My 1958 Beetle - Bella

Hey guys - thought I'd show you some pics of my Beetle. I bought her off a chap in Dandenong, Melbourne in April 2005 for $400 - bargain!

Back then she looked like this:


She was then shipped over here (sorry!) and arrived at my house:






She was in a light grey primer over red, which appeared to be a respray from a very long time ago. I assume her interior were part of her 'revamp' and wouldn't have come as standard in a (possibly alabaster) Beetle?

After replacing the rear bumper mounts due to light accident damage, she was brought down nearer the floor:


Then I removed the pourous primer to reveal the red respray underneath, and now she looks like this:






And it was her 50th birthday last weekend, so we made her a cake! 😀






Hope you like her. I know very little history of her - I did find some L plates and an empty box of Fosters in the back of her, so that might explain the light accident damage.... but if anyone knows her or recognises her, I'd love to know more!

Cheers

Lucy.

hehehe I've done some searching and the chap I bought her off was registered on here! I've found when he joined and put some pics up of her - shame the links are now broken! 🙁

http://forums.aussieveedubbers.com/viewtopic.php?tid=29192

Geez, I hope when I'm 50 I get a cake as good as that 😂
Car looks awesome, Well Done.
Simon

Thats pretty cool. 👍

have done well.

Cheers guys! 😀 She liked her cake very much!

In the 3yrs I've had her I've done quite a bit to her.
I've completely rewired her as when she was painted red, the wiring wasn't masked up so every wire was red - making it somewhat difficult to fault find!
I've lowered her quite a bit on a 5in narrowed adjustable beam with dropped spindles and 2 spines at the back.
When I got her the front gearbox mount was trashed - the bolts had sheered off and it was welded to the pan - so we put in new studs and a new mount. While the 'box was out I cleaned it up and painted it.
Fitted some 15in polished and detailed Radar alloy wheels.
Painted the pan and channels etc with POR-15 to protect them
Welded in new rear bumper mounts and repaired the bottom of the A pillars
Rebuilt the brakes - new shoes, lines, hubs, cylinders etc all round
New front wheel bearings
Got her semaphores working again
Fitted the correct rear lights
New king and link pins
And removed the white primer she was in to reveal the red underneath. Once I did this I sprayed her in a matt laquer to protect her.
Fitted an oatmeal carpet set
She's got new window rubbers all round and I've added pop out rear windows.
I've also added some accessories - roof rack, kosh horn grills, albert replica wing mirrorr - and a few other to be added soon!


Here's a few pics of the above:
























































And after all that, hopefully she'll be ready for the MOT test soon (our version of your roadworthy test).

If you want to see more pics, there's tonnes here:
http://s14.photobucket.com/albums/a309/Shamrockez7/Bella2/

Wow!! Bella surely is beautiful!

thank you 😀

Gday Mate,
Nice Beetle I like Her ... I also like your half Rotisserie,is that a purchased item or have you made it ????

cheers Dean...

the roll over frame? We bought that from a company here in the UK to roll our Splitty over to do the welding on him - being a UK bus he needed a lot 😉

The same can be achieved with some matresses though.

I must say - it is a pleasure to work on Bella after being used to working on UK VWs! I don't think I found one siezed bolt/nut and I wasn't worried about finding 'nasty suprises' when i removed any panels.

Have you got any details on the narrowed beam you have there? Who made it, how narrow, does it clear the body with no other mods???

Yep looks great.

Like this picture

awesome! love the look....👍

yeah looks great.. iv followed the work you've done on this somewhere else..

where might that have been.. it was on another forum..

anyway love the look good job 👍

i'm dign it,detailed raiders set it off 👍

did you make those clamps you used on the rear valance repair,interested to see how they hold the other side of the metal,can you post a few pictures of diferent angles of the clamp that would be sweet

Yes, the rear valnce panels were great looking bits..
Did you make the rear valance removeable??

it makes doing anything to the engine [including taking it out] Much much easier...

Thats an Australian made Beetle with the RHS Wipers..
it should have the made in Australia plate in the front.
although many CKD units didn't..

it looks Excellent - love the carpets and the car roller overer - would make painting the underside of the chassis with POR 15 Much easier.. lol

I really don't know How You guys handle the rust problem over there....
My car has multiple coats of stonegard - anti rust paint - spray paint - and closed cell polyurethane foam under the fenders/guards/wings to stop any stone chips... lol

Not forgetting the many coats of Fish oil before and after the paint.. lol

Lee

this was on restowagen.co.uk been following this one for a little while now, but good to see it on an aussie forum!

Cheers for the nice replys everyone 🙂

The beam is a 5in narrowed on by the Bus Station with different shock towers. It needed NO body mods - I was insistent that the beam I got wouldn't need body mods as her inner wings are as the VW God intended!

These are the clamps: http://www.frost.co.uk/item_Detail.asp?productID=8351&frostProductName=Intergrips+%28pack+of+5%29&catID=33&subCatID=&FrostCat=Welding&FrostSubcat=

Basically they work by holding a bar on the other side of the metal you're welding. I'll see if I can find one in the mess that is the garage and take some decent pics of it.

The rear valance was already removable when I got her. Naturally I've kept it that way 😉

I thought the wipers were like that on all ealy Beetles? They are on my friend's Swedish import (lhd) Beetle... altho my 71 RHD has wipers which go the other way.

We mostly handle rust by cutting it out and welding in a LOT of new metal lol. Most UK old VWs are covered in POR-15, Hammerite and then smothered in Waxoyl to keep the rust cancer away!

And yep she's on Restowagen, Volkszone etc etc 🙂

Ok since my last update on here i've taken Bella for an MOT (our version of your roadworthy test, but yearly)... she failed... 🙁 but not on too much! 😀 Mostly stupid things that were my fault - like not doing the bolts on the shocls up tight (doh). Otherwise it's just adjusting the link pins, playing with the steering and fitting the dubber bushes in the rear suspension.

Got a nice pic of her waiting:



Only a couple hours work to sort out what's wrong, but need to find the time to do it!

AWESOME!

this is so tuff mann i love it .....bella is so sexc...

Nice work, love the paint when it was rubbed back. You just can't paint that kind of look. Awesome looking ride.

Cheers fellas 🙂 nope you certainly can't paint her like this 😀 I'm not the biggest rat look fan myself, I like my cars shiny, but I have to admit that i'm really enjoying having a car I don't have to worry about scratching! Plus the 'worse' I make her look, the more people like her - ace!

Been replacing the rear suspension bushes this week as they were somewhat worn!


Drivers side done:


Old vs new:




Then we turned her round....


Started on the other side...




Old vs new:


All done - except she thought it would be fun to leak a load of gearbox fluid....

Today I decided to take Bella's engine out to change the clutch and the flywheel oil seal. The clutch has always been dodgy, so waaaay back in about April I bought a new kit.

Once the engine was oil and the clutch was out, it was obvious that it had been wearing oddly:




Once the flywheel was off, I found a lot of oil!





But looked much better once all cleaned up:



Not sure what the brown stuff is tho?

Not the most interesting update... but here we go anway lol.

I decided to replace the whole clutch assembly - including the release bearing - when I took that off I realised it was quite oily under there, so decided to replace thew gearbox seal too:


Ok, the old one didn't look that mullered to begin with - but it appears to be impossible to get them out without killing them lol.

So I fitted it, then gave the gearbox a clean up:


And as I was on a role, I thought it would be wise to fit the flywheel and clutch to the engine... flywheel went on fine, but disaster struck when tightening up the bolts which hold the clutch to the flywheel.... poo 🙁 so off it came again! In case you can't see, it's the ones at about 2o'clock and 7o'clock:


I also tried to fit the new release bearing, but it didn't go on instantly so I gave up lol.

Anyways - today I decided to give the engine bay a lick of POR-15 whilst the engine was out. I know it's 'normal' to have this body coloured, but I'd rather have it protected as I've seen people have to replace this panel, and no one's said it was fun lol.

Hi Lucy

excellent photos...

Did you change the front Engine oil seal??
[front of engine behind the flywheel]
when clutches are usually replaced the two seals are usually changed.. as its not worth the trouble to pull it apart a few months later if one leaks..

Your clutch disc had plenty of lining left..
there must have been a problem for it to wear like that...

nice brake drums...

I always replace the pins and clips that hold the brake shoes in place and the springs... plus the handbrake pin and clip...

I haven't pulled My rear torsion bar pivot rubbers off as yet
I know I have to renew them at some time... lol

cheers

LEE


http://community.webshots.com/user/vw68autobug

Hiya. Yes I've changed the flywheel seal - dunno why I haven't take a pic of it fitted lol. I think the clutch plate must have been siezed on or something to have worn like that. I was planning on changing the pins and clips etc on the brakes - but you can't get the right length ones for early brakes - hence having to reuse the old ones - thankfully they were in good condition.

The rubbers weren't the most fun job to do, to be honest - I had to pull everything together using a combination of bolts - starting from long ones and working down to get it to fit. If you need to do this - I found that the top (normal one, not D shaped) engine bolt was ideal!

I managed to get the broken bolts out of the flywheel worryingly easily after advice from Moby:


Painted the rear tinware:


Refitted the flywheel and clutch:


And fitted the firewall, engine bay seal and routed the wires so they were in the right places:

Thankfully the clutch bolts came out really easily when tapped with a screw driver - so the flywheel went back on and the new clutch was refitted - this time without breaking any bolts!




Then I put some POR-15 on the over gearbox tin:


Fitted the firewall and engine seals, and tidied up all the wiring.... went from this ('scuse the crap pic):


To this:


Bolted the rear tin on:


Finally got the release bearing on, and fitted new rear mounts:


Next I looked at the decklid. It's never shut very well, and always been a bit wobbly.... and now I know why!




Not quite sure how this happened, as the rest of the decklid is straight and rust free... odd! The other side was the same, except it has a long late pop rivited over it.

So I welded the hinge on - not the best of jobs, and I couldn't finish welding up the stress crack because it was heating up the lid and burning the paint on the outside, which I didn't really want to do - but it's now it's not all wobbly!


Then with Steve's help we refitted the decklid complete with spring which I haven't refitted since I took it off not long after I bought her, so the decklid has been held up with a broom or some string tied from the roofrack!..... however, Bella didn't want it and took a chunk out of my thumb in anger! 🙁 so we gave up for a while, then when I (stupidly) went back for more, she took another chunk! 🙁 there was some crying, things got thrown (at her), ebay was threatened.... at which point Steve came in to help and we managed to fight her and win! 😀 I'm never taking the decklid off again, and now my thumb really hurts! But still - look at how pretty it looks holding itself up!


I'm a little worried that she likes the taste of my blood... I always seem to end up bleeding when I work on her... devil car!

Anyway - she's ready for me to fit the engine back in once Steve is feeling better (man flu!). I daren't attempt this on my own - if she can eat my thumb with her decklid, I don't want to think about what she can do with an engine! :shock:

Ever since I've owned Bella, she's had 'issues' with closing her doors. They would only ever do the first click, and refuse to do the second one needed to secure them properly. Infact, it was so bad when I first got her than when I took her for a drive around the lanes where the garage was at the old house, the passenger door would actually fly open each time I selected second gear! As you can imagine, this wasn't ideal!

After a lot of faffing around with the help of friends adjusting the hinges and catches, the driver's door gave in and started to go to the second click, but the passenger door remained defiant. We could get it to go to the second click after adjusting the catch, but if you opened the door and tried again, you'd be back to square one, and unless I wanted to carry screwdrivers around with me and adjust the door each time someone got in or out, or wanted to keep it permanently locked, something needed to be done!

When trying to adjust the door we noticed that the gaps were.... well... you could see though them into the inside! And the hinges had some damage which indicated that at some point the door had swung open too far and bent the area around the hinges.

