Hot Wheels: Some cool stuff I found in the US

Here are my latest goodies which I bought last week, when I worked in the Detroit area:

I noticed that it is really tough to find anything nice in the Walmart and Toy'S 'r Us stores - All of the "real" models are gone, just the "fantasy stuff" - which I don't like - is available, it seems there are countless HW collectors in the Detroit area - still Motor City after all!


 Especially the "Cool Classics" series VW's are nice - as I haven't seen them over here:

Organizing tools

Step by step I try to really clean up my garage! During last weeek's trip to the US I was able to buy some stuff which will help organizing my tools. The drawer with spanners was first:

before:

 after:

I also started laying out the tools on my (to be) wall mounted black powder coated pegboards, pics will follow soon! 

axial play corrected and assembly ongoing

After I posted my engine assembly work in a very good German ACVW forum, I was informed that the axial play on my engine was to great, the correct values are 0,07 to 0,13 mm.
As I previously dialed it in to a value of 0,13 mm I redid it:

This should be perfect...

I also mounted the (brand new) oil cooler and some other stuff:

The original insulation was totally flaking off, so I removed it, it will be replaced with something more substantial.

 Distributor clamp (powder coated black), fuel pump socket and oil filler (black wrinkle finished) as well as the fan housing (painted silver)
Yes, I am going to use a manual fuel pump - it is sufficient, even for this engine!

I really dig the wrinkle finish:

Rocker geometry

Since a few days I work on the correct rocker geometry. The adjuster screw should be exactly in line with the valve stem at half lift. An adjustable push rod is required to do the job right.
As there are so many modifications compared to a standard motor, this is a difficult task, But I will get there in the end...

Currently, still not perfect @ half lift, even though I already shimmed the rocker shaft by 2 mm, I think I will have to modify the rockers like here (pic found on thesamba.com):

This modification will finally allow the exact geometry (hopefully...)
Afterwards I can shorten the CroMo push rods to the exact length.

The perfect birthday gift!

Look at my brand new birthday gift : The coolest t-shirt on earth - It looks almost like especially made for me!

I didn't even knew the company before! https://www.aircooledapparel.com/
A real nice surprise from my wife!

TÜV approval done!

Today I visited the DEKRA for the "TÜV" check which is required every other year.
Passed without advisories!

2 liter Fuchs wheels revisited

Yesterday I swapped the wheels back to the 2 liter Fuchs rims. I still kind of like it this way: