Ben's Eagle SS

[Deleted]

Hmm I dont really want to cut/mould the original body until i am 100% sure i want to. The rear lights I am set on. headlights still not sure.

[Deleted]

Well, if you can hold off for a couple of weeks, I'll be attempting a trial fit of the Fiat Coupe I've just bought and will upload some pics. A quick placement visually suggests that they will completely cover the existing cut-outs and all I will have to do is take a template (as Acid did on the Euro-Nova site) and cut to suite. I'm going to try this on the front of the red car as my intention is to use the front end of the green car to make a complete flip front in the style of an E-Type and fit it to the red car. This means if I bog it up or don't like the look, I can still retain the pop-ups. Logic behind all of this is that the body/chassis of the red car has never been on the road and is in excellent condition but I really don't like the separate front bumper bit and it all looks a little too square for my taste.

[Deleted]

Ben

This page

www.transportoffice.gov.uk/crt/vehicledealershipsandimporters/isocertificationandtypeapproval/individualvehicleapprovalinspectionmanuals.htm

gives a list of pdfs for IVA manuals. The first one is for cars. Headlights are covered in section 25 and table 1 covers position. Apparently, dipped beams have to be a minimum of 500mm up but strangely, there is no minimum hight for main beams. Maybe the lower lights on the Toniq are main beams.

Incidentally, also found the regs on gull-wing doors. Apparently, gull-wing doors have to be fitted with a device that will automatically close the door to at least the intermediate lock position if it starts moving OR fitted with a safety bolt linked to a warning buzzer that sounds if the vehicle moves and the bolt is not in the locked position.

And that is why I really DON'T want to have to go through one

[Deleted]

Trying to remove rear wheel bearing, so i can remove axle shaft, so i can replace the leaking gaskets.

What size 3 finger bearing puller do i need?

OR

can i remove the bearings without a puller? i whacked the shaft with a hammer and it moved out from the gearbox a few cm but no more.

[Deleted]

Ok so to answer my own question: hit the F out of the axle at the suspension joint! LOTS!

Yesterday night: sprayed the bottom of the chassis in stonechip proof stuff. Looks so good.



Today: Had the day off work so went nato on the car.

Brakes & Axles off.


Gearbox painted.


Axles shafts, brakes and dampers painted.



Engine Mounting plate painted: RedOxide as there was a little bit of rust black tomo.



Brought some new rubber mounts and gearbox gasket set: mounts were shot and one gasket was leaking, for the same price as gasket paper i got a set!



As it stands tonight, ready for me to put back together tomorrow.

[Peter]

WOT! your'e not going to remove the nuts one at a time and replace with stainless, Only kidding, that's my nitty picky way, you are doing great, good work and keep it up.

[Deleted]

Thinking of colour schemes, adm im going for a matt grey with gloss yellow side stripe (or detailing, not sure) maybe some 'Eagle SS' in spaceman text. Inspired by a jacket i own, will photo so it makes more sence.

Similar to this paint job but more yellow.
www.audiblog.nl/?p=15215

With this text?
www.fontstock.net/images/Space-Age_big.jpg


Either that or a fighter jet inspired job
www.gumball3000.com/news/detail/209
The numberplate looks so cool, template style spray painted.

Any other ideas? Also what is the official Eagle (ss?) logo. Is it the one above? very cool and would work well with first idea, but looks a little gestapo like, might have to ask my graphic designers to come up with a new logo.

EDIT:
Cant sleep so did crappy mock ups, dont judge me by the quality .
Two different stripes:




Lettering


Maybe green? but im not prefering it over yellow

[Deleted]

Double yellow lines up and over the car...plus make them slightly wider.

Looks cool but you have that additional benefit....

"I'm not parked on double yellow lines officer, I'm parked under them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ;D

[Deleted]

Black Black Black!!!

Gearbox is back on, although a little worried that cannot find first or third when wiggling the stick about.
Pedals are back on, as is the brake cylinder.




The misses is going to strip the paint off the front axle area tomorrow while im at work, so that may get painted tomorrow night. ;D

[Deleted]

Found this eagle with angled headlight bays in the eagle website archives.


What do we recon for these for the side windows.
cgi.ebay.co.uk/PEUGEOT-206-REAR-WINDOW-OPENERS-HINGES-3DR-BOTH-AVA_W0QQitemZ220478624999QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_CarsParts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM?hash=item33558cd4e7&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14#ht_500wt_956

[Deleted]

Wahey! Finally today I have a rolling chassis, minus the engine. Figured out about the gearlever, think ive moved the push plate, vzi people recon its an easy fix.



New brake pipes eventually got put in, god I made it a difficult job.



This week I'm gonna try and get the engine tinware sprayed, but i do have work/organising new flat/going back to uni.

[Deleted]

Nice work Ben !
It's good to see someone getting so much work done to a kitcar in so little time !

Stu

[Deleted]

I just read this slightly disturbing letter to one of the Nova guys, no clue whether he did what i did and sent altered v5c to dvla or whether the dvla are rounding kit cars up one at a time.


www.euro-nova.co.uk/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=2293

[Deleted]

Had a few hours today so thought i would remove the exhaust and tinware.

Unfortunately it seems anything below the generator belt has truely rusted through.
I thought id remove just the exhaust first, but the pipe from heat exchanger to exhaust was completely rusted in and no amount of hammering freed it.

So the heat exchangers and exhaust had to come out together.
But alas everything was so rusted that i broke several tools just trying to remove the heat exchanger's bolts. The engine bottom protective pans (metal pans either side of the oil hole) couldnt be separated from the exchangers, i sheered off the heads of 2 bolts (i must be getting stronger). Most annoying was that once i got heat exhangers/exhaust out, they simply twisted apart, all be it with masses of rust.

Here's the end result of the bolts. mini-powertool seemed to eventually work, cutting the nuts out.



so i eventually got everything free.



My heat exchangers are pretty shot, new ones are reasonably expensive considering im not going to be using them (ive sort of decided on a mini heater under the dash) but used ones aren't hard to get.

My question is.... can i do without them? Just make a new manifold pipe from front outlet to the exhaust pipe? Would I some how need to join a paper pipe from the fan housing to this new manifold as per normal or can i leave these open?

Alternatively can I just cut away the exchanger bit and be left with the pipe from front to rear?

EDIT: OMG they have them in the gsf parts book, called J pipes only £18. Getting some saturday, which will be my last day to work on car before i go up sunday. Dad wants engine back on the chassis so he can move it if need be, could;ve told me before i took it apart.

[Deleted]

J pipes are the way to go...don't be tempted to modify heat exchangers...get rid all together. Unfortunately getting rid of the heat exchangers means that you wont have a heater in the car. A Mini heater wont work either as it obtains its heat from the water in the engine's cooling system.....of cours the V-dub engine doesn't have any water!!

The solution is to go with the J tubes and fit the exhaust manifold and silencer of your choice. the heating and screen demisting chores should be handled by an electric heater wired into your loom.

A bit confused as to what all those broken up bits are though

Carry on though....making good progress still ;D

[Deleted]

Ah thats a shame about the mini heater, would electric ones fit under the dash or do they need to be outside?

Went to GSF parts on thurs, J tubes couldnt be delivered till monday so instead I'm going to get them delivered from the birmingham depo (to cov), they have all 20 in the system.

So today I cleaned the engine and put it back on the chassis. I'll add pics tomo as its just got dark.

I removed the lower tins today with some brute force. Mangled and rusted they were just gathering more and more dirt.
I cant replace them as the mounting bolts are seized and i had to cut the tins to remove them, but had a look on the buggie forums and seems most of them run without them anyway.
Only issue would be the thermo-thingy on the right side being affected by the j tube, but most mount a shield to the j tube if need be.

