Update of sorts

Well firstly, I think apologies are in order. OK I know I write this blog but the boys do have a bit to do with the input. So, sorry for all you peeps who have visited the blog recently and found.........nothing new! Not to say things haven't been happening. Would you believe the boys spent about £600 on the Rover (no its a car not a dog...well it's a bit of a dog) for head skim, gaskets, brakes, MOT etc. instead of on ME! Well they did actually spend money on me. A couple of weeks ago I was being very stroppy, I don't know why, perhaps the British weather, although you would think I had got used to that by now, mainly being out in the open, night and day, in all weather, even SNOW, do you remember that? for all of my life. Lucky us Beetles are 'Ard!
So I was running badly (deliberately, ha ha), wouldn't let them put me into gear easily, stalling at the lights, making my wheels wobble occasionally etc. Well, I needed some attention! Eventually the boys got really fed up with me and Ray suggested Dave take me back to Jim at Wallhouse http://wallhouseautos.net/ (more about the website later). A couple of days later and with a new steering box I was behaving myself much much better. Good old Jim! As I understand it, from whispered conversations I have picked up between Ray & Dave, the plan is to take me off the road for a bit and get me smartened up (for Christmas?). The Rover is now roadworthy and just needs tax (TAX, what's that, LOL) and insurance. They will probably get me insured through Performance Direct under a limited mileage, vintage car policy like they did before. That costs about £100 or could be even less. I will try and get more details from the boys for the next post as I am sure you Beetles (if any of you have access to the internet) would like to pass the info on to your masters.
So, I mentioned the Wallhouse website. At the moment it is just for contact purposes but Dave is going to organise a good website for Jim so keep your eyes open for that.
OK, I'm off now; got to concentrate on the road and keep an eye on Dave's driving. God knows what he'll be like in the Rover without me there!

Dave's away

Dave went off to Paris Saturday morning as a birthday treat for his girlfriend Alison so Ray and I decided to do a few repairs. Ray collected me on Friday night and Saturday morning I took him to Volkspares to buy the spark plugs (see previous post).
The old spark plugs were removed reasonably easily and although they didn't look too bad I think the gap had changed. I say not too bad but one of them hadn't been tightened enough and was sooty black all over. After fiddling with the mixture control and tickover speed I was stiil not right and I wouldn't go into gear properly/easily. Ray cleaned the contacts in the gear lever and the contacts on the servo. The problem appeared to be solved and the clutch was moving in & out at the required movement on the gear lever. However driving me back to Dave's Sunday night my gears were very difficult to select again.
My two wipers are now fully functional although I am not hoping for rain!
Ray attempted to sort out the noisy speedo but with no luck. He had the bright idea of contacting Moby on the Volkszone forum and Moby kindly gave him instructions how to fix it. The boys will have a go at this and hopefully take some pictures to post in case anyone else has the same problem.

Inflatio, what inflation?

Hi guys, hope you (and cars) are all well.
Me and Ray (OK, Ray and I) just got back from my local Volkspares with some plugs and a wiper blade for me.
Ray had a £10 note and plastic.
"Four plugs for a Beetle. please"
Out from the back came four Bosch WBAC (Super!). Ray wondered if it was the £10 note or the plastic that would be required.
"Oh, and have you got a wiper blade?"
"Eleven & a half inch?" He asked , producing some bubble wrapped non-descripts!
"I don't want them 'one fits all' type they never seem to work properly"
" I've got Bosch ones", he said diving out the back and producing Bosch T1 (Plus Super!,even)"
By now Ray had forgotten all about the tenner and was trying to remember his PIN.
After a couple of minutes playing the EPOS our friendly parts man said: "Ten pounds and a penny, please".
Ray picked himself up and gave him the tenner.
So if you want to do an Anthony Newley and "stop the world. I want to get off". -buy a Beetle!
Cheers all.

