ShopTalk Forums | Aircooled VW Tech & Restoration Help

I like the wheel spin theory...

But another possibility is clutch slip. Jus' sayin'

Depending on how steep and loose the hill is, there will be times that you won't make it up stuff a 4x4 can. Its usually pretty rare, but it does happen where the 4x4 makes it look easy and a baja won't make it. There are also times when a baja makes it up stuff a 4x4 can't, usually when things are really washed or rutted out, or there are diff-hanger obstacles they can't drive around.
Usually when I hill climb, I go in 1st gear, wind it up and keep the RPMs at around 5K...just let off if the tires catch air. The problem with this method is if the tires are spinning on loose gravel and then suddenly catch a solid patch, expensive stuff tends to break quickly, so be careful.

Torque and momentum - there is a sweet spot between wheel spin and speed that will keep your momentum going. Too much spin, and not enough speed are both deal killers. I really love the low end torque in my car. It continues to surprise and impress me on runs where rocky hill climbing is needed. But I still screw it up every now and again with poor technique/bad lines. Hill climbing is a lot of fun, but it can also be one of the more dangerous aspects of off road.

Copper, I think I might have sunday open. Sat I am going riding (mx).... what did you have in mind to do? Let me know. The following sat we are going for a day drive in OW ... git r dun and maybe join us?

heres a good example of that sort of hillclimbing



btw, tell people NOT to stand behind the car. It can spit BIG rocks out.

Thanks to some help from dezertdiablo, my cage is now tied into my framehorns. One less thing to worry about. Thanks Josh!

pics later...very busy weekend...

No problem Copper (Jeff)

Glad it was easy.

btw... I think we did make a little headway on those other issues ... like the front camber issue... too bad its such a pita to check it...
I was thinking that the spindles have 2* built into them (1/2-1600 - short course spindles) and going by the table to adjust camber is gonna make things worse.

CopperBaja wrote:Thanks to some help from dezertdiablo, my cage is now tied into my framehorns. One less thing to worry about. Thanks Josh!

pics later...very busy weekend...

Super cool of Josh coming over and helping, super cool!

CopperBaja wrote:

DSCN5271 (Small).JPG

Looks good. Just a thought though, in my research, it seems that some of the cars where people that braced their frame horns like that, developed cracks in the frame horns just behind where the brace is welded to it.

It seems that when you keep the frame horns from flexing, the only place left for it to flex is in the last inch or two of the horn and cracks can develop. Apparently, the flexing of the stock frame horns acted like springs and let the engine bounce a bit so the shock load of the engine bouncing was spread out along the whole horn. I would suggest adding triangular gussets between the brace and the horn to prevent problems.

Big Dave wrote:

CopperBaja wrote:

DSCN5271 (Small).JPG

Looks good. Just a thought though, in my research, it seems that some of the cars where people that braced their frame horns like that, developed cracks in the frame horns just behind where the brace is welded to it.

It seems that when you keep the frame horns from flexing, the only place left for it to flex is in the last inch or two of the horn and cracks can develop. Apparently, the flexing of the stock frame horns acted like springs and let the engine bounce a bit so the shock load of the engine bouncing was spread out along the whole horn. I would suggest adding triangular gussets between the brace and the horn to prevent problems.

Great suggestion Big Dave. For sure would help this out.

Hmmm, I just had this same (or similar) discussion with ts39136 (http://www.shoptalkforums.com/viewtopic ... 8&t=135033) I agree with Big Dave, that you need to do the support at the end of the pickle forks.

Big Dave wrote:I would suggest adding triangular gussets between the brace and the horn to prevent problems.

I appreciate the input. Thanks Dave.
Noted. I will add them next time I pull the engine. I have welded the seams which will provide a bit of extra support. I will need to pull the engine to get to the inside of the tubes anyhow. This was basically a case of opportunity and figured that for now it's better to have something so I don't worry about my framehorns every time I take it out.

Josh and I also talked about the future placement of a few more pounds of tubing.

Dave, I think you are right about adding some type of gusset behind the added tube... guess Copper and I missed that, but... we really couldn't get to at that time b/c of the motor. So on round #2 we will address that... along with adding more weight aka adding more tube in areas that were "questionable".