Check it out....Homemade....Anyone got a guess ?

[Smokinjoe-VRCCDS#0005]

[hubcapsc]

-Mike ?

[Redline +]

Looks like a VW engine to me.

Redline 

[gregc]

I agree, looks like an older VW bug air cooled maybe 1500 cc.

[Fudd]

I'm going smaller:  1200 bug

[KY,Dave (AKA Misunderstood)]

killboy comment says and I quote. "VW power on 2 wheels, w/transaxle. Single side mono-shock rear suspension. Air cooled w/its own fan. Very trick, alot of innovation. I'm sure there is alot more that cannot be seen in this photo."

Interesting to say the least.

[Bobbo]

It's a VW engine, maybe 1600cc.  It's sporting dual port heads, which came out about 1971, although you could get them for other engines.  The cooling shroud is from an early 60's model, before the newer heater design.

[ricoman]

veedub for sure, not "fresh air heat" shroud, motor is late 60's, early 70's, newer than the pic.
did you notice the distance between the trans pulley and the small drive wheel pulley? gotta be better than 3 ft. and an idler shaft to keep the chain off the asphalt!
nice fab work on the headers too.
wonder what he uses the left side output shaft for, or it may be blocked off?

[Bobbo]

Since the transaxle had to be modified to run backwards, I'm guessing they removed the differential, and the other output shaft isn't there.

[solo1]

Having been a VW 'Bug' mechanic in the early 60's, my question is WHY?

By the way, did you know that the early bug engines had wood in them? A totally useless fact.

[Smokinjoe-VRCCDS#0005]

Having been a VW 'Bug' mechanic in the early 60's, my question is WHY?

By the way, did you know that the early bug engines had wood in them? A totally useless fact.

Where was the wood and what did it do ? I had a Super Bettle many years ago for a very short time I damn near froze to death in that thing every morning on the way to work.

[f-Stop]

"bug engines had wood in the them"  That's great trivia!

+1 on WHY??

[ricoman]

Having been a VW 'Bug' mechanic in the early 60's, my question is WHY?

By the way, did you know that the early bug engines had wood in them? A totally useless fact.

owned '56, '58, ;59, '62, '67, '71 and a 56 36hp bus.
would love to know where the wood is/was in the engine.

[Jess from VA]

Having been a VW 'Bug' mechanic in the early 60's, my question is WHY?

By the way, did you know that the early bug engines had wood in them? A totally useless fact.

Where was the wood and what did it do ? I had a Super Bettle many years ago for a very short time I damn near froze to death in that thing every morning on the way to work.

Me too Joe.  Had a '62 Ghia with block heat.... two little holes in the floor.  In the dead of MI winter, if I took off my left boot and put my sock foot over the hole, I would get a warm sensation on the bottom of my foot after driving 45 minutes or so.  Also had to carry a scraper on my lap to do the inside of the windshield....that or hold my breath for the whole trip.  The windshield squirters were powered by the air in the spare tire.... which had three pounds of pressure left when you needed it.  And trying to get lucky at the drive-in required extreme acrobatic maneuvers.  I loved that car 

[bentwrench]

AH the memories

[Tropic traveler]

Interesting!
My first car was a '61 Bug. Last non-Ford I owned! Blew up the engine twice but never had any problem with the heater... never really needed it. 

[BigAl]

Hilter had a few good ideas.

Designed by Mr. Porsche with slave labor of course.

Volkswagen, or Peoples car.

All other Hitler Ideas were fairly lame to barbaric.

What a psychopath.

Thank God the American Soldiers beat his ass off.

Don't forget the Russians of course. They scarfed his body.

AL

[Stanley Steamer]

Having been a VW 'Bug' mechanic in the early 60's, my question is WHY?

By the way, did you know that the early bug engines had wood in them? A totally useless fact.

Where was the wood and what did it do ? I had a Super Bettle many years ago for a very short time I damn near froze to death in that thing every morning on the way to work.

Me too Joe.  Had a '62 Ghia with block heat.... two little holes in the floor.  In the dead of MI winter, if I took off my left boot and put my sock foot over the hole, I would get a warm sensation on the bottom of my foot after driving 45 minutes or so.  Also had to carry a scraper on my lap to do the inside of the windshield....that or hold my breath for the whole trip.  The windshield squirters were powered by the air in the spare tire.... which had three pounds of pressure left when you needed it.  And trying to get lucky at the drive-in required extreme acrobatic maneuvers.  I loved that car 

My Paw-in-law has a 60 something Karma Ghia for sale.....it was his Dad's car to drive back and forth to work....2 miles round trip....it's got ~around 3,600 miles on it??....maybe it was 36,000?....it's always been in a garage.....red paint has faded....had new tires on it when it was parked..probably dry-rotted by now.....I'm sure it'd need some work to get it running again.....

[Jess from VA]

Having been a VW 'Bug' mechanic in the early 60's, my question is WHY?

By the way, did you know that the early bug engines had wood in them? A totally useless fact.