How on earth was I going to get round this? My door was too short! Tugging on it didn't make any difference, and I didn't want to get a replacement door because otherwise this door is good, and I'd never be able to match the paint on the new door!


At the bottom the gap was fine, but there was a large gap at the top:


I measured this gap at 10mm!


Here you can see the metal behind the bent hinge is creased:


And a close gap all the way down:





So I asked in tech, and Moby came to the rescue with what sounded like the scariest plan in the world - I had to trap some wood in the top hinge, then shut the door with it in there.... *gulp* this would then bend the hinges back in the right direction and pull the door closer to the B pillar.

I left it a day or so to build up some 'brave' and went out armed with my block of 20mm wood.... took off the catch on the body and took a deep breath..... closed my eyes and slammed the door.... there was a big crunch from the block of wood... or at least, I hoped it was the block of wood! Opening one eye at a time I peered at the door gap... and it was smaller! It had worked! Another couple of slams of the door and the gap was about right:


Remember this was a 10mm gap before?


That's more like it!

Gap's a little bigger at this end now, but I can live with that as the 'lesser' of 2 evils.


And for the first time since I've had her, both doors now shut to the second click! 😀

Well I've not done any work on Bella this weekend.... so she decided to go for a swim instead!


Her engine also went for a swim!






Yep - we got flooded 🙁 Bella looked a bit shocked to see this strange liquid stuff around her.... she's not seen water for at least 3.5yrs! Then she had to sit outside in the rain whilst we cleared all the flood water from the garage and saved our new kitchen which had been in there waiting for us to fit it!

I'm hoping I can save the engine - it looks like the water only got into the exhaust.

Oh dear, I haven't updated this for ages!

Here goes then - sitting comfortably?!

I recieved a new gear coupler for Bella today from Heritage and thought I'd get round to replacing it. Now I have the new clutch in, she moves nicely and doesn't slip - she can also get up the drive under her own power now 😀 But selecting 2nd is a bit hit and miss. Sometimes it goes in, but most of the time I get a horrible grinding noise.

So I went out to the garage to replace it - spent a while trying to get the carpet out of the way so I could undo the 2 13mm bolts holding the gearstick on. Then that was removed and I noted the location of the lock plate:




Then went to the coupling:


Removed the wire and undid the 2 bolts.... and that's when it all went horribly wrong! The gearbox end came off easily - no suprise as I've had the gearbox out before so I knew it would be ok. Then set to the other side of the coupling.... it was a bit stiff, so I went and found my trusty hammer to try and persuade it to come out... that didn't help....

So I cleaned it up and bit and found that a previous owner bodger had got there before me! And welded the rod to the coupling.... if you look hard enough you can see it:

My new gear shift rod thing has arrived!


Also got some new rubbers for the pedals. I've bought these before, but the garage pixies have run off with them it seems!


After trying to use a junior hacksaw for what seemed like hours on Friday, I managed to get a small indent into the rod... I couldn't really get the saw in to cut it properly, so Jim suggested I used a different type of saw, which I got today and set it to work:


After ages of sawing, I finally cut through it:


Yep it wasn't going to bend or rust away, was it?!


Looks like she's smoking a pipe lol:

Joey Bus went for his MOT retest today so I had the chance to remove the old shift rod (he was in the way before) and get the new one fitted. Steve helped me fit the new one as it's tricky to do it on your own without 'go go gadget' arms.

Anyway, got that fitted and started looking for the new selector plate that I bought at Dubfreeze...... hmmm looks a little different to the old one....




Yep, that's right - there's a chunk missing where it's worn through and there's a massive crack in it, so I could pull it apart with my fingers!

What on earth has happened to this Beetle?! First of all the gearbox was lose and moving around because the threads for the front mount had been snapped off, then the coupling was welded to the rod and now this plate!

Right, well we fitted the new shift rod, did the coupling up, fitted new shifter plate and..... only managed to get 2 gears 🙁 after asking on the tech forum, I came to the conclusion that it was the wrong year, so pulled it out to check.... you can see the obvious differences!


The original one is the one which is in 2 bits lol.

My other parts arrived on Friday - 12v semaphores and new dual circuit master cylinder. I also got a Volvo 240 reservoir.


On my way home from uni today I stopped off at Jim's (Tofufi) house to collect some grub screws for the adjusters (thanks Jim!) and then onto Dirty Dave's house to collect her original beam... those of you who've followed this thread for longer know Tom took 3.5in out of it and removed the shock towers - Dave has narrowed it another 1.5in and fitted shock towers - thanks Dave!


And with a bit of POR-15:


We mocked it up and it appears to fit like a glove! 😀

New beam is in (sorry for the terrible pic):


Hubs are on. Dual circuit is plumbed in and bled. Steering box is fitted.

Just gotta connect the track rods, brake light wiring to the mc, wheels and then fiddle about with the gear rod until we have all the gears and she's good to go! 😀

As some of you know, Bella went to her first show this weekend - Volksworld! Unfortunatly there wasn't enough time to get her MOTd and registered so we had to trailer her up with Widget. Friday morning started with Steve going to work for a few hours and then coming home with the trailer. When he got home we got Bella out of the garage and loaded up ready to go:


Once she was strapped down and Widget was loaded up, we set off up the A303 to Sandown. We made good time and arrived whilst it was still nice and light:


Got her off the trailer and gave her a quick bath to remove the spray she'd picked up from the journey. The colour of the sponge made it quite obvious that we've never washed her - it was black!


Added a bit of Poorboy's tyre shine and parked her up:


The stand was assembled on Saturday morning, with her sat next to Ben's Country Buggy - wonder if they'd ever met before back in Oz?










I think she quite enjoyed being at a show - she got lots of people stroking her paint and asking questions about her, and taking pics - which makes a change from being at home where she's shouted at and kicked!

