Early VW 1500 wheels: new and improved

A few years ago I found five NOS VW 1500 wheels. They're the early 4-slot version meant only for 1961–63 models. Unfortunately while NOS means "new old stock," it doesn't necessarily mean cosmetically perfect. While these wheels have never been mounted on a car they had picked up some surface rust and shelf wear in the many years they were warehoused. Off to the powder coater.





After some online research I decided to use Andrews Powder Coating in Chatsworth, California. They focus on powder coating for cars and motorcycles, and they are a supplier to ICON. That's good enough for me.



The wheels came back looking like new. I had Andrews match the OEM semi-gloss black. They masked the lug bolt and brake drum bearing surfaces at no additional charge, which saved me the trouble of scraping the paint off later. Wheels can come loose if these areas are powder coated, so it's best to keep them unpainted.




One interesting thing about these wheels is that they're all factory replacements made after 1964. The newest one has a September 1970 date stamp. Three of them are safety rims with additional bumps that keep tubeless tires from breaking the bead on very hard cornering. I really like the idea that VW was still making parts specifically for the earliest VW 1500s into the 1970s, and incorporating safety improvements into them too. I still have all five of my Ghia's original April 1962 stamped wheels, but I'll keep them in storage and use these newer ones on the road.



I found a very nice used Pirelli Cinturato CN 36 tire recently, and I had it mounted on one of the newly powder coated wheels as a test. Pirelli has reissued the early '70s vintage CN 36, and I'm thinking about buying a set of them for the Ghia, but since they're slightly wider than the original size (175-15 rather than 165-15) I wanted to see if there were any fit issues. There aren't. A bit more expensive than the comparable Michelin XZX, but with an extra helping of awesomeness. My car now has a very cool spare.

OJR (Maico) disc brakes in Safer Motoring magazine, October 1963

A followup to my previous post about Maico disc brakes: Safer Motoring's coverage of the 1963 Frankfurt international auto show included some photos and an informal test of the OJR disc brake system for VWs and Porsches.



The cutaway demonstration display of a VW 1200 disc brake is very cool.

Abarth exhaust for the VW 1500, December 1963

A Fisher Products ad introducing the now sought-after VW 1500 Abarth exhaust from the December 1963 issue of Road & Track magazine. Adjusted for inflation, $64.50 would have been the equivalent of about $460 in today's dollars.

2008 VW Classic Weekend: 1956 Karmann Cabriolet

Amidst all the over-the-top show cars on display at the DKP event was this tastefully unrestored Karmann Cabriolet. The polar silver paint and red interior mark it as a late '56 or early '57, I think. It's great to see such a well-preserved original car showing the patina of 50 years of use (but not abuse). It has an Okrasa engine with an equally nice patina, which suggests either a vintage performance engine that has been with the car for many years or an owner who has gone to a lot of effort to make it look that way.


No guys, not over there. It's right in front of you.




No flash, just the right balance of originality and rare performance-oriented parts. Subtle and very cool. Kudos to the owner for knowing what the car didn't need. My favorite car of the event.

Fram K-96 bypass oil filter kit for VW 1500/1600

Here's an NOS accessory Fram oil filter kit for the VW Type 3 that was recently auctioned on eBay. It's an aftermarket version of the official VW accessory bypass filter that I blogged about recently. The main difference is in the flexible lines, which in the VW version were metal braided hoses, and the hose fittings, which in this version appear to be threaded compression fittings — probably an improvement over the original VW design. Other than that it's very similar to the VW kit.



The filter itself wasn't included. The kit calls for Fram P2814, which was apparently the same as the VW filter 000 091 511A, the one specified for the Type 1 and 2 version of the VW bypass filter. The seller helpfully pointed out that Fram P2814 has been superseded by the widely available Fram PH3682 — good information to have.

