Kevin Rhodes wrote:
>
> <snip>
> `68 VW Type II Camper (Lancia twin-cam powered, but feeling its age....)
>
> OK, gotta ask - a Lancia twin-cam powered VW Camper??? Has to be a great
> story in there somewhere!
>
> Do tell! ;-)
Okay, I'm just starting to unkink after a trip up to Albuquerque and
back for some parts, so I might as well.
I've had a VW bus of one sort or another for about 25 years. The first
one I bought in graduate school because all I had was the TR4 (my first
kid came home from the hospital in that), and once there was a child in
the house, I figured I needed something boxier to carry around all that
stuff that mothers and kids accumulate. Bought a `64 with a seized 1500G
engine (the previous owner, a Pakistani grad student, said, "I was going
down the road at 55 miles per hour when everything stop"), ran that one
for about three years, until the 40hp replacement engine dropped a rod
(the then-wife reported the event as, "it made a funny mechanical noise
and stopped"). Then bought a `66 mini-top camper without an engine, and
proceeded to put a stump-puller engine in that one. Hit head-on in Feb.,
1980, by an 18-year-old girl in a new Camaro who had lost control at
about 70 in the snow (whose first remark after she asked if I was okay,
was, "guess my insurance rates are going up... again").
That sort of brings me to the VW bus mentioned below. I bought it in
March, 1980, with the engine in boxes and upper left rear punched in.
Did some bodywork on it and threw in a spare 1600 single-port engine,
ran it for a year, then put a refurbished dual-port in it and used it
move to Florida in early `82, then back up to Massachusetts in late `83.
I eventually found myself working, in a start-up company doing
electrostatic coal-cleaning research, as a machine builder and
fabricator. One of the people with whom I worked (a genuine wild man,
and one of the funniest ad-libbers I've ever met) owned a `76 Lancia
Beta Coupe, which he used for commuting from Rhode Island. He never
realized that it was becoming, rapidly, a real rust bucket, and one
night on his way home, he hit a bump and the engine/trans and subframe
fell out of the car.
By that time, I hadn't had a sports car around for a quite a while, so I
thought, maybe a sports car engine would do, and the engine in the VW
_was_ getting a bit tired. And, I had use of the shop at night after
work. So, I bought the engine, radiator and front seats from his car for
$250, took some measurements, and started to work grafting. Since the
bus was my only transportation, I went to the junkyard and found a scrap
transaxle for $25, so I could do most of the layout work and still be
able to get back and forth to work.
The engine does fit rather comfortably in the engine compartment, but
the `68 does not have an upper access hatch as do the later buses. So,
had to make a hole for a hatch, since there would be no way to access
the distributor or the valve covers.
The biggest trick was the engine/trans adapter. There are none on the
market for a simple reason--the Lancia flywheel is about an inch larger
in diameter than the VW bellhousing. Didn't want to fiddle with trying
to make a new input shaft and clutch linkage for the transaxle, so I
made a flywheel which was half-VW and half-Lancia, had the crank and
flywheel balanced together, and made an adapter to correct for the
slightly thicker flywheel and the difference in block mounting of the
Lancia engine, which turned out to be more complicated than I
expected--it had to be made in five pieces to match up everything.
The owner said it had been rebuilt early in life, I did a quick mike and
checked the size against the manual I had, and from that, figured it had
been turned 0.010". Crank only needed polishing. Wrong, and the book was
wrong. Turned out the mains were 0.005" undersized, compared to the
0.010" bearings I was shipped. So back to the shop for another five
thousandths to be taken off. Built a manifold to install a pair of
40DCOEs I'd saved from the earlier TR4, made a header for it to get the
exhaust to turn to toward the passenger side, and ended up installing
two long glasspacks with the ends pointed directly at the curb.
I'd planned on staying in the shop for four days during Thanksgiving
weekend, 1986, and doing all the work required to actually install the
engine then. The week before, I thought I'd finished the work on the
engine, turned it over by hand, and discovered air leaking into the
water jacket (brand-new Fiat 124 cylinder head). It had a core shift, so
the front water jacket hole overlapped the cylinder bore. So, off
everything came, took the head down to have the hole welded up and then
milled it out in the correct position and put everything back together.
And, on the following Thanksgiving weekend, I cut a hole in left rear,
made an air intake for the radiator, made radiator mounts, removed the
VW engine, welded in brackets to the frame for an engine mounting
crossmember, trial-fitted the engine to the transaxle, made a
crossmember and motor mounts and installed the radiator. Spent another
day or so getting plumbing connections to fit and routing fuel lines and
throttle cables, etc. Sunday night of that weekend, I tried to start it,
and tried and tried and tried. Gave up, and the rest of the crew found
me asleep in the van Monday morning....
Monday, after work, tried to start it again and it fired right up. Drove
halfway home and sprayed coolant everywhere. The radiator was completely
corroded and plugged up, and couldn't be boiled out. Cost as much to
have the radiator recored as it did to buy the engine....
But, it was like having two VW engines and another gear in the
transaxle. The stock VW engine redlines at 4400 rpm and is about 53 hp.
The stock Lancia engine redlines at 6600 and this one, balanced, decked,
ported and polished, with a couple of Webers and tuned headers on it
would easily go to a little over 7000 with the stock valve springs.
Never did have it dynoed, but stock was something like 112 hp, so this
one might have been 120.
I think the best time I had with it was about ten days after I got all
the little problems sorted out and the engine was just breaking in, was
headed for work one morning, and a guy in a Porsche 944 discovered he
was in the wrong lane, started to pull left and found me there, so,
yeah, we'll just cut off the old VW bus... until I went down to second
and mashed on the throttle and just held those glasspacks even with the
driver's door of the Porsche. Try as he did, he couldn't get around me,
and was very quickly running out of room. For once, the breadbox on
wheels had the right of way and didn't have to give it up because it
couldn't get out of its own way....
After that, it made many trips back and forth to Michigan, and then down
here to New Mexico, with lots of miles around the area (miles pile up
quickly when the distances between towns are large). It's in pretty
rough shape now--salt from Michigan and the Northeast has taken its
toll. The general rot was so bad that the water pump pulley rusted away
in 1996, and the engine is starting to sound noisy and ill-tempered,
having for ten years run a little hotter than normal due to the
side-mounted radiator.
But, it's been in storage since last year, waiting for me to eventually
finish a Triumph or two before having another look at it. But, even with
much more power than for which it was designed, it's still running on
the original transaxle after 330,000 miles, and the framework is still
solid, though the bodywork is steadily rusting away. And, it has the
much better front and rear brakes and hubs from a `72. Might be a few
miles and years in it, yet, with a little repair work and TLC.
Cheers, all.
--
Michael D. Porter
Roswell, NM (yes, _that_ Roswell)
[mailto:mporter@zianet.com]
`70 GT6+ (being refurbished, slowly)
`71 GT6 Mk. III (organ donor)
`72 GT6 Mk. III (daily driver)
`64 TR4 (awaiting intensive care)
`80 TR7 (3.8 liter Buick-powered)
`86 Nissan 300ZX (the minimal-maintenance road car)
`68 VW Type II Camper (Lancia twin-cam powered, but feeling its age....)
Remember: Math and alcohol do not mix... do not drink and derive.
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