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1978 1st Gen Brat Build!


BeardedWrench
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Give that poor girl the love she deserves

I'm from CO, but I have been to texas, (sux BAD!!!) and of all the idiots moving to colorado, them and floridians make me laugh the most stuck in snow with 2wd trucks.

No wonder they do awful things like this to a beautiful brat,  all you need in texas to off road is monster tires and a diesel engine. No finesse or grace required like in the mountains. 

Hence this utter nonsense...

 @BeardedWrenchI'm glad you got her before those turds broke her and scrapped her.

Name yet?

Edited by sparkyboy
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8 hours ago, sparkyboy said:

Give that poor girl the love she deserves

I'm from CO, but I have been to texas, (sux BAD!!!) and of all the idiots moving to colorado, them and floridians make me laugh the most stuck in snow with 2wd trucks.

No wonder they do awful things like this to a beautiful brat,  all you need in texas to off road is monster tires and a diesel engine. No finesse or grace required like in the mountains. 

Hence this utter nonsense...

 @BeardedWrenchI'm glad you got her before those turds broke her and scrapped her.

Name yet?

@sparkyboy oh yes, she will be 100% again..just depends on how long that'll take, finding parts has become pretty hard but worth it, the wife and i were thinking of naming her alpha, considering she is the first of her "kind" lol

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3 hours ago, carfreak85 said:

DON'T SEPERATE THE CASE HALVES IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO!

If you do, you'll want to line bore the main bearing journals.  If the bottom end isn't damaged, don't bother messing with it.

unfortunately i have to, got the engine to run before pulling for a second but there is mud and sand in the engine, i have everything i need though, the shop i work for restores vintage volkswagens, and we line bore air cooled cases so all the tools are available as of now, already ordered new pistons, rings, crank bearings and rod bearings

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Nice sealing wax red beige grey deluxe.

On 6/17/2019 at 10:48 AM, BeardedWrench said:

yeah what's weird is, i've seen 3 of these come from texas, and they all had identical paint jobs. not sure what's up with that lol

Yeah my sister had one by her down in Texas, same paint job...

K

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Engine is out and on the stand, did not use a cherry picker, unbolted and picked it up out of there, little thing is heavier than it looks..52087636_2714841831889830_2450175063073226752_n.thumb.jpg.7495fcf97888b0b55598370b00df7921.jpg

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now starts the cleaning and teardown process!

also i ordered some magazine "swag" for the brat, the article clipping when it was released, i also thought it was neat the article was released april,1978..the month my brat was built.

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19 minutes ago, DaveAP said:

Thanks for posting your build. I have a mostly rust free az 78 brat. Just got it running after being parked for 15 yrs. 

awesome man! post up some pics.

 

hooked the brat up to my tacoma and pulled it out of the garage today to pressure wash it underneath, got a lot of it..but there is still a TON of mud left underneath, i think the texan who owned it, enjoyed the off road.

64928738_3017017851672225_6560214617929285632_n.thumb.jpg.68e65be34525db2d1fe126c1d7e09f43.jpg

Edited by BeardedWrench
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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

Finally gotten the cylinder heads back from the machine shop, everything brand new and looking good!

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Split the case, pulled everything out, rods and pistons are coming new soon!

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Decided while i wait on other parts, i'll sand blast, clean and paint some others!

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I chose this color because it's what i had at the shop, it looked cool, so i sprayed it and ran out and bought a few more cans, plan is to paint quite a few engine parts with this color

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I think it turned out great, here's the oil pan in this color, Detroit diesel forest green

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going to strip down the interior of the pan, but just sprayed it all for now

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Alright boys, last update for a little while on the engine, waiting on parts to arrive and attempting to find a decent oil pump and TRYING to find new cylinder head nuts for it, someone decided to clean the garage while i was at work and now i'm missing 3 head nuts and washers, in any case...i'll be stripping down the suspension and driveline here in the next few weeks so i'll post pics of that, in the mean time...here is the current status of the engine, mostly assembled.

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  • 3 months later...

Looks great!  I am doing the same thing here in Seattle with a 1978.  Not sure if I will split the case but we'll see.  Gonna strip the whole car down 100% have it sand blasted and painted. Then reassembly.  I hope to have the closest thing to a NEW brat when I am done.  Let me know of any pitfalls you came across. Thanks

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  • 1 month later...

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