Maico disc brake conversion for the VW 1500

Aaron Britcher sent some photos of his very rare Maico disc brakes. Maico disc brake conversion kits for the VW 1500 were available for only a short time in the mid-1960s. Aaron is lucky enough to have two sets, one NOS and one completely restored. Some guys have all the luck!

NOS Maico VW 1500 brakes:






Restored Maico VW 1500 brakes:




There's not much information available on Maico brakes in English, but I found an article by Frank O. Hrachowy in the June 2005 issue of Automobilhistorische Nachrichten (Historic Automobile News, the newsletter of the Automobilhistorische Gesellschaft e.V., the Automobile Historical Society of Germany) which provides some enlightening information on the Maico story.

Better known as a motorcycle manufacturer, Maico realized they needed to develop other products to keep their facilities running during the seasonal downtime in motorcycle production. In 1962 the company acquired rights to a patent for a new disc brake system developed by OJR (Oswald Josef Rosamowski). This design, known as the "ring-type" disc brake, employed a flat ring at outer edge of the hub as the friction surface for the brake pads, in contrast to the now-common central brake rotor configuration. They were easy to assemble, lightweight, and inexpensive, potentially bringing the benefits of disc brakes, previously only seen on expensive sports and luxury cars, to a much wider audience. Sensing an opportunity, Maico made their VW 1200 conversion available to the public beginning in 1963.

In 1963 a VW 1200 with Maico disc brakes was tested by Auto, Motor und Sport, who, while impressed by the braking performance, wondered whether they were enough of an improvement over the standard VW drum brakes to be worthwhile. This opinion seemed to be shared by others who tested Maico brakes at the time as well.


[image courtesy of Automobilhistorische Gesellschaft e.V.]

By 1964 Maico brake conversions were available for the VW 1200 and 1500 (and respective Karmann-Ghias), the Porsche 356, and the Peugeot 404. Time was working against Maico, though, as disc brakes were fast becoming standard equipment on more and more cars, including the VW 1600 beginning in the fall of 1965. Ultimately Maico's disc brakes were a failure as a business venture, making them that much rarer and more desirable to vintage performance enthusiasts today.

Maico brakes were imported to the United States for a few years by Poly Pad Imports (seen here in Poly Pad's 1967 catalog, and in a press announcement here), and were also apparently distributed for a short time by EMPI. They seem to have been popular in Australia, maybe because the introduction of disc brakes to the VW line occurred later there than in Europe and the U.S.

In addition to Hrachowy's article in Automobilhistorische Nachrichten (a pdf of which can be downloaded here), information on Maico brakes can also be found in Auto, Motor und Sport (August 1963, viewable here), Gute Fahrt (July 1964), Foreign Car Guide (March 1964), and Hobby (June 19, 1963, the first part of which can be seen here).

Thanks again to Aaron for the photos.

NOS EMPI Camber Compensator

I found this EMPI Camber Compensator a couple of years ago after looking for a long time. Another vintage performance accessory that's eventually going to go on the Ghia.



The Camber Compensator was developed by Joe Vittone of EMPI around 1960, probably inspired by the Porsche Super 90's similar compensating spring. The purpose of the Super 90 compensator was a little different (to literally compensate for the use of softer torsion bars), but it also turned out to be an effective way to limit the travel of the swing axles on hard cornering, addressing a particularly dangerous shortcoming of the swing axle suspension design. EMPI's compensator was a big seller and helped elevate the company's profile among aftermarket parts suppliers in the '60s.

Here's a 1960 Camber Compensator brochure complete with a business card from the legendary Competition Motors of Hollywood stapled to it:



So it was possible to buy one at your local VW dealer right from the beginning, at least if you happened to live in Hollywood. And you could also buy a compensator for other cars with swing axles too, including Porsche, Renault, and Corvair. Unsafe at any speed? Not anymore!

