Project Slowly Underway: Berrien 295

[vanapplebomb]

Hello GoodVolks!

I thought I would show you a little bit of what I have been fussing around with lately. A couple years ago I picked up and awesome Berrien 295 frame fully welded and powder coated black.

I have been into Volkswagens for a long time now. I have always wanted a buggy since I was in middle school. I have been wrenching on other friends rigs, but recently I broke down and started a project of my own.

Being a college student I am not home very much to work on things, hence the title "project slowly underway." So far I have spent my time at home amassing various parts, gutting, cleaning, and modifying them for use in this project.

Here are a couple pictures of the frame after taking it out of storage. Sorry, it is kinda dusty from sitting around. It has a pre '73 two bolt mount IRS torsion housing with frame horn braces, extra rear shock mounts, and the front "race brace" webbing to stiffen things up.

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A little bit about my choice of suspension components. Yes, I could go 4 inch over front arms and 3x3's in the back, but personally, where is the satisfaction in that? Nothing impresses me more than awesome performance with stock components. Example: A big lifted jeep is far less impressive to me as a basically stock jeep that navigates the same obstacles. It is expected that the vehicle with all the crazy modifications should be able to do some pretty crazy stuff. It is the ones that don't have the crazy modifications that really surprise people.

This theory on suspensions will be carried over into my build. No 4 inch over front trailing arms, no 3x3's in the back, no coil overs, only VW parts beefed up and tweaked for maximum travel.

As it sits, the stock Beetle suspension has fantastic geometry for off roading. With a little bit of beefing up it can be made to take some serious punishment.

My frame has front beam claps are set up to accept a link pin beam. You guessed it, I got a stock beam. This beam was NOS from Brazil. It still has the factory stickers on it. Believe it or not, I got it cheap with the frame. As a bonus, it has mounts welded on for Berrien's single bar bumper.

Again, please excuse the dust...

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For the transmission I chose a 72 AH code transmission for the 1:4.12 ring and pinion. I know the later transmissions have some stronger internal parts, but the 4.12 will be better gearing out of the box without having to rip into the transmission. Lots of people do just fine with AH transmissions.

Anyways, here it is when I first got it. The previous owner did a nasty paint job on it. That has to change. Also notice that he put the cross shaft together wrong.

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Work to be done on the Transmission



Getting ready to replace all the seals on the transmission. I needed to remove the drive Flanges to get at the final drive seal.



Instead of slipping in the stock drive flanges, I replaced them with chrome-moly conversion flanges so I could run stronger 100mm cv joints that are capable of more articulation.

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I got new seals for the Transmission. Here are the drive flange seals and the nosecone seal. Good quality German stuff.



This is a neat little trick I learned for removing large seals. Carefully drill a small pilot hole in the front steel face of the seal, then screw in some coarse wood screws. Be careful not to get the shavings near the differential bearings. Clean off everything before replacing the drive flanges. To remove the seal, just pry up on the screw heads. Try it, it's magic.




Close up of the new 60x36x15mm German Elring seal. The earlier style of seal pulled out of the transmission is 9mm thick. I opted to replace them with the later style 15mm thick seals. The inner sealing surface is exactly the same. The difference in depth allows you to bottom the seal out against the differentials outer bearing race. The earlier 9mm ones you had to set them in so that they didn't bottom out. If you did, the sealing lip would not seal properly against the drive flange...not to mention it would rub on the differential bearing. The 15mm ones take the guess work out of seating the seal in the bore.



Before I put them In, I cleaned the seal bore in the transmission and made sure the seal was nice and clean. I Then lubed everything up with grease. I filled the inside of the seal, and spread a thin film around the outside of the seal, and the inside of the side cover bore.

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At the same time I replaced the seal in the nose cone bushing. I was expecting it to be a lot harder than it really was. I gripped the bushing with a channel lock pliers with some cardboard over the jaws to protect the soft brass, then twisted it around as I pulled gently. it came right out with no fuss.




I then punched out the old seal from the back side. From left to right: Bushing, old seal, new seal...