Oil for Type 1 Beetle

I see a lot of questions on Google about the type of engine oil to be used in old (careful!) Beetles. The boys tend to use Morris Straight 30 but now have started using a reasonable quality 20-40. When Ray used me as his primary transport some 28 years ago he tended to buy Duckhams 20-40 and this doesn't seem to have done me any harm. I know the oil is important in keeping me cool (in the temperature sense) but when I was first built there weren't all these fancy new oils about. I think it was a choice of Duckhams or Castrol (XL?) so I am sure you don't need to spend lot of extra money on the fancy brands. After all, oil is oil.
Note I am talking about in the UK here, I don,t know about any of them exotic locations. I have only been to France and I suppose Gertmany where I was born.

Heating, how to get rid

Hi humans! How are you faring? What with all this talk of recession in America, house prices crashing, inflation soaring. The only thing that affects me is the high oil and petrol prices. I only do about thirty to the gallon at the best of times and I must confess I am running just a wee bit under par so I dread to think how much I am costing to run. Still if you want the best cars...... I tend to cut out when I come to rest which is annoying David a little, not much because he seems to like me so much he doesn't complain. Although Ray keeps telling him to take me down to see Jim at Wallhouse Motors for a quick tune up. As he says these things don't get better only worse. I think Dave has a lot on his mind what with the Shareworld website going great guns. Have a look at the new features. http://www.shareworld.co.uk
He has also started another website trying to impart his knowledge gained through three years of Shareworld to others. He likes learning and improving himself all the time. Have a look over to the links on the right, under Website Design & Promotion, if you can drag yourself away from my Blog!
So, I am afraid there is not much to say about myself, apart from the fact that the boys spent a lot of time last winter getting my heating system working. Do you remember all that palaver with those flexy aluminium hoses? Anyway every time I took the pair of them on a reasonably long trip they sweated like proverbial pigs. Mind you they brought back some French Brie from Paxton & Whitfield in Jermyn Street, near StJames's (yes this is a plug, if you haven't been there and you like cheese, go!)and what with the heat in the car, the Brie got really runny and delicious by the time they got home (about twenty miles). I digress, as usual. Anyway after a few months of British summer (?) Ray insisted they try and do something about the heat. One of the heater controls had been fixed open with a plastic tie so that was cut free and the other one......well, the other one actually worked!! So once again the boys are surprised to see that things still work, if only they had faith! Cool, as they say.

Old versus New

You lot won't believe this. Well you probably will being gullible humans. Anyway, I have had my fanbelt on about 10 years. I can remember Ray putting a new one on many years ago. Whilst in the garage it was noticed that there was a cut , quite deep in the fanbelt, so it seemed prudent to replace it with a new one.
Me and Dave were driving along the night before when there was a clanking noise in my derriere or whatever the German is for bum and the gen. light came on. Lo and behold the belt had shredded!! Ray came to the rescue in the Pol.... (can't say that word) brandishing a pair of women's tights (are there men's tights?) which he proceeded to fasten around my pulleys much to the delight of the local constabulary who had parked up in the layby for their supper. Anyway the tights got me home although I was getting pretty hot and bothered by the time I got to Barnehurst and Dave fitted a new belt next day from Volkspares.

The Engine Shop Ltd

Ray was looking around the internet this morning (for promotional gifts for the Shareworld website http://www.shareworld.co.uk/ (if you are interested in stocks & shares). Anyway someone had searched this blog for "the engine shop erith". The blog came up 11th out of 19000. Reading a few of the other results, as you do, Ray was surprised to find, at first position the website of TES (The Engine Shop) in Erith, Kent. (England for you lot who live abroad)

http://www.theengineshop.info/acatalog/index.html

So this is the second VW Beetle related business in Erith we have recently found and knew nothing about. The other was Coolair. I wonder how many more hidden treasures there are in this area?
I know you lot don't like "going public" but how about letting me or the boys know what else is around in Kent, Beetle related of course!

Microgiant

After my visit to Microgiant in Rayleigh, Essex the smile hasn't gone from Dave's face. He got really fidgety whilst I was away and apparently really missed me. (I bet that was because he had to drive his mum's Rover 214). Anyway Tim at Microgiant has done an excellent job and the boys had a long chat with him about Beetles and campers etc.
He has organised with Pirtex to get some ATF hoses made up and I will make sure Ray gets some more posts up whwen thy're done.

ATF fluid

The boys are still having problems with one of my fluids. Yes that darned ATF is still leaking onto the road. They think they have it sussed at last. It would appear to be leaking from the union of the return pipe where it returns to the neck of the reservoir filler. Apparently it can leak from the cap due to the washer getting compressed over time. This does not seem to be the case with me.

The boys might have a go over the weekend depending on the weather.

The vwar.org forum has some most helpful contributors. It is purely for auto Beetles like me although none of them are as talkative as me, preferring to let their human owners speak for them!

There's always a debate about what lubricants to use but we think that it does not seem worth spending a lot of money on modern products as they have been designed or refined for modern engines which, I imagine are a lot different to my lump. So we have been using Morris SAE30 engine oil and Dextron II. Of course you should not have to keep topping up the ATF like us, but we bought a 5 litre can which was the cheapest way. Don't know about gearbox oil but will report back when I do.

MIcrogiant

Hi humans! I am away from home again. This time Dave & Ray took me to Microgiants in Rayleigh. We drove down there Tuesday night in all that rain. I got Dave there safely though, but I think Ray was a bit worried due to the weather. Ray drove in the VW Pol.....that word's got stuck in my throat. Oh well I suppose at least it's a Volkswagen!
Anyway the boys thought they would get some professionals to look at my leaks. No I haven't started growing vegetables; oil leaks.
Tim at Microgiant diagnosed it as 1. Oil pressure switch leaking 2. ATF filler cap leaking (inspite of the ATF hoses looking very ropey they were not leaking).
Tim later discovered the oil cooler was leaking as well so that's a slightly bigger job. But not too bad for a 30 year old.
The boys asked Tim to check with Pirtex (just down the road from them) how much the ATF hoses would be to make up.
Hopefully I will be picked up today so I will let you all know he results.

Coolair (GB) Ltd.

A couple of weeks ago Dave & Ray were in Volkspares in Barnehurst. They were after some of that stretchy aluminium pipe. Unfortunately the guy there didn't have any but kindly suggested they try Coolair. Well, Ray had seen the Coolair catalogue before but didn't realise the shop was local (Erith).

The shop (warehouse?) is in Bilton Road, Erith but the boys had never seen it before. Ray drove up and down the cul-de-sac which is Bilton Road about five times but could not find it. He asked a couple of locals (even some car mechanics about a hundred yards from where it eventually turned out to be. In fact it was right at the beginning of Bilton Road, but unless you knew it was there you would easily miss it. Come on chaps give us a clue who/where you are. Mind you inside it is a revelation. There are a few buses and a few bugs in there and loads of other bits and pieces. Ray was a bit disappointed that one assistant gave the reply to a question "Dunno mate, I know nuffin' about Beetles" Oh well c'est la vie, at least modern life.

Anyway it's useful to have another source of parts in the area, although Heritage has moved a bit closer to Ray's office in Crawley, which is also handy.

Tax exempt

Well, as I suppose most of you know, in the UK, vehicles manufactured (constructed) before 1st January 1973 are exempt from Road Fund Licence (Car tax). However you have to apply for a tax disc or, presumably, apply for a SORN (Statutory Off Road Notification). To apply for a Tax disc you need Insurance and an MOT. In my particular case, Ray had been the registered keeper since way back (pre SORN) but had not applied for the Tax, as the car was not being driven on the road. Those of you who have read this blog will know that Ray's son David is now using me for daily transport, so he recently applied for the tax disc (exempt).

Fortunately the local DVLA office is only a 15 minute drive away in Sidcup,Kent (near Sidcup railway station) so I popped Dave down there a couple of weeks ago. He was suitably armed with my new style registration document, insurance certificate and MOT.

The necesssary application form was filled in there and then. The chap behind the counter asked if there was a SORN but didn't seem interested in the answer. According to the DVLA you don't need a SORN if the vehicle was taken off the road before the law came out. Anyway it was all pretty simple in the end and as you can see Dave stuck the new disc on my front windscreen (bit too far over if you ask me). You should be able to read my new taxation class: HISTORIC..posh, eh what!?

Latest pics

Latest pics of Brian

Yeah, that's right, Brian. The family have dusted away the cobwebs from their collective memory and decided that I used to be called Brian. I can live with that: It's nice being wanted again after all these years!

Me after a good wash

Here are some pics of me. I know you have seen similar before, but these were taken on Holly's new camera she got for Christmas. Holly is Ray's youngest daughter. You remember me telling you about his other daughter Joanne? I mentioned she was having a baby in previous postings. Well she had a baby boy, Sammi, on 2nd Nov. I was going to say a little boy, but he was 10lb 2oz!
Anyway the camera is a Nikon D40 bought in Jessops, Crawley. Ray almost walked out of the shop without buying anything, the assistance was so bad (non existent). Can't say much about the camera yet as they have not really used it much, but seems pretty impressive.

Chit chat

Hi all, how are you? Don't get all shy I don't expect a response! It's quite pleasing to see so many visitors to the blog. Some of you look around for a bit and others go as quick as they came: I don't know what sort of beetle you are after. It was funny when the boys wrote about my oil consumption. A google search for "what sort of oil does a Beetle use?" produced, among others, a website about 'oil beetles'!!

Anyway, not much has happened over the last few weeks as I have been running very well. Although I am still losing a lot of oil and ATF as well. Can't do much about it before the spring and warmer weather, but Dave's grandmother has offered to pay for a new engine, so the boys are trying to work out the best plan of action.

The next couple of posts are on specific items so we have split them up for convenience and there are also some pics of me, after having had a bath! (more like a hose down! Brrrrr

Dimensions of heater pipe

Having checked the details of the piping Ray & Dave used they have discovered that the smaller pipe is 50mm. This is the standard pipe people like VW Heritage etc. sell, that is used in the engine compartment. There is also a similar pipe in cardboard. When the boys first tried to 'fix' the heating they used this diam. pipe but found it went inside the heat exchanger outlet and could not be fixed securely. They then discovered the slightly larger pipe and the two sizes used in conjuctuction proved to be a perfect combination. They have plans, however to fix the heating properly using the correct Beetle components. The first hurdle is money. The two plastic pipes from the H/Es to inside the body are about £23 odd each (VW Heritage, GSF, Volkspares) although Ray saw them somewhere at half the price. (possibly Status)
Maybe they will pick some up secondhand-no rush I am keeping Dave fairly warm so far and I think they may try and get the left heater channel organised which should be OK.

Heater pipes

I notice Dave & Ray have put up some pictures of their handiwork.(see last post)
They were fiddling around for ages trying to get some of the heat produced by my engine to go into the cab. Hopefully you can see from the pics which is the view from under the rear seat. There is a length of aluminium stretchy pipe attached over the end pipe of the heat exchanger and fastened with plastic cable tie. This pipe is just over 3inches diameter and was purchased from Chastilian Motors in Crayford. Well actually it was free as it was the end of their stock. It was about 12 inches long but this stuff does stretch considerably, although you have to be careful as the aluminum can start to unwind. In the other end of this pipe, under the seat, a similar length of the stanadard VW aluminium hose, which I believe is 3inch diameter was fitted. The other end of this pipe fitted nicely over the pipe going into the heater channel. Although you cannot feel loads of heat coming out of the side vent it does have a noticeable effect on the overall warmth of the interior and I am much more comfortable to travel in now, so I hear.

The really important things to be done next are my oil leaks. My engine is, to say the least, a bit oily and drips when stationary after any trip, although I don't think it has ever been any different. Possibly more worrying is the leakage from the ATF system. It looks like one particular pipe from, or to, the ATF reservoir is very worn and oily looking and the "boys" think a lot of fluid is coming from there.

heater pipes

Wallouse Autos

Some pictures of Wallhouse Autos. I am sure Jim won't mind the publicity, and he did a grand job gettin my clean bill of health. MOT to you lot!