Where was the wood and what did it do ? I had a Super Bettle many years ago for a very short time I damn near froze to death in that thing every morning on the way to work.

Me too Joe.  Had a '62 Ghia with block heat.... two little holes in the floor.  In the dead of MI winter, if I took off my left boot and put my sock foot over the hole, I would get a warm sensation on the bottom of my foot after driving 45 minutes or so.  Also had to carry a scraper on my lap to do the inside of the windshield....that or hold my breath for the whole trip.  The windshield squirters were powered by the air in the spare tire.... which had three pounds of pressure left when you needed it.  And trying to get lucky at the drive-in required extreme acrobatic maneuvers.  I loved that car  

My Paw-in-law has a 60 something Karma Ghia for sale.....it was his Dad's car to drive back and forth to work....2 miles round trip....it's got ~around 3,600 miles on it??....maybe it was 36,000?....it's always been in a garage.....red paint has faded....had new tires on it when it was parked..probably dry-rotted by now.....I'm sure it'd need some work to get it running again.....

Stan, when I said I loved that car, I was not being entirely truthful (sarcasm font).  On the other hand, who didn't love their first car.... whatever kind of old jalopy it was.  But this was in no way to suggest that I want another one.  Thanks for sharing.  

If you can get it cheap, make the motor run and stick a dune buggy kit on the frame.   (I'm sure the wife will find that money well spent..... cough.)  







But I wouldn't make a motorcycle out of it. 

[BamaDrifter64]

We had a couple of bugs when I was growing up.  My dad was an airplane mechanic, so we were always working on all the cars we had.  He would drive a bug to work every day, which was about 35 miles each way.  He got smart and bought a spare engine for the bug and we would work a couple of nights each week rebuilding it.  About the time we'd get it rebuilt, it was time to swap it out.  So we'd drop the engine in the bug & install the rebuilt one on a weekend.  Then we'd start rebuilding the engine that we had just taken out.  Seemed like a never-ending cycle.

Dave

[Jess from VA]

I remember the engine had to be pulled to change the clutch. 

A German mechanic changed mine.  (He had four giant male G. shepherds that guarded/lived in his shop in the city.  Only a suicidal maniac would have ever tried to break in that place.)

[Bobbo]

I remember the engine had to be pulled to change the clutch. 

A German mechanic changed mine.  (He had four giant male G. shepherds that guarded/lived in his shop in the city.  Only a suicidal maniac would have ever tried to break in that place.)

True, but only four bolts held it in!

[MacDragon]

Having been a VW 'Bug' mechanic in the early 60's, my question is WHY?

By the way, did you know that the early bug engines had wood in them? A totally useless fact.

Where was the wood and what did it do ? I had a Super Bettle many years ago for a very short time I damn near froze to death in that thing every morning on the way to work.

Me too Joe.  Had a '62 Ghia with block heat.... two little holes in the floor.  In the dead of MI winter, if I took off my left boot and put my sock foot over the hole, I would get a warm sensation on the bottom of my foot after driving 45 minutes or so.  Also had to carry a scraper on my lap to do the inside of the windshield....that or hold my breath for the whole trip.  The windshield squirters were powered by the air in the spare tire.... which had three pounds of pressure left when you needed it.  And trying to get lucky at the drive-in required extreme acrobatic maneuvers.  I loved that car 

My Paw-in-law has a 60 something Karma Ghia for sale.....it was his Dad's car to drive back and forth to work....2 miles round trip....it's got ~around 3,600 miles on it??....maybe it was 36,000?....it's always been in a garage.....red paint has faded....had new tires on it when it was parked..probably dry-rotted by now.....I'm sure it'd need some work to get it running again.....

Make a trike out of it.

[solo1]

To answer your question about the wood.  The push rods were hollow. Oversimplication but too much oil traveled through the pushrods so VW installed a wood dowell inside that acted like a one way valve to limit the oil and no, I'm not making that up!

I have all kinds of stories peculiar to VW bugs. For instance, the tranny/diff case split vertically.  VW microbuses used two reduction gears in the outboard axle housing.  This was to reduce the overall gearing necessary to give more power at lower speeds to the heavier bus.  However, two gears will change the rotation of the axle.  To solve this, the ring gear of the bus was installed on the opposite half of the diff/tranny housing.  

One day the tranny tech was working on a microbus.  He had to replace the bearings in the tranny.  For that , the engine had to be pulled first and then the tranny dropped, split, worked on, then reassembled in the reverse order.  He finished the job (an all day job), wiped his hands, got in the bus to back it out.  He found out quickly that he had four speeds in reverse and one forward.  He installed the ring gear on the wrong half of the diff housing.  His loud and repeated  F*** Da** Sh** could be heard all over the shop.

The tranny/diff cases and the engine block were magnesium.  We had a broken tranny case so we thought it would be neat to set it on fire. We put paper, some scrap wood, a little gasoline in a 55 gallon burn barrel, then placed the tranny case on  that and lit the paper.  After about 3 minutes of normal burning, the inside of the barrel lit up like an arc welder, blue flames shortly melted the burn barrel like an accordian.  Lots of fun back then without burning restrictions.

