Alyce the Baja

[smiley]

Hey everyone. I've been a long time lurker on here and not much of a poster. I thought I might start a thread up for my Baja so I can get a bit more active on the forum. I've spent a lot of time reading some much on here so I figured it about time that I give something back at least.

My name is Daniel Stephens, but al of my friends and coworkers call me Smiley. It's a nickname I've had since I was 10 years old and it's stuck ever since.
I'm 22 years old and currently work as a Diesel Fitter on CAT machinery here in Australia.
But my real passion is VWs, especially offroad ones. My first car that I got when I was 16 was a 1968 beetle and I've been hooked ever since. Wasn't long before I'd bought and rolled my first Baja
And then in late 2008 I started building up my current Baja, I spent a lot of my free time trying to make her bigger and better offroad ever since.
I get a great deal of satisfaction sticking it to all of the local 4WD boys. The car surprises the hell out of a lot of people, myself included. I have one of only a handful of Baja's in about a 300km radius, so it's not a very common car to have in my area.

The car is my daily driver, weekend thrasher, work ute, camp mobile, touring vehicle, offroad beast and everything in between! Since I first got her registered and on the road 2 and a half years ago I estimate I've done around 120000km, quite possibly more.

Anyway, enough of the writing I know all VWers love to see pictures, So I'll start putting a few up. I have literally thousands of pictures of the car and the trips I've done so if you want to see any part of the car specifically just ask, I'm sure I'll have a picture of it

[smiley]

12/10/2009 -
Alyce the day she was born. If you look closely you can see the remains of my old Baja in the side of this picture. It was a great car but that's another story, RIP little buddy. I picked this one up the day after I bent the old one, about 2 hours drive from my place.





12/10/2009 -
This is the first afternoon when I got her back home, not bad for $300! Came with a seized engine, no real barwork, and, as a bonus, a little bit of rust too!





20/12/2009 -
Turns out the floorpan was no good either, the framehead was cracked everywhere! and the floors were rusted. So after some advice from some friends I elected to grab a Superbug floorpan out of my spares and use that. We cut the floors and framehead off and welded a new King and Linkpin frontend onto it. So now I have IRS rear and K&L front





02/01/2010 -
There was plenty of bodywork to be repaired. And lots of bodge jobs by previous people to fix. This is the passenger's (driver's for you lot ) side door pillar. I ended up replacing both of these and half the quarter panels too.





14/03/2010 -
New checker plate floorhalves were welded to the tunnel. And I used unistrut for the edges. Fully welded top and bottom. I'm kicking myself now for not putting a lift kit on when I was doing this.





29/03/2010 -
Alyce is fitted with Holden Gemini seats. They are surprisingly comfortable and have held up well to a lot of use. Looking at maybe getting them recovered soon. Here is when I first mounted them to the pan. Yes, I did sit down and make Brrrrm brrrm noises





03/04/2010 -
Floorpan all painted. Was done with a brush but the finish came up really good. Painted with POR15.





04/04/2010 -
This is the first gearbox that Alyce got. Stock 1960s swingaxle. Reasonable ratios. By the time I took it out the syncros had stopped working on 1st and 2nd, it wouldn't stay in 4th gear or reverse and it whined most of the time
It did see a fair few miles, and I'm pretty sure I drove it back home from Brisbane about 800km with barely any oil in it.
I had no idea it was so blue! Came up well with a good scrub.





25/04/2010 -
After a whirlwind week or two or bodywork and prepping for paint, she was painted on ANZAC Day by a great friend of mine. Steff from Gladstone. The man is a wizard with a spray gun, couldn't have got a better job anywhere. I probably could have spent a lot longer doing a better job on the bodywork, it's starting to show its age now.





25/04/2010 -
The beautiful new colour straight out of the booth. And so began the 4 week saga of building a roadworthy and registered car so I could drive it to my first TAFE block for that year. There were many a night of working on her into the small hours of the next day.





04/05/2010 -
Got all the rims powdercoated. They came up a real treat.






