How hard can it be....

[Baha (Shawn)]

Jim,
Karen has the worst case of Shiftadubafobia we'ver ever seen.

Seriously considering the possibility of putting the Type 3 Auto in a Beetle or Super vert.

All kidding aside. Your thoughts?

[kvbug (karen)]

OMG Shawn....   lets not embarrass me too much! lol   (Actually much more to it than that, but won't go into it on here) .

[jthw8]

Jim,
Karen has the worst case of Shiftadubafobia we'ver ever seen.

Seriously considering the possibility of putting the Type 3 Auto in a Beetle or Super vert.

All kidding aside. Your thoughts?

My thoughts were very serious in the last post.  The backside of the auto is too wide to keep the torsion bars but you could remove them, cut the torsion housing and get that in place.  You'd have to switch to the heim jointed end plates for the spring plates and use coil over shocks.

It's all very doable, it requires some fab work but nothing earth shattering.  If I had a chassis sitting here (no body) and the trans and your help it could be done in an aggressive weekend with time for a beer or 2.  (yes, this is me offering some help if you really want to do it, but expect payback when I start Wartburg v.2)

The other *possible* option is, if you dont mind a slammed bug do an trans raise to get the auto up over the torsion bars but a) I think it would be too low and b) I'm still not sure you could raise it enough to clear that trans.


We should give Karen a start in shift training driving the Smart.  Its got flappy paddles so she can learn the theory of when and why to shift without all that bothersome clutch and shifter coordination effort.  Once that part is learned then the other bits fall into place, sometimes it's just hard to absorb them all at once so a flappy paddle car is a good middle ground for learning (its how Im teaching my daughter as well)