Robbie Rocket - New Beetle Cup Car Replica

looks awesome, what colour you gunna spray it ?

Audi Brilliant Red.

please dont take this the wrong way, but the wheels dont look right.
they are great rims but they look lost in those cavernous arches.

can anything be done to the arches to make them enclose the wheels a bit?
maybe its the tyres are too low profile but looking at the pics of the cars on the first page it doesnt seem right.

maybe i am just talking crap though!

keep up the good work

when you getting some 22's then

nomates wrote:

when you getting some 22's then

never

baja 69 wrote:

please dont take this the wrong way, but the wheels dont look right.
they are great rims but they look lost in those cavernous arches.

can anything be done to the arches to make them enclose the wheels a bit?
maybe its the tyres are too low profile but looking at the pics of the cars on the first page it doesnt seem right.

maybe i am just talking crap though!

keep up the good work

The wheels are what were originally fitted to RSIs and Cup Cars so are correct for what I want the car to look like. The reason they look small is due to the air ride. With the car at ride height, they look more normal.

Here they are on standard cars:






I think they'll look a bit bigger once they've been powdercoated white.


I've also got them due to the offset - the wheel was designed purely for the RSI Beetle and the cup car - and as the kit is so much wider than normal.... so they look like this close up:


If I put on normal alloys I'd have to have a massive spacer.

I'm loving watching this thread! got a lot of respect for you and can't wait to see the end result!!

Glad you're enjoying it




MOT is booked for 9th March!

Good luck . Sure it will fly through an mot

Right, now where was I? I've been getting Robbie ready for his MOT (
Wednesday!) and sorting out a few bits that I wasn't happy about. One of these were were the air lines exited through the body - I tried putting in rubber grommits but the metal was too thick, so I tried putting fuel line around the pipe - which although seemed to work, I didn't like the angle that it was going it at the back of the car and still seemed a little vulnerable to being damaged at the front.

So, I bought some of these:


Here they are at the front:


The elbow peice is inside the car at the front as once it gets inside it goes round towards the centre of the car.

At the back, the elbow is on the outside:


I've also fitted, what are quite possibily, the world's brightest number plate lights - and the number plate:


And the reverse and fog lights are wired up and fitted - they've been given a bit of a tint to make them less obvious. Once I've got the grill in, you should hardly be able to see them. Just need to tidy up the wiring:

I drove him down to the MOT station on Tuesday night. I had to be at work early this morning so wanted to take him last night so I could explain some 'Robbieisms' and how the air worked and what height I wanted the tracking set at. It was great to be behind his wheel again I stopped at the petrol station to put more 'Rocket Fuel' in him and then onto the garage. He caught me a little by suprise when I put my foot down in him - he's a little bit faster than Herbie!

Anyways, I'm waiting for him to come back tomorrow all ready to go. I popped up after work and they were still working on him - I'd asked them to change the camblet and water pump and change and bleed the brake fluid, set the tracking and torque a few things up. They also have changed the tyres around for me as when I got the alloys all the tyres (directional) were on the same way. One of the headlights was being naughty so I grabbed a spare from home and swapped it over.

Anyways, today when I got home, Mr Postman had delivered my new number plates. They're the smallest road legal ones you can get for a car. The bottom plate is the standard size:

that looooks epic!!!

nice lucy, well done you

Cheers fellas!


MOT all done didn't get him back till late so it was too dark for pics

Now I need to get the alternator fixed!

cool well done, when do you plan to have him finished then ??

And thank you for brens lessons hun, she is loving it

No probs - glad she's enjoying them! She's doing very well

Well he should be at CTTP assuming I can solve the alternator issue. He won't be 'finished' by then, but he should be there! Bren said you've found somewhere that can restore altnerators? Where is it?

its called bridgwater battery centre on wellington road, cost is around £35

http://www.batterycentrethebridgwater.co.uk/

dubberatlast wrote:

its called bridgwater battery centre on wellington road, cost is around £35

http://www.batterycentrethebridgwater.co.uk/

This guy is really good, proper old school shop lol

clockwork wrote:

dubberatlast wrote:

its called bridgwater battery centre on wellington road, cost is around £35

http://www.batterycentrethebridgwater.co.uk/

This guy is really good, proper old school shop lol

hes been around many years, ive never had or heard any complaints, always happy to test your battery and alternator for free also

Cheers! I'm pretty sure the alternator is shot - the battery light is on constantly and the volts don't go up on the battery when the engine is started.

