Oh, and a BIG reason to re-consider having the oil cooler way up front is (1.) you'll need a 30mm HD oil pump to move an adequate volume and (2.) the oil actually moves slower the closer you get to the inside walls of the hose it's traveling in because of "Wall Friction" (I made up that term, but you get the idea). The longer the hose (and the more turns) the slower the oil will flow AND the more power it'll take to force it through the hose(s). Just think "short is sexy" as a mantra for cooler and hose locations.
To add one more voice to a chorus:
Don't put the cooler back in the front unless you have a dry-sump. I HAVE a dry-sump and my cooler is in the LR wheelwell, because it works fine there and nobody needs 20 ft. of extra line to pump through (even if one has a scavenge stage on the oil pump).
If you're set on leaving it there, at least get an Accusump and a 30 mm oil pump, along with a size jumbo extended sump.
@Gordon Nichols posted:Oh, and a BIG reason to re-consider having the oil cooler way up front is (1.) you'll need a 30mm HD oil pump to move an adequate volume and (2.) the oil actually moves slower the closer you get to the inside walls of the hose it's traveling in because of "Wall Friction" (I made up that term, but you get the idea). The longer the hose (and the more turns) the slower the oil will flow AND the more power it'll take to force it through the hose(s). Just think "short is sexy" as a mantra for cooler and hose locations.
Gordon, I think the correct term is surface friction.
Here's some food for thought wrt running a front mounted cooler:
And the thread I found it.
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Regarding your steering box (and the adjustment of)- please note that these things don't use "grease", as grease will not flow back into the areas between the gears when it's been "squished out. They use an extremely thick oil which continually flows back into place, which I believe you can make by a bit of grease and oil together. Ages ago I posted a link to a thread on another site which detailed taking one apart and setting it up properly (and what to use as lubricant)- I'll see if I can find it. Al
PS- And to add just 1 more voice- there really is no need to run oil lines all the way to the front of the car (and back). A cooler with temp controlled fan and full flow filter assembly (which, if you pick the right 1 will have a thermostat built in so oil isn't sent to the cooler until the oil need the extra cooling capacity) mounted in the left rear wheel well has already been proven to work and there's not the wasted power of the larger pump pushing oil along 20 extra feet of line.
Even rubber lined stainless steel hose has pumping loss- the best choice is to use teflon lined hose.
Another PS- (the important 1)- I found it- check out Hotrodsurplus's post about half way down the page- rebuilding steering boxes
If you're going to run the lines up front and back, you need to use AN-10 or AN-12, which are 5/8" and 3/4" I.D. respectively.
AN-8 (1/2" I.D.) is totally adequate if all the oil lines are kept within the vicinity of the engine bay.
I've had a 26mm pump with Berg pressure relief cover, full flow, thermostat, filter, cooler and 1.5 qt. slim sump. It worked GREAT and cooled effectively. I used AN-8.
I now have a dry sump and use AN-8 on all pressure lines. I use AN-10 on all the scavenge lines.
@ALB posted:Another PS- (the important 1)- I found it- check out Hotrodsurplus's post about half way down the page- rebuilding steering boxes
This is a great link. When I rebuilt the steering box on my old '64 bus a hundred years ago my friend's father said, just use STP in it. So we did.
Then I read through this tonight and , what do you know? His old man was right on!
"...It looks like I will have to grind that down so I can move the box further to the outside of the car. I don't really want to remove it completely, otherwise there's no limit to 'full lock' which usually means something rubs something else and trouble ensues (ooh, matron!)." - @Martin's Eleven (UK)
I don't know if this would apply to your chassis/steering box or if it would be of any help but here is a picture of the 'turn stop' on most all of Vintage Speedsters (Kirk Duncan) here in U.S.
Click on pic to enlarge...
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Here's a link to a previous post I made on where my oil cooler was mounted:
Guys, many thanks for all your comments and time taken to pass on your knowledge. Much appreciated as always. And I hope you like the picture-book blow-by blow account I'm posting here as I work through my to-do list (and uncover more problems as I go!).
@ALB and @Gordon Nichols - point taken on the steering box. I'll strip it down, get new seals and fill with oil not grease. I thought I was doing the wrong thing using grease but I couldn't find the relevant post on here. Just shows - a little more patience using this site saves me untold pain in the garage!
