The Turbo-DungBeetle, a Gambler 500 car

I'm taking parts off the Dung Beetle. Today I pulled the lifted struts, radiator guard and skid plate.

I got to thinking about the engine and transmission. I have no more room to keep engines that I probably won't use. The car still runs and drives well - it's just worn out and leaking oil. It occurred to me that someone might be interested in buying it if I keep it driveable. Scrap value these days is practically zero and I can easily get a few hundred for it on FB market. As I took the good struts and wheels off the front, I put parts from the scrap pile back on. It got dark right about the time I had it back together.

Anyone want a $300 Beetle Death Kart for the Challenge? You aren't going to win any prizes, but it will be fun.

Tomorrow I plan to take the doors and rear suspension off. I may cut some of the roof. I may or may not keep the rear fenders, not sure yet.

I was wrong again... 

I thought that the only significant problem I'd have fitting a door from my 2000 model to the 2004 convertible would be where it joins the rear window. I used a recip saw and grinder to trim away the area that contacted the rear window. The door was no closer to fitting. I laid it on the ground next to the other door and had a look. They are muchly more differenter than I expected. Here's some comparison from similar doors on eBay (a great place to find parts pictures).

At the moment the door swap seems not fun anymore. I'll figure out a better way to have operational windows and keep the weather out. For me the Gambler 500s are a 'husband and wife' thing. If Mrs AAZCD has a door that won't close right or is getting rained on from a stuck window, it's not going to be a happy trip.

Moving along... The lifted front struts are on and the radiator is lifted. For now I have the fenders and hood from the original Dung Beetle on it, but I may adapt and install the blue parts back on later. The intercooler is looking pretty vulnerable and the plumbing for it blocks the installation of my fabricated skid plate. Good enough for now, but definitely going to be addressed in the future.

Today I am doing the rear lift. The biggest chore  is moving the charcoal cannister and evap system enough to clear the bigger tire. I'm going to take off the rear fenders/bumper cover to get better access to the bolts and all the hoses/tubing.

There are roughly 148 screws and bolts must be removed to take the fender and bumper complex on the car. I had about a dozen of them off when I came to my senses; This is a Dung Beetle. Bolts? Screws? "Fender, meet Mr Recip saw." From there it was easy.

   Yep it is a complex assembly, these are often totaled due to damage to a bumper cover.  To much labor to replace a bumper cover, it crazy......

    The alarm can't be disabled either, the front hood switch, connect the two wires together, rear hood switch, just unplug it.

Some progress over the last few days. I'm still changing my mind about things and generally testing out ideas.

Tonight I'm thinking about lights. I had two good spot lights on the roof of the original Dung Beetle and they did really well. This is a convertible and it's going to have to be different. I thought of the hood, fenders, or front bumper, but it's already looking pretty busy in that area.

I think I'm going to go with a 32" bar mounted just above the windshield. Tomorrow, I'll shop at the local stores, but along the lines of one of these:

The rear hatch had cracked plastic around the latch. I had a lot of different ideas; covering it or repairing it.

Today, I just busted off the rest of the plastic and painted over it with a Gamblery design. A little sketchy and rough, just like it should be.

So are you doing all this before you get the salvage inspection?  Because i kinda want video of their faces if that's the case

In reply to Patrick (Forum Supporter) :

I wish... it's already registered and done. They didn't even look at the car.

______

It's lifted, snorkeled, winched, double skid-plated, the windows keep the weather out and it's running well with no check-engine light.

My current to-do list:

• Mount the light bar.
• Make better wheel clearance at the back of the front wheels. It rubs when turned all the way.
• Paint either the trunk lid or the rear fenders black. I'm thinking trunk.
• Make the passenger side door awesome.
• Make the back seat dog friendly.
• Move or protect the intercooler.

The snorkel is 2" PVC and it matches the stock intake plumbing. I retained stock airbox and filter. It runs fine, but I keep thinking that 2" is small for such a long tube. I know that size matters, but bigger isn't always better. How do I know if it's not big enough? Measure vacuum somewhere on the intake?

I went for a drive today and took it off road to check it out. By the time I was done the driver's side headlight fell out and the turbocharger bolts were loose again. No biggie. I used a long drywall screw to fix the back of the headlight to the mount and put the turbo bolts back in with some Loctite.

