Furious Fastback

[Rhysos]

Hi all, Rhys here. I’m new to the forum, but not to aircooled VW’s and you may have occasionally seen me pop up over on the VZi and The Samba forums. I've recently become the proud owner of a 1972 1600 TA (purchased June last year), so I figured that it would be beneficial to connect with other Type 3 owners:

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So, my ride happens to be a VolksWorld ex-feature car from back in the day (Nov 2000):

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The car is far more sedate than it was back then and no longer has the 2165cc stomper, so the 'Furious' tag probably no longer applies It’s a rolling project with plenty of things to fix, but it is exactly what I was seeking; solid, running and peppered with battle scars:

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My first car was actually a 1965 Beetle, which I got just after passing my driving test almost 25 years ago. I still have it, but it is under looong-term restoration. Since I laid up my bug I had been feeling a growing desire to be back behind the wheel of an old dub. Type 3’s have always held a curious appeal and although I like all of the body types, the Fastback speaks to me. When I laid eyes on it, I just knew this one was for me! I've been loving getting to know this car whist working my way through the lengthy snagging list. It seems to be running sweet now, so hoping to put some miles on it this year.

Hopefully meet some of you out at the shows and/or cruises! I live in Bristol, so feel free to tap me up if you are local

[broady_6]

Welcome to the club, great to see another one kept alive!

[purplepeter]

Welcome! I seem to recognise your reg, it'll come to me eventually where from!
I'm in Oldfield park in Bath, so not a million miles away, Which part of Bristol are You in?
There are quite a few Type 3's in & around: Larry & Lin Collins are kinda Kingswood area, Paul Dickinson is on the Wellsway & Dave our Editor, is in Pensford, Then theres Kim apted & Corndog Ben & a rough looking yellow square that floats around, but I haven't seen those last 3 for donkeys years!

[Rhysos]

Welcome to the club, great to see another one kept alive!

Thanks for the welcome Broady - I have learned a lot from your epic build. Most impressive

Welcome! I seem to recognise your reg, it'll come to me eventually where from!
I'm in Oldfield park in Bath, so not a million miles away, Which part of Bristol are You in?
There are quite a few Type 3's in & around: Larry & Lin Collins are kinda Kingswood area, Paul Dickinson is on the Wellsway & Dave our Editor, is in Pensford, Then theres Kim apted & Corndog Ben & a rough looking yellow square that floats around, but I haven't seen those last 3 for donkeys years!

I'm actually in Kingswood myself, so not far from you! I also know of a fella just who lives up the road from me who has an impeccable early blue notch. Maybe a summertime convoy cruise to local aircooled/classic car shows would be fun given that a few of us are in the Bristol/Bath area? I will put a shout out in the 'events diary' section of the forum whenever I have something lined up.

My Fasty has changed hands a number of times over the years, so no doubt you have come across it before. In fact, it has appeared on this very forum several times before as I have just come across this thread viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2262 and also this viewtopic.php?f=21&t=7011 whilst browsing the 'members cars'.

Also, I believe it used to visit the drag strip way back when it had a big motor in it, but I haven't found any photos/videos of this. Be good to see it back in its 'furious' years though! I'll be sticking with the stock 1600 that's currently in it though - I like my cars 'low and slow'

[Danny Lord]

[Rhysos]

As I now have a dedicated thread, I will add occasionally add some posts of the work I have done so far. First up was to replace a defunct alternator. This became apparent when I was whizzing down the local ring road and then without warning the engine power significantly decreased and rapidly quit on me at 50mph. Manage to coast the car over to the hard shoulder and got her going again with a spare battery. I investigated and found that the alternator wasn’t putting out any charge and so the car was entirely running off the battery. I pulled the existing alternator, but wasn’t able to revive it:

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Looking around for a suitable replacement, I noted that a lot of folk were using Nippon/Kubota units, commonly fitted to forklift trucks. Their low profile makes them ideal for fitting under the engine hatch. I fabricated some brackets and fitted up the new alternator, it's only a 40amp unit but seems to do its job well.

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Whilst I was at it, I made a custom repair to the fan shroud cover. I decided not to recreate the hump of the original, but just closed up the gap the best I could to prevent the cool air escaping:

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All works well and it looks far neater now

[broady_6]

Certainly tidied that up well. If you can add a seal to that, it wil help you a lot in summer. Currently your cooling fan will be able to draw in hot air from the engine bay. Even if you just bond some rubber flaps as best you can, it will reduce the amount of hot air sucked in. Theres also the grommit missing from the timing light hole and your intake boot for the airfilter looks split. Thanks to some helpful folk, these are now available again!

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/202896668159

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/362562680259

And ive just noticed this sleeve missing too. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/202648761638

Please to see you getting stuck in, hope these help!

[Rhysos]

Thanks for the advice Broady, that’s what I appreciate about forums. I will give some more thought and see about getting a tighter seal around the cover. Small improvements no doubt yield big gains when it comes to a cooling running pancake engine.

I wasn’t aware of the sleeve that should be positioned over the joint in the air cleaner, makes good sense though. The concertina rubber boot has certainly seen better days, so I will also put these items on my shopping list.

