underside of the wings. 

Bugger - It would appear that I need yet another set of longer shocks which thankfully Ed is going to swap over for me. 




Me and my big mouth. What did I say on my last post about major hurdles being overcome? 

On the plus side, that suspension travel seems to be really soft and silky smooth 

Looks like you may need bump stops or rubbers on the shock piston to stop body foul under braking 2 up.

Looks like you may need bump stops or rubbers on the shock piston to stop body foul under braking 2 up.

Good shout