One of the more iconic things about a Baja is the goofy tire sizes. Usually its something giant in the rear, and tiny up front. This car is no exception.


P195/75R14 in the front


P205/75R15 in the rear

Because **** me, who needs a spare tire?



I've been told these are some sort of oldschool steel rim generally referred to as "Appliance rims" but I've got two different sizes, a 14x...whatever in the front, and a 15x8 in the rear (I think, maybe 15x8.5?) I don't like the staggered sizes because I can't carry a spare, so the goal is to find another pair of at least 15s to match the rear. BTW, the lug pattern is what the airheads call a "Wide 5" its 5 lugs on 205mm and it interchanges with ... nothing.

Lo and behold, local VW shop has exactly what I need stacked in the bowels of his warehouse:



Awwww, fuckyeah.

They are 15x6 and have a completely different offset from the ones I've got in the rear, but at least now I have a chance in hell of carrying a spare.

Now I need to find some new tires.

 

If they ship this to Cali, buy some. Just be advised that it causes cancer in all 50 states

Berkebile Oil 2 + 2 B101 Instant Gum Cutter - 13 oz.

 

In reading about off-road Beetle things, I discovered Baja Class 11 cars. These are basically stock Beetles with the biggest tires you can fit under the stock fenders, plus a cage and some other safty gear. I'm not going to run Baja, but the look is a fantastic inspiration. The local VW shop had this sitting in their lot, and for whatever reason, I really like it.



It's more of a "Class 11" look-alike thing going on, but I totally dig the fitment.

The tires are Deestone D503 7.00-15 It's an 8 ply D range light truck tire for ... vintage military things and farm implements maybe?





They are sold under the Deestone, Eldorado, PowerKing, Jetzon and TBCBrands, etc for about $90/ea if you catch them on sale. Unfortunately that's about as much as I paid for the car, so that seems ridiculous.

Talking to the owner of the shop, the owner of this vehicle loves the tires and with the stock engine and trans, he can do 65 on the highway no problem, but sometimes has to downshift for hills depending on speed. I believe he said its got a healthy stock single port 1600 with single carb under the deck.

Interesting note about the Deestone:



That's a 30" diameter tire. I've got a much lighter vehicle by nature due to stripped out Baja, so I feel like as long as I stay under 30" I should probably be OK.

Digging around on TheSamba in the off-road section, I discovered there are a bunch of guys running 28" to 30" diameter tires on the stock drivetrain without a lot of issues, provided you don't get TOO crazy on the rear traction tires. Swampers and big chunky mud tires need not apply. Hell, the sand guys actually install paddles in the rear backwards to help preserve the transaxle.

I focused on a LT235/75-R15 as my target size because they run about 28-29" diameter and seem to be incredibly common among a certain segment of the Jeep population. I wanted an A/T tire rather than an M/T tire, and I figured I could find a cheap set on Craigslist and be done with it. Well, after weeks of searching, I gave up. Apparently nobody is selling used tires on Craiglist anymore.

I almost broke down an bought a set of General Grabber AT2 when I found these beauties:



The Definity is a Pep Boys house brand tire made by I think Cooper, and the Dakota A/T2 is currently being discontinued. It's a 6 ply Light Truck tire with a 104/101 R service rating (1984 lbs per axle & 106 mph, lol) At the time they were listed at $65 and I could only add 2x to my cart. I called the Pep Boys and asked if I could get 3 more. He said if I really wanted them, he'd give them to me for $40/ea and he would try to get 3 more. There were none left in warehouse stock anywhere so he had to pull them from shelf stock singles from 2 other Pep Boys stores in NorCal, and one out of Reno. lol

Looks like they are on sale for $48.68 now, but good luck trying to get a full set. Price doesn't matter though, because I got a full set of tires and they didn't cost more than the car





BEEFFFFF!

Now I just need to get them mounted and balanced and I should be good to go. The balancing part may be tricky though, because nobody I've called says they can do a VW Wide 5. About the only place I haven't tried, and the last place someone recommended to me, was the Les Schwab so I'll give them a ring on Tuesday. No idea if they'll balance something that wasn't purchased from them, but I guess I'll find out. I also need a 5th rim, but it looks like there are a few singles on TheSamba, or I'll try to hit a swap meet somewhere.

