Hi all. I have a newly purchased 1600 T2 Bay , with engine bay in terrible mess that needs a tidy. One of the things which strikes me as necessary is the mount the coil where it should be i.e on fan shroud close to distributor. Currently it is mounted on chassis , and wires are traipsing all over shop. My question is there are no holes on fan shroud to bolt the coil bracket to, what are my options ? I don't really want to have to strip it all out for 2 nuts &bolts for bracket, but if I have to, what's involved ? Anybody had any similar experiences ?
Original fan housings had captive nuts inside the fan housing, it doesn't come apart to retrofit those so its self tappers or don't do it. The coil bracket has a clamping bolt to hold the distributor in the bracket so at least you won't be relying on the self tappers to clamp the coil, just to hold the bracket/coil assembly to the fan housing which should be fine.
Generally though, yeah, that's a mess in there! I wonder what the heck all that wiring/horrible clip around trunking stuff is for, there's precious little wiring for the engine.
That’s an aftermarket 50hp look fan housing , no heater outlets, no bolt holes etc, it’s really suited to beach buggies etc
Indeed. That (too small) breather needs to be connected to something. You could put some rivnuts in the fan shroud to bolt the coil bracket to. And get rid of that trunking. And get rid of the air filter. And get rid of the dangly glass fuel filter, which is just waiting to set your van on fire. And shorten that great length metal pipe I assume is bringing fuel from the tank. Worth checking it's got a grommet where it comes through the frame. Apart from the above, it's fine
Interesting.... There's plenty of room for improvement but if you've just bought the van and aren't familiar with dropping engines and replacing fan shrouds my suggestion would be just live with it for now , pop along to Techenders to have some input on making it safe and get some ideas on how to move forwards ?? If it ain't broke etc etc , but it needs to be safe ... Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk
Looks like somebody has dropped the wiring loom onto the engine tinware where it may get quite hot. The fan housing needs replacing with one intended for a bus .. if you drove that bus any distance at any speed then overheating damage would be quite likely, as the fan housing lacks the added cooling features for a bus compared with a Beetle. If you can come to Techenders next week there will be many buses set up properly to compare.
It looks like someone opened the engine lid, threw in a carrier bag full of wires, pipes and bits of wood then shut it quick. lol
Thank all for the feedback. Going to try and shift some things around to make techenders, could learn alot by comparing with others. Kicking myself for not seeing the real mess before and potentially walking away, but you pay for what you get I suppose... The guy selling said "the engine bay needs tlc" obviously that was an understatement. Have just put new brakes and wheel bearings on , so engine bay is next. Cheers
It's certainly not the end of the world but Techenders is a great place to be gentle nudged in the right direction and see how other people have done theirs , don't be put off by needing a tidy up in the noisy cupboard - people have been landed with far worse !! Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk
Mainly it just needs tidying up so you can see what's going on. I wouldn't worry too much, you've got the right carb and distributor which is a good start. The rest of it I personally would enjoy untangling. You'll probably find a good deal of the wiring is surplus to requirements so just tackle it one bit at a time.
If it runs, good, the key bits are there, just dont try to hammer along motorways like I do with it like that. Keep it down to 55 ..
We didn't mean to nag - well, not much - but that engine bay looks typical of one that's been "improved" over the years, usually by someone who doesn't know what they're doing. Nothing dramatic in there thst can't be fixed. Like @Zed , I'd really enjoy ripping that wiring out
I would begin with a new foam seal for the engine bay, as the old one there could start disintegrating and being sucked into the cooling fan which causes vibration and a potential loss of cooling.