The answer to the heat or lack of heat was to install a gasoline heater.  Simple. Drill a hole in the carb for the fuel, mount the heater, hook up the electrical and you're in business. The gasoline heaters got so hot that one of them melted my rubber boots on a test drive in the dead of winter.

[hubcapsc]

Imagine the biggest explosion you ever saw in a movie. Multiply it ten times. Now
you have some idea of what it was like on the Christmas morning that my sister
opened a box with a VW key in it. She used to have some tough guy boyfriend
who smoked Camels with no filters, I bet he's the second guy from the left...



Don't laugh - at least 1960s teenagers didn't have bolts in their noses...

-Mike

[sheets]

Daily driver. '73 SB. 315,000+ miles. Third motor has 15K on it. Rig is well perforated... over-under-around & through... like a rolling wiffle ball. Does take a few miles to warm up in the winter. Another 15K miles and it will be retired (just like me).

[ricoman]

To answer your question about the wood.  The push rods were hollow. Oversimplication but too much oil traveled through the pushrods so VW installed a wood dowell inside that acted like a one way valve to limit the oil and no, I'm not making that up!
















Have taken apart several VW engines (1956 and later) and have never seen a dowel in a pushrod tube. Would be good to know the year you refer to.
Otherwise, it may be something one individual owner did to solve what he felt was a problem. Given that the pushrod is in the pushrod tube, I don't see enough room for a dowel unless it was drilled hollow to go around the pushrod.

[Normandog]

Having been a VW 'Bug' mechanic in the early 60's, my question is WHY?

By the way, did you know that the early bug engines had wood in them? A totally useless fact.

That's interesting Wayne. 
I had a '69 special edition and later a '61 plain jane. loved those cars. Once in the '69 I passed a jeep that was having a hard time getting up a hill in the snow. 
Learned to carry a spare throttle cable and wear insulated boots and coveralls in the winter.
Once we took my brother in law's '62 beetle to the liquor store in a heavy snow (had to have some Dickel to get thru the snow storm) Throttle cable broke on the way in to town so Mike perched on the rear bumper with the "hood" open and worked the throttle while I drove it home. 

[solo1]

Wood in the push rod according to Gunther Stueryhahn, a factory German mechanic instructor.  We took apart a push rod and found it inside.

Pre '60 VW's, don't know about the '60's or newer with the first rectangular rear window.

[Bobbo]

The answer to the heat or lack of heat was to install a gasoline heater.  Simple. Drill a hole in the carb for the fuel, mount the heater, hook up the electrical and you're in business. The gasoline heaters got so hot that one of them melted my rubber boots on a test drive in the dead of winter.

Ah, yes...  The South Wind gas heater.  Bought three from a junk yard and built one working unit.  I tapped the fuel line from the tank, since it sat next to it on the passenger side.  Had a three speed fan and temperature control in one knob.  Worked great!  My girlfriend and I stayed toasty warm at the drive-in without having to start the engine!   

[solo1]

Southwind heater, thanks Bobbo, couldn't remember the name.

I remember I had just installed one in a bug. The dealer/owner was walking by just as I tried it out.  This big backfire with flames shooting out from under the fender happened just as he was walking past the car.  Couldn't have timed it better if i tried.  Damn near got me fired.

The Southwinds were good for doing that without warning.

[R J]

When grandpa wrecked his Bug, pulled out in front of a 5 or 6 ton Dump Truck with a load of sand/gravel on it out of our gravel pit.       Totaled the Bug as he run up over the right fender, wheel and part of the hood.    Broke all the parts up on the suspension.

I took the Southwind out of it and put it in my 37 Chev sedan.   Hooked it directly to the battery.  Switch on, it was hot...      Worked good until one night I forgot to turn it off.      Caught the car, shed it was parked by, a hay rack and a junk tractor grandpa was parting out on fire.    By the time we discovered it and being 5 miles out of town, the car was gone before the Fire Dept got here.      Yup, I done did got my butt kicked up between my shoulder blades.    Had to take off my shirt to do a # 2.

[Big IV]

I'd ride that VW motorcycle! A lot of work went into that. Cool.

[Fudd]

I'd ride that VW motorcycle! A lot of work went into that. Cool.

Are we back to the motorcycle?  Good...I have a question.  How do you shift it?

[39 Chev]

I have no idea on this one, but a buddy of mine hand-built a motorcycle with a 60 HP flathead V8 in it out of a 1937 Ford.  Started with a totalled old gold wing frame and built the rest.  Anyway, he does not shift it.  It has an "in and out" box.  He pulls the clutch,  puts it "in" and takes off.  No transmission.

He just uses it for around town and short, little trips.  Just a toy, but it's a cool bike.

[highcountry]

Nice looking bike.  I saw a video of a Corvair conversion a few yrs ago which was interesting.

[Walküre]

Don't laugh - at least 1960s teenagers didn't have bolts in their noses...

-Mike

Maybe not, but they wore empty beer cans, in their hair!!