 

Dude, everything causes cancer in California. I'm pretty sure I'm just cancer at this point anyway

I've got the carbs pretty well squared away at this point, but I appreciate the advice! I'm kinda catching things up, as it were. I've got plenty of other stuff to de-grease though, so I'm not going to dismiss it out of hand. Plus, I got Amazon Rewards points to spend.

I didn't start this thread earlier because it was draaaaaaaaagging aaaaaaaaaasssssssssssssssss to get this project moving. With only a couple hours a week to work on it, and working on it remotely with no tools, no power, no running water, no parts stores, etc really ate up time. The above happened over a period of MONTHS. It's probably the most frustrating thing I've taken on in quite a while. :/

 

And during those long periods of time waiting for parts and not making progress, I get bored and my mind starts wandering.

I want to figure out how to get an O2 sensor on this thing, because I don't trust the "classic" methods of getting a pair of carbs synced. Yes, I own a uni-sync and know how to use it, but that doesn't mean I like it. Without thinking about it too hard, I ordered up one of these:



I don't have a welder so this seems like it would be the easy button, right?

Well, unfortunately because my project is not in my driveway and I can't walk outside and measure it, I didn't realize the 3 bolt flange on my exhaust is bigger. WAY bigger.



Crap. Oh well, good thing it was cheap.

But while stumbling around the internet trying to figure out what else uses this bolt pattern, I found something delightful. It turns out the Suzuki Hayabusa GSX1300R muffler from 99-07 uses the same bolt pattern. Sweet. Off to eBay I go...



That's the VW gasket on the Hayabusa midpipe, lol



The Hayabusa uses a completely different sealing system, but since when has that ever stopped me from doing something stupid?



Now I've got two of the things, who KNOWS what stupid things I can do?!



Fits like a ******' glove!

 

 

Before the muffler went on, I got the carbs back on, synched them up, fought the carb linkage, set the timing and put about 2g of fuel in it. Lo and behold, the mechanical fuel gauge works! I'm not joking when I say I'm shocked. It also starts and runs fantastically! I took it on a blast around the neighborhood and it did great! No bogging, no stalling, no stupidity (also no video ) just noise and go. Brakes definitely need to be adjusted though

It was about this time I decided I needed to take a look at the leak in the transmission and I noticed this:



Goddammit, that's gear oil. The axle seal is leaking

I was hoping it was brake fluid, and that maybe I had left the bleeder open when my incredibly tolerant and patient wife helped me bleed the brakes, but no, one whiff confirmed axle seal. Now I get to fight the axle nut.

For those not familiar with VW rear swingaxle nuts, the brake drum is splined and held to the axle shaft with a gianormous 36mm nut, torqued to 217-250 ft/lbs. That is not a typo. To get it off, you need to break that nut loose. I should mention at this point that the rear brake shoes were full of oil, and that drum was completely inoperable. I should also mention that the car has no ebrake.





I'm not sure who's bright idea it was to remove the ebrake, but there you have it.

So I pretty much gave up trying to get that nut loose. With the breaker bar and a 4' cheater, all I manged to do was slip it in the gravel, or turn the engine over with the car in gear. You know what? Time to get this thing home where I have a driveway and air tools.

 

Seeing as how @MiataMan00 is a dick and stole @afm's trailer, then pulled it out to the middle of some godforsaken flyover state, refused to bring it back, and abandoned it in a field, now I can't steal afm's trailer to move the Baja.

My father in law graciously volunteered his truck and trailer to move the VW off his property (was probably just worried about the hazmat implications) so we fired it up and tossed it on the trailer.




I drove it up onto the trailer, but it was a struggle. The car would barely idle and it was super down on power. I was very concerned as I could barely keep it running. The car had run absolutely great before this, and it was a huge disappointment for me. Also, the damn fuel gauge had stopped working



We got it down to my 'hood and I could barely get it started. It rolled back off the trailer and idled OK, but as soon as I would touch the throttle it would stutter and cough and try to die. ****!

I ended up driving it 2 blocks to my house, stalling it about 6 times in the process and barely able to get it to run above idle. Each time it died I assumed I'd have to get out and push but somehow I made it to the house and up the driveway, slipping the clutch and feathering the throttle the whole time.

