Removal of the AB Gearbox in preparation for the AT box .

9th march 2008
The proposed IRS conversion was going well I had the A-Frame Arms ready to be fitted to the chassis. I had bought a 1302s IRS gearbox with AT code that had a higher ratio drive as it was originally made for a 1600 engine. This would better suit my engine. I had bought brackets to fit the IRS arms on a visit to the new SSP/VW heritage site.The brackets would need to be cut into the chassis and welded onto the torsion tube. To make way for the brackets to be welded into the chassis the gearbox would have to come out.

The removal of the gearbox is something best done with two people. I must thank my friend John for his help this morning. The removal process is quite straight forward, it is not necessary to remove the brakes from the drive shafts, however the brake hydraulic lines must be removed from the slave cylinders and the handbrake cables must be undone at the handbrake. I have already removed the drums as I wanted to lose the weight from the gearbox, additionally I was intending in replacing the drum brakes with a rear disk conversion. I had also removed the flexible hydraulic lines at this time.

Before undoing the gearbox bolts you need to remove the three bolts that hold the lower part of the drive shaft to the drive shaft. These are torqued up so you will need to use quite a lot of force to get them undone. You can use a length of tube on the end of a socket wrench, but in practice they can be undone with two 19mm spanners. With the three bolts undone you can unclip the rear bump stop. This will allow the drive shaft to separate from the swing axle. With the three bolts undone you must ensure that you have no cables or wiring attached to the gearbox. This usually comprises of the reversing light switch at the front of the box, the starter motor wiring and the clutch cable. You will need to release the gear linkage where it is connected to the gearbox. This is located under a small cover plate behind the rear seat and is secured down with a small Philips screw. With the cover plate off the linkage will be exposed. The linkage is secured by a 9mm square bolt that goes through the linkage, it may have a locking wire securing it which will needed to be cut off. With the bolt removed the linkage can be separated from the gearbox. With all these items removed you are ready to get at the gearbox bolts.

The front gearbox bolts are situated on and below the torsion bar tube in the centre. The two bolts can be undone with a 19mm spanner. The rear gearbox bolts are 27mm and you will need to get the proper spanner or socket to get them out. They are also torqued up to 166ft/lbs and will need a large amount of effort to get them undone. With all the bolts removed the gearbox can be pulled backwards and out of the car. You must first pull the drive shafts from the swing arms and then with a friend get a good grip on the box and pull it backwards. The gearbox will come backwards out of the rear arms. Be careful as it comes out as its weight will increase as its manoeuvred out and the gearbox is free. You will also find it quite awkward as it shifts out . Ensure you both have a good grip and be careful not to drop it.

With the gearbox out it is noticeable that the front mount on the new and old gearbox is different. The AT gearbox has a 1302s mount which has three bolts on the gearbox. The AB box has only two. I would have to swap the front nose cones from the two boxes.

With the gearbox removed it is noticeable how far the battery box comes down . I would have to cut this back and re fibreglass a new base in the box higher up.

It was also noticeable that the area that the IRS brackets would be quite difficult to cut into the chassis with the body on.

I was beginning to wonder if this was the best opportunity to have the chassis Zinc hot flame coated. With the chassis out the welding would be easier to do as I could weld up the IRS brackets on my drive way before taking the Chassis to have it blasted and zinc coated. This would also allow me time in the garage with the body of the car to re-fibreglass the underneath.

Preparing for the IRS/Gearbox conversion

6th March 2008
The garage was starting to fill up before I started on the stripping down of the back end. As the gearbox was coming out to be replaced by an IRS 1302s version, I stripped down the brakes to make this removal easier.

The removal of the wheels and drum brakes where fairly straight forward. The wheel bolts where loosened whilst the car was on the ground. As when the car was to be put on axle stands this would be easier to get the wheels off. Once the wheels where off, the drums where visible to be removed. These are secured with a cotter pin and large nut. The nut is torqued up to around 250ft/lbs so you will need a long bar with the handbrake latched on before it will budge. With this nut off it is best to back the pads off. These are retracted by rotating little star adjusters which re hidden in the back of the backing plate by two rubber bungs. You can rotate the star adjusters with the correct tool or a medium sized flat blade screw driver. Turn one at a time to ensure you are not winding them the wrong way and locking the brake up further. With the brake pads backed off the drums can be withdrawn from the shaft. Personally I use a long socket-set extensions held horizontally against the drum and between the backing plate. This can then be hit with a hammer to remove the drum. It is sometimes necessary to move the bar to the other side of the drum so that the drum comes off evenly. The backing plates must have the handbrake cable unhooked. This can be achieved by undoing the nut at the back of the plate that bolts the cable tort. Releasing this gives enough slack for it to be unhooked. The brake cylinder also needs to be disconnected and sealed up.The backing plates are held on by four 14mm bolts with these removed the drive shaft bearing cover plate can be removed and then the backing plate will come off. I placed the drive shaft bearing covers back on so that the bearings would be sealed.

Removing the the shock absorbers was just a case of undoing the respective bolts and removing the shock absorber. It is interesting that the only difference between the IRS and Swing Axle shock absorbers is the wider bush that sits at the bottom of the shock. The bottom bush can be removed by driving in a new one. I had removed the longer bushes from an old set of IRS shocks that I bought with the IRS parts.

You can clearly see in the picture right above that there would need to be some work with the fibre glass body sections to allow the IRS A-Frame arms to travel in their plane without hitting the body work.

I needed to get a friend to help me remove the gearbox as this was a heavy item that would need to be balanced on the jack whilst it was being undone. I would attempt this when a friend was available.

Rebuiding IRS arm bearings and axle shafts

3rd March 2008.
With the urgency of pulling the engine out now gone and the engine now sitting waiting to be rebuilt. I decided that I needed to get on with the IRS conversion that I had already started before I found the problem with the debris in the crankcase.

I decided that I was going to renew most of all of the components on the A Arms. This meant I needed to purchase new bearings oil seals and other miscellaneous sundries.

I started with trying to locate the bearings, several telephone calls later I was wondering what's was happening to the parts industries. The only bearings that it seems that I could buy where the new type of needle bearings. This was annoying as I already new that roller bearings where much better and ran much smoother giving less drag and longer life.

The problem being that the needle bearings where made from small cylinders that run in a steel cage made from pressed steel. The ball bearings on the other hand had small spherical bearings in a cage made from several parts. The friction surfaces where much smaller and the tolerances in the bearing where much higher.


Needle Bearings (above left) ............................... ,Ball Bearings (above right).

In the pictures above you can clearly see the differences in the two bearing designs and why the ball bearing or ball race provides less friction and better wear.

After discussing this problem with come friends I found out that you could purchase bearings from a bearing company and that they would usually measure your existing bearings and come up with a match. I found a company called Kent Bearings in Hastings East Sussex. They provided me with the correct size bearings. Interestingly enough the two bearings sizes where the same. This was interesting as most car suppliers supplied the rear set of bearings at a higher cost?

I bought the bearings and bought some Castrol LM bearing grease. I found that the oil seals came in a kit for the cars with swing angle and not for IRS. On closer examination the parts in this kit where exactly the same as the parts that could be sourced separately for the IRS.

The Axles are assembled from the back bearing. This is inserted first, then then the circlip and then the oil seal. All of these items need to be greased with the LM lube before they where assembled. Once these components where set in place the inner spacer (The spacer with the concave side was placed into the oil seal with the concave side facing the outside. The axle was thoroughly greased and then knocked into the A-Frame with a wooden mallet. 6oz of LM grease is then packed into the front of the A-Arm cavity. The inner spacer can then be lubricated and slid onto the axle. Once all this has been done you are ready to insert the outer bearing. This is slightly harder to achieve as you need piece of tubing the size of the outside bearing casing and about 250cm long. You can slide this over the axle and then knock the lubricated outer bearing into its place. The oil seal can then be seated over the bearing and the external spacer can be set on the axle and slid into the oil seal.

This process leaves you with the axles correctly installed in the A-Arm. You can add the cover plates at this point but I wanted to get hold of some calliper brackets before I placed them firmly in place.

Parts.
Grease: Castrol LM Lithium grease
Ball Bearings:
FAG 6206.c3 15010719

Engine removal

1st March 2008
It was a sunny day and I had started the afternoon by removing the distributor drive shaft and the alternator and pedestal to see if there was any way I could see into the engine and spot the pump debris. This was soon written off as a bad idea as the access was restricted.

I started removing the wiring to the coil , the distributor and the alternator. I removed the fuel line and started on the three nuts and one bolt that held on the engine. These came undone fairly easily and with the help of a good friend and a jack was able to get the engine out and onto the floor. We moved the engine to the side of the garage and I took look at the transmission.

The first observation's showed that where I had rebuilt the battery compartment and the tyre well the new IRS components would hit the underside of the body, this was annoying as it was obvious that the body work was probably fitted to an IRS chassis before my changes. I would have to cut the body work back to allow room for the new A-Arms to rise up to the bump stops. I also noticed that my alternator B+ line had scorch mark in it and it looked like it had been sitting on the exhaust.

I would have to put axle stands under the rear frame horns and jack up the rear of the car to raise the rear wheels of the ground. This would allow me access to the gearbox and allow me to remove the rear wheels and gearbox assembly.

Engine Woes and a new start

29th Feb 2008

After gathering up my IRS components I was happy to start rebuilding them . I had also located a 1300s gearbox that I was going to pick up to install into the buggy. Whilst I was rebuilding the IRS components and after several visits to the garage, I noticed that the little bakerlight pedestal that sat under the fuel pump had the corner broken off it. I knew this was going to be a nightmare. I removed the fuel pump and tried to pull out the pedestal. The top snapped off! leaving the bottom half of the pedestal lodged inside the engine. Fortunately I had seen a thread on www.volkszone.com, where it was possible to extract the remains of the pedestal with a raw plug and screw. I found a suitable screw and raw plug in my hardware store. This seemed to release the remnants and I was able to pull out a section on the raw plug. Unfortunately this let the first 1/2" of the pedestal fall in to the engine sump.

This was a disaster as I knew this meant the engine would need to be removed separated and rebuilt so that the offending bakerlight pedestal could be removed.

Fortunately removing the engine was on my list of jobs to fit the IRS so I new It would have to come out for that.

Gathering IRS parts

22nd Feb 2008
I have been gathering the parts necessary for converting my beach buggy to rear IRS instead of the regular swing axle suspension.

The procedure is well documented on the Internet and draws the attention of a lot of debate.

I have decided to convert my rear suspension to IRS as the IRS suspension is better designed to place the wheels flat on the ground. This maximises the grip that can be got from the tyres. The IRS system is also better suited to off-road conditions making it a safer and more modern ride.

I had managed to acquire the rear IRS parts whilst visiting a friend . I had tried to buy some on VZI that where located in a nearby town. But the seller would not sell them privately as he had them on eBay.co.uk. I discussed this with my friend who told me that he had a 1303 that he was bracking for parts as it was un-roadworthy. I bought the parts for £50.00 and decided to have them blasted, Zinc plated and blacked. The result of this can be seen for themselves.

I had wanted to replace the bearings as they where pretty worn. After calling several VW specialist it soon became apparent that getting the ball bearings and not needle bearings was going to be difficult. I found the correct bearings at Kent Bearings in Hastings.