And yes, Gordon, I am havin' fun, despite making a few rookie mistakes. :-)
As for the oil cooler, it absolutely makes sense to move it back into the rear wheel arch and lose 16 feet of hose. Gordon, you mention wall friction - I knew there was a reason for not having the cooler up front and you nailed it. More commonly known as pipe friction, there is a known formula for calculating the loss of pressure along a given length and ID of pipe by a fluid of known viscosity. I know of this phenomenon more because I follow pro cycling/Tour de France etc - in a sprint finish the riders always ride by the barriers because there's less headwind than in the middle of the road. But for hoses, "short is sexy" works for me.
I'll go out and have a look in the garage later (once I've finished some 'real' work for the day to help pay for all this!). I can feel the huge Sidewinder-style exhaust will cramp the ability to locate everything without it getting too hot or close to the wheel. And tryng to bend steel-braided oil hoses in any kind of tight radius is near impossible, as no doubt all of you know.
Yeah, SS braided hoses require angle fittings on most direction changes on these cars for lack of much space. Fortunately, lots of different angle fittings are available.
Amazing Tour this year, right? I couldn’t believe how tough it was every single day. Way too tough for a Geriatric rider like me. And it looked like Sagan’s last season.
@MusbJim thanks for the steering stop pics. Here's one of my RHD version showing the (stock) welded stops.
I'll have to look in to this more carefully to see how I can move the steering box further to the right (looking towards the front of the car) in order to align the steering box/steering column and 'straighten' the steering column. I'll have to bribe my brother with beer as he's the one who can weld. He was a smart cookie and more mechanical than I - he did an evening class in welding when he was 17.
I wonder if I could reverse the steering arm/ pitman arm? Is this possible?
p.s. re: oil cooler pipes - @dlearl476 those are some scary figures in your chart for psi loss per foot length! Thanks for that - most useful.
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Could you fit in a U-joint?
@Martin's Eleven (UK) posted:I wonder if I could reverse the steering arm/ pitman arm? Is this possible?
I'm not sure from looking at your's, but I believe there was a specific pitman arm for RHD VW bugs. If your pan was converted to RHD in someone's drive, maybe you don't have a RHD pitman arm? Just a thought. No mater where in the world we are, a second hand, home built, speedster will have interesting secrets to reveal.
A quick post-Christmas update. As ever, the to-do list doesn't shorten.. For every job knocked off the list I find another point to address on the car.
I've replaced the 20 year old fuel hose throughout the car and here's the rough fit for the front end connecting the fuel tank to the shut-off valve, filter and fuel pump:
It needs some tidying and I'm awaiting rubber mounts for the Facet pump (more on this pump in a minute). The fuel filter will be replaced by a metal one when the next postal delivery arrives. In the meantime, I think having the filter horizontal should help filter out crud more effectively than if it were tilted (more surface area on which the crud can rest).
Talking about the Facet pump, I'm considering getting a Carter pump or similar (because Carter's are difficult to find and expensive in UK). Here's the noise from the current Facet pump:
I'l see that the noise is like once I isolate it on rubber mounts. I'm presuming I can't 'wrap' it in any kind of sound insulation because it might overheat?
One piece of good news - after 3 months of looking on Ebay and Gumtree, I finally found a Dellorto Super Performance manual for the DRLAs and, because they're as rare as hen's teeth over here, I was prepared to go high (£50!) in my bidding but in the end I was the only bidder and won it for £13 (around $18). Again, I'm awaiting this in the post since the seller has had to self-isolate due to Covid (we're having a massive increase in numbers - the hospitals are filling up fast) and can't get to the post office. I'm not a carb specialist so I wanted the manual before even beginning to look at the DRLAs. However, that gives me time to get the whole fuel chain from tank to carbs cleaned/renewed.
Other than that, I'm going to get my local air-cooled VW specialist to move the front-mounted oil cooler to the rear wheel arch and fit a fan to it - let him deal with all the contorting himself to work within a confined space and sort those AN hose fittings etc. It's a very sturdy, well protected 11"x9" cooler which is good news!