Video on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/512362657

looks like the media embed widget doesn't recognize the "youtu.be" address, you've gotta use the "youtube.com" one... which might be difficult depending on how you're grabbing the link

I learned about light bars: If you are mounting on a curved surface, get a curved light bar rather than a straight one. This one is mounted now, but opening the convertible top is a little complicated. A new curved one is ordered...

I painted the trunk and painted over the license plates that are patching the cut in the bumper.

Earlier I mentioned that I was concerned about the small diameter of the snorkel. It turns out that I didn't have to do any tests to see if it was too small. VW provided a series of ECU fault codes to say, "Your snorkel diameter is too small." ...I think.

1. 17574 - Bank 1 mixture adaptation range 2 rich limit exceeded.
2. 17705 - Pressure Drop between Turbo and Throttle Valve.
3. 17551 - Load Calculation Cross Check: Upper Limit Exceeded

I took the 2" diameter parts off and put some larger pieces in with a 3" PVC pipe topping it off. Now the choke point is the stock intake between my snorkel and the filter. Today I did a variety of driving with plenty of runs up to redline without any codes coming back.

I just saw this on YouTube. A True Dung Beetle!!!

Cool idea, but I'm not going there.

In reply to AAZCD (Forum Supporter) :

Ewwwwww, we're not even in the apocalypse yet!

For the last week I've been using the Dung Beetle as a daily. We had freezing rain and it has stayed unusually cold since then. Today we have been having a snowpocalypse. Barley an inch of snow here so far, but it's Oklahoma so Emergency. Cars have been crashing and sliding off the road all week. If Dung Beetle gets in a wreck, it's no big deal. It will just add more 'character'.

Dashboard Jesus and Hula Girl:

I think that the improved light bar is the only significant change since my last update. It's a curved bar and clears the convertible top a lot better than the straight one, brighter and better light too. 

There's an off-road event in late March that I plan to go to, mostly to be a spectator for the real off-road vehicles. https://www.facebook.com/events/302468724447085/

Then the Gambler 500 Kansas Rally 'Spring Sling' in late April: https://www.facebook.com/Gambler500KansasRally/

That's probably a pretty decent car for snow stuff.  I like how the KS event information seems to purposefully mispell the name of the town it's happening near (at? in?).

In reply to pres589 (djronnebaum) :

It is really good in snow. We had a couple more inches overnight and the roads weren't plowed or sanded at all this morning. It isn't quite a Subaru, but handled just fine. Hardly any fun with the ESP (VW Electronic Stability Program) turned on.

Is your dashboard Jesus "buddy Christ" from Dogma?   That's awesome.

Obligatory, of course:

Yes it is. My Buddy Christ is still NIB.

The passenger side window is installed and regulator repaired, but I can't quite get it to close flush. The door doesn't quite close evenly either. I cut out the worst damage and riveted a rusty piece of scrap on to cover it. Some spray can black across the bottom half and it looks about right now. After I post this I'm going to hit the door frame with a hammer a few times and see if it gets any better.

It's running and driving well, but I have gotten a flashing low oil pressure light a couple times at low rpm. Soon I'll get a look at the sump and pick-up tube and make sure it's not clogged or sludged.

The heater hose got pushed too close to the radiator fan and sprung a leak. I caught it before it got bad and it was an easy fix. While I had the hood open, I decided that the airbox and long, restrictive routing from the snorkel had to go. I rearranged the tubing and added in a soup can extension. It breathes so much better now that I noticed a significant increase in butt-dyno power. The cone filter right outside the driver's window makes all kinds of neat, turbo-y noises.

Right now my plan is to trailer both the Dung Beetle and Yamaha XT225 to the Big Meat Run this weekend and play with both of them.

We had a great time at the Big Meat Run and people passing by loved the Dung Beetle. I didn't get to drive it at all except for loading and unloading it from the trailer. I had awesome fun on the Yamaha XT225 while AAZCD Daughter Family cruised in the car. They didn't push it to the limit because they had a 1-1/2 month old baby onboard, but they still gave it a good workout.

Video from the day.

Here's a video of what we were spectating at the Big Meat Run. Driving around the trails was fun, but watching the rock crawlers was pretty awesome: