I got my notch in May of 1995, I had been looking for a decent Notch for around eight years. While paging through aHot VW'smagazine I saw an ad for a Notch for sale in the back of the magazine and decided to call on it. After a few calls back and forth and an envelope full of pictures and receipts sent to me, I decided to buy the car.The only problem was that the car was in British Columbia, Canada and I was in Michigan - 3,000 miles away ! I arranged for cartage and received the car two weeks later. I wasn't disappointed, it turns out that I was only the third owner and the 95,000 miles on the odometer were original.
I drove the car for that summer then I began what I might term..."the never ending project". I've promised myself ( and my wife ) several times that "this is the last thing I'm gonna do... then some other thing pops up and away I go.
the original project was going to be just a "semi-custom" but I went way away from that.
I built a 1776 Pauter motor for it in the winter of 95/96 and bought a Sewfine velour interior kit for it and Scat seats. I sent it to the painter to fix the paint ( a couple panels didn't match ) and I had him install the one piece window kit and the headliner. I did the rest of the interior work myself.
I lowered the car 2 splines in the front and 1 spline in the rear, I also put a heavy duty sway bar up front and a camber compensator in the rear along with adjustable spring plates. For tires I went with 195/50's up front and 205/60's out back and put 'em on Porsche alloys.
At the same time as I did the new wheels and tires I put disc brakes up front and re-drilled drums out back.
On Sunday, May 17 1998 the Notchback went to it's first show in 3 years in Auburn Hills at VW of America
Auburn pics are HERE
Then, on Sunday, July 26 1998 at the Milan Bug Out in Milan Michigan the Notch got it's first award
The summer of 99 got me started on a project again and I pulled the motor and began assembly of a 2.3 litre Type4 motor. The motor is fully assembled and installed now and I can't wait to fire it up ( it's winter here in the midwest... ). I'll keep everyone posted as to the progress as spring comes.
A lot of help with the disassembly of my Notch came from Greg Merritt's Type 3 technical pages. Greg's pages cover a wealth of information about air-cooled VW's.
Greg's Type 3 Scrapbook (links to other T-3 pages)
Click on the thumbnail to see the big picture
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The day I got it, fresh off the truck after a 3,000 mile journey home. |
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my car before I started the " teardown " |
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this is just after I pulled the motor, trans. & interior. |
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no motor or trans. !! (easier than I thought) |
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Greg's tech. pages helped with getting this dash off. |
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floorboards before -- surface rust everywhere |
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floorboards after -- a good wire brushing, two coats of POR and some black auto epoxy paint -- like new !!! |
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current condition of my car. antenna is gone, exterior aluminum trim is gone. about 50 holes to weld up & smooth over. as soon as I get the trans back, we're gonna tow it the paint shop for a "tune up" on the paint. (staying with stock color btw). |
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October 1997 -- well....... this is the tow home from the painter. A lot has changed in 2 years !! I went to one piece front windows and I decided to keep all the exterior trim. |
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this is the new interior. Gray and black velour, Scat seats, Flat 4 shifter, new headliner -- you can see some better pics of the interior at the Auburn Hills page. |
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the new motor. 69mm Pauter c/w crank, 90.5 p's & c's, weber 40mm carbs,Berg full flow, Autocraft 1.25 rockers -- she should be a ripper ( I hope ) -- this was a great motor... I just always want to have something different. That's why I built... a 2300cc Type4 motor ! see the pix below. |
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a rear view of the almost completed car ( April 98) , note the Briz bumpers, I also had the 5 spokes fully polished |
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I had to re-engineer the Monza exhaust. I burned my leg twice on it so I cut the monza tips off and welded my own tips on. |
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Before and after pics showing the original Monza exhaust and the new BETTER unit. |
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New discs and calipers up front. re-drilled discs in anticipation of Porsche alloys. Also you can't see the new dual circuit master cylinder. |
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Porsche alloys ( 195/50's front -- 205/60's rear ) and disc brakes up front. (may 99). |
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The first published pictures of the new type4 engine !!!! |
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top of the engine polished, 050 distributor, 78 stroke crank and 96mm p's and c's and heads, Webcam and other sundry and various stuff.... |
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Take a set of stock late bus heater boxes...... bandsaw the sheetmetal off them..... shorten 'em an inch...and Voila !!! Type4 into Type3 Jtubes !!! |
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Got the new motor loaded in and started fitting tin..... won't be long now !!! |
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Initial fitting of carbs and linkage |
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I used the stock rear engine crossmember. Here's a couple of pics of the brackets I fabricated. |
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Initial case prep., just back from the blasting and polishing. |
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The "custom" intake manifolds that a company in California made for me so that the carbs still fit under the decklid. |
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I'm using Weber 40's for this motor. I bought the CB Performance "Weber Udpdate kit" for them. This is a pic of the "stock" Weber main venturi and auxiliary venturi. |
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and here's what they look like now, with the Update kit installed. |
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Monza exhaust again........ at least this one doesn't stick out as far as the other one did. |
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MSD 6AL box to make sure that there's proper spark. |
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Jacobs 8mm plug wires feeding the spark plugs ( gapped @ .45 ) and modified ( by me ) rotor for the .050 dist. |
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Another new exhaust !! - extractor from CB Performance - chop off cheap muffler - weld on Yoshimura muffler from a motorcycle...sounds mean and flows good !! |
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The muffler. |
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The finished product. |
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When I put the Brembos on the bug I took the CB rear discs and put 'em on the notch. |
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Now it's got 4 wheel disc brakes !. |
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