I had actually already sorted the timing inspection hole, which looked like it had been mangled with a screwdriver in a past life:

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Fitted up the same grommit that you linked to below:

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Even minor jobs like this are satisfying – small victories!

[Rhysos]

Also, the car is running J-tubes, so with no OG heating components fitted I sealed up both ends of the fan shroud with delete bungs to replace the gaffer tape that previously did this duty:

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[broady_6]

Good work, nice to see someone wise to the cooling requirements

[Rhysos]

Since owning the Fasty I have experienced sporadic hard starting and fuel flow issues. These have all been addressed: kink in the rubber fuel line restricting flow, debris in the fuel line impeding flow and also defective mechanical pump diaphragm. I suspect this was the reason that the engine case previously filled with fuel! I don’t have a lot of faith in the generic aftermarket pumps, both in terms of reliability and the fact that the pressure is always set too high.

As a result of my continued struggle, I decided to fit up a Carter electric rotary pump (model: P90091). They generally have a good reputation and produce a suitable pressure, around 3.5psi:

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I wired in a safety relay circuit, which cuts fuel flow in the event of an incident (credit to Mr Whippy over on VZi for the schematic):

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I mounted the pump up under the tank and behind the beam with robust jubilee clips:

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I also have the luxury of a carb prime push button, which means less cranking to get her to fire when cold starting. It has proved to be a decent and, so far, reliable upgrade. I still need to put a blanking plate over the old pump location, but for the time being the old decommissioned pump has been left in place.

[vwfye]

[broady_6]

A very smart install! I like it

[Rhysos]

It has been an interesting couple of weeks of Fastback antics. Firstly, I had a mild panic when compression testing the engine and discovered that cylinder #2 was down to around 80psi (compared to 100- 110psi for the other cylinders). I duly performed the ‘wet test’ on the affected cylinder by adding some oil to see if the compression pressure would increase and therefore reveal what the cause the problem might be (ie: worn piston rings or stuck valves). However, I may have added a little too much oil and was then getting compression readings that were off the charts. I walked away and sought advice. The next day I purged the excess oil from the cylinder by spinning the engine over without the tester connected or plugs in. I managed to get her restarted and after 10mins of smoking the engine settled down once the remnants of oil had been burnt away:

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I took her out for a spin and all was good, phew! Lesson learned, but now knowing that I have a disparity between the cylinders I shall have to drive sensibly (although I always do) and monitor the situation as I don’t want to get into an engine rebuild at this point. I did enjoy getting out in the spring sunshine though:

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It was then that I encountered my second problem. Whilst out cruising, I noticed that there was now an uncomfortable amount of play in the steering. This had always been questionable since I got the car, but it had become even more pronounced recently. I assumed the steering box was probably on its last legs, so I lifted the petrol tank to get access to the adjustment screw on the steering box only to find that it hadn’t been bolted down securely. As a result, one of the retaining bolts on the clamp presumably worked itself loose …finger loose! With a visual on the box I could clearly see that the car didn’t actually have a massive dead spot in the middle of the steering – instead the whole steering box unit would move in the opposing direction to the pitman arm before eventually translating into any movement at the wheels. Yikes! I am glad I caught this. Tightened it down and now the steering is immeasurably better.

I am still enjoying myself working through the kinks, but could do with some smooth sailing for a while!

[broady_6]

Have you checked the valve clearances? Usually find the exhaust ones close up. this can give low compression and ultimately burn the valve or seat.

Steering box wise, the two clamping bolts that hold the box ont othe front beam should have tab lock washers.

[Rhysos]

Thanks Broady, good point about the tab washers – having checked again I can see that the steering box clamp had some generic spring washers installed in place of these. I have now ordered some correct tab washers to ensure that everything remains secured in place.

The ‘wet’ oil test I performed on the affected cylinder indicated that the low compression on #2 is likely due to a worn piston ring – this is because the compression value jumped up significantly after the oil was added. If the valves were at fault, then my understanding is that the low compression would have remained unchanged.

[Rhysos]

Funny how one thing gets solved and then another problem crops up (it's like Whack-a-Mole)! it’s all good though as it is getting me familiar with the car.

Starting with a big win, as mentioned before, the car has always been hard to start from cold. After attempting relentlessly to fire her up one afternoon, I discovered that there was a small fuel leak with petrol dripping off the bottom of the right carb. I whipped it off and discovered that the accelerator pump internal passage was blocked. Therefore, no fuel was squirting into the carb throat when the accelerator pedal was pressed and the back pressure was forcing the fuel out of the diaphragm joint. I stripped the carb down and ran it through the ultrasonic cleaner and then squirted through some carb cleaner until I successfully cleared the blockage:

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I put the carb back on and now the engine fires straight up every time and with no leaks, so I was happy. Whilst out merrily cruising around an intermittent knocking noise then developed. I pulled over to check that nothing obvious was hanging off the bottom of the car, but everything checked out. The sound was more noticeable on deacceleration and was still present went I depressed the clutch whilst the car was rolling. My assumption was that it was the CV joints and this theory was supported by the fact that one of the boots was torn. I took everything apart, thoroughly cleaned, regreased and replaced the boots (x4 - both sides of course):

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So, did it cure the recurring knocking?! Well...

