Project Slowly Underway: Berrien 295

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It has been a long time since I have posted up much of anything here other than an update on the two inches of snow we got last night up here in Houghton. Yup...still away from the dang project...super irritating! I really wish I was around a lot more to work on the bigger things. Instead I am stuck collecting parts and fixing up other small things in preparations to putting a bunch of stuff together. At any rate, here is some more little piddly crap...

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Continuing on with the steering box...A lot of this stuff has been up on TheSamba for a while, so I am esentialy reposting it here for you GoodVolks Folks

I cleaned some of the corrosion off the worm gear with a small, fine, oiled file.





I also filled in the heavily pitted area on the sealing surface of the cover with some JB Kwik Weld, then filed it flat to restore the sealing surface.

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The parts got a few shots of primer followed with either black or yellow paint. Sorry I didn't have more pictures of the painting process. For whatever reason, I never took any pictures of the black. The grayish greenish primer is just your basic self etching primer. The yellow you see and the black that it didn't take pictures of are rattle can Rust-oleum automotive yellow and gloss black.

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Time for new seals. The old ones were shot...even the gasket between the cover and body.

New oil seals were purchased through a local industrial supply place and the rubber/fiber gasket material as well as the freeze plug was purchased through a local auto parts store. I traced and cut out a new gasket using the old one as a template. The sector shaft seal and freeze plug were driven into the housing and the input shaft seal was driven into the worm adjustor. Both oil seals were lubricated with grease.

Oh, and just in case you want to know what the replacement seals are for the large shaft version of the worm and sector boxes...

Input Shaft Seal: 16x24x7mm, NBR, double lip
Output shaft Seal: 28x40x7mm, NBR, double lip
Freeze Plug: 20mm

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With the seals installed I proceeded to drive in the bearings. The bearings, as awful as they looked, were salvageable after some light polishing of the races. I packed them with grease before installing them. I first drove the one in behind the freeze plug. Then I dropped in the worm shaft, slid the adjustor bearing over the shaft, then drove it in until it was nice and snug against the worm shaft.






Next I wiped a little bit of silicone on the end of the worm adjustor. This just helps it seal well when it is set in place. The silicone is not a good adhesive, so future adjustments can easily be made. I left the pinch bolt out to be installed at a later time after the final adjustments.

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After the worm adjustor was set in place I installed the sector shaft and gear. I lightly greased the worm and sector shaft as well as the ball socket and gear that fits into it. Sorry if this has been a little picture overload. I'm just throwing up pretty much everything I took, so yeah, there are quite a few. Hahaha.





The sector shaft was slipped into the bore in the steering box and the ball socket was placed over the gear. Once the shaft was in place the adjustor spring and pin were well greased and slipped into the bore on the top of the sector shaft.





Now the box was ready to be bolted together with the spring washers. I torqued the top four M8 bolts to 20ft*lbs...not that it is a critical value, just so it is even and not to excessive. Last thing I want is to strip the threads out of the cast iron.

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At this point the box is ready to be filled with extreme pressure gear oil. Whatever you use for your transmission is fine. I will be using GL5 80-90W gear oil. Please note that the gear that fits into the ball socket on the sector shaft is a yellow metal, not steel, so be sure to use a gear oil that is safe to use with yellow metals. This was a problem with older high sulfur Gl5 gear oils, but virtually all modern gear oils are safe to use with yellow metals. Hey, if the oil in the steering box gets over 200 degrees, the buggy must be on fire...at that point corroding yellow metals would be the least of your worries

Once the box was filled with oil the fill plug was tightened down and the sector shaft adjusting screw and jam nut were installed and adjusted.

I have yet to find a good spacer to use for the "washer trick" with these old steering boxes with the large 28mm shafts. When I do I will bolt up the drop arm and call it a done deal. I did find that a pair of 14AWG 1 1/8in steel machine bushings filled the space pretty well...I would like a little more though. I might see if I can find some shim stock and cut it to the size of the other two bushings. We will see...

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I thought maybe I could add just a little bit about what I did with the hardware, and then show off some final pictures...





I got a universal rag joint kit at my local auto parts store. It came with some stupid studs (which I threw out) and some nifty washers.

The rag joint came with out the metal inserts that the VW rag joints have pressed into them. The holes are 10mm, so I decided to be crafty and use some 10x15mm shoulder bolts with an M8 threaded end that I had on hand. The 15mm length was a little much for the rag joint, so I took up the lack with some heavy M10 tooling washers.

This close up kinda shows you how the shoulder bolt and the nifty little fun shaped washer dohickle thingy that came in the kit sit...pretty neat if you ask me.




