Road Trip

[andrewlandon67]

So about a month ago, my little brother got the wild idea to buy himself a VW Bug. We ended up finding a slightly ugly, really solid and straight little '74 on an unknown year IRS pan, running and driving, but with some stuff we wanted to change. He lives out in Chicago, while the car and myself are here on Colorado Front Range. Our dad and I have spent the past few weekends working on getting the car up to snuff for the upcoming cross country drive, ie a good tuneup, replacing/repairing tin, just kinda trying to take it back to stock conditions. The caveat is that we're planning on my brother flying out here in a few weeks and then the two of us will drive the car back to Chicago, then I'll rent something out there and drive home.

Recently however, we've been talking about getting a couple of our buddies to come with us, meaning there would be four of us packed into a beetle for two days. Now, I know that's what these cars were initially designed to do, comfortably (ha!) transporting a full load of people across country on a large highway. However. My brother and I are pretty average-sized dudes, and our two buddies put together make up another two average sized dudes, so we'd be somewhere in the region of 600 lbs of passengers, plus spare parts, tools, luggage, beer, etc.

My question to the Lounge is this: Do you think it'd be too much to ask of a little bug, with a strong-running 1600DP, to push all of that from Denver to Chicago in two days, running 70-75 mph on an interstate highway? Finding a place to stay isn't much of an issue, but I'm mostly worried about working that little motor too hard getting all that weight across the vast expanse of Nebraska. Let me know what y'all think!

[karl h]

if the motor is all stock, with all the tin i see no problem. install an oil temp gauge just to be sure
dont forget to take pics and lets see them

[Bruce]

70-75 is pushing your luck.  The trouble begins when there's a slight grade uphill or a headwind.  If you fixate on keeping that speed, you'll be overworking the engine.  However, if you target 60-65, you should get there with a lot less stress on the engine.

4 guys = 600 lbs?  Are you all a bunch of flyweights?  (150 lbs each)
My bet is that if you drive the fully loaded car with a full tank onto a scale, you'll be around 3000 lbs (1350 kg).
With that much weight in the car, if you hit a 2-4% grade you'll be down to 40 mph in 3rd gear.  Make sure your hazard lights work.
Pictures or it didn't happen!

[andrewlandon67]

70-75 is pushing your luck.  The trouble begins when there's a slight grade uphill or a headwind.  If you fixate on keeping that speed, you'll be overworking the engine.  However, if you target 60-65, you should get there with a lot less stress on the engine.

4 guys = 600 lbs?  Are you all a bunch of flyweights?  (150 lbs each)
My bet is that if you drive the fully loaded car with a full tank onto a scale, you'll be around 3000 lbs (1350 kg).
With that much weight in the car, if you hit a 2-4% grade you'll be down to 40 mph in 3rd gear.  Make sure your hazard lights work.
Pictures or it didn't happen!

Well, my brother and one of the guys are pretty small, I probably have a good 20 lbs on both of them, and the other guy is easily 200 lbs.
We'll definitely take pictures! As far as the speed goes, I'm not sure what gearing the car has, hopefully I can get it out soon and give it a bit of a test run to see!

[Sam K]

You should probably get AAA.

[andrewlandon67]

You should probably get AAA.

The good news is we actually have AAA, and I'm pretty sure the car is covered.

[j-f]

That same 1600cc engine pushed most T2 in Europe for decades 
Give it a tune up, fresh oil and find his easy spot while driving and you will be fine ;-)
Good luck and give us a report how it went 

[andrewlandon67]

That same 1600cc engine pushed most T2 in Europe for decades 
Give it a tune up, fresh oil and find his easy spot while driving and you will be fine ;-)
Good luck and give us a report how it went 

Oh, I'm definitely going to put a good write-up together about both the building of the car and about the trip, don't worry about that!