I have been wanting a 1776 for my bus for a while now. We decided to save some money and just pull the 1776 out of the 64 bus, put new oil cooler seals in it because it was leaking pretty bad, then put it in my bus. We would put hubby's "built" 1776 in the 64 since I didn't really drive that one that often. ( I don't like the built one because it doesn't want to idle with just one carb and hubby doesn't like dual carbs)
So we pulled the 1776 out and after hubby cleaned it up, I did a little painting. Figured I would make it match the buses theme.
I then pulled the 1600 single port out.
We had to get a new exhaust because we didn't want to run the bus muffler and the header that was on the 1776 was not to my liking. LOL
I bought this one,
and had hubby do this to it.
The pipe is actually still on the same side, the pic was just taken two different ways. I didn't like how the pipe came straight out the back so I had hubby cut it, turn it end for end, then weld it back on. It worked great.
Here's just a neat shot (It thought it was neat. LOL) of the motor waiting to ge back in.
AFter the exhaust was done, we put it on and put the motor in the bus.
Then hubby told me to shut it down and tomorrow I could pull it back out. He thought I may have pinched an oil cooler seal because it was puking oil out of that area pretty bad.
The next evening we put new seals in again and this time we ran the motor to check for leaks before putting the fan shroud back on. Still leaked. Pulled the oil cooler again and filed it smooth and then tried again. Still leaked. This time hubby was able to see that it wasn't coming from the oil cooler seals. It came from the case itself.
This motor is history. Bummer deal. I was so looking forward to having a 1776. He is going to see what he can do to salvage it, but for now I have to put a different motor in. We had gotten a 1600 dual port out of a burnt beetle that we bought not to long ago. Our friend Dewey went through it and put what it needed on it to get it running and was using it in his bus till we got his motor rebuilt. So we pulled it back out of his bus and went through the process of R&Ring some of his pieces and parts and putting my stuff back on it. Then we installed it in the bus.
Not thrilled with the red intake but that is the color he painted it and I didn't want to pull it all apart to paint it a better color.
It is a temporary motor anyway. I do still plan on putting a 1776 in it but for now this will do.
Here is a shot of it all closed up. You can just see the tail pipe. It doesn't stick down too far, but yet just enough. It looks like it is hitting the mudflap in the pic but it doesn't. I like how it turned out and it sounds pretty good. I could have put the bus muffler back on this motor but decided to go with the new one since we bought it and modified it. Sounds pretty good too. Not to loud and not to quiet.
I can sure tell the difference from the single port and the dual port. I know I will miss the torque the single had in the take offs. Hope the torque in the top end of the dual port will win me over. It seems a bit more peppy on flat ground but the true test to see how much I will like it will be tomorrow night on the way to work. I have to climb a hill that normally puts me down to 45-50 mph. I sure hope this one will keep that speed or do a bit better. Time will tell.
I also installed the new to me handle in my pop top. My original one's black cover shrunk and you could see the metal part of the handle. The new to me one is still in good shape.
Next on the list of things to do is the pop top canvas!
