the latest goings on.

all in all it has been a good few weeks of playing vw's. everything has been a little crazy buisy with 5 extra extended family members in the house for nearly a week, plus work etc.

last weekend i went out to check out the rolled "62 1/2" on a property out of town. it turned out to be one of the most amazingly killed vw i'd ever seen. dead to the point of the rear swing axles being Z shaped, the frame head being crumpled and even the dash was twisted. all from being rolled, it looked like it had gone corner to corner (aka end over end) as well as normal rolling. i would love to have been the first one to get at the car as it seemed to be really original. aka crashed early in it's life. it had a matched set of continental cross plys (with lots of tread) and a rubber cased battery. if the battery wasn't broken i would have been so stoked as i'd love to have one for "the shed". all in all it was a very strange car as some bits (of those that were left anyway) were near perfect, but others were completely rooted. several of the few bits i scored have already been cleaned and put into the box for use on my 63. others haven't quite made the cut, but they are still the best that i have.

there were heaps of other cool stuff on the property as well. aka 3 blitz (CMP) trucks another ww2 era truck, the majority of a mk1 landrover plus huge anounts of other cool machinery and heavy machine tools etc.

i did find one thing that made me yell with joy, a twin carb manifold to siut a 40hp. on closer inspection it is a homemade job and i don't think i'd run it on a car as some of the bends are less than smooth. as far as i can tell it is made from one stock manifold cut up and re welded with one hand made flange and a balance tube added. it has given me some ideas as it situated the carbs fairly close together in front of the fan shroud and would work well with the later style non fresh air fan shrouds and heater pipes, the balance tube could also make a good mount point to hang a cross bar style linkage off. the manifolds are rather long but that should work well if the motor is set up for lower rpms.

i also had a book i'm swaping turn up in the mail, "making the volkswagen go". now as far as i know the only one i'm missing is "souping the volkswagen" and i think that is being re printed. i have basically read it through now and imho it is really really good.  still not quite as good as the "how to hotrod..." book but it is almost entirely 36hp. well worth picking up a copy if you like vintage speed.