Replaced the oil fliter as well, seems no one had done that for a while and a bit. A good cm or so of sludge at the bottom. New oil added. Transmission fluid tomo.

Thats it for now for 2 weeks as off to uni tomo, mums birthday is a good enough excuse to come home thou and do more stuff.

Next few bits on the list include:

putting in a choke cable
replacing exhaust/jtubes/tins
adding brake reservoir bottle/bleeding brakes
mounting fuel tank into body (mounts will need a little bit of attention but i was impressed by how well they had been done)

Then i can think about putting the body back on the chassis. ;D ;D ;D

A little behind on my overall timetable as i would've liked to have been up to that stage already but it's not too far outa reach, a few power weekends should do it.

[Deleted]

You can run without the engine tinware as there is more room around the engine on the SS than there is in the Beetle. The main issue in the Beetle is to isolate the upper half of the engine and engine cooling air from the hotter half of the engine down below. If you do find temps rising under the engine cover then you can put vents in the engine cover to let hot air rise up and out or duct cool air using the intakes behind the doors.

Electric heaters would mount somewhere under the dash just like the mini unit....Check out Carbuildersolutions website for details but shop around because CBS are expensive.

The oil filter on the stock bug engine is more of a strainer than a filter...just catches the sludge and bigger particles....by far a better arrangment is to modify the filter system by obtaining a oil flow oil pump cover...see threads on VZI. Basically you have inlet and outlet on the oil pump cover which directs the oil through a remotely fitted canister type oil filter....far more effective filtering system and as a bonus you have fewer oil changes required plus you can use Castrol GTX etc rather than the runny stuff that VW recommend for a stock motor.

Enjoy yourself back at Uni....no SS doodles during lectures ...and HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Mrs H when it comes ;D

[Peter]

Hi Ben,
Looking good. There are a few heater solutions but electric is the easiest if not the most effective, something I don't have to worry about in Spain as it's rarely below 13c. One method is the replace the heat exchangers with water jackets, in stainless steel and use the Mini unit you referred to under the dash, Method two is slightly less orthodox as it means running the oil from the cooler outlet through the Mini heater unit using the engines hot oil (about 80degree) to heat the heater element.
I use a remote filter and can therefore change the filter (standard off the shelf one) in a mater of moments and of course it is a proper filter. Remote cooler is a good idea too if you are going to do mileage , be stuck in traffic or tune it up or like me, all three.

Oil pump cover with AN8 fittings to oil filter known as "full flow"



Oil filter on left of engine bay


Hydrayne racing cooler but you can get a cheaper one on-line of course.


You can see the oil cooler vent in the rear deck.


A lot of hot air is expelled about tin ware but from experience I can say I never needed it, even down here, the original beetle engine bay is very tight and heat build up is a real problem, hence separating the upper and lower but in a droop snoop (my collective name for all similar cars, SS, NOVA, CIMBRIA, STERLING etc) there is so much room and air flow it is not an issue, I have vents in the boot lid and I have used Sierra ones in the rear body, in fact having an open area and type 4 deflectors has helped it to run cooler, a steady 80 to 90 degrees.
Keep up the good work.
Peter

[Deleted]

Peter has a nice full flow oil system there and is similar to the 1776 I have in my Pelland/Rembrandt. However a system like this involves an engine tear down to open out, drill and tap the oil galleries.

The inlet/outlet oil pump cover will give you a shortcut to the same result and is adequate for road use. You can get a nice little bracket that mounts the oil filter down below and to the left of the exhaust port and negates the need for lengthy pipes...longer pipes need an uprated oil pump to keep oil circulating properly especially when cold. Canister oil filter is also in the air stream which gives some degreeof oil cooling.

Oil cooler like Peter's is a good idea if you are going to run hard and fast, (And essential if you live where Peter lives), but not necessary for a stock lightly stressed motor...save that for when you build a monster motor. Likewise the breather box.

You will notice that Peter's custom fan shroud is too small to house the stock oil cooler and so he's blanked off the aperture at the top of the crankcase and runs an external oil cooler set up.

I've said this before Peter...with all that hardware you should have gone 1776 or 1914

[Peter]

I was thinking of it and the extra cost at the time would have been negligible but there is a problem living in what is essentially a 3rd world country and that is the lack of engineering shops able to do the opening out of the crankcase and head work, something I would shy clear of on a DIY basis. So I went for the smaller 1641 but all racing internals and a LOT of time on the gas flowing of the inlets, heads and exhausts. so it really is a screamer at over 7,000, about the same as my Mercedes Cosworth, (when the bloody thing is running that is )
You can also just make out the H section con rods too

This shows the oil cooler take off, (and my nice new shiny kennedy 1700 clutch, Hmmm



I was hoping this would show it better but as it is it is a nice shot of the unique backward carb linkage and you can see how things develop as new items come to light by the change in the oil filler , here it has the original type but chromed and above, the later billet type..

[Deleted]

was going to do some work on the car this weekend but 2 lots of sods law, firstly I caught my gfs flu on the bloody long car journey back to essex Friday nite, stupid m25. Then I missed the parts place closing by 5 bloody minutes on sat! Wasn't happy a) because I'd dragged I disagree outa bed to get there all headachy and coughing my guts up and b) because they'd marker penned 2 over the 4pm closing time on the door, it was still wet when I got there!

Am back home next weekend to go see tim minchen (can't wait) so will hopefully do some work then.

[Deleted]

I got this letter through today, I altered my v5c to say "Coupe Eagle SS" in the wheelplan/body type part of the v5c.




They didnt send back the v5c so im guessing they want me to explain what it is etc. Since i had to dig up the v5c for the chassis, which hadnt been registered as changing hands since 1982, i think i have scope to say that its not been a beetle for a while but previous owners have not updated the information until i received ownership this summer.

Im thinking ill send in a mini history of the car, lots of official eagle pics/documents. I'll state that i legally had to change the type as it is obviously no longer looks like a beetle but equally because of the chassis/running gear being all from the beetle, only the body type needs changing, it is not a kit car (ill ephasise that i nor original owner had to build anything as vw manufactured the chassis engine etc and eagle manufactured the body) and i might quote something like "these cars ...karmaan ghia etc.... also use the same chassis/running gear, just changing the body panels".....

Not sure whether to avoid saying "radically altered vehicle" or not but does that sound reasonable? anyone have any suggestions? I have a feeling she'll send me another letter saying that it needs to be inspected by the local centre

[Deleted]

Also......is there anyway to get an original receipt for my bodyshell from somewhere/one?

I have a blank copy of the original order form.....and having heard that some of the nova guys have been asked to provide proof of purchase for the shell before the dvla would change the v5c.

[Peter]

I have a blank copy of the purchase reciept from Eagle cars in 1995 if that helps but as the date for changing the name of the car in the V5 from VW to Eagle has long past you will have a problem.

[Deleted]

On the V5 for my Charger it merely states:

Make: Volkswagen

Body type: 2 door sports


There is no mention of Charger or MBC or any of the other details one might expect but that's the DVLA. I had a Capri with a candy apple paint job....I explained the paint job, they asked for a photograph...they asked for more details of the paint.....a few weeks later the V5 came back with colour: Red/yellow!!!!

The letter smacks of the one I got from my insurance company when I put alloy wheels on my wife's MG. They tried to load up my policy when I took off the 7 inch wide TSW's and put on stock MG alloys...........the clerk was dealing with something outwith their experience/knowledge and I think that this is what you've got here.

The DVLA pillock that wrote the letter has misunderstood what you are asking. Get hold of a petrolhead in the DVLA and explain..probably over the phone....get a name and then send another letter with your request marked for their attention. Go about this the right way or you're going to the IVA station.

[Deleted]

Peter if i could have a copy of an original receipt that would be really helpful.

My first draft to the DVLA officer.


------------------
Thank you for your reply on my query on the model description of my vehicle.
I believe we have miss understood each other on why I sent my v5c in with the alterations.

The car I brought on August 3rd 2009 no longer looks like the original beetle but uses the ‘kipper’ as it is known, which is the chassis and running gear i.e. engine, steering, brakes, fuel tank, axles and suspension; essentially only the body panels have been removed.
This donor ‘kipper’ has been used as a donor chassis & running gear for an 80’s fibreglass body called an “Eagle SS”, manufactured by Eagle Cars Ltd in 1982.

As the mechanics of the car are from the VW Beetle with only the body panels and doors being manufactured from Eagle Cars Ltd it is not a kit car as neither any previous owners nor I have built anything.
I believe it comes under your definition of using a donor car or radically altered car.

As Volkswagen did not manufacture the body, I believe they will not class it as a model they have manufactured, so would probably be against officially confirming the description change themselves.

My dilemma is that the DVLA would understand the car as a modified VW Beetle and should still be classed as a “Volkswagen” under ‘make’ and “1300” under ‘model’ on the V5c as these details have not changed.

But equally a DVLA officer, MOT centre or Police Officer would look at the car and say that it does not look like a VW 1300 anymore and something on the V5c should be changed to better describe it, thus my original application to change the body type from “saloon” to “Coupe Eagle SS”.

I have enclosed a photocopy of 2 original brochures, order form and receipt plus photos of the car during repair this summer showing the separate VW Beetle chassis/running gear and the Eagle SS body.
-------------------

[Deleted]

I'm not sure I wouldn't leave sleeping dogs lying on this one, at least until you have the car mot'ed & on the road. Judging by all the earlier correspondence, I think you have enough paperwork to do this. I've never fully understood the desire to have a kit car registered as an 'Eagle' or 'Nova' or whatever. My road legal 'SS' is, IIRC, described as a component car. There is so little understanding & credibility attached to the kit car business in the UK that, if you were ever to want to sell it, the only interested parties would be fully aware of what the car was and are, I think, unlikely to be put off by the designation on the V5. For my own part, I would buy a kit car I liked (e. g. the Henson recently on ebay) irrespective of what the V5 called it as long as the paperwork & chassis numbers tied up and the DVLA considered it a car. If it's a matter of pride that you have it correctly registered, remember what it comes before (pride, that is)!

As Pelland says, the last place you want to be is at an IVA station.

[Deleted]

Pride is the least of the things pushing me to change the v5c, I want to stay away from the evil dvla people as much as possible.

I just dont think i would be able to MOT it without them changing the description somehow, due to it still having "saloon" on the body type.
The mot man would take one look at the v5c and say "its obviously not a vw 1300 saloon anymore". Once saloon is gone I'm ok, as it doesnt say beetle or how many seats.

There's also the whole police/insurance problems if i had a crash and they found out it was registered wrong (in their eyes).

I'll see what the dvla woman replies, at the worst she can send me for inspection, and due to me being at uni, the car being sorned and the local dvla centre not doing house calls, its not happening in the near future.

[Deleted]

I've recently had my eagle MOTed probably for the first time in ages. My V5 certificate still says VW beetle, body type saloon. No problems with the MOT guys they just put it through, they just said as long as the chassis and number plate are all the same on all the paper work then as far as they are concerned it’s all fine.

[Deleted]

Ollie.......what does it say on your insurance documents because many insurers go with the registration number to determine the make, model and spec of the car they're dealing with.

Although the performance is unlikely to be little different from the Beetle, unless you have upped the power plant, and therefore, in theory, there should be no significant loading on your premium I think you're inviting the insurers not so settle should you have a claim. 10 years in the motor insurance industry taught me that any excuse not to settle is a good excuse........also made me cynic!!

Ben..........back off with the DVLA letter. Don't volunteer more info that you need to. Try and get the body style modifed to "2 door sports" and leave the manufacture as VW......afterall that's what the guys do when they lop the roof off a Beetle and call it a Wizard roadster. ;D