But the car is home now, and it somewhere I can actually work on it when time is available. So I got that going for me, which is nice.

 

I checked the timing, I checked the carbs, I checked the fuel pump, I checked the distributor, cap, rotor, plugs condenser, points, every goddamn thing. Engines are pretty damn simple: fuel, air, spark. As long as you've got those the rest is just details. I could not for the life of me figure out what was wrong with this thing, but it was really pissing me off. I had to walk away and not think about it for a while. My wife tried to help, but I think it just added more frustration. "Is the battery charged?" Yes, I just charged it. "Does it have gas?" Yes, I just replaced the whole fuel system, put 1.5g of fresh gas in it (granted, its 2 stroke gas but 50:1 should be fine) and its making pressure. "Does it have oil?" Yes, its full of oil, I just changed it. Bless her heart.

After sleeping on it for a day or so, it occurred to me that while I had put fuel in it and it was making pressure, I never checked to see if it actually had fuel in it. Well, guess what?



Yeah, that's right.

That's when I remembered from some days ago I came up to Paradise and found the fiberglass Baja hood unlatched. I had been bleeding the brakes several days before so I thought nothing of it, I probably just forgot to button it up. Looking back, its fairly obvious that someone siphoned the gas out of the car.

I mean, I get it. Paradise is seriously a post apocalyptic wasteland right now. I'm sure for some of the people living up there is gotta be like Mad Max, roving the wastes attempting to find fuel, but that's still a fairly shitty thing to do. I hope that 50:1 leftover 2 stroke gas does wonderful things to their modern fuel injected vehicle. I put 3g of fresh gas in it at the house, ran the pump for a minute to fill the bowls on the carbs and guess what? Now it fires right up and runs like a scalded dog. I took a victory lap around the neighborhood and did my best to run over the frightened children who insist on playing in the street. I failed to hit any of them, but the car still ran great regardless.

 

Now its at the house, taking up space in my driveway and leaking gear oil all over everything.

I got out the compressor and air impact and the nut came off with no issues, thank goodness for air tools. The drum also came free with no issues.




This thing has clearly been leaking for a while. The shoes are completely soaked in gear oil, and there is a film of death and disgusting behind all the brake hardware. Damn. I guess I get to pull this hub completely apart.



Nothing to it but to do it, I guess. Have I mentioned I hate gear oil? I hate gear oil. :(

 

I have had a few air cooled VW's and lol'd a few times in this saga. Sounds so familiar.

 

Thanks Six! I hope you and wackbards stick around because while this isn't my first rodeo, its been a looooong time since I've had one of these things.

Its been fun, actually. Heaps of nostalgia for me. My first car was a 1973 Super Beetle that I bought with all my summer job money back when I was 16, in the 90s. I didn't have my drivers license yet but that didn't stop me from buying the car! My Dad and I spent a LOT of time working on it, and that's basically where I learned to turn wrenches. My first trip to a junkyard to find parts, my first stripped bolts, the first time I changed a set of spark plugs, or used a timing light. That poor old Super taught me a lot of things. Eventually my parents divorce resulted in my Dad not having a car, and because I still didn't have a drivers license and it was in his name, it became his daily. It eventually spawned a Porsche Monza exhaust (probably designed for a 356) and I vividly remember it setting off car alarms in parking lots. What a riot! Then it exploded, lol

 

Loving this thread. Were you able to take it for a spin after rebuilding the carbs yet? looks fun.

 

So that kinda brings us to where I am now.



I got the brake assembly mostly stripped down, and started cleaning up the backing plate.

You see that part "#8 - Sealing Ring" in the old timey exploded parts diagram I posted earlier? That thing was nowhere to be found. What I DID find was that someone glued the bearing and seal carrier (#14) to the backing plate, and did't bother with the o-ring, or even cleaning off the old paper gasket. Surprisingly enough, even though this is an unholy pain in the *** to clean up, it wasn't actually my the cause of my leak.

The PO Ken told me that the brakes "should be great" and that he "just recently had the hubs serviced" and he was right. The white lithium grease they used on everything was still white, and the shoes had plenty of meat. Unfortunately whomever replaced the axle seal made a bit of a boo-boo.



