Well last weekend our family got the garage cleaned out and parked the VW in it while we fix a few items needed before taking it to the safety inspection station. The first item was the side marker lights. Some one snipped the wires to the back ones. I still have the bulb sockets but the bulbs fit very loosely in them and I imagine this is why the wires were snipped. It turns out there is some exemption that if the marker has a bulb and wires it has to function. But you can disable it and use it as a reflector and pass the state inspection. I could just let it go as is but I'd feel better knowing the car is more visible from the side and it will look more complete with functioning lights.
I stopped in a
VW shop in my area and though they did not have any rotting Cabriolets, they did have several scrap Vanagons and the marker lights and bulb holder appear to be compatible. The Vanagon bulb holder had a flat pin connector so I just crimped on some ends.
You'd thing removing a license plate would be a pretty easy task. I did anyway, but as you can see the rear license plate was held on with self-locking nuts and two of them were turning quite freely with nothing to hold on to from the back side. So based on a really good hint in the
VWVortex forums, I removed the rear license bracket holder and hacksawed the bolts so I could free the old plate and make room for my new ones. I'll need to think of a clever method of fixing that.
Lastly, I put new brake shoes on the back, I will eventually be updating the rear and front brakes once the car gets loaded with over a half ton of lead batteries. There is a store on Ebay selling a big brake upgrade for this model it replaces the stock 180mm drum with a 200mm drum from a Rabbit Pickup. Everything else is compatible including the E-brake cables.
Well last weekend our family got the garage cleaned out and parked the VW in it while we fix a few items needed before taking it to the safety inspection station. The first item was the side marker lights. Some one snipped the wires to the back ones. I still have the bulb sockets but the bulbs fit very loosely in them and I imagine this is why the wires were snipped. It turns out there is some exemption that if the marker has a bulb and wires it has to function. But you can disable it and use it as a reflector and pass the state inspection. I could just let it go as is but I'd feel better knowing the car is more visible from the side and it will look more complete with functioning lights.
I stopped in a VW shop in my area and though they did not have any rotting Cabriolets, they did have several scrap Vanagons and the marker lights and bulb holder appear to be compatible. The Vanagon bulb holder had a flat pin connector so I just crimped on some ends.
You'd thing removing a license plate would be a pretty easy task. I did anyway, but as you can see the rear license plate was held on with self-locking nuts and two of them were turning quite freely with nothing to hold on to from the back side. So based on a really good hint in the VWVortex forums, I removed the rear license bracket holder and hacksawed the bolts so I could free the old plate and make room for my new ones. I'll need to think of a clever method of fixing that.
Lastly, I put new brake shoes on the back, I will eventually be updating the rear and front brakes once the car gets loaded with over a half ton of lead batteries. There is a store on Ebay selling a big brake upgrade for this model it replaces the stock 180mm drum with a 200mm drum from a Rabbit Pickup. Everything else is compatible including the E-brake cables.
2 comments:
Is there anything special about switching to 200mm drums? Does it make the rear tires stick out farther? (please cc: canned_spam@charter.net)
-Adrian
Hi Adrian,
The 200mm drums are from a Rabbit pickup truck (US model) and should not have much difference at all from the 180mm drums other than around 10% more braking surface. Once converted if the car needs more than stock braking performance I will first add vented rotors and ceramic pads to the front and then if more is needed, add the 200mm drums in the rear. Of course if I can find some cheap brake parts from a 16V GTI or Scirocco that would be even better.
Lance
Post a Comment