Oh yes, the new tasks.. Looking under the rear the other day to feed the new fuel hose up from the chassis tunnel to the rear bulkhead, I noticed the tell-tale spray of CV joint grease and perished CV boots.. Ah well, that Trello board keeps getting busier! :-)
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On that Facet pump: That's what I originally had in my car when I first built it. It simply drove me nuts. It has that aggravating clatter going on all the time and even mounting it in rubber didn't really help all that much.
If you have your heart set on a Facet (they do move the fuel to the carbs well, after all) Aircooled.net has fuel pump rubber isolators that, they say, effectively isolate the pump from ringing the frame. Look Here> http://vwparts.aircooled.net/category-s/173.htm Scroll about halfway down. You can probably find something locally at a DIY store.
Or you can save yourself the aggravation and get a rotary pump from CB Performance, Carter or Aircooled - There must be rotaries for sale in the UK, as a lot of larger displacement VW sedans are zipping around over there.
The Facet has the correct sound for a Carrera; sounds like that original pair of AutoPulse 500s that were ganged together to feed the 4-cam engines. It'll impress the heck out of that one Porschephile concourse judge. You'll know him when you encounter him: bowler hat, bow tie, creased tweeds—and when he hears that clackity-clack he'll wink at you knowingly.
It's not a sexual thing. It's just how serious Porsche guys are.
@edsnova posted:The Facet has the correct sound for a Carrera; sounds like that original pair of AutoPulse 500s that were ganged together to feed the 4-cam engines. It'll impress the heck out of that one Porschephile concourse judge. You'll know him when you encounter him: bowler hat, bow tie, creased tweeds—and when he hears that clackity-clack he'll wink at you knowingly.
It's not a sexual thing. It's just how serious Porsche guys are.
Oh no, Ed, with those tweedy concours guys it often IS a sexual thing. Freud would have a field day.
Thanks guys, I'm afraid I'm not of the Tweed Porschephile concours type! If I ever need to impress someone with a Facet pump noise, I'll slap myself around the chops with a wet haddock and 'snap out of it'.
I've assembled everything for now using the Facet pump and rubber isolating mounts which achieve exactly zero decibel reduction, but at least they don't amplify the noise through the chassis.. I'll buy and fit a rotary pump and that should make things far quieter and allow _just_ the engine note to be heard.
I've reassembled the whole front - I just need to bleed the brakes. I lent my brake bleeding kit (that runs off the air compressor) to my brother so I'll make do with introducing the wife to the delights of 'up, down, up, down..' I'll pull in my marker after she requested I make home-baked chocolate fondants last night. :-)
I've also replaced the gearshift coupling so am now heading to the rear of the car to tackle the carbs, engine, clean up that Porsche fan shroud and fix the air gaps between top and bottom engine halves. I want to get it mobile again so I can jetwash the huge amount of oil from underneath so I can more clearly see further problems (before fixing the CV joint etc).
One question I forgot to ask from a long time ago regarding the sebring style exhaust - why would the PO or original engine builder fit a 40mm ID exhaust when the exhaust manifold is only 34mm ID? I'll dismantle soon and take some pics to see if there is a rational explanation, or if that is 'just the way it is'.
Martin wrote: "Why would the PO or original engine builder fit a 40mm ID exhaust when the exhaust manifold is only 34mm ID?"
Good question. If it were a 2-stroke motorcycle or snowmobile, I would think it was a poor man's attempt at an expansion chamber but in your case it might simply be that that's what was available and........ It fit.
The 40mm will allow a bit better flow, but if you have 34mm carb venturiis and 34mm head ports then the additional flow will amount to mice nuts. I don't think it will hurt it or decrease HP - I think it will increase your torque band very slightly in RPM but I'm not certain of that.
It won't add anything, either, IMHO, unless you increase the flow elsewhere (bigger carb venturiis plus bigger head ports and maybe increase the runner diameters on your intake manifolds - All this starts to be a lot of work and £££).
But, let's get a few comments from our North American motor-head neighbors, like @ALB and @Stan Galat and @DannyP. I no longer have access to my flow analysis programs in "Pro Engineer" (I retired and couldn't afford the Sun server they were running on) 
but these guys are more familiar than me with what works.
I'm feeling lazy this morning, and didn't read through the thread. What do you have for an engine (displacement, cam, carbs, and heads)?