ShopTalk Forums | Aircooled VW Tech & Restoration Help

'74 ghia, I have a '74 camper with a 13b installed in it that I intend to swap into the ghia.

the engine uses a KEP adaptor, and I have SAW axels for putting the bus tranny into the ghia.

I THINK the KEP flywheel would allow me to use the ghia tranny, but I am uncertain, my friend who built the bus died so I cannot ask him.

I keep reading in here how putting the radiator in the back is a Real Bad Idea, and I wonder, could it simply be bad design of airflow ?

as in, if the radiator gets plenty of fresh airflow, and is not exposed to radiated heat from the engine, what is the problem ?

my thought for the day is - why not use the flow from the exaust pipe to draw air through a duct surrounding the exaust manifold to cool the exaust manifold ?

further, why not put the oil cooler on the intake of that duct, so that the oil is cooled by the exaust ?

I am thinking eductor, with a possible ram air scoop intake, although the inlet would need to be low so that the heat from the exaust pipe wouldn't backflow when I turn the engine off.

the initial 'sitting the radiator on the hood to see what it looks like'



hmmm.it is a bit LARGE. the original cosmo unit.

I am thinking to try to have it set so it is angled in harmony with the rear side window bottom, it has a nice up angle flow.

{ it is a 69, NOT a 74. oops }



I am on a 28.8 dialup, this seems to be a polite image size to me, any objections, or COMMENTS ????

for the front radiator I am thinking about a rabbit diesel, mid 80's.

yah, I am thinking dual radiators, one in back and one in front.

the rabbit unit measures 12" tall by 24" wide, just right for the ghia nose.

I am having lots of fun coming up with airflow setups,
use the front radiator as a HEATER ?

fill the whole front trunk with hot air and just cut holes in the dash for heat ?

LEAVE the already stamped holes in the dash ?

stick a 914 heater fan {dual outlet style} to blow through the defroster vents in the trunk, sucking on the ambient hot air in there ?

have a fan suck through the rear window defroster vent and blow into the exaust pipe cooling shroud ?

rig a flap that I operate with the fresh air lever under the dash to select between the front trunk OR to the axel beam area for the front radiator exaust as a heater control ?

the possibilities of a front radiator that I do NOT entirely rely on for engine cooling seem nearly boundless.

ghawd, I LOVE doing this stuff

the rear radiator I envision setting pretty much where it is in the picture.
I figure to cut the {heavily rusted} decklid away under where the radiator is sitting, weld in the radiator mounting frame, and rebuild pretty much the same shape with aluminium roof flashing as the duct/heatshield to rout the air that just went down through the radiator past the engine.
into the electric fan/s mounted vertically, where the board is.

I WOULD rather that the air blow UP through the radiator, but I don't want to try to fight the natural airflow when the brute is moving.

so, should I keep the stock vent slots ?

as in, which way do YOU think the air is likely to want to flow through them when the car is in motion ?

considering that there will be no huge cooling fan sucking through them.

hmm, should I think about putting a T-1, or T-4, fan on the end of the crankshaft ? {7000+ rpm, eh ?}

ducted to blow ? where ? the oilcooler ? the airfilter box ? {:D}

The Ghia I know of that has a 13B has the radiator mounted in the nose, tipped forward to face an enlarged oval scoop under the front bumper where the horn hole used to be. The air goes through it and back down through the hole where the gas tank was. Don't remember where he mounted the gas tank. The water lines are rectangular steel tubing welded to the bottom of the tunnel under the car.

The exhaust needs some serious shielding as it gets red hot. About all I know on the subject...oh yeah, it's fast!

John www.ghiaspecialties.com

John Kelly wrote:The Ghia I know of that has a 13B has the radiator mounted in the nose, tipped forward to face an enlarged oval scoop under the front bumper where the horn hole used to be.

exactly my plan, I am not sure which way I'll orient the radiator, though tipped forward does sound good. it'd give more room for the electric fan
(s).

I like the idea of running a stiff rubber airdam right behind the enlarged horn hole to generate a suction/high pressure gradient across the radiator.

John Kelly wrote:The air goes through it and back down through the hole where the gas tank was. Don't remember where he mounted the gas tank.

I want my hot air to go the same way but I do not want to lose the stock gas tank, I am planning to 'rearrange the structural bulkheads' {sounds better than 'cut great honking holes' } up there.
I figure to use the radiator mounting and ducting to restore the strength the hole/s remove

John Kelly wrote:The water lines are rectangular steel tubing welded to the bottom of the tunnel under the car.

this touches on one of my pet peeves, Thermal Expansion.

