1970 Trav "IGOR" (modified) PIC HEAVY! fuel lines in!

[jonathon]

Agreed, good deals are to be had and if you take the grinder out of the equation then the quoted unit price seems very competetive and will obviously improve. The deals are good but only if you buy quantity as we do , or as suggested a few of you club together and share the grinder

[pfgiz]

Ash,

Fantastic work.... Another one soon to be saved. It makes me smile when I think, all my saloon needs is another engine... If I thought that about a modern car it would be gone... There is something special about these little cars that means they will be around for years to come....

On the Grinders front I have three, one for cutting, one for grinding and one for wire-brushing, but as the man said, you can never have too many......

Keep up the good work and let the pictures roll..............

[polo2k]

Bloke at the Petrol garage last week asked if I had any bolt croppers as he had lost keys to cole stores, 2 mins later with s.steel 1mm disk, both padlocks off and a free carwash for me!

I hope you considered the sparks around the fuel vapors!!!

{PFGIZ} I know whay you mean about an engine writing off a modern, I had to put a gearbox and clutch (and flywheel as its dual mass) in my golf over the new year and if I was paying retail+labour the car would have been scrapped! (its a 51 plate!)
depending on where you are I may be able to locate an engine for you (know a few local ones)

The plan is to get the drivers side sill, spring hanger, cross member end and base of A pillar on the drivers side rebuilt by the end of this week.
By the end of the month; get all the suspension back on so I have a rolling shell then get cracking on the bell housing and trial fitting the engine and box.

Getting quite giddy now!

[polo2k]

Right then, its been a bit of a while!

Ive been occupied with lots of other projects and odds and sodds so please excuse the absence

I have been getting some work done on Igor. As things stand now:
I have continued repairing the drivers side. I found accident damage in the A pillar (down the side of the dash), luckily I had a 10 tonne ram with separating jaws donated so that's all sorted out now . the corrosion on the drivers side went from bad to worse, however its nearly all gone now and im starting to see the light at the end of the exhaust pipe!

I suppose you all want to see some pics... well here goes!

This is where we left off last time:


Ive done some "slight" re constructive surgery.






Then closed it all up:


this is the before shot of the A pillar


then some floor snippage was required:





While we have been having this glorious weather recently I have been relegated to the garage, coincidentally I had just relocated the engine indoors. since my space is so limited I built a custom engine stand:






Did I mention this is HUGE!


did a little polishing one evening whilst killing a six pack (just to watch it die )


in between these polished runners will be painted body colour and im thinking of either a silver or gloss black block.


Mona is overseeing everything


first mock up of the engine and box:


after a bit of messing around I found a suitable release bearing and got this figured out


this pic is out of sequence but shows the engine backplate.


figured out that I was going to need to get a tad of machining done so off I went to a local place and 20 quid later the clutch surface was 1/4" bigger radius and the lip behind the starter ring was gone:


in that last pic Im in the process of trial fitting the central oilite bush. I have also had to grind down the tail of the crank to give enough clearance for the friction disc
here is the engine with a trimmed bush!


heres where it all starts to get a bit accurate:


this clutch is made up as follows:

Modified VR6 flywheel, FWD TDI transit stock VR6

and then on the gearbox side of things there is a modern golf release bearing on a thinned down input housing.

you can also see the gearbox end plate here too.

I think that about where we stand right now. although progress has slowed dramatically I still think its a possibility that this will be making an appearance at next years nationals

[polo2k]

no replies?

no love?

Ah well heres some more progress anyway!

Ive been dodging the weather a fair bit this week and since Igor lives outside welding is not an option!!
Ive been out in the garage tonight and reached a bit of a milestone. im not finished with it but its a good start I think!

Heres what I started with: an engine and gearbox in place but not connected.


Figured out all my clearences and did lots and lots of measuring, then measured some more, and then again:


Then its just like knitting; cut one, weld one...


cut one, weld one...


Cut one, weld one...


I had been measuring all along but when I got to this stage I stopped, waited for it to cool and rechecked it again



then because im going a bit silly on the engine, more strength is never a bad thing, so I let out the steel spider and got him to weave me a web:





Keep measuring and checking clearences and once I was happy locked the slave cylinder down.


As it was getting on I decided to split the box off the engine and get a little more welding done before I packed up for the night. I havnt been able to store the box like this since I got it!


Here is the assembly tacked together:


Then welded from the inside


you will notice that one side is still quite open, this will be filled with a started motor but I have yet to figure that out. I need to get the engine and box in the car to see what room ive got to play with and then find a started to suit. I cant use the golf one as it sits in front of the gearbox and as such would fill the passenger footwell.
does anyone have any suggestions?

I think thats it for this weeks update,
anyone out there?

[Plin]

Well Polo I am awestruck - you have done so much work. It's great to see it taking shape and the photos are very informative. Where do you get the time? Igor looks like he will be a very interesting beastie before too long.

[MarkyB]

Are you actually making the bell housing here?
If you are, I think it needs more strength to resist twisting caused by the torque of the engine.

Keep up the good work!

[polo2k]

Well Polo I am awestruck - you have done so much work. It's great to see it taking shape and the photos are very informative. Where do you get the time? Igor looks like he will be a very interesting beastie before too long.

