I thought you guys might like to follow along as I refresh this CMC speedster.
I will be uploading new videos each week
Starting Point:
Part 1:
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Nice buy on the Speedster and a great how to video on raising the ride height. I look forward to seeing your future posts on this project.
Thanks JIMMY V. You can subscribe to my channel to follow this project and others.
So- I'm confused.... why would you want to raise the ride height?
On a more serious note- no air cleaner and the engine ingesting spent cooling air and radiated exhaust heat- yeah, there's a little work ahead of you. Running around like that for any length of time (especially the engine being open to the rear of the car) will kill the engine in pretty short order. And I'm guessing that the previous owner made a practice of shifting from 2nd into 1st when going more than 4 or 5 mph- try to match the revs a bit when downshifting like that.
So why didn't you like the ride height where it was? I thought it looked great...
I think he may have bottomed out at the incline of his driveway.
I must need some Red Bull or at least a Dewalt impact wrench - I work sooo much slower! I envy your collection of needle nose plyers. I usually use some curse words to speed up my work, like "Scheisse"! I fretted with a protractor, marking original position and a level when I lowered the rear of mine. How do you know you know you have one notch? Were there no front beam adjusters present? Great job and video!
Looks like a good build - rear sag was nicely addressed by PO with added welded in brace.
A larger steering wheel would solve the not being able to view the gauge issue - appears to be a 14" one on it now.
DannyP posted:I think he may have bottomed out at the incline of his driveway.
He just didn't take it with enough angle...
Had you mark the original setting on the rear torsion spring late before changing it to the current position ?
@WOLFGANG wrote I must need some Red Bull or at least a Dewalt impact wrench - I work sooo much slower! Some work at ….33 1/3 , 45 and a few at 78 :~)
I clicked on the videos just now and got a message that the "account has been terminated." whaa?
Yeah. I got an email a few hours ago saying my account was terminated!!
In an attempt to bring people to my channel I posted the same comment, asking people to check out my videos, on about 15 other similar videos.
Apparently that’s a huge deal because YouTube didn’t give me a warning of any kind they just terminated my account within about 30 minutes of those comments being posted. I’ve been trying to figure out my options but it’s not looking good
I’m in the process of uploading all my videos to a new account, I will replace the links with new links once I have them.
I’m glad I only had a few weeks worth of content on the account and not a few years worth
sorry for the confusion.
BTW I marked the location of the rear swing arms before removing them so I knew where I started from, then I rotated them down one notch by feel:-)
Hi Jerod,
Please explain why Youtube terminated your account? The explanation above has my curiosity up.
JIMMY V. See my above post.
As far as I can tell they terminated my account because I posted the same comment on about 15 other videos.
The comment I posted was “If you like this video you might also like my videos” and I gave a link to one of my videos.
After reading through YouTube’s guidelines it looks like they considered me a spammer for posting the same comment multiple times...
There is an appeal form which I completed but it sounds like they just deny all appeals, so I’m not expecting anything good to come from that
I thought it was smart marketing, but apparently not!
The termination email I got was extremely vague. After many google searches and YouTube searches its seems that if this happens there is not much you can do about it.
apparently it’s impossible to talk directly to anyone at YouTube you have to find what’s called a Trusted Flagger to contact YouTube for you...
Anyway it was extremely shocking and confusing. Seems like a bit of an overreaction on their part, but who am I to tell youtube how to run their business. I’m just a guy trying to share car videos.
Assuming they don’t terminated my new account I should have my videos back up within a few days.
Yeah I think their bots just terminate all suspected enemy bots. You unwittingly disguised yourself as an enemy bot. No other humans involved in this episode.
I also had issues with You Tube over some SOC videos I posted. Got tired of You Tube shenanigans so I switched over to another video share site, Vimeo. After quite few videos over several years, no issues, ever! 
These are updated links to the videos:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3 is Live
Part 4 is Live
Part 5 is now up
Jerod I'm enjoying the videos... I don't want to come across as a wise ass but these are valid safety suggestions … Using a 8 x 14 blue tarp on the floor will keep the floor clean, flip flops are not a great idea , wear a mask when rattle can painting even outdoors ..ask me how I know as this will cause health issues with your lungs , grind with that mask and safety goggles on too and lastly those concrete blocks can kill you in an instant. Your project looks good ~
Thanks for the comment Alan.
I’m glad you’re enjoying the videos. Please subscribe to my channel if you haven’t already so you can follow my other projects as well. Also you can leave comments on YouTube. I welcome all comments and critiques.
Here's Part 6
Did you open up the pre-heat pieces on the exhaust side?
Just Posted Part 7
I would of painted the inside fan.... just saying
Jerod I’m really enjoying the videos, great job! Just wondering , you have what appears to be a piece of vinyl covering the front of your engine compartment. Do you have any engine temperature issues? Mine has a hole and a screen so the engine fan gets air. I’m thinking of dressing up the engine compartment with a 3 piece louvered stainless steel firewall kit from CIP.
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JB356SR posted:Jerod I’m really enjoying the videos, great job! Just wondering , you have what appears to be a piece of vinyl covering the front of your engine compartment. Do you have any engine temperature issues? Mine has a hole and a screen so the engine fan gets air. I’m thinking of dressing up the engine compartment with a 3 piece louvered stainless steel firewall kit from CIP.