See the little tension spring behind the seal? Notice how its NOT totally behind the seal? Thars yer prablem. Just like a Miata crankshaft seal, the spring is important.



This is how its supposed to look, but the sealing lips are creased and worn, so its done. Good thing replacements are readily available.



I bought two, because they were cheap and I have two axles. Whoda thunk it?

It appears the second paper gasket goes between the back of the backing plate and the axle tube, so I'll be removing the wheel cylinder and pulling the entire backing plate at some point as well. It's going to be quite the trick not getting junk in that bearing or in the axle tube.

The brake shoes are soaked.




No way I'm going to reuse these. I'm a cheap bastard, but $17 for an axle set of rear shoes sounds like cheap insurance to me.

ZEE CHERMAN ENGINEERS who designed this thing were pretty clever, check this **** out:



When the seal is pressed into the carrier, it doesn't go all the way to the face, it stops on a shoulder. The shoulder then has a relief cut, and then this clever hole drilled in it. If the seal were to fail, oil that found its way past the axle would end up behind flung outward or dripped down that inside shoulder, and then drain down to that hole. I've highlighted the hole here by jamming a brake cleaner straw through it. There is a corresponding hole in the paper gasket and in the backing plate as well. So instead of that leaking gear oil getting into the drum and ruining the shoes/causing a brake failure condition, it drains harmlessly out the back of the backing plate and onto the ground where hopefully you eventually notice the drops of foul smelling gear oil on your driveway. Neat! As a recovering machinist and "car guy" I can really appreciate this sort of attention to detail, it really makes me smile to know that someone actually thought this out, and came up with a simple solution that wasn't "value engineered" out of the final product to save in production costs.

The only catch here of course, is that much like your toilet, it only works properly when the drain is clear. If you jam it up with RTV then you end up with **** all over your bathroom. Or gear oil all over you brakes. Just another thing to correct I guess. The car is so damn simple, its shocking that stuff like this was straight up overlooked.

 

Absolutely! It drives great, now that its got gas in it

I'll have to see if I can find the Go-Pro and get an in-cabin video for you guys. It makes amazingly terrible noises, and I love it.

 

Speaking of being a cheap bastard... the Miata community ain't got nothing on the Old Guy© VW crew. This actually brings me to an interesting point.




You are going to see a LOT more of this familiar blue/yellow/orange packaging as this thread goes on, as pretty much the only vendor left in the VW space is EMPI. VW owners are so cheap, they'll buy the lowest cost part they can find, regardless of quality. This has caused a "race to the bottom" for price and quality and EMPI has surely won. Or maybe VW owners lost. Regardless, EMPI has driven a lot of the other global parts suppliers out of business and for certain parts, there is no competition. They CAN make good stuff, but you need to be REALLY careful and make sure the things you are buying fit correctly and that the quality and materials are a good fit. Trust, but verify.

I try to support small vendors when I can (like the Kadron carbs guys over at The Kaddie Shack) but its getting harder to find small shops that make quality products and actually know what the hell they are talking about.

That leads me to these guys:



Nobody, and I mean nobody, bothers to make an ebrake base except for these guys over at airkewld.com out of Texas. Its not something that generally disappears out of a car, so I think these are specifically made for offroad buggies and "volksrod" customs. But I don't care why they make it, I'm just glad that they do! I'm not a big fan of the star, but this is all about function over form for now. I just need to get my hands on a welder so I can get my ebrake back. Siq.

Of course, EMPI makes a replacement ebrake handle assembly, as seen in the top right corner of my pile of parts Like I say, you just can't avoid them for some stuff.

Now that I got the car home, I've had a chance to go through a few more things and I'm getting ready to shotgun a parts order at this thing.

 

Ugh. I got to do a brake job twice once because I didn't realize it was the wheel axle seal.

Air cooled engines just kind of lose power when they overheat. Maybe an oil temp sensor would be a good investment. I used to carry around a roll of quarters and some aluminum friendly degreaser. About once a week I'd roll up to a diy carwash and pressure wash & degrease all the cooling fins.

 

In for glorious, abject fuckery and general malaise

 

I.....don't even know what's happening

 

That is so funny you came into this thread. I was going to recommend it to you.