1967-71 VW bus 1/14 scale

[frizzen]

while back i fell in with the wrong crowd... 1/14 scale semi guys and construction workers. Ive got a dumptruck and crane/dragline in work. Project ADD hit, and i needed a nice scale normal vehicle to drive at the meets. Most of the available 1/16 and 1/14 rc cars are supercars you'll never see in real life, especially not around semis.

Dickie toys of germany makes a 1/14 scale Bay window 1967-71 Volkswagen Type-2 Transporter. I got mine off amazon, but apparently they were available at walmart for a short time.





It has a friction drive gearbox with a flywheel, and steering rack and knuckles with 3 position posing. Everything is screwed together or plastic tabs.

All the doors and hatches work, 7 passenger interior, detail is very impressive, and it can even seat bruder figures. I'm glad it's more of a normal bus than the export model 19 window sambas with sliding top that are normally done as toys.

I pulled the transaxle out. Unscrew body from pan, unsnap rear seat tabs, unsnap engine cover tabs. rims pull straight off, 3 screws and the transaxle comes out. 3 screws and you can pull one side of the gearbox apart, pull out the flywheel.



I used a mitsumi pancake motor out of a CD-rom drive. Some 0.040 styrene was laminated to the center beam for motor mount. Then the side plate that supported the flywheel was clearanced and reinstalled.



Needed to do some minor trimming and put some color on the dash details.

I picked up a horizon hobby SPMS401 mini servo. Trimmed away stuff until it fit. I punched a servo mount ear through the right wheelwell and built up a stack of styrene to secure a screw. I mounted the other ear to a styrene plate that i brought forward and screwed into the tunnel between seats. Draglink needed a little clearancing and an oval hole for the servo since i'm using the wrong arc of its swing





Trim seats for clearance.



While i was in there i also raised the top steering knuckle supports by a bit less than the amount hanging below the knuckles. Clearanced the supports that tie the front and middle of the pan so the draglink could articulate. Drilled through the stop plates above the steering knuckles so they can articulate up.
I'm going to drop some pen springs in the front and cap the top. Or maybe i decide it has drop spindles and forget to do it.

Then i loosened the forward transaxle mount screw, and put springs between screw head and transaxle at both rear mounts.

[betty.k]

almost fucken nailed it! lower it by an inch and stance it out!

[frizzen]

Betty!

Everything fit in the engine area, except antenna wire up through package tray, and battery leads come up behind the spare tire


Gotta figure out dual carbs.

Surfboards are stupid, but it could work IF i could have found 1/14 bikini girls. The surf rack looks wrong for topracks, or a cargo rack, maybe a ladder rack...
i'd rather a slick top, but then you've got to fill holes and repaint, and the rack keeps it off the table when you have to split body and pan. Grrr.

Screw it, let's just go ride bikes.





Spinmaster made 'finger bikes' a while back. I'd bought a few of them for my 1/10 crawler (scaler cherokee), but couldn't scale them right. Turns out in 1/14 scale i've got a 20" bmx/mountain, 24" bmx/mountain, and 26" road bike.

0.040 styrene, bonder, and some vague idea. With some careful planning, the bike racks still can slide out the back of the rack so it still protects the roof upside down. The bikes are secure but still removeable

I promised scale, so i better mean it.

I hope there's going to be camping somewhere near the show...



I hit up the Lebanon Indiana show and drove with some great guys.






Uh hey guys, whose got a tow truck?

[frizzen]

1/14 and 1/15 scale cars


Mmm lights

[frizzen]

Since ya liked slammed V-dubs...



My 1958-63 double cab pickup, with a 65&up rear window.

It'll go White over Gray, more chrome, lighted, and hopefully i can find some better rims.

[SuperFly]

Really nice work! Did you have to do anything with gearing, or did that motor just happen to work about the same as the friction drive?

[frizzen]

Thank you SuperFly!

Got lucky with it. I happened to have the pinion same pitch/tooth count in my scrap pile, could have taken the one off the flywheel and used that instead. I could have regeared, or tested pancake motors to find a faster one, but it's very scale. A 1500 single-port in a van just isn't going to win races.
It's happy puttering down the scale streets, and i'm not scared running it around really expensive vehicles with fragile parts. But now that it's running on 1/24 semi trailer wheels, it's got more grip...

The Split Window truck is pretty quick though. It was just doing burnouts and trying to drift before i got hobby parts in it.

[frizzen]

Built a Teardrop trailer based on some 1947 plans from a magazine



Lets mean go camping.


Dude, why haven't you gotten farther with it in 3 months?

Oh, well that makes sence. Have fun.

Running lights.


Dome and porch lights.


Mount the door handle with latch


Needed more cabinets


Shit, gotta make the bed.


If i'm going to go out towing this on any more public roads, i better add in some more safety before the police notice and want to discuss things...




Thought the interior still wasn't quite right, so it got some color.



Let's play around with the roof load







If i'm going to make tie-downs i'll need hardpoints, so i took a 1/16" drill to the roof racks.
I added fwd/aft holes in the top of triangles at the gutter, inboard/outboard holes in the same area, and an angled vertical hole in the center of the rack. All of these holes are pretty well hidden by keeping them toward center of wheelbase.


New straps were of course needed, so i knocked these together with some yellow nomex lacing tape about 0.080" (2mm) wide, some 0.032" (0.6mm) brass wire, and some CA glue. Making the hooks and buckles wasn't terribly fun.

Spare mount