Monday, December 24, 2012

Merry Christmas

NSWGR Trikes wishes everyone a MERRY CHRISTMAS and a HAPPY NEW YEAR.


Saturday, December 8, 2012

Die neue Auspuffanlage angekommen

I recommend Wolfsburg Motors in St Peters, NSW if you require air cooled VW parts. Great service and the hard to get parts are no worries.

It took a 9hr round trip to pick up the new exhaust and head studs for the VW trike.



When the heads come back from reconditioning the engine can be put back together.

Saturday, December 1, 2012

Progress on the VW project

All is going rather well with the VW. As of this post the car is 99% dis-assembled. The chassis is ready for sandblasting.

The engine was removed first and given a blown down test. This test involved a modified spark plug to hook up compressed air to the engine. By listening in the exhaust and inlet ports for air escaping it told you if the valves were leaking or not. If air was escaping through the crankcase filler, you would know the rings were worn. Cylinders 1 and 2 inlet valves and 3 and 4 exhaust valves leaked. The heads were removed and taken to a machine shop to have the valves re done. Wickham 526 cylinder bore is also in the shop for re boring (more on that later). The clutch and the flywheel was removed, low and behold the clutch is brand new, someone put it in and never used  it, still got the paint markings on it. A new flywheel seal was installed and the clutch re-assembled.

The tin ware is awaiting stripping and cleaning then to be painted and waiting on new head studs and exhaust before the engine will be re-assembled. Engine parts are plentiful for the old donk, lots of aftermarket gear available but try getting a muffler for one. The rear axle of the car is so close to the exhaust it must have a stock one fitted. A search of over 30 vendors resulting in just one being able to supply the muffler and that one still had to order it in for me.

 My Father has been doing the mechanics on the VW engine, it's one of his specialities.  

Many things are rusted beyond repair and had to cut off, lots of stuff will have to be rebuilt or remade. Just today the axles were taken off and the gearbox split off the front axle. Scored well with the gearbox, it is tip-top shape. Just the gearbox axle seals need to be replaced, this will involve taking the wheels, hubs, axle boxes, and bearings off. I sincerely hope I have better luck with setting this axle up than the Wickham's, that was a nightmare.

From here, there is a lot of parts need stripping, cleaning and repair. From my other restorations it has taught me this is a slow process but certainly worth it when a shiny trike rolls out of the shed.


The tin ware.



The motor with the heads on



without heads




Clutch and flywheel



Rotten timber panels



Caren shaft, front and rear axles




Crown gears on the from axle. I'll have to get a comparison photo to the Wickham's gears.


The gearbox.

Clutch housing

The bare chassis

 Now, what's up with Wickham 526 you ask? No? Well I'm going to tell you anyway.

526s primary engine turned into an oil pump. The bore I used was worn 0.008 of an inch oversize. This was an oversight on my part, I assumed the bore was good as there were no signs of wear and no lip in the cylinder. At the time I had no way to measure this wear. Anyway long story short, the engine was a smoke machine and emptied the sump in a little over 2hrs of running.

I got hold of a brand new 0.020" oversize piston and ring set, bundled them up with the cylinder bore and they are in the process of being matched.

Currently 526 is fitted with it's back up engine.