It's very quiet on this forum :ph43r:

yeah I agree. I
Have a look on here every couple of days, but really quiet lately

Well since you ask ;-)

Nearly 3 weeks touring round Florida.

The most car related bit was the Sarasota Classic Car museum (http://sarasotacarmuseum.org/) - some very nice cars in there and a few strange prototypes and concept cars as well. Definitely worth popping in if you're in the area.

Will link to some of the picture once I get them up.

Cheers

Paul.

yeah, the forum is quiet latley, I seem to remember this happens about this time most years, as its too cold, or getting too cold to drive or work on a fug.

yep sure is quiet

but some updates on my fug very shortly

that gruesome top cage is off and new steel being added.

the beer barrel fuel tank has gone new tank
new gear lever
seats gone
new steering coloumn etc

bob

BOB WHAT ARE OLD TANK AND SEATS LIKE ? :) ARE THEY GOING UP FOR SALE MIGHT BE INTERESTED

hello Bob - long time no hear!.......wise move, that cage was grusome like you say.......I will post an update on my fug too, just wired in my new LED rear lights last night while the kids were sleeping........man they look the nuts! B) B) B) B)

wired my leds in and half the indicator leds dont work so it will have to come off to go back to the shop :(

Hey Jacko, when you tried the indicators what happened?.......did they tick at the normal speed or really fast......mine did the latter, it turns out when you fit LED indicators you need a lower current flasher relay, its a real common problem, and hence ebay is full of em, but I got mine from vehicle wiring products for £15 delivered........you will need a 3 pin job.......I'm really pleased with these LED lights, shame yours are duff......if you have any other ideas, be sure to let me know first :rolleyes:

i am still here. just bought a workshop to move my f33 and other unfinished projects to. had a good look at the f33 the other day. it needs a complete strip and rebuild before i would even consider driving it on the roads. been looking on ebay for a few months now to try and find some exhaust manifolds from a tvr and also looking into junking the boxer manifold with 4 su carbs and going for fuel injection with a megasquirt kit..anybody tried one here? will be posting some long overdue pictures soon as my new workshop has some lights....

ive only got one wired in at the mo but i think i need a new wiring loom :( as i can change the speed they flash by lifting the loom up and down had the same problem with leds on my bike so was expecting to change the flasher relays the resistance is less with leds apparently

still not much being posted on here....is it too cold to work?...credit crunch?.....my main problem is a lack of parts...no scrapyards over here..no old cars infact...not many beetles or campers left...ebay not got much on either..looks like i will have to look on ebay america...take care everyone and have a happy christmass

Short answer is pretty much as Knighty says, the forum use fluctuates.

The geek answer is the post stats by month for the last 4 years ;) :

November 2008 : 27
October 2008 : 53
September 2008 : 92
August 2008 : 63
July 2008 : 98
June 2008 : 71
May 2008 : 66
April 2008 : 43
March 2008 : 77
February 2008 : 72
January 2008 : 77
December 2007 : 54
November 2007 : 119
October 2007 : 47
September 2007 : 40
August 2007 : 58
July 2007 : 37
June 2007 : 81
May 2007 : 145
April 2007 : 76
March 2007 : 154
February 2007 : 223
January 2007 : 153
December 2006 : 304
November 2006 : 547
October 2006 : 374
September 2006 : 562
August 2006 : 148
July 2006 : 113
June 2006 : 62
May 2006 : 163
April 2006 : 83
March 2006 : 55
February 2006 : 70
January 2006 : 53
December 2005 : 40
November 2005 : 41
October 2005 : 119
September 2005 : 78
August 2005 : 199
July 2005 : 172
June 2005 : 146
May 2005 : 94
April 2005 : 48
March 2005 : 28
March 2005 : 72
January 2005 : 54
December 2004 : 29

Total : 5588

In my case I need to order a lot of wiring (the old loom having been thrown away) and try and wire it all up!

Also need to make some rather convoluted coolant pipework for one side of the rad.

Paul,
I'm sorry mate but I can't believe you have just gone to that much effort :ph43r:

Need more time i mustn't complain with so many people looking for work but my business i started last year with my mate i build kitcars with has gone mad fully booked till feb next year :D but this means no time for fugitives as by the time i get home its dark and trying to find the enthusiasm to start working in a garage is hard plus the wife is moaning about decorating and never seeing me <_< still starting to get the frame painted and looking hard for new engine fancy 2.0 litre aircooled about 100 bhp standard not a lot but fancy the aircooled idea for reliability and dont want to have to start plumbing in rads will try to post some pics when i get 5 minutes to pull it out of the garage

Tigger,

I may be geeky, but I'm a lazy geek. That's a straight cut-n-paste from the admin page :D

:D

you must be the old boys now of the site :D (er I supose me as well)

I hope that you guys aren't all Fug'd out...... There's us newbies who need loads of stupid questions answering... or is that just me with the stupid questions :unsure:

Is there anyone close to Devizes / Pewsey / Amesbury area....??

Jimbo,
No just busy in the garage... :ph43r:

I'm near Newbury and there is another chap in Basingstoke so not too far away B)

I reckon you're safe to ask just about anything on Fugs, doubt if there is a single thing that at least one of us hasn't had problems with or taken to bits. Radiator plumbing and cooling isn't too much of an issue once you get the concept. Engine changing isn't hard, but adaptors are quite expensive when you think what an "Already finished" Fug is worth. Mine is probably pushing about a 100bhp maybe a bit more, and it pulls pretty well and being Fiat131/Lancia beta is also famously fast revving. Think smaller revvy engines, especially bike will give quicker 0-60 where big engines will always sound better. Rover V8 for value for money and sound, Hayabusa for performance, would look pretty silly due to it's physical size though.

Excellent Tigger, my folks live north of Thatcham so I know Newbury well. When I finish the Fug we will have to get together for a few blasts along the Wantage road or there are some good roads out towards Hungerford.... :D

On the engine side of things I have a 2ltr Zetec doing nothing... as you do :huh: My old Mondeo got written off (not by me!) and I have it on the drive. Was going to put it on throttle bodies and a Megasuirt if I could as it shoudl provide plenty of go for the moment. Adaptor plates I am hoping won't be too much of an issue. I am a design engineer and have a few machine shop contacts :) plus a couple of big bits of ally plate in the shed..... but I may be speaking too soon.

Oh, and you may be interested to know that I had to get a quote for a new screen for my GP beach buggy. It was about £85 cut to the same shape as my old screen (it's got a big crack in it but can be used as a template). I thought that was really good as it was laminated glass.. may be of interest to people who might want to get a glass screen for their Fugitive. I am going to be thinking about either a wind deflector or full screen as mine is a tinted job and I'm not too keen on it.

I guess my first question would be, will beetle discs go straight onto beetle drum hubs at the front and leave clearance for a caliper mount at the back?

Jimbo,

I'm actually nearer to Thatcham than Newbury, so there you go, small world.

Excellent roads (and pubs) off all the length of that road and beyond, here's to the lazy summer evenings then, I'll look forward to that B)

1st question then... yes they will, but you will have to fabricate mounts for the calipers. Cheap way of getting 'big brakes' is to do this then get your friendly machine shop to make you a couple of mounts to take a pair of cailpers off a VW T25. Twice the size of the beetle items and if you retain the original disc you can still get a 15inch wheel over it. While you are at it, you could also get them to cross drill the disc's for you.... ;)

:( doesnt seem to be anyone near middlesbrough

If you put discs on the front, you will throw out the braking balance as they will be far more powerful than your rear brakes. The rear must do more of the braking than the front does. I realise this sounds stupid and doesn't apply to pretty much any other car, or bike, but it does to Sandrails. I was going to put full disc conversion on mine which would probably have cost close to a grand in the spec I wanted. I read a few sandrail books right back from the 80s to now and it's effort and expense for the sake of it. My Fug runs standard drums, shoes and cylinders, admittedly brand and properly adjusted. All I done was swap the front and rear cylinders round and it stops perfectly, short space of time and evenly. Stick to proven, especially if you're going to drive it hard.

