Bella - 1958 Australian Beetle

no, I sent the other one back for a refund after it failed the MOT again on play

nomates wrote:

that beam looks ...'one off' and superb ......i'm not jealous ...nope not me ....no ......no ...............no

Just ignore him, He's jealous of everyone

So whats with the shift rod then Lucy? going to go back to the original one??

the problem is that the coupling has been welded to the end of the old one and I had to cut it to get it out. And I can't weld it up before I put it back in.....

So i'm ringing round to see if someone has a 2nd hand one that might actually fit! If not, I think I'm going to have to cut the end off the new one and weld it to the old one.

can you grind off the welded coupler ....then weld the end back on that you cut off ....bolt on a new coupler and send the wrong new one back for refund?

that was plan B!

However plan A was ring Megabug who had an original one in stock, so as soon as that arrives and I know it's the right one, I'll ring Heritage for a refund on the wrong one.

New beam is in (sorry for the terrible pic):


Hubs are on. Dual circuit is plumbed in and bled. Steering box is fitted.

Just gotta connect the track rods, brake light wiring to the mc, wheels and then fiddle about with the gear rod until we have all the gears and she's good to go!

As some of you know, Bella went to her first show this weekend - Volksworld! Unfortunatly there wasn't enough time to get her MOTd and registered so we had to trailer her up with Widget. Friday morning started with Steve going to work for a few hours and then coming home with the trailer. When he got home we got Bella out of the garage and loaded up ready to go:


Once she was strapped down and Widget was loaded up, we set off up the A303 to Sandown. We made good time and arrived whilst it was still nice and light:


Got her off the trailer and gave her a quick bath to remove the spray she'd picked up from the journey. The colour of the sponge made it quite obvious that we've never washed her - it was black!


Added a bit of Poorboy's tyre shine and parked her up:


The stand was assembled on Saturday morning, with her sat next to Ben's Country Buggy - wonder if they'd ever met before back in Oz?










I think she quite enjoyed being at a show - she got lots of people stroking her paint and asking questions about her, and taking pics - which makes a change from being at home where she's shouted at and kicked!

Still got a few niggles to sort out on her. As anyone who was there when we left on Sunday may have noticed - she won't turn left! Resulting in a 300 point turn trying to get her off the club stand! She also started running quite fast for some reason at this point and wouldn't calm down.... anyway - a rather hairy ride across the showground, and we were back to the trailer:



On on our way home. Now, up to this point she'd been very well behaved, and I made the mistake of saying so! So, true to form, when we got home she decided to act up! Half way through getting her off the trailer she started running very strangely and cut out. She didn't want to start again, so we ended up having to push her up the road and into the garage. Luckily our neighbour was just getting home at the same time so he helped us push her in. I'm hoping it's just fuel related, but the weird noise she was making (as if she didn't have an exhaust) is worrying me.


Anyway - thanks to the Restowagen guys for asking us to put her on the stand, we were honoured! Thanks to everyone for their nice comments and hello to all the new people we met! And thanks to Steve for towing her there and back and putting up with us!

Blimey..... I looked at the Volksworld thread and though no way that bella aussie bug is MOT'd and made it to volksworld.....I was actually very surprised......so I took a quick look at your thread and it all became clear....... trailer queen ????

more trailer trash than trailer queen

the MOT is coming soon dude .....

then shortly after that ...the re-test ......




seriously to be fair ...it will be a very safe bug ...(it has about 3 tests per year)



sorry lucy just jesting ......she looks very cool in the pics

it was great seeing her there on saturday, you looked so chuffed
Fair play

Well I'm hoping she will be safe - cos she certainly doesn't feel it at the moment! Once I get the steering sorted I'm sure I'll feel more confident in her...... I hope...


Yeah I was chuffed I've been waiting to take her to a show for 4 long years!

that's a nice pic - thanks

Righty, running problems she developed coming off the trailer have been sorted!




Ooops! The rockers worked loose and 2 of the push rods had escaped. I popped them back in and tightened it all up and hey presto - one fully working engine again!