On the back side, I slipped on the M10 tooling washer, then I bolted down the coupling yoke. I tightened the NyLock nut all the way down as far as it would go, until the 10mm shoulder mated solidly with the yoke. The combination of the 15mm long shoulder, the fun shaped washer, and the 10mm tooling washer allowed for just the right amount of compression on the rag joint...enough to give it a good squeeze, but not enough to damage it. This takes a lot of strain off the bolt holes.

This is what she looks like all buttoned up...

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Surprise surprise! I recently found a worn out link pin beam to part out. I picked the backing plates and the recently turned drums off the beam for 100 big ones. Not bad at all if you ask me. They were in remarkably good condition. The drums have pressed in M14x1.5 studs as an added bonus




The drums have the old school f*g ball bearings in them. They look to be in good shape. I'll have to check them out again. If the races and balls look alright I may sell or donate them to a worthy cause...I have no idea why but some people have the hots for those ball bearings. I got some heavy duty tapered roller bearings made by Timken to replace them...my buddies have had issues with the ball bearings exploding off road.



F*g?... Really? You would think on a VW forum that would not be censored since half of us use them in our cars...whatever.

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Here comes another classic wheel cylinder rant from Dirk Van Appledorn...

Finding wheel cylinders that aren't crap for less that 40 bucks a pop is darn tricky...but possible.

For the longest time I could not find wheel cylinders that fit VW backing plates well other than the 40 bucks a pop ATE cylinders. After measuring many many many wheel cylinders I came up with a quality cylinder, CiFam! They are of Italian origin, and sell for 14-17 bucks a pop. They have the economy grade price, but the build quality is very close to the original VW or ATE stuff. I did a little write up of this in another forum. You can read more if you have time to kill here..


www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=549133&postdays=0&postorder=asc&vote=viewresult


For the record I bought upwards of 20 wheel cylinders for my fun little "study," and returned every single one accept for the CiFam cylinders.



At any rate, enough with the parts quality rant... I ordered Super Beetle wheel cylinders for the four corners of this project. Super Beetle front wheel cylinders are big...23.8mm, and the rear are 17mm. I used the small 17mm rear wheel cylinders up front to improve the braking bias for a light rail. They are the same part as rear standard cylinders from 68 and later bugs.

(and yes, super beetle front cylinders really do "fit" 68 and later bug rear brakes. Sure they are a little wider, but when the adjustors are fully backed off the drums will just fit over the shoes. Oh, and the bolt hole in the backing plate has to be slotted slightly...the bolt is farther from center than standard bug cylinders. Make that one simple modification and you can have massive 23.8mm cylinders in the back...poor mans disk brakes if you will)

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CiFam 17mm cylinders installed on the link pin backing plates...

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Next I pulled another little trick. The adjusting star nuts were the old school link pin style which are not angled. My local auto parts place didn't have the old link pin shoes, but they had a set of 68 and newer rear shoes. The later shoes are angled where they meet the adjusting stars. I picked up the rear shoes, and dug up a set of angled slot adjusting star nuts. I cleaned up the threads and spread a little anti-seize. I like the Copper based stuff.






Next I marked with a yellow paint marker which holes were used for the springs just for my sanity's sake. Then I hooked the large wheel cylinder side spring on between the shoes and slid the ends of the shoe into the slots in the wheel cylinder and adjusting stars. The rub points (wheel cylinder slots, adjusting star slots, and the the brake shoe/backing plate rub point) got a little dab of brake grease.




...Installed the hold down pins, cups, and springs.




Then stretched the adjusting star side spring until I could slip it in place.

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Thats all of the back logged garbage I have for you guys at the moment

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Oh, almost forgot!

I also picked a pair of 6in rims for the back while up here in the great white north. They are 15x6 American made rims that have the center sections of old VW Smoothies welded in....also picked an old pedal assembly. Got the clutch shaft on the pedal replaced as well.

There, now I am positive thats all the old back logged garbage I have for you guys. Hahahaha

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Today I fiddled around with some stuff. After looking online at shift couplers for the JaMar Super Shifter, I decided to build rather than buy. 50-60 bucks for a JaMar coupler...ridiculous if you ask me. I brainstormed some ideas for the adjustable end that mates with the shifter. The factory couplers use a threaded rod and a jam nut. I don't care much for jam nuts. I like things that clamp. I had a length of of 3/4in od 6061 aluminum. I ripped a slot about 2in long down the center of it with a bandsaw. Then I drilled and taped it for 7/16in 20tpi. I had a split 3/4in shaft collar to slip around the aluminum rod and pinch the two threaded halves around the threaded shaft coming out of the shifter box. Pretty, it isn't... but it seems to hold much better than a jam nut set up.