Still got a few niggles to sort out on her. As anyone who was there when we left on Sunday may have noticed - she won't turn left! Resulting in a 300 point turn trying to get her off the club stand! She also started running quite fast for some reason at this point and wouldn't calm down.... anyway - a rather hairy ride across the showground, and we were back to the trailer:



On on our way home. Now, up to this point she'd been very well behaved, and I made the mistake of saying so! So, true to form, when we got home she decided to act up! Half way through getting her off the trailer she started running very strangely and cut out. She didn't want to start again, so we ended up having to push her up the road and into the garage. Luckily our neighbour was just getting home at the same time so he helped us push her in. I'm hoping it's just fuel related, but the weird noise she was making (as if she didn't have an exhaust) is worrying me.


Anyway - thanks to the Restowagen guys for asking us to put her on the stand, we were honoured! Thanks to everyone for their nice comments and hello to all the new people we met! And thanks to Steve for towing her there and back and putting up with us! 😀

Righty, running problems she developed coming off the trailer have been sorted!




Ooops! The rockers worked loose and 2 of the push rods had escaped. I popped them back in and tightened it all up and hey presto - one fully working engine again! 😀




Aaaand..... that's you guys up to date!

Thanks for the update mate. I saw pics of the car on a thread elsewhere - it's got a real nice stance. Great build up.

Cheers! 😁 yeah she's on quite a few forums lol

well saved, and looks like will be well enjoyed! congrats on a job well done.

Thanks 🙂 I hope I do enjoy her when I finally get her on the road. Last time I drove her, I got out shaking! I'm hoping my new steering box will fix that though!

Given the new box and steering arm a lick of paint. I found some red oxide primer and some VW Tornado Red (I think my old Polo must have been Tornado Red, otherwise I have no idea where this can of paint came from lol).



Bit of primer:


And a bit of paint:


Steve filed down the arm on the dropped spindle whilst I was painting, so I gave that a bit of primer too. Need to find where I've put the black paint now...

More tomorrow 🙂

Steering box and arm all painted up and shiny:


Cut the spike off the arm as it's not needed on a link pin Bug:


Hub has been refitted:


Steering box fitted up:


I tried to fit the shock but I noticed that the arm would hit it quite early on. So I need to redrill a hole for the top of the shock. Not a problem. So I put the steering on full lock and mocked the shock up to where it needs to be - I put it at the point where it just clears the pitman arm. Then I put some tape on it to show you guys where it would go:


Now need to get some decent drill bits methinks....

Love her dude 🙂

Surprised I haven't seen her on my old stomping ground of Volkszone. Musta missed her somehow 🙄

lol, she's had 3 threads on VZi!

Today we fitted the Mini shocks on Bella. Steve drilled some new holes in the shock tower so that the pitman arm wouldn't hit the shock on full lock. We were a bit worried about drilling through the tower because it's really thick! But with lots of grinding spray, it wasn't actually too bad!





And I fitted the new pedal rubbers I've had for ages. The brake and the accelerator ones went on easily enough, but I had to soak the one for the clutch in hot water to get it soft enough to fit!


Still, they're on now!

Earlier in the week I attempted to bleed the brakes using my new 'Eezibleed' kit... 3 cartons of brake fluid on the floor later, I admitted defeat! So a couple of days later Steve gave me a hand and it bled the brakes easily and painlessly. Much easier than the normal way, but you still need 2 people... especially if one of those people, is me! So now they're working and she's pretty much ready to have yet another go at her MOT in a couple of weeks time. I've just got to check the valves after the Volksworld incident, and get a new positive lead - as the old one looks like this:


A bit old and broken looking. Plus, it's the last bit of wiring I haven't replaced, so going to be a weak link. I'm also going to wire in a battery cut off switch as I don't trust her not to spontainiously combust or something.... hopefully I'll get that ordered tomorrow 🙂

New positive cable is now fitted. I also fitted a battery cut off switch for piece of mind as I don't trust her not to spontaniously combust!

Then I adjusted the valves after the Volksworld fiasco...


Due to the badly hacked up rear valance by a previous owner, there's always been a bit of a gap at the back of the rear tinware to the valance in some places, and no gaps in others. I couldn't fit a normal seal, so I cut down a bay one and shoe horned that in:







Not ideal, but without fitting a new rear valance, I can't see another way round it.

So then on Thursday, off we trundled to the MOT station. The brakes only seemed to work when you pumped the pedal once, so I asked the garage to give them a quick bleed, hoping that would solve it, and then MOT her. On the way there she ran fine and drove much better than previous times - new beam and new steering box have helped a lot! I also managed to get to 4th gear - something I've never done before in her! I'm pleased to say, that it exists and worked! Woo!

Here she is sat plotting outside the MOT station...


A couple of hours later, the garage rang to say there was a split in the main brake line which goes from the front of the car to the master cylinder, and back though the interior to the back brakes.... that explains the brake pumping thing then.... so back she came, and we set about the daunting task of replacing the main line....

Which actually wasn't half as hard as I'd feared! The old one was removed and the new line was fitted..


Front:


Middle:


Back:



Just need to bleed the brakes again and refit the interior. MOT rebooked for a week on Tues.

wicked looking car, love the wheels, been thinking about a set of those for a while..... they look brilliant on any style car, but the best me thinks on a slammed bug... 👍😀

Cheers fella! Go for it - they're ace wheels! They look awesome moving too!

Wow I'm impressed, alot of hard work but it's definately worth it and so rewarding. She's looking awesome!

Thank you 😀

Epic build, keep it coming. Makes a great read.

A lot has happened with Bella since I last updated this thread... here's what happened!

The news from the MOT I was preparing her for was this:
I have a lovely new list of fails - nothing major though.

Need to look at the brakes again - they work fine, but the pedal has insufficident reserve movement.... I'm gonna try bleeding them again to see if I can build up more pressure.

The seat belt top bolt has half undone itself between last time (Jan) and now. Dunno how that happened, but easy fix.

Couple of track rod ends need tightening up - easy fix.

Steering retaining device insecure..... I have no idea what this means... I'll ask Steve as he was there when it was explained. Steve seems to think it's the pitman arm to steering box bolt, so I shall have a looksie at that.