Gonna try and remove it now... it's pretty crampt in the engine bay so I think I'll be removing a lot of other stuff to get to it!

Cheers for the info about Bridgwater Battery Centre - they're awesome! Took Robbie's alternator down there and 24hrs and £35 later, it was all working lovely! I took the starter motor from Steve's Landy down there this morning - bearings and solanoid replaced, ready this afternoon for £45!

Gonna try and get Robbie's starter motor out of him over the next few nights and take that down too as he's not the best in the world at starting (he'll always start, but takes a bit of cranking) and he likes to squeel once he has started, so might be worth a check over.

Awesome stuff as always. Actually cant wait to see this thing in the metal

Shamrockez wrote:

Gonna try and get Robbie's starter motor out of him over the next few nights and take that down too as he's not the best in the world at starting (he'll always start, but takes a bit of cranking) and he likes to squeel once he has started, so might be worth a check over.

my work van does this, still works fine, but must sort it as iv'e had the van three years now.

griff wrote:

Shamrockez wrote:

Gonna try and get Robbie's starter motor out of him over the next few nights and take that down too as he's not the best in the world at starting (he'll always start, but takes a bit of cranking) and he likes to squeel once he has started, so might be worth a check over.

my work van does this, still works fine, but must sort it as iv'e had the van three years now.

You Lazy C$&T!! lol

griff wrote:

Shamrockez wrote:

Gonna try and get Robbie's starter motor out of him over the next few nights and take that down too as he's not the best in the world at starting (he'll always start, but takes a bit of cranking) and he likes to squeel once he has started, so might be worth a check over.

my work van does this, still works fine, but must sort it as iv'e had the van three years now.

yeah Robbie's done it for 5yrs!

Apparently it's to do with clutch dust building up on the starter and causing it to stick.

Over the last week or so I've been sorting some technical issues. The alternator wasn't working and hence wasn't charging the battery. I needed to get this fixed before I could take him out (once taxed, obviously!). Alternator removal isn't what I'd describe as a fun job on Robbie. We ended up having to remove the auxillary belt, tensioner, front bumper, wings, crash bar, radiator, fuel filter, air conditioning compressor and bits of various piping to get to it. Once I could get to it, it was a nightmare to remove once the bolts were out. They're shoved into the smallest gap in the world and one move the wrong way and it gets stuck!

Anyway - I eventually managed to wrestle it out and took it to Bridgwater Battery Centre where it was reconditioned for the bargainous sum of £35! Eventually after 4 trips to VW I got the correct new auxillary belt to put on and volia - problem solved!

This morning I've been removing the starter motor to take down to the battery centre to check over. The starter has never failed, but it often makes the common 'VW squeal' (which I belive is due to clutch dust build up making it stick) and as he's done over 100k and has never been the quickest to start, I thought it wouldn't hurt to get it looked at whilst it was off.

In true New Beetle style, removal involved taking off a few other bits (the radiator again - as the battery tray didn't want to budge.... but I could have done it with all those in situ, but as the front end was off from the alternator, it made sense to have a bit more room to work in) and a lot of wiggling about.

I was suprised at how diddy the starter motor was. It's much smaller (and lighter) than a classic Beetle starter and soooooooooo much lighter than the starter off Steve's Series 1 Landy which I struggled to pick up, let alone carry! This one I can carry comfortably in 1 hand!

Soo.... pictures.... here's where the alternator lives (it's the silvery thing at the bottom, below and to the left of the dipstick):


And here's the starter - pic of Haynes manual for size (btw, the Haynes is useless on describing this... it just says 'remove wires and bolts and take starter out'..... then again, it also describes the alternator as a '2 spanner' job.... pfft! Altho not technically difficult, alternator removal requires a lot of taking apart of other stuff.


Here's the clutch dust which apparently causes them to stick. I wouldn't have thought what was on here was excessive though?


Oh, and I'm also changing the coolant temp sensor and doing a coolant flush whilst I'm at it.... I last did a coolant flush on him in 2005 or 2006... the stuff that went in was pink.... it's now orange... yuck!