Another early VW 1500 engine found

Jason Weigel (aka Notchboy) sent these photos of an early '62 engine he's currently tearing down. The engine number is in the 0 038 XXX range, which would mean it was built a few weeks after mine, in late April. It still has many original parts in place, so it's worth a closer look.


More of the hard-to-find early parts are there than on most. Things are pretty much as they should be except the generator, which appears to be from a
Type 1, and the obviously missing parts like the coil, distributor cap, and plastic fuel pump cover. According to Jason, the carburetor is a later 32 PHN-1 -- not unusual as the early carbs were prone to trouble. Some things you almost never see are a correctly routed fuel line with the fuel line retainer still attached to the oil cooler mount, the early-style oil pressure sender, and the plastic plug in the crankcase breather port on the Mann air cleaner.


With the left side tin removed the early Type 1-style oil cooler is revealed. The heat exchanger appears to have sprayed on insulation, a 1962 "feature."


Here's the early oil cooler on the bench, getting a thorough cleaning. Next to it on the left you can see the spacer for the intake manifold, used temporarily as a placeholder for the thermostatic valve that was finally fitted on the 1963 models.


Jason points out that the intake manifold is a transitional part that was only used in the last half of the 1962 model year. It's the same one that my car has. Earlier manifolds had a steel bracket for the carb linkage that was tack welded to the intake tube (as seen here on the manifold from Jason's February '62 notchback, compared to a 1963 manifold below). This transitional manifold, with the carb linkage support cast into the aluminum jacket, was used beginning somewhere around March '62 and through July, when the manifold was again altered to suit the angled intake ports of the new cylinder heads that were introduced at the launch of the 1963 model year, at engine number
0 066 740.


One of the most surprising finds was an early plastic carb linkage, which was only used until chassis number 0 040 116, at the beginning of May. Most of these were replaced with the later metal link during routine service, so not many survive.

A little crusty perhaps, and exposed to a lot of moisture over the years, but this early engine is quite a find.