Hey gang - NQ here. My wife and I have been really busy over the past few
years. When she moved here 4 1/2 years ago from Australia, we had
immigration to take care of, she went back to school to get her nursing
license, and we needed a place to live. She's now a citizen as of December
12th, she's working as a nurse, and we spent our holidays painting the
inside of our new house in the country where I can collect many VW. Right
now we are up to around 17 or 18 assorted VWs for projects and parts! LOL!
An upcoming project for us will be a restoration of a 1963 Beetle for her to
drive. It's her dream car and so I've been thinking about how to approach
the restoration. I really don't like how swing-axle transmissions tend to
leak and how you have to gut the entire rear-end for every single little bit
of maintenanace and repair. The ease of the IRS set-up has spoiled me and
so I'd like to convert the beetle to IRS without too much sacrilege.
I've decided that I want to keep the stock pan and add upgrades to it that
would make it fairly easy to resort back to factory if anyone ever wanted
to. I want to upgrade the front axle to the later brake system and have the
brackets welded on the rear to convert to IRS. I have all the IRS parts I
need from parts dubs I've collected. I had toyed with the idea of mating
the 1963 to a later IRS pan, but I decided against it, because it just makes
it too much a bastard beetle. At least when you're in the bug, it will all
appear vintage and correct. I didn't want to cut and reweld the 2 body
mounts under the rear fenders although I will have to cut, clearance, and
weld up the frame horns for CV clearance.
Before I do any of this, there remains one big question and that is can you
get blank drums of IRS beetles and have them drilled for wide-5 rims? If
so, does anyone know if there is any appreciable offset that needs to be
countered by having the center of the wide-5 rims relocated closer to the
outside edge of the rim? I'd want to do this before getting them
powder-coated.
As I'm getting older, I'm appreciating stock more and more. It comes with
age because you sometimes just get tired of dorking with the same old stuff
over and over and by keeping it stock, you stand a good chance of it working
for a good long time. I had entertained the idea of rebuilding a 40hp
engine, but there are so many advantages to a good ol' stock balanced and
blue-printed 1600, that I'd like to make the upgrade for my wife. That
means an IRS transaxle would be needed to take advantage of the extra
horsepower (I'm sure a swing-axle trans could be upgraded to the steeper
ring and pinion with my personal favourite being the 4.12 set, but I don't
want swing-axle on this car.) An area that concerns me is the heater box to
firewall clearance as I remember someone saying it could be quite a trick to
get it to fit. If I'm going to do body work or have it done, it is possible
that this part of the firewall could be clearanced? Does anyone have any
experience with getting a 1600 to fit in a 1963 beetle?
Thanks for entertaining my questions. I'm just trying to get the game plan
put together for what we are going to do with her car. I think a modest set
of upgrades for better breaking, longevity, and more get up and go will make
this a really nice car for her to drive.
Lookin' forward to any advice... Thanks!
NQ
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