One of the rear brake hose clip things has come off - no idea how this happened! But easy fix.

Also there was brake fluid over the rear backing plates - this is most likely from when we bled them and the pipe kept falling off and the fluid went everywhere - just a clean up needed.


So nothing major. Few bolts to tighten, stuff to clean and brakes to bleed. Booked in for a week on monday.

A few weeks ago I officially admitted defeat with Bella. I'm sick of her failing MOTs and taking stuff apart over and over again - so I've booked her into the garage for them to do it instead.

In the meantime, I've been messing about with the pedals. The problems were the brake pedal - it failed the MOT on insufficient reserve movement - so I wanted to remove it and set the rush rod to factory length as the pedals have been removed in the past and I couldn't be sure if it was the right length still.

The next problem was that 'Bodger Bruce' had been working his magic on the accelerator pedal. At some point, it appears that the hinge has broken at some point, so Bruce decided to pop rivet another one on - infront of the original one. He also decided to pop rivet in a brackety thing, and a giant plate to hold that down.... he popped the bolts which hold the other end of the accelerator linkage from the passenger side tunnel in the glove box and forgot about them it seems.

So here's how it was:


You can just see the brackety thing. All this meant that you could only press the pedal down 1cm - which left you with the choice of leaving the cable normally at the carb and only getting to 1/2 throttle when you put your foot down, or pulling the cable through the carb and having 1/2 throttle at idle, and full throttle when you put your foot down. As you can imagine - not ideal.

So with the pedals removed, you can see the new hinge plate, brackety thing and plate...




Removed:


Thankfully no hidden nasties:


Painted - shiny shiny!


So new hinge fitted, new pedal, spring, everything bolted in this time, and volia:


One working accelerator pedal - got lots of lovely movement so I can get full throttle when I want to, then go down to idle at traffic lights etc.

Just got to fix the semaphores - think it's just a fuse, but haven't checked yet as the battery is on charge, before she goes up to the garage again. Hopefully this time she will come back with a shiny pass certificate!

Not getting my hopes up though, cos I know what she's like....

Semaphores fixed - it was indeed the fuse.

I've also got a new driver's seat base for Bella. The old one had dodgy runners, which meant the only place it locked into place was too far from the pedals for me to reach them, so I had to sit on the edge of the seat and hold onto the wheel for balance, or risk the seat flying backwards when I accelerated (keeping in mind she only has a 1200!), which isn't a great experiance..... plus the padding was worn so that I ended up leaning against the door all the time...

So I got a base from VW Garden in good condition. Today I set about swapping the covers over.

Before:


During - guess which is which!


And finished:



Much more comfortable - I can reach all the pedals easily and I'm not leaning on the door.

Connected her battery and started her up. New accelerator pedal is working lovely - I now have use of the choke and full range of the throttle. Much better!



A couple weeks ago she went off to the garage for tracking and MOT. They set up the brakes for me as they were unbalanced and the pedal had no reserve movement. Now her brakes feel pretty sharp and the pedal feels nice and firm. As usual in the world of Bella, she was naughty! This time she decided she didn't want to turn left. She didn't mind going right, or straight ahead, but when you turned the wheels left, one went to full lock and the other didn't:


So back home she came and I pulled the track rods apart again - the steering box wasn't quite centered, so the short rod was hitting the shock and hence not turning all the way. So a bit of fiddling later, and voila!


Much better!

I've had a couple of days off work this week, so I set about doing some 'nice' jobs on her. On Wednesday afternoon I decided to look at why she wasn't charging. The red light didn't come on, so that was the first thing I looked at. No bulb - that's why!

Now the red light is on constantly - perhaps why the bulb was missing 😉 So I looked at the wiring on the dynamo - wrong way round - oops! Once that was switched round the red light went out on starting 😀 another problem fixed!

Next I took her outside onto the drive to sit in the sun for a bit whilst I played with the carb tuning - she was idling nicely and then decided to cut out. I then decided to leave the engine for a while and look at the bonnet.

When I got her she had a random thing to hold down her bonnet:


But when I bought her back from the garage last time, I kinda forgot and it kinda got mangled! So I set about getting her bonnet to lock as it should do. I'd got some 2nd hand lock parts ages ago and they were fitted, but just needed adjustment. A few mins later the bonnet was locking properly and popping open as it should.

Ever since I've had her, the windows haven't gone up and down very well, or hardly at all. So I removed the door card off the passenger side and removed the winder mechanism:


Greased it all up and the runners and put it back together again - goes up and down nicely now! 😀 By this time I'd got bored of playing with her, so just greased the runners on the driver's side (which made that one go up and down nicely) and hopped in her to reverse her back in the garage.

Now, I should have been suspicious that everything had gone really well...... can you guess what happened next? Yep, she didn't want to start 🙄 I swapped the fuel tap over to the reserve and she still didn't want to know. So I had to wait for Steve to come home from work (she likes Steve!). He went to fetch more fuel. Still didn't start... so jumped her and she did - not suprising really considering she hasn't been charging herself.

This is a bit of a boring pic.... but here's the window wound down:



Fast forward to today. Her windscreen washer was always been a bit dodgy. One of the jets washed the screen, whilst the other washed the roof and the car behind 😂 It wouldn't click into the hole in the scuttle so the angle was all wrong, meaning you couldn't adjust it to get both jets on the screen. Today in Halfords I picked up some new washer tube and a new twin jet.

Old one:


New one:


Bolted it into the scuttle and connected the new water pipe I'd bought. Then set about getting it set up correctly so both jets hit the screen.

You can guess what's coming next, can't you? Yep - I put my arm through the window to press the button to wash the screen and got a rather wet face :o after a few minutes of faffing about with adjusting the jets and getting a wet face a few more times, I finally got them both pointing at the screen!

I was quite getting into these nice little fiddly jobs, so I thought I'd takle the under bonnet wiring. It's all a bit off a mess because my supposed RHD loom, was infact a LHD one... but I couldn't be bothered to remove it and send it back, besides I'd already altered a load of wires anyway.