Smiley

[smiley]

21/05/2010 -
I took this picture then drove her down to the DoT and got her registered and picked up the number plates. The following day I took her for her first real drive......800km to Brisbane Nothing like last minute preps, she never missed a beat the whole way
As she sit here still very stock. Swing axle box, 1300 Single port engine, stock Link Pin front end with adjusters that are up a tiny bit. Very basic but still so much fun to drive!!





30/05/2010 -
This is on that first trip to Brisbane. One of the weekends I went on an offroading trip to Mt Mee north of Brisbane with the Manx Club. This was the first real offroad test for the car. She was a little asthmatic with the 1300SP engine trying to push 30" tyres along. And the clutch started to spin on a few of the steep hills because it was an early style smaller one. But she got up all the hills that the big boys did, (after the carby stopped flooding at least)





30/05/2010 -
Mt Mee again. Here is a lineup of all the cars that came along. We actually had a great turnout. And this is an awesome picture.





30/05/2010 -
Getting dirty at Mt Mee!





12/06/2010 -
Remember how I mentioned that the clutch started slipping while offroading? Well about two weeks later it started doing it on road and got gradually worse. This was a Saturday that I was meant to be driving back home home from Brisbane. But instead I had the engine out at the place I was staying trying to change the clutch. Fortunately a good friend of mine Andrew Westwood came to the rescue and helped me get it all sorted so I could drive home the following morning. Thanks mate!





30/08/2010 -
Added some tow hooks to the front bar. Unfortunately they have see some use over the years. But have certainly stood the test of time and are rock solid.





31/10/2010 -
Time for a tyre upgrade. Was going to get 30"s again but they were $100 dearer per tyre from the same manufacturer. 31 is just a way more common size. These are Kumho 31x10.5 on 15" rims. They have been on for about 20 months now and have seen about 90-95000km. They are getting a little worn and slippery in the wet, I'd say they are at about 5% tread left.





26/11/2010 -
The car got a Uniden UHF radio that I bought second hand of one of my brothers mates. It works very well and I have never had a single issue with it.





27/11/2010 -
These pictures were taken down around Gladstone. I went out with the guy that painted the car, he has a green Baja that has since been sold on.





27/11/2010 -
Splash splash!!






Smiley

[smiley]

27/11/2010 -
Steff's Baja was a little bigger than mine. So following him over this hump I got high centred and couldn't drive forward or back.





27/11/2010 -
What are you going to do? It's all part of the fun!!





27/11/2010 -
I would describe this next bit of mud as reasonably technical
After going back and forward for about 15 minutes, and with Steff standing at the edge holding the snatch strap and taunting me, she finally managed to claw her way out!! The little 1300 was screaming it's head off!!





27-11-2010 -
Here's a little revenge. Steff decided to have a go in the mud flats, but it was that sticky and slippery he was going no where. So out with the strap and pull him out!





14/12/2010 -
Santa bought me an early Christmas present that year. I must have been a bad boy cause it was a bent framhorn. This the rear part of the floorpan that the transaxle and engine bolt to. It has crack and bent downwards.





20/12/2010 -
Didn't take to long. Engine out, gearbox and rear suspension out. Bent it straight, welded out and then added extra plate underneath.





27/12/2010 -
A week later and we were back to our old antics





01/01/2011 -
Went cruising around north of Yeppon near Greenlakes. This was after it had rained for about a month. Most of the tracks were covered in a foot of water that we had to slosh through. The countryside was so beautiful and green, and the vast expanses of water were amazing. Not a day I will forget soon.






Smiley

[smiley]

05/01/2011 -
And this is what happens when a front wheel bearing collapses. This was down at Stoney Creek just need Freeman's Crossing. It was a very long afternoon and evening.





05/01/2010 -
Lowrider Baja.





05/01/2010 - We ended up with something like this to get her out to the Stoney Camping grounds where a flat bed truck could take her home. Nothing like a bit of the bush mechanics. We had to change the stick twice cause they wore down dragging her out of there.





