Quote:
Originally Posted by 335isilver
Irq5
That was the good life. How can i forget the super beetle!! And the ford sierra big six!? My brother in law painted his super beetle with fiery red and black flames running from the massive low rear wing to the front (remember this mod?) with the brand new rear motor exposed. You could see a mile away how the fanbelt was spinning around the silver spools/pulley. Not sure what it was called. But he mainly used it to show off. There was not a kid on the block that did not want be in one and own one. The beetle begged to be mod. One could replace the entire car with fiberglass. I remember one day finding him grinding off the entire left skirting of the car with a smile. saying there is nothing that fiberglass resin cannot fix!
I remember the guys in the Cape padding the dash with mmm... what is the english again, don't know "skaapvel" Because the dash was known for cracking rather quickly in the sun.
Why is it that replacing the stock gearbox was always a second consideration after the mag wheels. Can you still recall? Was there a problem with the beetle gearboxes at the time? I only vaguely know that the gears were pretty tall and spaced far apart.
I continue to have wet dreams about the V8 big six Ford and the opel superboss kadet. I guess what i miss is when people could just enjoy their toys, share it and have fun and if it breaks everyone club in to "fix" it. I notice that you tuned your beetle by yourself. Today we have BMW specialists and dealers telling us to leave modding alone especially the turbos on the 335. Ja, right!
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Yeah - although I think I joined the "times" pretty late... When I got the beetle in 97, all my friends were looking forward to driving fiesta's and the like... It was only guys like my friend and I who would still ogle over his dad's 351 cubic inch V8 1961 Mustang.
The main reason I wanted to change the gearbox was due to the fact that I was basically limited (top speed-wise) to about 160km/h. The fouth gear was very tall, but that's as far as it got you, and the engine itself was screaming at around 4500 / 5000rpm... If I had another ratio, I'm sure I could have gotten the beetle up to 180+ Whether that's a good idea in a beetle or not is a different story. But tshe was lowered and had some nice fat tyres (195/45's if I remember) so she really held the road well.
You're right though, it's getting a bit difficult to work on cars yourself these days - the more modern the car, the more inaccessible things seem. I just recently started servicing my wifes car myself rather than taking it to the dealership, and I must say, even though it's just a Fiat Palio (for now), it was fun to get my hands dirty again - I haven't worked on a car in at least 7 years or so... But then again, the basics never really change.
My previous car was a Mazda RX-8, and that was a whole other kettle of fish. There was no easy way to work on that yourself - they intake / intake manifold for example is a variable kind with solenoids everywhere controlling opening and closing these and those chambers / pipes... Very complex. But if I hadn't traded it in on the 335, it would have been fun to work around with (if it wasn't my daily driver)... But alas it ran out of Motor Plan and the engine started giving troubles. A friend who also drove an RX-8 had similar engine troubles whilst still under Motor Plan and had to have his engine replaced entirely (they don't seem to fix things these days) and the cost would have been +- R60,000 - I don't have that much change lying around myself. So before things got too bad (any new driver of the car wouldn't notice a problem, but I could feel that things weren't the way they used to be - and of course the dealer couldn't find anything wrong) I traded her in. And I haven't looked back since (well, I've only really had the car since the begining of April 08 but still).