[Rhysos]

I got it all bolted back together just in time to take it out to its first show under my ownership this past weekend; Bristol Volksfest. A great local event, with something to offer for the whole family. It was a pleasure to park up next to this beautiful Notchback in the VW area of the car park

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On the way back from the show it became apparent that my refreshed CV joints hadn’t solved the knocking issue. To rule out the engine as the culprit, I rolled it down the private lane next to my house in neutral and the knocking was still there even without the engine running. I am now thinking that it is probably a knacked rear wheel bearing. I shall investigate this week when I have time, but somewhat relieved that it is not more engine drama.

[broady_6]

Nice steady progress, and as you say, helps you get to know the car better!

[Rhysos]

Cheers Broady! I sorted the wheel knocking issue and fortunately it was more obvious than a bad bearing. Turns out that the o/s rear wheel nuts were not fully torqued down which was allowing the disc brake adapter (for lack of a better term) to slightly shift with each rotation and hence the clunk. Sometimes it is just obvious stuff!

I took the fasty out over the weekend for a longer ride having also readjusted the valves, which were a smidge tight across the board. Travelled out 30 miles from Bristol to the Cotswold Airport and had the unique privilege of being able to park up under and next to this colossal 747:

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It was a great run out, car pulling well and running smoothly. On the journey back, however, I started to experience a bit of hesitation on acceleration, causing a slight kangarooing motion. I drove on hoping it was an anomaly, but soon I started to notice decreased power when going uphill or accelerating from a stop. It also began backfiring (misfiring?) when not under load heading downhill. Not wanting to push the car, I pulled off into a nice country pub and had a cold drink whilst the car rested. When it came time to restart the engine it just wouldn’t take. The starter was turning over freely, but the engine just wouldn’t catch. I ran through my loose diagnostic procedure: checked fuel, points gap, electrical connections and plugs. Still nothing. However, I did notice that the engine was hotter than usual, so I left the engine hatch off and the boot lid open and gave it chance to properly cool down. After another 15mins I tried the key and it sprang to life, phew! I seemed to have full power back and it got me home the last few miles.

I took it out for a spin yesterday and same thing occurred, only this time I probably only covered 5 miles. As soon as the engine is switched off it does not want to restart until fully cooled off. So clearly there is something amiss or an engine component is not coping with the heat. The car is getting fuel though as I whipped off the tops of the carbs to verify that the float chambers were not empty, so I do not believe this to be a vapour lock issue.

I need to work out what is going on, so will check the timing in the first instance. Maybe the coil is on its way out, I know that they can be affected by heat. Maybe my valve adjustment has thrown things off, although I was careful to ensure everything was accurately set to 0.15mm. It will be a bit of process of elimination. Can you all think of anything else I should look into? Anyone encountered this issue before?

[purplepeter]

Check your fuel cut off valves are in nice & tight & getting consistant power

[broady_6]

As peter says, its happened to me a time of two, becareful when you tighten them, theyre brass into aluminium, so its easy to strip threads.

It certainly sounds like air is getting in when it should. Or the cut off is loosing power, and this turns off the fuel in the carb.

If youre not sure what youre looking for, its the barrel sitcking out the side of the carb, it should have a black wire running too it with a spade terminal on it.

[Rhysos]

Thanks Peter and Broady for the advise. I did check at the time that I was getting a click from the fuel cut-off solenoids when the ignition was turned on, but didn't check that they were getting consistent power. I guess it they had worked loose or power delivery was intermittent then that could lead to the hesitation I experience and, if my thinking is correct, cause the engine to run lean. In turn, the lean running would heat things up significantly and causing the car to overheat and refuse to restart until cool?

Ok, I will investigate tomorrow, make sure things are snug (not overly tightened), verify with the multi-meter that power is consistent and then take her for test run...

[Rhysos]

Spent some time this evening going over things. The fuel cut-off solenoid valves were essentially hand tight in the carbs, so I nipped them up a bit a spanner to ensure that they were well seated. Started the engine up and tested with the multi-meter and confirmed that both valves were receiving consistent power whilst the engine was running (a steady and unbroken 13 - 14 volts at idle). I shut the engine off after 15 mins or so of idling, which was plenty warm but not hot, and still experience the same difficulty attempting to restart. I will dig a bit deeper tomorrow, starting with the coil…

[purplepeter]

Are you using the Prime button when re-starting?
As I'm sure you know, popping on over run downhill is normally associated with air leaks/ holes in the exhaust, so go over the exhaust joints with the engine running to hopefully eliminate that question.
The consistant power question is mainly about making sure the spades are nice & tight.
Check your fuel filter & whilst you're at it, follow all the fuel lines just to be sure that some bugger hasn't fitted a filter somewhere out of sight
Bosch coils don't really fail, so don't rush to waste your money on a new one unless you have to
I take it your Timing & dissy advance have been checked & are spot on?