So, before it looked like this:


and after:


I've still got a load of wires to shorted and tidy up, but it's getting there 🙂


So she's off again to the garage for tracking and yet another MOT attempt - fingers crossed please! Technically all the things she failed on last time have been fixed - but this is Bella!

*ahem*
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.




😀 😀 yep that's a green one - she's finally passed her MOT!!!!! 😀 😀 😀



Thanks to the guys at the garage for getting her through and letting me be there with her.

I went down this afternoon to help with her tracking. Sorry for the bad pics - I took my camera but forgot to put batterys in it, so the phone had to do:


Pretty spot on:


Then she went over to the MOT bay:


Got poked and prodded, then brake tested:



I'm very, very happy! It's not quite sunk in yet I don't think! Going to pop up to Bristol to register her this week. Knowing my luck they'll want to inspect her and the process will drag on for ages - but never mind, I've got all winter to do that.

Ok, over the last couple of weeks I've been trying to build up my confidence with Bella over a few short runs. The first time I took her out, we did about 10 miles. I was very impressed with her ride quality. I thought it might be harsh and crashy, but she's actually really comfortable and smooth! What wasn't comfortable and smooth was the engine! There was a bit of popping and backfiring and a serious lack of power in 4th, especially if there was a slight incline! So Moby advised a change of dizzy.

New dizzy arrived and I fitted it this week. On Friday I thought I'd take her down to the petrol station and pump her tyres all up to the right pressures. I got about 30 metres down the road and cough, bang, splat.... nothing.... oh goodie.... so I wandered back up to the garage and came back armed with some tools. Turns out the dizzy wasn't seated down far enough. I was trying to get it seated right (along with a man from over the road who'd come out to see if I needed help), and for about 20 mins nothing was working. No matter what position the engine was in, or how hard I pushed on it, it wouldn't go! That was, untill Steve drove up the road on his way home. He put the window down on his T5 and looked at us, and 'clunk' in it went! That will teach me to try and take her out without Steve being present. She loves Steve!

Anyway - onto today. After I finished work we took her out to take some nice piccys of her 🙂

This time she ran absolutely perfectly. No backfires, popping, or a missed beat. She pulled away out of junctions at the pace of a normal car and on the hill which I had to go down to 2nd on last time, she flew up in 4th 😀

Anyways - here's the pics:











I'm starting to build my confidence with her quite nicely now. I did another 8 or so miles in her today and go up to 55mph with plenty of 'oomph' left in the tank 🙂

I've driven Bella a few times now (and even without a support vehicle following her!) and she's running very nicely. The longest journey she's been on so far is to Taunton and back - which is about 12 miles each way. The hole for the stereo has made her quite breezy to be in - so I looked around for what I could use to fill the gap.... what better but some ratties?!


😂

Now that it's got colder and the roads are dirtier, I've tucked her up in the garage. We've managed to get her and Joey in side by side:




Which means there's lots of room to work in at the back.

And I've come to the conclusion that a new gearbox was needed. I looked around for an age related one, but couldn't find one within a reasonable distance. A 72 1300 gearbox came up locally on ebay, and I won it (thanks Opal). To fit it to Bella I need to remove the 'long' axels which are on it, and fit the 'short' ones she already has. I also need a Splitty nosecone and hockey stick, so I shall be looking for one of those. M7 list them but they don't have them in stock at the moment and don't know when they're likely to, so I'll probably have to get one from America instead.

Anyway - here is the new box:


Oil drained and axel tubes removed:


Axels out and cleaned up:


And the top half is now nice and shiny!


Gotta wait for that to dry, and then I can clean the underside up and give that a coat of paint too.




And that's up to December 2009. Hopefully I'll get time soon to remove the engine and gearbox and get the new one fitted.

Very nice!

Thanks!

Bella has mostly been sleeping since I last took her out, but on new year's day we took her and Joey out to the local classic car run near Bridgwater. It was my longest journey in her (around 40miles for the day) and the longest blast in one go. It was also her first go at the motorway. So we wrapped up warm and out we went. All was going very well - both vehicles were running perfectly and bopping along the roads nicely - till Bella found out what ice was.... que brown pants moment as her back end slid around at 40mph! Not an experiance I want to repeat tbh! Joey didn't seem to even notice the ice, so we've put it down to the extra camber Bella has and possibly the fact that she's not used to ice and he's 'grown up' with it!

Anyway - at the meet she seemed to confuse a fair few people and got to meet some fellow Dubbers too.






Anyway - I was very pleased with the way she drove (sliding aside) and she didn't have any trouble getting to 60-65mph on the motorway with more speed left in reserve. But sliding around on the ice at 40mph with one hand on the wheel and one hand on the gearstick wasn't fun - so replacement gearbox it is!

Today Steve helped me get her engine out, and I'm letting the oil drain out of the gearbox over night.





More updates on the gearbox swap when they're done!

Today Steve helped me remove the gearbox and I've started stripping it down.

Out:


I belive this is a Split nose cone, which makes things easier as I don't have to order another one:




I removed the nose cone and had a looksie at the hockey stick... new one on the right, old one on the left:




Hopefully the (lack of) bend is the reason she was difficult with the gears?

I don't know if this is normal, but the tops of the gear selectors look a bit burnt?


Anyway - onto the gearbox strip down. I know other people have covered this in pics (see Jinx's thread), but I figured the more pics the better to help anyone else who is about to do the same.

First you have to undo the bolts holding the the bearing cover and backing plate on. Make a note or take a pic of what way up it goes on and the bearing spacer behind it.


Then you're left with this:


You can now see the rear wheel bearing. You can get internal pullers for this if you're just wanting to replace the bearing, but I wanted to remove the axels so got a more widely avaliable and significantly cheaper external one (this one is from Halfords. I did get one from Toolstation but bent it getting the axels off the other box... new one is much stronger). It comes as a 3 or 2 legged puller - I found it fitted better as 2 legs.

Anyway - before you can pull the bearing off, you need to undo the bolts (13mm) holding the axel tuble to the gearbox:

Once they're undone you can fit the puller and start pulling:


You might find that as you tighten the puller, the axel spins with it - if this happens the puller won't actually do up. I placed a thin screwdriver through the holes which the split pin normally goes through to keep the hubnut on:


A bit of winding later and you should be able to pull the axel tubes off. You're then left with the axel itself. As you can see, despite me leaving the gearbox to drain overnight, it still makes quite a mess!


Then you can pull the spacer gaskets off. Make a note of how many. Then the plastic flower comes out:


The next job is to remove the circlip which holds the axel in. You can just about see it, hiding in there:


Circlip pliers (Halfords again):


And out:


Now - Steve and I spent ages on the other gearbox trying to remove the circlip - I was squeezing the pliers together and he was trying to lever it out with a screwdriver - this doesn't work! By accident when I was rotating the clirclip round so I could get it in a better position to keep hold of it, it popped out very easily. I can only assume it was because of this 'layby' in the casting:


Anyway - once that's out you can pull out the spacer behind it and then the axel will come off:

Sometimes it will come out just on it's own like above, or with the fulcrum plates and the gear behind it. Just remember what order it all came out in.


I shoved a load of tissue in the gap so that no dirt could get in, and nothing else could fall out.

Anyway - I hope that is of use to someone tackling this job. It's really not that difficult - just messy. As with all jobs, it sounds scarier than it is.


I couldn't do the otherside as I have a rounded off bolt:


Which I hope to get some inspiration for soon!

Finally got that pesky bolt out! We tried welding a bolt to it but couldn't get at a angle which enabled us to weld it strongly enough and the old bolt wasn't clean enough. So we tried cutting a slot in it and using a impact driver... that didn't work. We tried drilling it out, and that didn't work either - it took forever and kept either burning out or snapping the drill bits. So Steve cut the head off so we could remove it from the gearbox.... cut another slot in it and put it in the vice. We tried the impact driver again and that didn't work, used the angley grinder key as leverage - and it bent!

So we needed something stronger than the angle grinder key, which would fit in the slot.... hmm... what about a spade?




Yep - that worked! 😀 So if in the future you can't get a bolt out, try using a spade - it will save you a lot of time!

We then removed the old bearings. There's some kind of spacer/washer thing at the bottom, so make sure you don't lose it:


Popped the new bearing in and then heated it up:


So that we could put some 'Activ8' on it:


Which sticks to it and keeps the bearings lubricated. Bearings are normally lubricated by the gearbox oil, but on a lowered Bug, the gearbox is often lower than the hubs, so the oil can't flow down to them, as demonstrated in this old pic:




With that all done, we turned to the new gearbox. First of all we needed to remove the old nose cone gasket - which appeared to have welded itself on:


Lots of scraping later:


Luckily, whoever replaced the gearbox had fitted a Splitty nose cone, so I didn't need to source one:


Once that was on, we fitted a few bolts to secure it and bolted on the coupling so that we could 'feel' all the gears. It's important to make sure that the selectors are all at the same height before you fit the nose cone and hockey stick otherwise you won't be able to get all the gears. Always make sure you can find all the gears (inc reverse) before refitting the gearbox to the car, otherwise you might not be able to find them all once it's in, or you might have 'locked' the car into one gear..... not that we learnt from our Split and had to take the whole thing out and correct it... honest!

More to come next weekend.

I haven't done all that much on Bella lately. I've been very busy with work and we've had Joey to get ready for his MOT, which he passed 1st time on Tuesday without a single advisory! Just wish Bella behaved as well as he did!

Anyway - we've got the new gearbox in. We refitted the axels and axel tubes, new starter motor bush so she can still have a 6v starter. Bolted the starter in, and refitted the gearbox....

Removed gearbox again because we'd put the outer axel tubes on the wrong sides... :o swapped round and back in again!


Tubes on the right sides this time:


Bolted back onto the springplate and bearing refitted (make sure you don't forget the spacer behind the bearing):




That's where we're up to at the moment. Might get a few mins on her tonight, but I'm working till 4 so I'll see how I feel.


The clock is ticking down to CTTP and I want her to actually get there this year!


Last week Bella actually make it to her first show under her own steam! 😀 We took her to CTTP. She tried her best not to get there - the day before she was leaking gearbox oil like it was going out of fashion. I fell out with her trying to change a boot and change the oil.... getting gearbox oil up your nose and in your eyes isn't fun! Steve ended up having to finish the job for me because I lost my temper with her.

Anyway - the next day she seemed to be feeling sorry for being so naughty the day before. Give her her due, she ran perfectly there and back. It was the longest journey I'd ever done in her (only 36 miles in one go, but it's double what I'd done in her before). She idled perfectly, didn't cough or splutter and pulled nicely along the A roads and motorway 🙂

Anyway - the show started at the cruise meeting point.... in the background you can see what's become her 'shadow' - Steve's T5, being the support vehicle... (we may have some trust issues with her...).




Then on the DBS stand at the Beach Lawns at Weston:


Somehow we managed to fall down a hidden pot hole in the grass just before we lined up - made a rather scary bang noise... but nothing appears to have fallen off, so I'm guessing all is ok!

Today Jim (Tofufi) and Will (Enfo) came over to help me with Bella - thanks guys, much appreciated! 😀

Since I'd done the gearbox swap, there has been oil leaking out. We've managed to reduce it, but not get rid of it completely.

This is what leaked over night:


And after a week:


House training Bella wasn't going well, so I thought I'd chuck her in the kitty litter:


But that didn't work either.... so it was time to pull the engine and gearbox again...

Should have been a simple job, as it had only all been back in a month or 2, but no, this is Bella! She wouldn't let me have her rear passenger side wheel... one of the bolts was spinning! Oh goodie....

Steve and I tried drilling it out and grinding it down, but wheel nuts are reasonably tough, so this wasn't really working very fast.