Haven't done much to Bella recently as we've been preparing for, and building Shedzilla!



But once that's all set up inside and we can take the shed stuff out of the garage, we'll be able to actually get to Bella properly and sort the brakes and the steering out... or at least, that's the plan....

Not done much.... er, anything on Bella for a couple of months now. We've had a lot going on with our new shed arriving (it's massive! ) and new patio, but I've had exams so not had the time (or the space in the garage whilst we've been building the shed) to do anything to her. Anyway, I've got a new steering box for her, which I hope will sort out her issues. At Volksworld I drove her from the club stand to the trailer with Steve as a passenger and even at 1st and 2nd gear speeds she was all over the place and even scared Steve! so thought I needed to sort her steering out. Plus she would only turn right, which made getting out of our space somewhat difficult

So we took the steering box off and found it was full of tight and lose spots which adjustment didn't remove. So I've got a new box ready to fit and hoping that with this fitted I'll have some control over what direction we go in, rather than her deciding!

I've also set a new date for when I want her to be on the road - mid August for Dubs At The Beach in Paignton. It's not too far away and gives me lots of time to get her ready, and pass that illusive MOT test! I'm a bit (lot) skint at the moment so I can't afford to MOT or register her until July, so over June I will be doing lots of work on her to get her ready for her next attempt at the MOT in early July. Not got much to do:
* fit steering box
* fit and adjust steering arms
* file down one of the dropped spindles to stop it fouling the flexi brake line
* refit drivers side hub
* bleed brakes
* make sure all the valve gaps etc are ok after the pushrods escaped
* adjust rear valance to make it fit better.


In theory it shouldn't take long, but this is Bella, and we all know that she doesn't behave very well!

Given the new box and steering arm (thanks to Joker 67 and Nomates) a lick of paint. I found some red oxide primer and some VW Tornado Red (I think my old Polo must have been Tornado Red, otherwise I have no idea where this can of paint came from lol).



Bit of primer:


And a bit of paint:


Steve filed down the arm on the dropped spindle whilst I was painting, so I gave that a bit of primer too. Need to find where I've put the black paint now...

More tomorrow

Steering box and arm all painted up and shiny:


Cut the spike off the arm as it's not needed on a link pin Bug:


Hub has been refitted:


Steering box fitted up:


I tried to fit the shock but I noticed that the arm would hit it quite early on. So I need to redrill a hole for the top of the shock. Not a problem. So I put the steering on full lock and mocked the shock up to where it needs to be - I put it at the point where it just clears the pitman arm. Then I put some tape on it to show you guys where it would go:


Now need to get some decent drill bits methinks....

Today we fitted the Mini shocks on Bella. Steve drilled some new holes in the shock tower so that the pitman arm wouldn't hit the shock on full lock. We were a bit worried about drilling through the tower because it's really thick! But with lots of grinding spray, it wasn't actually too bad!





And I fitted the new pedal rubbers I've had for ages. The brake and the accelerator ones went on easily enough, but I had to soak the one for the clutch in hot water to get it soft enough to fit!


Still, they're on now!

Earlier in the week I attempted to bleed the brakes using my new 'Eezibleed' kit... 3 cartons of brake fluid on the floor later, I admitted defeat! So a couple of days later Steve gave me a hand and it bled the brakes easily and painlessly. Much easier than the normal way, but you still need 2 people... especially if one of those people, is me! So now they're working and she's pretty much ready to have yet another go at her MOT in a couple of weeks time. I've just got to check the valves after the Volksworld incident, and get a new positive lead - as the old one looks like this:


A bit old and broken looking. Plus, it's the last bit of wiring I haven't replaced, so going to be a weak link. I'm also going to wire in a battery cut off switch as I don't trust her not to spontainiously combust or something.... hopefully I'll get that ordered tomorrow

mot, cool cant wait, well done guys

I wouldn't get too excited just yet - you know what she's like

good point lol

Will it be getting a ticket before the end of month meet???
Hint Hint.

Nope... she's not booked in till next month as I don't get paid till next month