The compensator shown in the brochure is the earliest version designed for the old split-case transmission. In 1961 a new mount to fit the synchromesh transmission was introduced, and most of the compensators available today still mount to the bottom of the transmission too, but in the late '60s EMPI introduced a completely different mount that clamped to the frame horns instead, eliminating the gear oil leaks that the trans mounts are prone to causing. Here a drawing of the later mount from Bill Fisher's great How to Hotrod VW Engines (H.P. Books, 1970):


This later mount is the one I prefer. It just seems like a better, stronger design to me. They're relatively hard to find, though, and it took me quite a while to track a used one down. Then about a week after I found it an NOS one turned up at a reasonable price. Wouldn't you know it. Here they are together:


The used one shows how they wear. The mount is slightly bent in the middle and all the rubber parts show a lot of wear, especially the center pivot. Looks like the car it came from was driven pretty hard.

Some close-up shots of the NOS compensator's frame mount:





New replacements for all the rubber bushings and straps are now available from Eric Outland on The Samba. He sells completely restored vintage EMPI Camber Compensators too.

NOS bypass oil filter for the VW 1500

Here's another vintage VW 1500 performance accessory: a Type 3 oil filter. I found it on eBay a few years ago. The seller had bought it at Bill & Steve's back in the '90s — a good example of the kind of stuff they used to regularly have in stock that's now practically impossible to find. It's essentially the same kind of oil filtering system used on Okrasa engines as well as the Porsche 356 and 912.

It's an official VW-approved accessory, listed in this VW accessory catalog [the yellow highlighting is mine]:


Here are all the parts in the kit:


And here they are loosely assembled. The filter mounts under the left rear corner of the engine hatch opening. One of the braided hoses is connected between the oil cooler and the oil pressure sender via a banjo fitting; the other hose connects to a hollow bolt that replaces one of the crankcase breather stand's mounting studs.


When installed it siphons off some of the oil circulating through the system at the oil cooler mount, filters it, and then returns it at the breather stand. Some people are skeptical that a bypass filter can really do much good. My opinion is that it may not be as effective as a full-flow filter, but if Porsche used the same system for years it can't be all bad.

Installation instructions:




For the 1500 Karmann-Ghia the instructions call for cutting and bending part of the lower engine bay sheet metal for clearance. I'm not thrilled about that idea but I would really like to install the filter, so I'm looking at alternate ways to mount it. Or maybe I should just bite the bullet and install it exactly per the instructions... what do you think?

Koni Special "D" shocks for the VW 1500

I've decided that my 1500 Ghia restoration will have a vintage performance theme, so I've been collecting performance-oriented accessories -- things the owner of a new 1500 might have bought in the first few years of ownership to enhance the car's performance. This includes a set of Koni shocks, as recommended in Auto Motor und Sport's road test of May 1962. Their damping rate can be adjusted and they're said to make a dramatic difference in handling. The ad below, which ran in the February 1963 issue of Road & Track, makes the case for Konis:



No doubt the Corvair Lakewood station wagon pictured in the ad needed all the help it could get -- it would have had all the handling problems of a swingaxle VW, only more so. The price of Konis at the time was $20 each -- a steep price for shocks in 1963. Konis for the Type 3 are still available new, but they'll set you back over $100 apiece now.

In a year or two of looking I found a few old pairs:



The four shocks on the left are all old stock Type 3 front shocks from an auto parts warehouse in the Southeast. The very clean center pair (80-2023) is for post-1968 Type 3s with IRS rear suspension; the rougher pair on the far left (80-1505) is for the early 1500s. They're NOS, believe it or not, but had been sitting in damp storage for years. Luckily Konis are rebuildable. The rear shocks (right) are used but in good condition. They're stamped with a VW logo and part number, so I suspect they're the version that was available as a factory option:



I plan to send these and the rough pair of front shocks to Koni for a rebuild.




One of the pairs came with this Koni brochure that explains the adjustment procedure.

Koni also made a steering dampner for the VW Type 3, as seen below on Paul Colbert's incredible '63 Ghia [image from Paul's restoration site]. I'm keeping my eyes open for one.





Love that old winged logo.