Well, what a summer it's been. No, I'm not talking about the weather, I 'm referring to the trials and tribulations in the Classical Gas household, centred about that old yellow car in the garage. I had the best of intentions, a bit of work on the Beetle, but the main project was to get some of the outstanding jobs done in the house. Dream on, it was another summer in the garage.
The Beetle has been going well enough for what it is. It's been developed slowly over the years and has been the model of reliability. I even got three successive gold's, but not in the same year! However, that was a period when the Lands End was dry and the Exeter didn't include class six re-starting on Simms, or going up the steep part of Wooston.
It was the Exeter that started it really. Running a standard 1600 motor in class six I saw no prospect of conquering Simms with a re-start, or getting up the steep route on Wooston. The Edinburgh was OK and the Lands End wasn't too bad. I had even learnt how to re-start on Bluehills Two and once got through the Crackington clag with a re-start. But the Exeter, that as a different story.
So there had to be a change. I could upgrade my existing motor to 1776, 1835 or even higher. But it would still not be as powerful as a type 4 motor, and it was these guys that the organisers seemed to be trying to stop. The type 4 route was out. Just too much effort to modify the engine to fit the Beetle, even if I could find a suitable power unit.
No, I was going to go down to class four. I decided to keep the car I had, even though as a 1302 it was a bit heavy, after all Murray did OK in his, and so did Hans Viertel down in the West Country. The original plan was to build an engine from a new pair of crank cases. I had talked about this with Murray many times, but finally I bit the bullet and rang him to order the parts and ended up with a ready built engine!
It's the ex Robert Clough motor with which Robert won his triple around eight years ago. Robert had built the 1300 engine with Weber-Alpha fuel injection. This was quite controversial and by the time the Edinburgh came along there were whispers that the 'scrut was going to throw the injected Beetle out. Roberts solution was to borrow a conventionally aspired Beetle and have a friend take it to the start. The idea was that if the injected car was thrown out Robert would use the ordinary one. Fortunately for him all this was not necessary and Robert got a gold and his triple.
Robert built a type four engined buggy for the following year and the Beetle was broken up and sold in bits. The engine ended up in Murray's shed, but as a bare long block without the injection. By the time I acquired it it had also lost it's tinware and flywheel. Spec wise its got a mild cam, flowed heads and a counterbalanced crank. An old engine under my bench yielded
the necessary tinware and a 200mm flywheel. Then it was off to Jim Calvert at Stateside Tuning at Enfield. Jim has been behind a couple of other class four Beetle motors, including Murray MacDonalds and Matthew Sharett's. Jim didn't open up the motor but balanced the flywheel and clutch and provided a pair of Dellorto 36 DRLA's with the necessary linkage. He also supplied the adapter and pipes for an oil filter, the engine was already drilled and plugged for the fittings.There was a lot of work to do when the engine came back. The tinware had to be modified to accommodate the Dell's manifolds. Then these had to hacked about to provide sufficient clearance to get a socket on the nuts. Even so it was necessary to go and buy a 1/4 drive 11mm socket and universal, so tight did everything fit in. The next horrendous job was to find a home for the oil filter. I will pause here to explain to the less enlightened amongst you that Mr Volkswagen never saw fit to equip his masterpiece with an oil filter. Presumably seeing the trade in exchange engines as his pension fund!
Consequently there isn't anywhere in the engine compartment to fit one. The normal trick is to mount the filter under the wheel arch or the rear valance. Neither were possible on a trials car with all the rocks flying about. The decision was made to locate it on the tinware in the place normally occupied by the coil. This was moved to the rear bulkhead. Sounds easy, not so. The exact mounting position took a lot of working out as the pipes had to thread their way around the carburettor linkage and care had to be taken that it would be possible to get the distributor cap off. Having worked out where to put the filter the tinware had to be strengthened as it wouldn't be strong enough to take the dynamic weight.
The next horror job was to find a route for the oil pipes from the case, through the tinware up to the filter, another tricky job. Fitting up the tinware took absolutely ages, there were a million and one problems to overcome. Finally all the bits fitted together on the bench and it was time to put the new motor in the car. The carbs had to come off first. Putting them on once the engine was in wasn't to bad, good job I've got small hands though.
Finally came the time to fire up. Jim had said he had set the carbs up on the bench and apart from the idle speed they wouldn't need any adjustment. I have to say I was sceptical, especially after I bought a Dellortro book and saw all the things there were to set. I knew he had fitted small 28mm chokes but how did he set all those mixture screws?
It fired up OK and I've put a hundred mile on the motor. It pulls OK, better than the 1600. I phoned Murray to check he had really sold me a class 4 motor. But he assured me he had supplied the pistons and barrels from his shop and they were definitely 1300. Lets just hope it's reliable and Mike and I have a good run on the Edinburgh.
(Originally published on the Classical Gas site. Moved here on 6 August 2000)