I would LOVE to be able to weld on some hunky steel tubing to act as frame reinforcement and hot water lines, but I really hate the idea of those tubes heating up and getting longer and flexing the frame.

so far of all of the ideas I read here ( yes, I read ALL of the posts here that sounded interesting before I started posting ) I like the "rubber hose through the tunnel" best, although it is crowded in there.
if I use the tranny mounts that put the shift rod above the tunnel, I think hose in the tunnel would work.
if I spring for a set of Barrett Enterprises mounts that allow the rod to go through the tunnel however, along the top of the tunnel with a cover/shield might be better.

I don't like the idea of running them along the underside of the pan because I am all the time running over stuff and would fear for their integrity.

John Kelly wrote:The exhaust needs some serious shielding as it gets red hot.

aye ! I am pretty proud of the exaust eductor concept I came up with to suck cool air through the exaust shielding.

heh, I suck @ sheet metal forming so what I will come up with will undoubtably hurt your eyes.

Here's how I'm doing mine:




I will add side panels inside the nose to direct all air from the nostrils through the radiator. It was easier to start with no front end, then you cna build it up exactly as you want!

For the heating I am going to fit a heater matrix inside on the rear bulkhead and use an electric fan fitted ontop of it on a shroud blowing into the heater channels which should work fine.

Lots more pics of all this on my website!
Rich

Richard Olafsson wrote:It was easier to start with no front end, then you can build it up exactly as you want!

yah, I am totally envious of the room you have up there !

I found your website a couple days ago and drooled a bit, you have added a bunch of pictures since, cool !

I would love to be able to put that huge cosmo radiator I posed on the rear deck in the front instead but it is way too wide to fit between the sheetmetal sidewalls of the stock front compartment.
I would need to cut away a LOT of structural support to wedge it in there.
you would just have to tweak your mounts a bit.

For the heating I am going to fit a heater matrix inside on the rear bulkhead and use an electric fan fitted ontop of it on a shroud blowing into the heater channels which should work fine.

sounds respectable, the heater ducts on mine are wasted, rusted away bad. so I am not even considering them.

Lots more pics of all this on my website!
Rich

good job !

how did you run the radiator water to the front ????
I didn't see anything about that in any of the pictures.
I DID particularly like your bleed/temp setup for the front end.


{ personally, I liked that first picture better BEFORE you photoshopped it yellow }

The bonus for my Ghia project is that apart from the non existant front end the shell is very good, just a small patch repair needed in a sill and a half floorpan..

I put practically everything up on my site unless it's minor, so if it isn't there it's because I haven't fone it yet

Photoshopped? I haven't played with any of the Ghia pics yet, although I may do when I roll the whole car out of the garage tomorrow to get a better look at it all... Or do you mean my photo is dodgy!

Rich

Anonymous wrote: I put practically everything up on my site unless it's minor, so if it isn't there it's because I haven't done it yet

what have you planned ???
I would cheerfully read your musings on the subject if you are yet to come up with a firm "plan"

Photoshopped? I haven't played with any of the Ghia pics yet, Rich

aye, my bad.
you have an earlier picture of the radiator mounting that is posed almost identically to the first picture,going from my memory of the early picture I thought you had 'chopped it to give it color. oops.

I most definitly WOULD like to see larger versions of some of your photos {the size on your website are excellent, being on a 28.8 dialup small IS better }

To be honest, there aren't any major plans for the Ghia, just finish it off nicely for my brother. I think the style of it is pretty much there now and it'll look good and be fairly quick for a day to day car with 120 standard bhp.

If there are any specifics you want more detail on just let me know, I always keep the high res originals of the photos but I can appreciate that a lot of people (including me!) have at best a 56k dial up...

Rich

As it stands at the moment!

Anonymous wrote:If there are any specifics you want more detail on just let me know,

how are you getting the water to the front radiator ???

I have a lot of flexible hose of the correct diameter but it would need supporting everywhere if I did what I was going to do and attached it by the body chassis mounts. I was going to make loops on each body washer to fit the hose to.
I have now decided to just fit some straight copper hose under the pan and support it at either end with some brackets that will drop off the torsion bar housings... At the rear I will make the rigid pipes stop at nice locations either side of the engine using standard copper elbows. If I was going really low with the car I wouldn't do this but I'm not so I am!

The copper plumbing pipe (28mm) is really easy to work with and I'll paint it afterwards to look neater.
I don't like the idea of using steel pipe, I'm sure it would end up rusting.
Does that make sense?

I have 1.5 inch copper lines running to my front mount radiator and I have had absolutley no problems with it whatsoever, whether it be hitting the ground (also run under the car, while being lowered) or corrosion.

Don't use the flexiline unless you absulutely need to, I only have that stuff where I connect my lines to the radiator, and where the lines connect to the engine. Everything else is hardlined. I have about 4 years on this setup and close to 40,000 miles....no problems!


http://www.geocities.com/zenjoe/vw.html

where do you get the copper pipe from ?

what is its intended use ?