Ray, I always read your comments as I would do bold text. All 4 of my balljoints have your 'zerts'
Out of the 4 strut top bearings I have, 2 are semi-siezed, 1 has ~15 the other has about 20 degrees of freedom
I can see some (~8mm arc length) seperation in the ID of the bonding of one of the good pair, now cleaned, regreased and bearing the corner weight.. Not good. 'Does look heavy. Alternative adaptable strut bearings must be
out there. Either a new foriegn unit or a new bearing 'set' in the old plate.
I think for the short term I will add some kind of collapse-arrest, on the top of the upper spring platform, that will retain some form of steering control. I can see how a failure would occur and what the result will be. I imagine that being quite a grim experience.
Tonight, I treated all the underside above the rear bumper, chased the bumper bolt holes, refitted the bumper and the rear valance, which is a nice panel
I even touched up the paint chips with gloss black, wow what a difference! I'll get a pic for you all 2moro. The exhaust is the old thunderbird with a very effective toyota 316 silencer and custom tailpipe. The silencer was mounted (by Arry, my pal) as close to the short collector as was possible. This means the WB had to go in at the start of the tailpipe, about 10" from the atmosphere. Notice the stainless pipe notch trim. It looks well respectable from the back now.
One other thing, when I pulled the parts from that 412, I also grabbed the rear springs and rear shocks. My 411 rear spring were cut too, so I fitted the uncut 412 springs and at the same time, I fitted the 412 oil filled Boge parts. The shocks I pulled off were gas charged and the ride hieght remained the same. Did my 411 Variant get stiffer rear springs than the 412 saloon? I think my stance will improve if I refit the gas charged rear shocks.
The bumpers are both straight but the rear is dull and pitted, the front is more like flaking or peeling. The car as you have seen is black, with blacked out lamps and dark tinted rear side windows. This is now the cars character and shall remain. When Arry had this on the road, he had a (boiled clean) rat's skull hanging from the rear-view mirror!
I want this car to get me about which is a neccessity of modern day living and as my passion is for a huge T4 powered Bug, which is my main focus, this is the right 'other' car. Sadly all the German parts for my dream Beetle motor are now obselete. They all told me
That Dutch dude, Wally, got the last set So I will paint my 411 bumpers gloss black and make a new insert out of 1" flat alu anodized 1.6mm extrudate. With M8 A2 button head screws and washers that both hold the trim on and bolt the bumper to it's irons, simple but will look effective I hope. 'Parts now in stock.
I really ought to show you a pic of the donkey at my local bone yard. it's got 10cm pistons and is really noisey and dirty:
101.6mm Venolia pistons and some pro turning, hmmm.
This is a rather freaky Poclain contraption with a thucked main lifting ram. The jugs are all mine if I can find a crane or digger that can follow its contribution
This is the only engine there that still runs. How cool is that?
Anyway, I plan to paint the Kamei spoiler in the same gloss black. I'll mask out the Kamei motif. This is indeed their T1 spoiler, for any Beetle with a Europa bumper.
Matt
