Summer is slowly appearing down here in Adelaide Australia which means its time to rust off the beetle and start workign on it again. What i have been thinking from day 1 is to do a chop top. (so if your a purist stop reading now).

Now most chops are equal front to back but i want to do a rake chop, i talked to a person on the internet and he said he raked it by just cutting the front and middle pillars then stretching the front and side pillars slightly to fit up. Anyway i decided i would photoshop this before i destroy one of my beetles.

Ideas for chops:

http://www.volksrods.com/id65.htm (Narrowed the body and didnt need to cut the roof up.)

http://www.socalook.com/chopping.html (Classic cheaters sunroof way)

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=390897 (Minor but nice)

Click to see a larger pano

Here are the shots from todays Day of the Volkswagen 2010 at Tea Tree Plaza. Nice atmosphere and a great day for it, even met a few new people.

I started putting the rods on the crank shaft only to find that the bearings supplied were undersize.

But it was ok, the guys at V&T did a good job so the main bearings were .25 and so are the rod bearings, just a pain in the ass.

Here is a video of what the issue looked like:

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Anyway i went to Euro Imparts on main north road (enfield) at lunch one day and picked up the correct size bearings.

Here is a video of how it should look:

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Yes i do realise that the rods dont spin as freely as you would normally see if i were to lube with oil, but i am lubing with molly grease

that is a little stickier (but offers great protection when your gaining oil pressure when turning it over for first time

(note not turning over with spark plugs attached).

Below we have the inside of the case all put together and ready to go.

Thats the permatex aviation sealer around the outside, almost a perfect equivalent to the sealing liquid they used in 1968 when they built the motor.

The other side of the case Moly lubed up with lifters in ready to bolt back together. (don’t forget the oil (return?) thingy down the bottom otherwise you could be in a very bad place )

More aviation Sealant on this side (i really want as few leaks as possible)

Case is together (Some of you may have noticed it obviously was a 1500 single port in the beginning of its life, and somewhere along the way (80-90’s) it was changed to a 1600 Dual port).

Now to bolt the halfs together.. but wait the bolts have been misplaced during my house move.. but stress less i have a new engine hardware kit coming in the mail. Will keep you all updated.

Thanks again to the following people for the pictures; Mark Paine, Bruce Walker, Jordan Muller, Andrew Snell, Glenn Kirkham, Kris Farrant, Allen Appleby and anyone else who sent out pictures, also thanks to the sites where some of these have been collected from..