The Cal-look Lounge

After discovering The Cal-Look Lounge back in 2011, I decided to build another bug. With a diligent, daily searching of eBay, Craigslist, and The Samba, it took only eight months to find a suitable car! It’s actually in better condition than what I was hoping for, and it is now titled and in my possession. I AM STOKED!

The engine was missing from the car, so I have collected some engine parts, and it’s shaping up like this so far . . .

●   D.M.S. 78.4mm crank
●   90.5 “B” Mahle P/L
●   Engle 110
●   RIMCO “super rods” (clearanced VW “B” con-rods)
●   CB Performance “Los Panchitos” cnc ported w/single springs, 59-60cc
●   dual 40idf Webers
●   Bosch 009

My goal for the engine is to be able to drive it daily around town and on occasional long-distance highway trips so cool-running reliability is a MUST.
The car might not ever see a dragstrip, but the ability to burn rubber will be a bonus!

I would like to run “old school” quiet mufflers, perhaps on a merged header, straight-cut timing gears, electric fuel pump, and a doghouse cooler. Also, I still need pushrods, head studs, a clutch, and some little things. For the transaxle, this time I think I will be going with stock gear ratios and a 4:12 R/P . . . in the past, my cars had 4:37 R/P.

I will begin with the case . . . a virgin “AS-41". I milled the areas around the case perimeter bolt holes where the factory “forgot” to do it. On the last engine I built, as I tightened one of the last of the 8mm bolts, the case halves would displace at the seam. FRUSTRATING!   
Note I also, I drilled and tapped the case for a full-flow filter return fitting.[attachment=1]

To gain a little extra clearance, I gave the street-elbow a little love with the belt sander.[attachment=2]

It’s been a long time since I built a car from the ground up, so I am going to have plenty of questions, and I will be open to comments and advice!
Thanks!

Very Cool! Lets see some pictures of the car.

Very Excited for you Mark!

Keep us posted and let us know if you need anything!

PIC'sof that '57 please ;D

it's funny to see how the lounge makes relive the passion of the "old/ancient" cal lookers ......  the best place ever  ;D ;D ;D

congrats for the new car Mark , hope this one will be also beautiful as your former creations , don't forget to share the updates of the build

rgd
fabs

i agree mark , that's why i was looking one for my 61 , thx to dkk rick  ;)

It's nice to see the traditional twin cans making a comeback.

I agree that Tiger is the go to guy for exhaust.

Thanks fer the moral support guys and thanks for the complement Fabs.
Mark, thanks for the tip on A-1 . . . I’ll need to check it out to see if I can fit that into my very tight budget. Otherwise, I’ll need to refurbish a good used one. And Rick, yes there are a few things that I will be searching for . . .

Today, my son and I spent several hours cleaning up my transaxle before it gets a new Super-Dif and side plate, along with the usual welded gears, hardened keys, steel shift forks, etc.

Here is the basis for my “new” car . . . hooked-up and ready for a tow home.
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You can see that it has some holes in the body that I’ll need to weld up. I think I will turn this into a Cal-Look bug! ;)
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Made it home safely. The body is pretty straight and after seeing the rust repairs some of the folks here have needed to do to their cars, I am going to feel guilty when I complain/brag about the rust problem with this car.
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thx mark , Dean's bros always made nice car  ;)

Cool Mark! Looks like a great start... we get spoiled out here compared to other parts of the US and Europe when it comes to rust.

Diggin' the PU too. I have a '71 C/10 short-wide.

Believe it or not, the local VW performance place wants $170 to open a case for big-bore. That is enough for me to try to do the job my self. Please note . . . I have never done this before, so I used the info I found in “How to Hot-Rod V.W.s” and I just kind of made up the rest as I went along . . .

A friend lent me this to open the case for the 90.5 cylinders. It is a nice tool, but I decided, for several reasons, to not use it.
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Instead of the case-cutting tool, I set up several fly-cutters to use in a vertical milling machine. The first of the fly-cutters was set to just a few thousandths smaller than the original hole and I used it to find the center. With the mill out of gear, I was able to spin this by hand and I knew that I would be on-center within .004"  while cutting the new opening.
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I used a second cutter to rough-cut the opening. I cut down .800"  and left the diameter.040"  undersized. Notice the square inside corners and the “step” on the main web . . . I’ll take of those areas soon.
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This is after my clean-up pass . . . note the inside radius where a square corner used to be. The opening is .010"  larger than the diameter of the cylinder barrel and .100"  deeper than the depth of the barrel.
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I used yet another fly-cutter to make a second clean-up pass all the way to the main web. The diameter down there is 92.5mm. Again notice that those square corners are gone. It hard to see with the marking, but at the top, I used a 5th fly-cutter to put a small 45degree chamfer on the opening.
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The barrel now sits nice and flat against the case.
Next up is a trial assembly to see where to clearance for the stroker and get an idea of the deck height.

You might find the piston hits that step you have left on the down stroke,its hard to tell in the pictures,but well done for doing the job yourself,I would like to have the tools and knowhow to do stuff like that rather than rely on shops who take to long and charge to much :o

cheers richie

Thanks Richie . . . I was thinking of that Possibility. Since I do not know how far the skirts will extend out of the barrels at BDC, I opened the ID in that area to 92mm . . . if the skirts are into there, they should have about .030" clearance all the way around. I am thinking that if those pistons rock so much as to hit that step, I have other, bigger problems also! I will certainly check that when I have the Pistons and cylinders in place.


Back to the subject of the case boring tool for a moment. One thing I saw early on was the factory installed case-savers were not at equal heights and they would prevent the boring tool from sitting properly on the case. In this photo, you can see that I spot-faced all the inserts to the same height . . . just below the surface of the case. This served me very well for the next thing I did was at the recommendation of Tim at Gene Berg Enterprises. He showed me how they bore the case and also flycut the area where the cylinders sit. Having those steel inserts shaved down will help in getting a nice surface with the flycutter.
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And now, a cry for help!!! My car was missing the left-side “bullet” turn signal parts when I bought it, so when I found an ad for oval turn signal parts, I jumped on it. The package deal seemed perfect for me . . . a left-side housing, a bulb holder, two lenses, and a very, very rusty right-side housing. It didn’t matter that the right-side was unuseable because I had a good one on the car. At least I thought had a good one. Turns out that rusted housing was what I needed to show me that the nice housing that came with the car is actually a type-2 (bus) housing, so . . . I need a right-side “bullet” housing. Anybody happen to have one laying around that can be parted with?
I am also in need of the short rails for the ragtop.

A little update. I have had computer problems, but I have made some progress on my project.
I decided to strip the car to bare metal after discovering the previous re-paint was not preped properly . . . the paint/primer flaked off in large patches.
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The sheet metal underneath is in very nice condition and no surprises so far!
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Also, I have been collecting parts and I now have a fresh transaxle, a set of alloys, VDO gauges, and brake parts.

nice job

Very nice car!

Hi Mark,

what do you use to strip it to bare metal? Great job.

Thanks Guys . . . yes, I am glad I found this ragtop. Even under the battery, NO rust!

Paul, I used a 3-M paint & rust remover wheel in my 1/4“ drill.  http://www.oreillyauto.com/site/c/detail/MMM0/03171/N0681.oap?ck=Search_N0681_-1_-1&pt=N0681&ppt=C0063  Not much fun! So far, I did the hood, apron, one front quarter panel, and one fender with my first wheel. It will probably take several more wheels to do the rest of the car. I am thinking I will have my fenders and doors done at a local stripping company that does media blasting.

In keeping with a budget, “low-buck” build, I bought a Frankenstein ‘64 Baja Bug off of C/L and have been pulling parts from it to use for this project. This crusty thing was about to become my new doorstop, but then I had a better idea.
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A few minutes in the lathe with a piece of sandpaper and I discovered it is actually a pulley!
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It was kinda plain lookin’ and not many timing marks, so I painted it black. I think I’m gonna see what I can do to add some sort of timing marks  . . . .
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I want to give a couple plugs here . . .
first to Summit Racing . . .I checked around to buy my braided steel hose and -AN fittings for my full-flow filter and found that Summit had as good or better prices than anyone. I called to place my order and I spoke with a nice lady who confirmed each part was in stock, and then took my credit card info. That was at 3:00 p.m. on a Thursday afternoon. The very next morning, U.P.S. delivered my package! Awesome service from Summit Racing! I wish they sold more VW parts!
This is one of the items I ordered from Summit . . . the paint that I sprayed on the pulley and I will say that this VHT case paint is absolutely the BEST spray paint I have ever used!!!!  After two light coats, I put the pulley in the oven at 175 degrees for a couple hours and I think it is the next best thing to powdercoat! I WILL be using this VHT paint on my engine case!
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nice effect that paint gives!

is it a dispersant paint or insulating paint?

The paint looks great! Looking forward to seeing this come together.

Thanks guys!
Andy, here’s the label on the can. I take it to mean that it disperses heat. It mentions it is resistant to oil and gasoline. I have not tested that, but I can tell you that it will not resist lacquer thinner. Also, I can tell you that it goes on quite thin . . . that’s a GOOD thing when painting an engine case. And I don’t think that it needs to be baked in an oven (it is NOT mentioned in the directions) . . . that will happen while running the engine.
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I decided to try something new on the pulley to add timing marks. I used a small scrap of aluminum sheet that I painted with the VHT case paint as a test and I had very nice results, so I went for it with the pulley. First, I covered the face of the pulley with transfer paper. Then I used our computer program to draw a design and send the file to the engraver. The laser burns through the transfer paper and through the paint to expose the aluminum underneath. Here it is almost finished.
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The pulley had a small notch at TDC, so I used that to align the new timing marks.
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Turned out nice. And as for the cost? A little masking, a little paint, and two lunch breaks. How’s that for a good deal?
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PS, I am still in need of the short sunroof rails, a right-side bullet housing for the front turn indicator, and a pair of door striker plates . . . Help please!

DAYUM!!! That looks great!

i like that.

You must sell these things , they looking awsome  :)

How about losing the bullet signals and go for some Lucas L488's instead? ;)

Thanks for the complements on the pulley! As for the bullets . . . I will retain them. My fenders are pretty nice and this is the first time I have a bug with bullet signals.

One thing about this car that did bug me (pun intended) was the new, reflectorized, seven-digit license plate. I now have these assigned to the car . . .
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While not exactly “period" correct for a Cal Look VW, they do have a bit of history themselves. They were originally installed on a ‘57 Buick that was purchased new by my sister-in law’s father. Twenty years later, they were given to my brother, John, and were decorating the garage during the time he and Linda were building DUMPER into a show winner. John gave them to me, so I am very glad to give these plates a new home. Thanks Bro!