06/01/2010 - Back home again and looking a little worse for wear. Front wheel on the back and back wheel on the front to try and get the front up a bit higher. Mud guard was removed to clear the wheel.





06/01/2011 -
What remained of the front wheel bearing after the wheel fell off.





13/01/2011 -
Alyce getting a new lease on life





26/01/2011 -
Australia Day. Made up a little flag pole that bolts on the tow ball hole. Got plenty of waves and cheers while driving around.





17/02/2011 -
Another trip to Mt Mee with the Manx Club. And another mud puddle





26/02/2010 -
Alyce's first trip up to 5-Rocks! Kindly escorted by a Mr David Groves. Had a great day and no issues.





01/04/2011 -
I was sick of replacing starters on Alyce. I think we were on our third one. So I bought a Cranky Starter kit. Uses a late model Subaru starter. Less amperage draw, greater power and reduction drive. A very good little unit.






Smiley

[smiley]

17/04/2011 -
While up in Mackay for transmission training for work I went and check out a local track. Managed to bottom the car out and rip a large piece out of the bottom of the engine case. Patched it up good enough to drive home for the weekend. BTW, she was onto engine number 2 by now. A secondhand stock 1600 twinport with a PICT30 carb and 009 dizzy.





17/04/2011 -
I patched the case with Quicksteel and it didn't leak anymore oil.......well not from that spot at least





05/06/2011 -
Another trip to 5-Rocks. On this trip I noticed a clunking noise coming from the frontend, which leads to the next picture -->





25/06/2011 -
Turns out I had broken the front beam in half where the adjusters are fitted!
Didn't take long to get it rewelded and strengthened up. I also added beam supports at the same time too.





15/07/2011 - New engine for the Baja!!! This was engine number 3 for the car and is different to the first two cause it is all brand new parts top to bottom.
It's bored to 94mm and stroked to 74mm giving 2054cc. Big valve heads that are CNC ported. 1.5:1 ratios rockers and a Scat C2 cam. Good for 108hp at the flywheel which is exactly double the stock output of 54hp. This engine is still currently fitted to the car.





13/08/2011 -
I bought a brand new carby kit for the new engine. Twin 40mm Kadrons. But the manifolds didn't match the big ports in the heads. So I marked them out the same.





14/08/2011 -
Port port port, polish polish polish. Block the faces flat and we have match ported manifold for my heads.





04/09/2011 -
New rear suspension is in!! I finally got away from swingaxle and now have semitrailing rear arm suspension, more commonly referred to as IRS





10/09/2011 -
New engine coming together. There was many hours put in repairing the tinware and getting it all straight and sealing well. Plus I had to widen some of it slightly to suit the stroked engine.





20/09/2011 -
All the tinware painted and pretty much ready to fit to the car.






Smiley

[smiley]

Thanks for reading so far.

I still have more to add but it will have to be tomorrow, It's getting late over here and I need to head to bed for work tomorrow morning. Goodnight!

Also, if anyone wants to see the build thread it's here, But it's quite long winded so you'll need some time to read it all.

http://forums.aussieveedubbers.com/view ... ?tid=80275



Smiley

[TimS]

Wow, quite the journey... Thanks for posting up and don't be shy with your new ventures.

[CentralWAbaja]

Wow, what a fun little treat that was to read with my Sunday morning coffee

Thanks for sharing your stories and your pictures with us.

And welcome to the dirt pile

[tikotiko]

Ya looks like u don't play, u got right to it good job bro.

[Leatherneck]

Thanks for posting your build. Just think with that new engine all the other parts we get to see you break. Keep em coming.

[Big Bus]

Leather , the new motor has also had it's fair share of issues , apparently type 1 's don't run well when full of muddy water .
What smiley has forgot to mention is this is his daily driver which does 500 plus klm a week and is quite often running the 800 klm trip down the highway from his home up north just to come to a buggy event .

[Getrdone]

You know how to play that's for sure. Not afraid of carnage. Fun read.

[kyle_pc_75]

Great story...or great start to a story.

[JUSSUMGUY]

Excellent read. Looking forward to more.