Close up of the new seal. Again, quality german stuff. After greasing up the seal I seated it into the bushing with a socket. After that I punched the ends of the bushing to help retain the seal. Then I made an extension taped to the socket to tap the bushing and seal into place over the protruding shifting shaft.

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More of the same. This time for the main shaft seal. The old one was completely shot. being a 72 transmission, mine had the throwout bearing sleeve that had to be removed to get to the seal. I pulled and greased the seal the same way I did all the others.

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All the seals replaced and new drive flanges. More about the other stuff in the picture later...



Fresh paint half dry on the transmission.

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Rhino front transmission mount will go great with the solid bell housing mount.



As you saw from pictures if a previous post, I have some torsion bars, spring plates, and semi trailing arms hanging out. I got a pair of Type 3 / early IRS bug spring plates and covers as well as a pair of used bug torsion bars. I anticipate this to be a fairly light weight buggy, so the stock 26 and 9/16" long 22mm torsion bars should be plenty good with a little extra preload. The bushings that came with the spring plates were shot as expected, so I got some new bushings. The urethane bushings will resist deforming more than stock rubber replacements which get beat out of shape fast off road.

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I gutted the trailing trailing arms...pulled seals, removed bearings...you get it. Everything was pretty gross.

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I bought the semi trailing arms knowing that they were the late style bug arms with three bolt holes. In order to have them work with the type 3 / early bug IRS spring plates, they need two new holes drilled in them in order for the bolt pattern to match. One of the holes must be tapped for a 12mm thread. The other has to have a slip fit for a 12 mm bolt. I used a half inch drill bit to drill the center hole to pass a 12mm bolt. The other hole I drilled with a 27/64, then tapped with a M12, 1.75p thread. I have no idea if the original bolts has a 1.75mm pitch or not, but thats what most 12mm bolts on the market are, so I used what was most available.

Here are a few pictures of the conversion in progress. I lined up the two common bolt holes, marked the centers of the others, center punched, and then center drilled the holes. Then I took it to the drill press to drill nice strait holes for the bolts. The last hole was threaded with a M12 1.75p tap.

[dunedudex4]

Read the whole thing and watched the video.

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Thanks for checking it out Dunedude, I appreciate it.

Here are a few snapshots of some of the work I have done to the rear semi trailing arms. I cut the snubber mount off as well as the shock mounts so that I can add gussets and beef them up.

[vwrick69]

Is this going to be a dunes or trail/firetrail or street buggy? It is looking good, thanks for all the pics and updates. My first real rail was a 295 barrien. ;D

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Hey Rick, thats pretty cool that you had one of these little scooters too. I don't imagine myself taking this rig too the dunes in the future. Trail riding is more along the lines of what I'm thinking... Down around west michigan, most my driving would be dirt roads and trails. Up north is where my favorite driving is. I definitely want to get this thing up there some day. Most of the two tracks are pretty rocky around the Keweenaw peninsula. Lots and lots of cool logging and mining roads up there.

The dirt roads up north are nice too. Ever hear of the Lake Superior Performance Rally? It is a pretty sweet race to watch. It goes through a lot of the cool trails and roads up there. Years ago my dad sponsored a guy who drove that a few times. 110mph was not an uncommon speed for him to hit on a lot of the course roads. Last year there was a class 11 style Baja Bug that ran it. He didn't do so hot on the smooth strait aways, but he sure could hammer that thing over the rough stuff.

I also think it would be really cool to get this build to a point where it could go through inspections and get a street title. My biggest problem with that idea is that I did not get a receipt for the frame and front beam...kinda important. I bought it off a guy in Grand Rapids who is into rails. He was going to build this two seater, but then he decided to build a four seater so his daughter could ride along, so he sold me the 295 frame. Good family man. I'm trying to remember the guys name...I wan't to say it was something like Dave Reames. That could be way off, it has been a couple years. He lived near Fuller street on the east side of Grand Rapids. I am starting to learn that VW people all seam to be connected somehow, so If anyone has any leads, let me know.

So far I must say that I am really liking The GoodVolks. These forums seam more...interpersonal than TheSamba. Nothing against TheSamba or anything. I've just been impressed with my first week here. It is nice to be included in the Michigan VW community, even if I don't even have a functioning VW yet