Glad you are making progress
Keeping oil and fuel in and air out is 1/2 the battle

Damn. The liberal smear of silicone. Would suggest that isn't the problem...or at least the full problem.

I am in danger of not heeding my own advice. As postage takes a while (and summer is short), I ordered  everything I thought could be the cause of my problems:
manifold gaskets, carb rebuild kit, coil, condensor
...oh ...and a set of stainless baby moon hubcaps.

I will try my best to only do one job at a time and test the car after fitting each new part.

Here's a thing: It looks like to fit a new condensor to the distributor, that I have to remove the distributor to take the bung out. This will necessitate retiming the engine. The lazybones in me wants to cut the old wire and fit a connector. Is this asking for trouble?

Just set the engine for doing the timing as you do, slacken the clamp and spin the dizzy around change condensor then rotate back and retime,
Or remove dizzy and clamp from the clamp stud, fit condensor and refit dizzy timing will be ok unless you have loads of free play on the clamp stud hole.

Thanks for that Snoopy.
Not much to report. Waiting on parts and collecting brownie points with DIY projects at the moments.
As an aside to keep this thread going. When I first got the car I was able to make contact with the owner previous to the one I bought the buggy from, he filled me in with some of the history of the car. It was apparently built by a guy for his wife, he died, she remarried and new husband swapped it for a boat. Sounds a bit brutal put like that, but thats the bare bones of the story as he got it. It ended up at a dealers and he bought it....
Anyway, he got in touch with me a couple of weeks ago. At about 9am on a Saturday and asked if I'd consider selling it back to him :-) He'd obviously been thinking about it the previous night. I told him I had no plans to sell it, but said I'd tell him first if ever I did. Seemed the gentlemanly thing to do. I regret selling one of my BSAs, so understood how he feels. But its mine now

Hello,
Not been on much of late. Quick update:
After replacing plug leads (one was dodgy), adjusting valves and lubricating the throttle pedal's moving parts and cable, and possibly most importantly setting the ignition timing to 10°BTDC('60-'65 Beetles apparently) rather than 7.5(What it was set to when I bought it, and what I had ensured it was set to when I checked it the first time )  The buggy is now running considerably better. No backfiring, pulls well, and doesn't feel like like it has a restrictor fitted. All great news.

It is still running rich and sooting the plugs however (even with the airfilter off). So I will look at dismantling and cleaning the carb(Pict28). I am suspicious of the accelerator pump adjustment. The plugs whilst sooty, once you clean off the soot look quite healthy, (1 and 3 a little lean, 2 and 4 beautiful biscuity colour). Which suggest its running well at certain ranges. You can also smell that its running rich after driving it a while.

But its running well (richness aside, which I know NEEDS dealt with) and has allowed me trips to the beach for ice creams with my youngest, and other things that make it all worthwhile.It gets waves and smiles wherever we go. Casting it's own little ray of sunshine. Not sure if a solution has been found to photo bucket problems. heres a link to a picture on beachbuggyinfo Facebook page.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1710569592320410&set=p.1710569592320410&type=3&theater

Cheers,
Iain

Managed to get in the carb today. Given everything a good clean up. The float where it touches the valve shows signs of wear. A shiny patch. Don't know how much wear they can suffer before it affects the float height.
Also noticed that the idle cut off valve looks like someone tried to remove it with molegrips at some point. It fairly bashed and squeezed
and the ceramic part of the automatic choke is cracked. Frustratingly I realised I ordered the cheaper rebuild kit from justkampers which doesn't have the float or idle cut off valve :-/ Looks like another weeks wait ...
Guess I'll put it back together, see if theres an improvement. If not I'll order the deluxe rebuild kit.


I'm sure I'll have it running fine in time for winter at this rate.

A shiney patch on the float is fine they get that constantly working and I have never known one wear through.
The auto choke ceramic crack will not hurt but the damaged shut off may, however you can check it works correctly on the bench.

Cheers Snoopy,
I'll give it a go tonight.

Took the buggy for a run with a couple of mates today. Went well and upon checking my plugs (we'll I only checjked one)- But it looked great(admittedly I still have the airfilter off and the choke set to fully open). but it looked great.
To recap in case anyone else runs into similar problems:

The carb clean and rebuild kit seems to have sorted my sooted up plugs.
The backfiring and sluggishness was sorted with a new set of plug leads. One of them was faulty.
and setting the timing to 10°BTDC instead than 7.5°BTDC, and adjusting valve clearances. So it was a combination of faults.

The buggy feels better every time I drive it.
Thanks for your support. 

that is good news then, now enjoy driving it.

I guess its a good sign thatI'm starting to get fussy now. I may have a leak in my fuel tank. The breather had broken where it attached to the tank. I replaced it with a bolt with a hole in it and a foolproof rubber washer, and a length of fuel pipe running up the roll cage. I'm getting fuel smells still when I come off roundabouts, accelerate brake etc.
I did wonder if the position of the pipe was causing fumes from it to be drawn back into the cabin by turbulence, so I drilled a hole in the tank cap and blocked it off. still getting fumes. I'll remove the pipe, block off the breather tube and try sealing it with a left over washer from my carb rebuild.I'll let you all know the result. Hopefully I don't need to go through the palaver of tank replacement.

Hello there,
I haven't had much presence here of late. Photo bucket being difficult kinda knocked the wind out of my sails and I ended up using BBI fascebook page as it's easier.

I thought I should keep you all up top date though, as some aren't on Facebook.
I've had a great summer with the buggy and finally reluctantly took it off the road for winter.

Over winter I hope to address  my fuel tank problem, which I think is just the gasket in the hole for the sender, clean up the floor,  and paint it, fit hubcap clips and hubcaps, replace the coil-overs on the rear with standard shocks (already done it on the front...what a difference!),and 12v conversion (if I can turn up the bits cheaply). Also strip  and paint the pipes, and replace the metal O-rings on the inlets.
Thanks for all your support, guidance and companionship over the last year. I hope to sort out my lack of photos rebuild this page and continue showing what I'm up to.
Cheers,
Iain

Excellent Iain. Shame you have to take it off the road for the winter - is there no chance of the odd day when the weather eased so you could give it a blast about. Or is everywhere frozen and sprayed with corroding salt ?

Your list of winter projects reads like so many other dedicated buggy owners... buggy ownership has certainly got into your blood !

If it would help, I suggest you leave the 6 volt starter in place...

My first buggy was 6 volt until I switched to 12 and I left the 6 volt starter motor in place, it
was in there its entire life, never burn't out and winter starting was literally awesome! 

Peter