I know what you mean, our GP buggy has only got drums all round and does stop pretty well.
I was planning to put in an adjustable pedal box with whatever setup I go for so I should be able to get the balance pretty much spot on either by playing with cylinder sizes or the bias adjustment. I was really just considering the std VW discs and calipers so it wasn't going to cost much (i'd have to go through the stock system and replace a lot of it as it is all shot anyway). The good thing is that the Fug's are so light compared to the stock beetle that whatever I end up with on there it should still stop pretty well.
I am keen to know why sandrails need the rear bias much higher, it is due to the concentration of weight at the back??

Yea dead right my old blitz buggy had discs all round and used to spin under heavy braking because i didnt set it up right was basically running 2 front brake set ups with all the weight at the back good fun though :D and i was very impressed with the brakes on my fug (drums all round) certainly up to the job you can get used to anything and adjust accordingly i had a dutton on drums weighed about 600 kgs and i had no problems at all with it but a pal had a go and pronounced it a death trap :lol:

Well there is definitely food for thought on the braking front. I think the first thing I need to do is get the front end stripped down and check it all out to decide what needs to be replaced :unsure:

Was planning to use GSF for most of the rebuild as I have been OK with their parts for the beach buggy, anyone else got any other good sources of parts??

Oh, and I have ordered things from here www.dansperformanceparts.com, but the shipping/duty is a killer. Shame as their prices are really good and it looks like they have all the fun........ :)

All my brakes came from Volksworld, or Volkszone, something like that. They have a few branches in London if that helps. While phoning around and looking in mags, websites, Ebay etc. the price variations was massive, so it's worth looking around and maybe doing a bit of haggling on a job lot, I did :D
There are also as you know Mexican and German parts out there, I edged my bets and bought German, but it probably doesn't matter either way. Good news is, when you find the right place the stuff is cheap, no suprises on any of the parts, not often you can say that about car stuff. With regards to postage I reckon it's pretty dear, I collected my stuff as I'm up that way quite often. As it happens, they also advised me not to use discs, pretty good of them when you consider they sell the whole conversion and had it in stock.

Hi Jimbo,

I am the chap from Basingstoke, i had a tinted windscreen in my fug that i wanted to get changed and it cost me £40 for a clear laminated one, i was well pleased. :)

If you and Tigger want another fug to join you out for a road trip, please let me know B)

Chris,

Nice looking Fug2, especially with the wishbones at the front....

If you've seen the pics of my Fug it may be some time until it's out to play but it would be really good to get together with you and Tigger and check out some of the local roads.... and pubs.... :)

Where did you get your screen done, was it the place that Tigger mentioned?? Where about's on the Oxford road are they? If it works out cheaper I'll get the GP and Fug screens done there

Hi Jimbo,

Thanks for your comments and sounds good for a road trip to the pub.

I got my windscreen done at a place in Basingstoke called A and K glass near B&Q, i took the old tint screen in and they used it as a pattern, it is so much better and safer with the clear one fitted. :)

NEARLY 200 MEMBERS!! cant be that bad out there then....

But are there that many fugs???!!! :D

going to check later tonight.....is there a facebook group for fugs?

short answer..no...some sandrail groups, but nothing for the uva lot...might start one tonight when i get a chance. any of you lot use facebook?

Well I'm on there as are a few others on here.

I like Facebook and use it a lot - but generally can't see a lot of point in the Groups. I can see some logic in a Group in that owners can find other owners, but the discussion side of things never seems to take of and isn't as usable/searchable as the forum.

Possibly I just have a downer on them as they seem to fall into the "1 million people against paedophiles" type groups where a lot of people join and do little else, as if just joining actually does something in real life :rolleyes:

Then again I never thought the forum would take off either so what do I know ;)

started a group...it is called "UVA" and comes under
Common Interest - Hobbies & Crafts. look out for it and post..i have all my pictures up for now. going to take some more soon.
and i know what you mean about the groups on facebook. way too many kids with nothing better to do i guess. :lol: