1982gl4

I would do that, but our busses don't have the provisions for a front radiator. I would want it to look factory, like the one above and with out importing a half cut I have no good way of doing it. Plus I have a spare tire carrier that I haven't installed yet that will be going back on the front.

Oh its no problem it certainly pertains to the thread, thanks for the info! If I could I would import one of those in a second, but they don't meet emissions, or crash safety here. I'll be running two radiators in mine in the engine bay, I think its the best looking way to do it, and the most functional for what I do with it. I don't want to put one underneath to limit ground clearance, and cause potential leaks while venturing off road.

Sounds like you had a 14 window bay, the Brazilian busses are so cool. I'm jealous of how much later you were able to get them down there. The air-cooled engines always seem to have issues, everyone that has owned one of these has the "I could remove the engine in half an hour story" The ea's used to be a more popular swap, but with the power, and availability of the ej they have phased out.

Thanks! I had to have the plaid, its super close to the original curtains that came in it, and the bfg's are a high enough load range for this, plus they look killer. My plans for it were to keep it looking mostly original, but make it far more useable for camping. I really like working on the air-cooled engines (#3 always seems to have the issues...), and I love owning them, but I don't want to rely on one for actual transportation, a fun car I drive to work or on the weekends sure, but not for a trip. I really wanted to keep this one original, and was against swapping it for the first year or so, but ultimately I decided I want this to be something I can get in and drive long distances and not think about having to pull the engine to replace the heads, or mess around with carbs all the time.

Started in on my newest project today, well thats not entirely true. I've had this 72 VW Westfalia for the last couple years, and it has actually been very good. I had to do quite a bit to it initially to get it up and going, new shocks, tune the carbs, fuel lines, tune the carbs, redo the front seats, tune the carbs, adjust valves all the usual plugs, points, wire, and tune the carbs. Overall its been a pretty dependable summer driver. The end of last season it started to develop a miss at idle, and I think the #3 valve seat is on its way out. So I was left with a few different options rebuild the anemic 1.7 gex boat anchor that came with this thing, rebuild the stock 1.7 I have in a box (either of these options leave me with fiddling with carburetors for the rest of my life) Or swap it. I decided to do the 2.2 as I already have done an ej swap on my brat, although the alh diesel swap was tempting... Here are some pics over the last couple of years of some of the work I have done to it. First day First mod! Reupholstered the seats Weekend of Stowe car show (the beetle I restored a while back, my friends mom purchased it) This summer I lifted it slightly, and added koni adjustables to it I had the curtains redone in the factory plaid. One of my camping adventures this summer And today, I dug into my 95 legacy parts car, no loss here, completely rusted out. It has a lot of miles, but if the engine ever has issues I'll simply swap in another, but it sounds great, and I drove it home. I'll be resealing it, and putting a new timing belt on along with coolant tubes before its swapped into the bus. I need to order an adapter plate this, along with a heavy duty clutch, and the engine can be put in place, and I'll start working on the harness here soon as well.

Thanks man! I'm very happy to have it back on the road, and now I'm waiting for spring so I can drive it again. I need to spend some time on the rear shock towers, and I would like to lower the rear a bit more, but those are both pretty minor things.

Originally I had rear calipers from an xt6, along with backing plates. But I changed that this summer. I ended up using rear backing plates, e-brake, calipers, and rotors from a 91 legacy turbo. It all works very well. The front calipers are 97 legacy gt (dual pistons) The master cylinder is the stock brat one, I've heard using a legacy or otherwise can make the brake peddle super hard, and somewhat unsafe without using the booster to go along with it. And the EJ booster doesn't fit without some modding to the ea81 body... So far I've had no problems with the braking, but haven't pushed its limits super hard yet. Thanks man, the headers look and sound great, spend some quality time making the exhaust that is for sure. I'll have to get a sound clip of it at some point, but its parked in the garage until spring at this point.

Got a chance to work on this tonight, can't wait until the body work is wrapped up and we can get a new coat of paint on this!!!!

It went to paint this weekend. Usually my dad and I do all the body work and spray them, but I have a neighbor with a body shop, he is also a good friend of mine, I traded him a Passat a while back so now I'm going to get this car painted. Can't even wait for it to look good! Hopefully going to place the fmic at the same time so I don't have to cut the bumper after paint.

Thanks! I am into vw's well old ones anyway. Restored a 71 super beetle convertible last year, I have that 72 westy along with 2 others apart... and 64 sunroof beetle.

I have been driving the brat all over the place. I have had to do a few repairs to it. The front end was making horrible noises, so I decided to check that out a couple of weeks back, turns out it was a very simple fix, just lubed the sway bar bushings in the front and all is well now. I also had troubles with the fuel pump again I just added an inline filter in front of it, hopefully that takes car of the problem. I'm noticing a lot of tire wear in the front, I need to align it, thinking ill turn the strut tops this time, so I can actually use the camber adjustments for camber instead of caster. I don't want to wear the tires out super quick.... Other than those few things it has been running and driving very well. I need to fix the rust in the bed some time soon, and I have a few other plans for it as well. But at this point it probably wont be until spring time, it will be going in the garage soon, and the legacy wagon will be getting ready for winter. Heres a pic of it with my newest toy. 79 rx7 one owner car, 77k miles, and it is perfect shape.

Its been good so far, put close to 1000 miles on it in just the short time i have been driving it. I only have had one problem where the fuel pump sucked up something and seized, luckily I was able to clean it out, and it did it in my driveway.... It also stalls coming to stop lights sometimes, I'm thinking it may be because the clutch switch isn't hooked up? I have the trans neutral safety switch installed and working, and if I put it into neutral before coming to a stop it usually wont stall. Other than that it runs and drives great.

A few new shots of my brat, now that it is up and going

Up next it went to work on a trailer so I could align it and put another exhaust on it. A bit dirty from sitting New exhaust, new headers, a stainless center glass pack, new cat, and a small magniflow rear muffler make up all of it. Man I love the pipe bender. I also had to go around the new swap bar, as there was not enough room between the ej trans, and the new sway bar. cool shot on the lift. After that I got it cleaned up, and went to one of the local car shows. Put about 400 miles on it that weekend going back and forth and on some cruises with my friend in his brz, and my other friend in his 68 c-10 The most recent photo, of the engine bay, new battery installed as well. I wanted to use the factory air box, but it wasn't going to happen without a lot of time, so this will do for now.

Okay my computer is working again, so big update of photos, and what I have been doing to/with this. I'll step back a couple weeks as I have been driving this all over the place, and taking it to car shows. I never posted pics of what I did for the e-brake, I bought new legacy cables, and used a 93 legacy turbo e-brake handle, and then cut holes in the floor to run the cables out to the rear disc. The cables actually fit very well, and I was able to use a few of the factory holes to mount them on. legacy handle installed rear coils starting to go in. both of my shock bolts were broken on both sides, I had actually welded studs on years ago to hold them in place, I ended up cutting those off, and making my own upper mounts, I boxed them all in, and added a bunch of extra bracing top and bottom, but here is the starting point sway bar installed Then I ended up having to adjust my torsion bar, but my factory one would not come apart, so I took a spare out of the shed, took it apart, adjusted it, cleaned it up, and painted it. My dad helped in install it one night a couple weeks back. In this pic you can see the e-brake, and the cleaned up torsion bar tube. This went in at the same time

Looking really good man! Engine bay looks clean!

I've out close to 600 miles on this in the last week. It's going very well. Still need to wire in the clutch switch it dies when I come to a quick stop without feathering the gas. But other than that it is running and driving very well. However, I would like to get some coils with better spring rates for this, the ride is a bit rough... I have a bunch of photos I need to post from car shows over the last two weekends.

Got this road legal today! I drove it from work to my parents house about 22 miles round trip. It went very well other than a few things. The tach stopped working, my back up lights were on all the time, and no temp gauge. After I got it home I fixed all of this things easily just some wiring stuff. And I started putting the interior back together. On the way home it developed a clunk in the front end so I swapped it out for my legacy at work and will look at it tomorrow. Hopefully just something simple. So it's on the road and can't wait to put some miles on it.

New exhaust and alignment last night brought it to work on the trailer. I need to re alight it tonight as I'm not happy with the tie rods. Going to put some ea82 ones on as they are a bit longer.

Same thing we did with my dads 914, cut them worded the ends together, and then welded sleeves over the outside. We have done dry pavement donuts in the 914 as a test they work fine never had breakage even auto crossing they have held up. No vibration issues either. Today I got the front clip on, fixed the lights I had some words that were cut to the rear, and finished up most of the harness, turns out my temp gauge is not wired in so I'll do that tomorrow right now it's on the trailer and going into work tomorrow so I can build the exhaust I want for it, and align it along with install the from sway bar. I also took it on a short drive down the road man is this thing mean!

I'm willing to bet most of us on here got a lot of out mechanical know how from our fathers, or grandfathers in my case it was both. I grew up with both of them making some pretty crazy stuff, cars and otherwise! Yeah I was slacking on this thing there always seemed to be more important projects, so last week I decided to finish this and take a break from my z. It's crazy how long you can have a project car sitting around. I took a look at the inspection sticker yesterday and it's from 2010.... Anyway yesterday was a very productive day, rear suspension is 100% finished, built a new steering ujoint, finished the front cv shafts, mounted the fuel pump, built a new shift linkage that actually works, mounted the passengers side fender, and put some of the interior back together. Hoping today will be as productive.

Tonight was a super successful night my dad helped me a big shout out to him. Anyway we got my 91 turbo legacy rear diff swapped over along with a new rear torsion tube. I cleaned up and painted my spair one (as the torsion bars actually came out of that one) reclocked the bars so they were two clicks lower, and slapped it in. I wish I had my computer working so I could share some pics now that the rear is lowered it looks flipping sweet! The rear cvs sucked to take out nothing like a torch and a bfh... Now I need to reboot both inners oh well... Tomorrow I'm hoping to get everything back there finished up and star putting the nose backs together and a few other things!

Thanks man! I have been working hard on it every night after work. Last night I got the rear brakes finished, I had to machine the back of the rotors some to fit well, but they are good now. Got to see it on the ground for the first time, but the rear sits way too high for my liking even on the lowest setting. I'm going to see about adjusting the torsion bars if they come apart... The rear sway bar is now in, I had to mod the lower shock mounts as they were supposed to bolt to those, but they have been moved because of the coilovers. Put all stainless brake hoses in last night, finished up the rear lines, and bled the brakes. Because all of the parts are new, I'm using dot 5 fluid so I don't have to worry about the system for a long time. For the first time in a long time it stops! Tonight i'm picking up a z parts car, but I'm hoping I can get the steering shaft, shift linkage, and work on torsion bar stuff.

Tires are mounted up, I have the rear brakes somewhat finished, one of them is locked up I have I idea why I'm going to look at that tonight. Hopefully I'll get the rear struts and steering shaft wrapped up as well. No pics for a bit as I broke my computer charger...