Bub: the Buggered Up Beetle

With the engine finished barring a few wee bits of fettling it is looking braw and it's a rather neat kit but some aspects are a little disappointing. The welding on the bracketry and inlet manifold could be a bit neater and the inside of the manifold tube seems to have surface rust when the rest looks like its been passivated. The instructions are clearly written but could be 1,000 times better with a few photos or even a wee video on the website. One thing that is a serious pain in the arse is the clerance between the carb and the alternator. For sure an old style VW generator is smaller but if it could be rotated by 45deg then there would be no issue about shorting out the electrics. I'm going to cut down the +ve terminal by 5mm and fit a strong rubber boot to avoid the immediate isses and to aid easy engine removal, an anderson connector will split the main +ve leads at the side of the engine so I'm not having to access the 2 terminals. The supercharger mounts on ...

Cap'n slog: Wednesday 9th Jan 2019 Arrived at work to find, a full top end engine rebuild kit and a supercharger kit, nice! Problem; no ignition kit. Contacted Joe Blow who basically said 'oops, I didn't spot your message adding it to the order' so now I'm waiting a few weeks for that to arrive. Ah well, I can get on with everything else Thursday10th Today I started the engine rebuild. With the engine on the bench I stripped off the tinware (the thin metal covers that direct the air around the cylinders), removed the fan and alternator and gave the engine a quick clean. Next, the rocker covers unclip, the rocker rail comes off with 2 nuts and then 8 nuts later, the cylinder head was off. The cylinders came off with some persuasion with a rubber mallet and the pistons come off with a removed circlip and a tap with a long screwdriver to push the gudgeon (wrist) pin out. As the great philosopher Haynes says "replacement is the reverse of removal". T...