I haven’t had this car long enough to know about any temp issues. But I don’t think there will be any. I had a vintage speedster in the past which didn’t have the opening in the fire wall and it never had a temp issue.
I was originally very surprised that the engine bay in these replicas are not sealed from the exhaust and outside air like a VW or Porsche.
I was also very shocked the first time I looked under the vintage speedster and saw all the hardware store nuts and bolts, crude welds and square tubing. But I got over it and really enjoyed that car. I drove it a lot for about a year and then sold it.
I’m glad you like the videos, thanks for watching.
Part 8 is now up
Jerod posted:JB356SR posted:Jerod I’m really enjoying the videos, great job! Just wondering , you have what appears to be a piece of vinyl covering the front of your engine compartment. Do you have any engine temperature issues? Mine has a hole and a screen so the engine fan gets air. I’m thinking of dressing up the engine compartment with a 3 piece louvered stainless steel firewall kit from CIP.
I haven’t had this car long enough to know about any temp issues. But I don’t think there will be any. I had a vintage speedster in the past which didn’t have the opening in the fire wall and it never had a temp issue.
I was originally very surprised that the engine bay in these replicas are not sealed from the exhaust and outside air like a VW or Porsche.
I was also very shocked the first time I looked under the vintage speedster and saw all the hardware store nuts and bolts, crude welds and square tubing. But I got over it and really enjoyed that car. I drove it a lot for about a year and then sold it.
I’m glad you like the videos, thanks for watching.
The engine area IS SUPPOSED to be sealed form the exhaust heat etc. There are a number of threads regarding this issue. One of our members has a template that will allow you to make the necessary pieces to seal it off completely....almost. The final gap is closed off with a bus seal. Use the search function to locate one of the many threads regarding this. Unfortunately I can not remember at this time who has the template. Maybe @Gordon Nichols or @Alan Merklin or @WOLFGANG or ???.
Jerod posted:Part 8 is now up
Everything seems to be going quite well. Keep up the great work and I enjoy the videos.
However, I'd really like to suggest that you move the fuel filter to the area in front of the firewall and not in the engine bay area. Those plastic filters have been known to leak and cause an engine fire. Once started they go fast and these fiberglass cars hate fire.
Robert M posted:Jerod posted:Part 8 is now up
Everything seems to be going quite well. Keep up the great work and I enjoy the videos.
However, I'd really like to suggest that you move the fuel filter to the area in front of the firewall and not in the engine bay area. Those plastic filters have been known to leak and cause an engine fire. Once started they go fast and these fiberglass cars hate fire.
Thanks for the suggestion.
Helpful tip: If the exhaust tips hit the body the easy fix is to duct tape a small scrap piece of sheet metal to the upper side of the exhaust tip to protect it … use a radius file allow it follow the shape of the tip as you file a gap between the exhaust and the fiberglass. You'll end up with a 1/4" - 5/16" barely noticeable radius above the exhaust tips. Be sure to seal the raw edge of the fiberglass with paint.
I have more speedster videos coming soon.
In the meantime you guys might be interested in my newest project. It’s a 69 VW Beetle. I will not post updates each time I post a new video for the beetle since it’s not a speedster. But you can subscribe to my YouTube channel to follow all my projects.
I will still try to update this thread each time I post a new speedster video.
Beetle Project Part 1
Hey Guys,
I posted a garage tour video for the new year, I actually speak in this video.
Here’s the link
Gordon supplied the paper engine template trim to many here. My CMC came with precut body-color (gelcoat) pieces of fiberglass for sides of the engine compartment and 2 pieces for rear above the muffler. Shown here in build manual.
JB356SR - mentioned hole in the firewall for air intake. His is a VS with a round hole with hardware cloth over it. CMC has a 1/2 moon section to be cut out - and the rest of the front has a piece of black rubber hall mat applied. Is that the piece f vinyl mentioned by JB?
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WOLFGANG posted:Gordon supplied the paper engine template trim to many here. My CMC came with precut body-color (gelcoat) pieces of fiberglass for sides of the engine compartment and 2 pieces for rear above the muffler. Shown here in build manual.
JB356SR - mentioned hole in the firewall for air intake. His is a VS with a round hole with hardware cloth over it. CMC has a 1/2 moon section to be cut out - and the rest of the front has a piece of black rubber hall mat applied. Is that the piece f vinyl mentioned by JB?
I’m thinking of covering the hole in the engine compartment. I’m thinking it will help keep the dirt out. Will this affect my engine cooling?
I don't think it will help the cooling any! 
I would think so - especially in hot weather.
The firewall hole is there for a reason. If you block off that hole all the air entering the engine compartment to feed the fan and carburetor(s) will have to come through the grille on the engine lid. If you look at where the air actually comes through the engine lid you will see that there's not very much square footage for airflow- less than half (12-15 sq. in. in some Speedster engine lids compared to 30 sq. in. below the rear window on a Beetle) of a stock Beetle. When VW went to the wider 'doghouse' fan they put louvers in the engine lid itself, increasing air intake again. The Beetle engine lids with 4 sets of louvers effectively double the air intake area, so if the only air entering the engine compartment is coming through the middle of the engine lid on your Speedster you can see why people are not recommending you cover the firewall hole. Oh- and dual carbs draw even more air.
I disagree with that last sentence Al. It's the displacement of the engine that matters not the number of throats that feed it.