Farmer Rob is no longer just an engine guru - He has been upgraded to Engine God 

All Hail Farmer Rob   

(Actually, I bet there are many with engines from Rob out there who share that sentiment completely)


The phone conversation last night confirmed that replacing the hydraulics have done the trick, and the remaining popping from the exhaust leaks are now also cured (for now anyway). I`m hoping to collect it at the weekend and I know that I will receive some stern instructions never to take a spanner to that engine or mess with it again.

Driving to Germany in less than 4 weeks - no pressure then     

Great news Dave.  That case must have had a manual cam fitted in it at some time for that to cure the woes.

I've managed about 50 miles in mine since the rebuild and so far it has blown a dip relay, broke a clutch cable, has a noisy serpentine bearing, shredded the belt and now that it's settled it needs the rear taking up a notch.

You need to get some miles in then.

Great news! Fingers crossed thats it sorted.

That case must have had a manual cam fitted in it at some time for that to cure the woes.

Not sure about that one - I think the problem is probably down to the poor quality Hydraulics (brand new from Heritage) that I fitted in order to revert the engine back to its standard guise as VW intended. I think the parts I used were probably acting erratically and not opening and closing the valves with any consistency. Then factor in the additional valve train spring problems that Ollie and Ben spotted, which caused the valves and guides to bend, and this was just all doomed from the start.

Desperately need to get some miles back on it   

Yes if a lifter was not fully pumping up or not draining down that could have been it.

I will not use VW Heritage for anything anymore after they sent me Chinese made brake cylinders that were advertised as Brazilian then completely fobbed me off with the 'You are only the customer attitude'.

Desperately need to get some miles back on it   

Well then trailer the buggy up to Rob, fit the engine and get Liz to drive the van back, while you have all the fun.

Driving to Germany in less than 4 weeks - no pressure then     

If I din't get my oil slick sorted on my newly named 'Torrey Canyon' buggy, tgen I'm a shoe in for tale end Charlie on the UBW run.

Good ti hear things are looking up for you.

Great stuff Dave, pleased you are almost sorted. Rob is indeed the man !

Fantastic news Dave! Well done Rob

Good news dave! I have been snooping at all these fancy tow bars. With yours looking good to make it to ibw i will have more metal bits for me to poke at.

Great news!

Thats really good news Dave. 

Putting the towing bracket on my car has been brilliant, except that it fouled the mounts for my bumper. With IBW looming, I wanted to make sure that I had some front protection for on the ferry, so had to make something up.

I have recently been doing MIG welding at the local college (4 weeks so far) and when the tutor asked if we had any little projects that we wanted to bring in, I jumped at the chance and asked if I could bring the Buggy over. The initial reply was that it would not fit on the bench, but being a fellow petrol head, he agreed just so long as any welding was done off the car.

With a couple of spacers at either end, I chopped the front bumper in half and then sleeved and welded it back together, using some heatshrink to cover it for now. No point spending out on fancy coatings, as this is only a temporary fix until I can get a stainless one made at a later date.





At least its now protected, and my A-Frame also fits within it.

Good thinking

Another trip looming, and dealing with another poor quality part failure.

I do seem to be having an endless amount of bad luck when it comes to adding any parts to my car and I cannot believe how we all put up with the shoddy parts that are being turned out these days. From my childhood days, I have always messed about with CB radios, and I can vividly remember the day when it went legal in 1982. From that day to this, I have had many rigs and many different configurations. The only things that ever broke were Mic wires from stretching them too far, and the occasional output stage going pop from not setting the SWR correctly - (in fairness I was only twelve at the time). Things broke because of our own stupidity, not because they were poorly built. So where am I going with this? Well, apart from engines, my Buggy also seems to have an unhealthy appetite for rejecting aerials on the back.

In the early days, I had a pair of Stingers. Very basic steel aerial with a huge coil spring at the bottom. They bounced around all over the place, and often reached the horizontal when going along due to the wind resistance of the flags that I was flying at the time. They were brilliant aerials to look at, but on a fiberglass vehicle, the CB performance of them was diabolical.

For those unawares, many radio transmitter aerials also use the metal bodywork of a car to distribute the signal correctly, and when there is little or no metalwork, then we need to look at using specialist types of aerials to overcome this.

I tried a center load aerial that I had kicking about, which gave a very good SWR reading, but it swung about so much that I seriously feared I may take someones eye out if they were walking close by - such as carnivals and processions - so that one was scrapped. I tried a top loaded aerial of dubious origin (ChineBay) and the six foot helically wound antenna was so thick (18mm) that there was no give in it whatsoever. Whilst cruising the ring road, it had an argument with a swooping seagull that left the aerial shattered midway and the mounting point on the engine cage bent. No flex whatsoever. Back to the drawing board yet again.

This time I decided to splash out and go for a genuine branded "Firestick" antenna. These were amongst the "Must Have" brands of the day, and their performance was legendary. For the price of a pair over here, I could import 4 of them from the USA, so that's what I did. I was about to say that many of you will have seen my nice red 4 foot aerials on the back, and then I remembered that the car hasn`t been out much for the last few years what with one thing and another. It wasn`t until I realised that my CB was  shutting down due to an incredibly high SWR reading that I noticed that the base of the antenna had cracked. The two grub screws were still holding the fiberglass pole, but it was flexing so much that the copper wire had parted from the base. Not impressed.





I`m running out of ideas here, as most of the antennas that are suitable for the Buggies simply do not have enough "Flex" in them at the base. Looking at Peter's Buggy, he is using a Sirio antenna that has a big spring on the base plate. It seems to tick all the boxes, and if it goes wrong, I can blame him. The only niggle I have, and it is a minor one, is that they only come in black.





But a bit of green heatshrink soon cured that one. 


SWR was damn near perfect, the needle hardly moved - now all I need to find is someone else with a CB so I can try it out 

Try it out with me Dave, I'll have my cb at IBW, not idea what swr is tho I just have an Arial on the rear 😳😳🤔🤔