The time comes from a mixture of me being a bit of a hermit and being made redundant a little while ago, I try to make sure that I dont spend all day working on Igor and still look for work etc, got a few leads going on at the moment too

I hope I can get plenty done working around the weather as the shell is a bit behind at the moment, once the bell housing is provisionally together I want to test fit the engine and box to the shell. before I can do that I need to figure out some mounts, procure a pedal assembly out of a 99 or pater golf including brake servo, clutch assy and brake master cylinder. its quite likely that there will be a bit of a pause at this point as I will need to stump up a few hundred quid for the management before I can test fire the engine. I want to check it runs as I bought it cheap "sold as seen". at some point I also need to figure out a starter. then once that in and running ill probably attack the woodwork (in my own special way) and the rest of the bodywork. Once thats all done ill pull the engine again, spray everything, clean up the engine, refit it all and rewire the car then do an interior and see where I stand

[polo2k]

Are you actually making the bell housing here?
If you are, I think it needs more strength to resist twisting caused by the torque of the engine.

Keep up the good work!

I am indeed
this is only stage one, almost a mock up if you will. before the engine is fired I need to figure out a starter and plate in some of the sections im planning on filling all the gaps in the web with the same plate ive used for the back plate

I got about half way through last nights weld-a-thon and realised "this might actually work!!"

[Plin]

Well Polo I hope the work front picks up soon, know all too well how soul destroying it can be looking for jobs. At least your project keeps your brain cells ticking over - shame even budget projects cost money which tends to bring a bit of a halt to things for a while, hope that is not the case for you though. Good luck with the job front but Igor is lucky to have such a talented carer!

[MarkyB]

I like your spirit!
Although your bell housing is going to end up relatively heavy it will still be a LOT cheaper than buying a custom item, if one is even available.

My guess is that a skin, maybe a double skin, will give it the torsional strength to survive.
Every action has an equal, and opposite, reaction, according to Newtons first law of motion which is still very much in force.

All the twisting force needed to move the car goes through all the transmission, so it all has to be up to the job, weakest links get found out.
Standard half shafts tend to fall into this category.

[polo2k]

Thak you for your kind words about the employment. Igor is actually a part of my mechanical CV so if things dont pick up at some point I might have a CV I can drive lol!
(anyone in the southwest need a good fabricator/welder/sprayer/panelbeater/mechanic/auto electrician/etc?)

Regarding the strength, im hoping a single skin should be sufficent, I figured that if anything is going to break it then it will be torque. I thought about it for a bit and realised that once the drive has gone through the box there will be more torque where it enters the rear axle, I have aimed to make the bell housing as "substantial" as a back axle casing and hopefully that should be sufficent.

There is no commercially available bell housing that does what I want, there is an adaptor kit to use a porche 968 transaxle (from 034 Motorsport in the states) at about £300 but then you need to buy the box!

as far as I know Igor will be the only street driven front engined rear wheel drive VR6 on the planet. the only other one is the Eserini brothers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyrTYHUo ... re=related

while I was looking for that I found this too
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6y7qXMN ... re=related thats how he should sound hehe

[1mustard]

nice work mate, i have done exactly the same repairs on my ''rotten as a pear'' traveller, i have painted it and am getting the whole thing finished now, not sure if you are going to use the outer rear wing repair flanges, i did and they where basically too long which i found out after fitting! and had to spend another day cutting, grinding, swearing, welding etc, don't get me wrong they look nice and are much easier than trying to repair, but they are tight over the wooden arches.
As for the grinders i have invested in several cheap grinders over the years, with different results, the £18 B and q job is going ok but the disc lock button broke so i know have to push a screwdriver in the hole! you do get what you pay for!, keep up the good work!

[BigDawgV8]

Hi,
Great project. I been thinking of doing something similar with mine.

Will you have to modify the bulk-head to take the V6 and will the lever shocks be staying?

I look forward to the rest of the build.

Cheers
Martin

[polo2k]

Will you have to modify the bulk-head to take the V6 and will the lever shocks be staying?

well funny you should ask that...

first of all a rust update!!
it all appears to have escaped!!



I forgot to take pics of underneath but its all in, ground and got a coat of primer.

The grinder I bought recently (earlier in this thread) has just expired so I need to go get a new one, luckily I kept the one I hated initially so ive been using that instead.

Since ive removed all brake pipes & cables, all wiring and all fuel lines things were looking a little empty... and it just so happened that "ROB MATE!" was available tonight... so...

we caught an engine (now known as The pint)



and already had a home (now known as the quart pot)

(old pic)

then proceded to poke, prob, grunt, sweat until,
we realised that there was a certain cross member in the way....


but once that was out of the way this happened!! (inlet tracts to show full height of the engine =)




So you see, you can get a pint in a quart pot!!

Its rather LARGE!
judging by the point on the balance bar I think there will be a fair about of weight over the front wheels ill have to have a concrete boot floor to copensate (can I waxoyl rebar?)

Ive also learnt that im going to have to build a remote oil filter housing but thats not too much of an issue

So in answer to your question BigDawg; no you don't need to modify the bulkhead (the cross member is a necessity and so were the "adjustments" to the engine bay floor)
and the shocks will be staying but only as pivots

[polo2k]

couple of corresponding before shots


most of the drivers footwell was silicon and rust!



Ahhhmemories!!

[ptitterington]

Might be a stupid question, but what are the rules in England once you modify the car to something that was not standard. Is a MOT at the end sufficient or do you need to get it all tested somewhere.
Just asking as I wanted to bring in a Pickup with a Fiat engine but due to the modifications over here in Jersey they said it would have to have independant reports on steering breaking chassis etc and after all that would have to be registered as a kit car!
So I did not bother.

[Alex'n'Ane]

Any more updates?

[irmscher]

any more done ??

[pskipper]

I believe regular employment is getting in the way!