Furthering the Art

I've been following the work of several pioneers in the field of conversion, and picking up tidbits from each of them. The earliest work on conversions out of Australia and New Zealand put the radiator underneath, which is still a popular method.

My dilemma is that I saw what I can only call the 'next generation' of conversions with dual radiators mounted in the engine compartment. All nicely modulated and hidden and contained. The major problem with these jobs is that they seemed vastly more likely to overheat than even the under-belly style were, not really any better at keeping the engine cool, and frankly, a pain to work on because everything was stacked together like it had been put through a car crusher, reducing everything to just a cube of equipment in the compartment, glowing hot.

Of course, these early jobs said absolutely nothing about their build theory, did not show progress shots, and offered no strong data upon which to form an opinion about the viability of the design. All anecdote. And maybe one picture of the finished hackage. And then complaints about how it overheated.

In 2012 & 2013, there was a step up in interest, both because of the drying up of usable and affordable engine parts, but also because a long time Type4 hop-up mechanic stated that he wasn't doing any more development on the aircooled engine. He's all about Subaru and Porsche now.

Others didn't wait: installations came out of Central California and Las Cruces, New Mexico. Now, there's mine in progress as well. All of these are better documented than the early attempts, but neither were done with the intention of being reproducible. Mine is.

From Las Cruces came an installation from an Aerospace grad, which held a lot of weight with me until I discovered that, for the Late Bay, his solution requires cutting on the chassis that I was not expecting. This didn't make me happy, but I used the method because it was the only way that I could get where I wanted to go at the price point I was willing to pay. The rest of this entry is to document and notate the chassis mods 'JMSkater' made to his 1973 model, and which I will have to do, too.

Fig. 13-A: 1972+ Engine compartment style. Subaru EJ series engine installed. Note the already trimmed stock air seal flange (just below the black cylindrical fuse holder) to permit the rotation of a stock VW Mk1 radiator into the small gap. The air flows down from the intake above (top left) pressurizing the entire left hand enclosure. Also note that the
spare tire well which usually protrudes down into the space has already been removed. Stock firewall missing,
so the fuel tank is visible. Note the metal plate with the two grommets in it just right of center in this picture. While it looks like there is plenty of room, this plate will have to come out.

Fig. 13-B: Same left hand area visible as above. A piece of 14 gauge mild sheet metal rough cut and inserted into place. When the center of this piece is removed, will eventually act as a gasket to force all incoming air through the radiator and not let it take the 'path of least resistance.. 

Fig. 13-C: Gasket / Radiator mount in place, with holes drilled for mounting the radiator to stock points on the tank bodies. Bear in mind that this is merely roughed in work at this point. Note in the bottom right of this picture that the two grommets have disappeared. The plate has been removed.

Fig. 13-D: Radiator propped up into the space it will occupy when fastened to the gasket. 

Fig. 13-E: Detail of the section where the wiring harness grommet plates were removed. To fit the stock, 525mm Mk1 radiator, both of these will have to come out. They are only spot-welded in and seam-sealed over. As such, they're easy to remove, and if kept in good shape, easy to reinstall by welding if you wish to reinstall the air cooled engine. Also, most of the wiring routing to the tail lights and engine electrical is going to have to move, anyway, so this is a ACTUALLY not a horrific loss.