Porsche Enthusiasts Club Forum

Hi all,

Back in May i just bought my first kitcar which is also my first "aircooled" car. its beetle chassis 67 coupe. been off the road for about 7 years, now fitted with a 1.6 xr2i 1600 engine. it took a while to sell my other classic car before i could start work on this.




Its the ideal candidate for what I want to achieve. i would have liked to get a early 911 or 912 but i don't have that kind of money

See the pic below, which is a 912 recently featured in a vw mag. This is the closest i can get to explain where this covin will be heading......




cheers
Matt

i took a half day from work 3 weeks ago to get the covin low loaded from its storage in birmingham down to home in warwick. john turned up at 2pm to drag it on the beaver tail and by 3pm was dragged back to its new home.






i can highly recommend john. He's based in Birmingham, reliable, insured but still is keenly priced and always happy to help pushing cars etc.

Later in the evening, instead of dozing off on the sofa, i got myself into the garage to do a brief 1/2 hour of tinkering...ended up in their for 2hours, getting all the junk out of the car and stripping out the carpets and insulation.

the floorpans are really good but still require stripping back and repainting. the paint is bubbly in places with minor surface rust under the paint. not bad for original pans.




the fruits of my labour now skipped:

its gonna get a full "backdate" makeover, so it'll look like a pre74 model. i've been collecting bits and bob;s over the last few months. here are a few things to give you an idea:-

I'd been mucking about with the starter motor and ultimately had a gut feeling it was kippered. Previously, i fitted a new ignition switch and had wired the starter up, but 50% of the time it would engage and 50% it would just spin up. Had a browse on ebay and got a recondition bosch cvh unit delivered for a reasonable price. this confirmed my suspicions as its engages every time now. :smt019

with that sorted i could refit the exhaust manifold which i bolted in using some new bzp m8 socket heads.


..and because i was getting fed up tripping over the exhaust pipes, i chopped those off....
before:

after:

Certainly not elegant but i will tidy up the tips later. i weighed the discarded chrome tips and was surprised they weighed 2kg- more weight saving on top of the 12kg saved from ditching the whale tail.

moving to the front of the car, a goody box arrived on saturday morning



i had planned to do a light service of the brakes to get it through the mot but the front discs, whilst clearly "new" and unused were quite rusty. So, i took the plunge and ordered the dropped spindles, new bearing kits, new outer tie rods and new balljoints, topped off with new solid discs drilled to 5x130 stud pattern. discs were from machine 7 and the rest from Veewee with 10% off for my first order :smt045

This week, the plan is to clean up/paint the N/S channel where the floorpan bolts to the body is so i can run my 8mm and 6mm fuel lines in there. I'm fitting new stainless m8 floorpan nuts/bolts/washers whilst that is happening. As the paint dries I'll be building up the front hubs on the bench - the spindles need degreasing and painting. then these can be fitted - 165/70/15 kumho's fitted last week.
:smt049

Best of luck with this project. Whilst its not a 'true' 911, I hope it creates interest here with other TIPEC members as it will look fantastic if it achieves the looks of your inspiration cars. The purists may not like it but at least its a Covin and not a real 912 having the hot rod treatment.

....... Keep the updates coming.

Carrera RSR wrote:The purists may not like it but at least its a Covin and not a real 912 having the hot rod treatment.

....... Keep the updates coming.

Exactly......i have so much freedom to rod it. If i'd have got a 911 or 912, i'd want to keep it factory spec.

last night I put some more chassis paint into the floorpan channel where the body bolts through. Its taken a while to do as its one session with the scotchpad and kurust, then one coat of primer then 2 coats of chassis black, which has taken all week. After that, i jacked up the rear and got the wheels off as i'm getting the tyres swapped over on to the rear fuchs tomorrow.

one of the 8x15 wellers with a 225/60 Hankook

i then dug out the pcd adaptors and figured out i need some 'flat to radius' bolt collars and some m14 socket head bolts which i'm ordering today

Final task of the night was to put a final coat of chassis black (its actually a synthetic enamel "top gloss" truckcoat from Jawel paints) on the passenger side dropped spindle, then i can build up that hub

once the front hubs are on, i can fit the new front wheels as i really need to get some space back in the garage

Keep posts coming will look superb when done.

Liking those wheels

I am surprised to see that you have come onto here, but it is good to see you around these parts.

You probably already know my thoughts on this project. Now, it seems you have most of the ingredients, get back to putting it all together! .

Saturday morning I took the rear fuchs down to my local tyre place to get the 225/60 hankooks swapped over from the wellers. Whilst a few years old, the tyres are unused so will do for now while I get the covin up and running.

Then I fitted new bearings to one of the new Porsche-pcd beetle discs. Fitting is refreshingly simple compared to minis, mgb’s of the same era where you have shims, spacers, tightening up then backing off ¼ turn etc. German efficiently is nice….

Last night, after 2 days of mild norovirus, I attacked the front passenger hub. As the beetle donor is a 67 year model (117 chassis), I’ve got to change to later outer steering rod ends (68 onwards) to fit the dropped spindles. The hub had clearly taken a big knock at some point, as you can see the joint is slightly bent (old one at the top)

I really should do the balljoints too but they look to be a ballache to hammer out if you haven’t got access to a press. Besides, I’ve got a dropped beam that I’ll rebuild next year away. Balljoint look/feel ok though so I’m not concerned ATM.

Everything came away ok but took a bit of wrestling to pop the spindle hub out of the balljoints, then realised I could lower the bottom arm by undoing the damper top mount. Was easy after that….



Final job tomorrow night is to get the grease cap on, secure the speedo cable and fit the caliper.

Looking good. Does that damper have a nasty crease in it?

its just the rubber boot