Herding elephants
For the last few months, every time I’d walked through the side-door into my garage there had been an elephant waiting for me in the room. Despite trying my hardest not to look to my right, it was impossible to miss and, no matter what I occupied myself with on the workbench, it was always there begging for attention. The void in the back of the ’69 Beetle where an engine should have been couldn’t be ignored any longer. It was time to turn around, take a deep breath and kick the elephant out.
Those with a good memory will know what I’ve been avoiding. My plan to build a period, rallyinspired car with a Subaru flat-four engine had stalled. However, after much research and a bit of credit-card bashing later, the all-important engine-to-gearbox adapter and bespoke flywheel were ordered from Germany and I’m now back on track. Meanwhile, the enormous wiring loom from the Subaru Forester donor car was sent off to a specialist who would cut it down to only the lengths I needed to graft into the VW’s original.
The box I sent off the loom in was rather large and heavy, so it was a bit of a surprise just how little of the loom came back from the specialist. The good news was that it arrived with the remaining wires labelled, which should make reconnection slightly less fraught.
Conversely, the engine adapter turned up with zero instructions but, to be honest, there’s not exactly a lot to get wrong (why do I feel I might regret those words?). The plate bolts to the rear of the Subaru engine, along with the new hybrid flywheel and an uprated Beetle clutch. The whole lot then attaches straight to the VW gearbox, just like the original aircooled engine. The big question/ though, was would it fit in the engine bay?
Most of the conversions I’d seen online had the engine fitted without a rear valance, allowing the engine to slide forward into the bay for fitting. Unfortunately, when I and my pal Damon restored the car’s bodywork, we replaced the rear valance and painted it along with the rest of the car, so I’d be damned if I was going to cut it back out again.
Did it fit? Short answer is yes. Long answer involves a number
‘iT wAS A SuRpRiSE hOw liTTlE Of ThE lOOM CAME BACk fROM ThE SpECiAliST’
of cutting discs and a bit of engine bay trimming. And with that, the elephant has definitely left the building and it is now time to work out the cooling and fuel systems, a bit of wiring and probably endless other jobs I haven’t yet imagined. But at least now I can look to my right when I enter the garage.