When Jim and Will came over I continued with the drilling whilst Jim and Will took the rear valance off and the engine out. Then Jim did some drilling, and then Willl did some drilling. We gave up with the drill at this point as the drill bits were going blunt really quickly and progress was slow. Will then removed the other wheel bolts and pulled on the wheel a bit which somehow managed to make the spinning wheel bolt grip, and he could undo it with mole grips 😀

Once the wheel was off, everything else came out with no problems and the gearbox was soon free.

There was nothing obvious to tell us why it was leaking though 🙁 so we cleaned up the surfaces between where the axels come from the gearbox (as this is where it was leaking) and made sure there was no paint where the gaskets go. At this point Jim and Will had to leave, so I continued with the gaskets. For some reason, the gasket kit didn't come with enough gaskets 🙄 so I've done one side and need to order another kit for the other side.

Some pics:




And this is why the wheel bolt was spinning. On the left is a bolt from Machine 7. The one in the middle is MWS and the one on the right is the broken one. As you can see, the MWS bolts don't have thread all the way to the top, so if you do them up slightly too much, they strip the hub as the thread tries to 'tap' the solid metal at the top of the bolt.


I'll order another new gasket set and hopefully get the rest of it done this week.

Today I've been bolting the gearbox all in properly as there's been no more leaks 😀

Steve helped me bleed the brakes and set the play in the clutch pedal, but we didn't have the time or enthusiasm to fit the engine, so that will be tomorrow's job.

I've also fitted wheel studs to the rear hubs (I'll do the fronts too) as I don't want another cross threaded bolt! This makes fitting the wheels so much easier.

Decided to get Bella running and take her for a test drive today. Got the rear valance on, turned the reserve tap round so fuel could get in, and turned the key - the engine turned over but didn't fire. Must have missed something.... engine lid up - ah, yep, didn't connect the oil wire or one to the coil.

Tried to start the engine again, and nothing.... lights came on but no attempt to start. Went round to the engine bay to find smoke pouring out - oh crap!!! Disconnected battery and opened the engine bay to our Splitty and found I'd connected the coil wire to the wrong connector.... ooops! Back on the right place and she started instantly - yay!

Did a quick test drive and she drove pretty well. Got a bit of a juddering problem when braking (which I had before I did the gearbox work). Pretty sure it's coming from the front brakes as I tried pulling the handbrake up gently on a back road and she slowed down without any juddering.

I need to take the front wheels off to fit the wheel studs, so I'll see if I can see if there's anything obviously wrong with them.






Last weekend I took Bella to the Retro Rides Gathering at Haynes. It was the first time I'd taken her out on my own without Steve shadowing me in a support vehicle as he had to work 🙁 got there ok, she ran fine but was slow starting - when I got her out of the garage.

Got to the show, parked up and went to find people I knew. Found Jim and Purple Pete and moved Bella over to the Wilts Dub Club stand to make up the numbers a bit - she started slowly (and noisly... like a grumbly bearing like noise) so when I parked up I asked Pete, Jim and anyone else who was around to have a listen.... turned the key and 'click'..... oh goodie..... jump pack out - still just a click, added Pete's jump pack, and still just a click. Battery ruled out, so Pete got his jack and hammer out and beat the starter and eventually the engine turned over - still slowly and grumbly. When I came to leave a load of fellow VZIers helped me push start her, and off I set.

As soon as I got out of the gates I noticed that the semaphores weren't working, which meant the brake lights weren't either.... pulled over to find the fuse had gone, and all the spare fuses I could find in the bonnet were also blown. So back to the show to see if Jim or Pete had any fuses and found more in the glove box whilst trying to find my pass to get back in! Fitted that and then got home without any added drama.

So, once I got home we let her cool down and then Steve helped me to take the starter out. No obvious signs of brokeness, but there was obviously something wrong. We found our spare 6v starter out of the shed which we originally bought for the Splitty. We'd had it since 2004 and never fitted it so didn't know if it worked or not. Fitted that the next night and she wizzed into life. The new starter makes a much healthier noise than the old one ever did, so we're thinking that we were lucky that it didn't die significantly earlier than it did!


Fast forward to today and we set off in Bella for Dubs At The Beach down in Paignton. This was to be the longest Journey Bella had ever done - around 65 miles each way. Steve came with me (another 1st as he's normally following!) and off we went down the M5:


She was running lovely, at an estimated speed of around 60mph most of the way down. The only bit she didn't like was Telegraph Hill just below Exeter - but I don't think many cars particually like that much!

Got to the show:




Had a nice time at the show and set off home. Again she was very well behaved. We stopped off where Steve works on the way home as he had to do some work, and I took some piccys of her:






🙂

Righty - sorry for all the posts all at once! But that should be all up to date now 🙂 Hopefully it still makes sense as I copied and pasted it from another forum.

Love this car man. Same shape as my 57. Such a great look with that paint. Interesting reading about all your hiccups too. Lots of things for me too look forward too :P

There have been very many hiccups! It's strange - we have an original UK Splitty which needed literally everything doing to him - bottom 9inches of metal replacing, all bolt on panels, wiring, engine, gearbox, interior, suspension etc etc - he was our first project and we knew nothing before doing him. Yet somehow, Bella took a lot, lot longer to do, and we had many more problems with her - doesn't make sense! On paper, she was the easiest project in the world!

Haha ... man how could you not be persistent and patient when you uncover a gem like this. I can imagine the look on your face when you stood back and looked at the rubbed back red and realized how cool it looked.. 🙂

Hey I saw you sanded Bella back to Red and then laid a clear coat of lacquer over the top. How has that held up ? Would you recommend it for someone planning on protecting their patina ?

Ben.

EXCELLENT WORK LUCY..

Very interesting photos too..

keep up the great work..

LEE

benjicon wrote:Haha ... man how could you not be persistent and patient when you uncover a gem like this. I can imagine the look on your face when you stood back and looked at the rubbed back red and realized how cool it looked.. 🙂

Hey I saw you sanded Bella back to Red and then laid a clear coat of lacquer over the top. How has that held up ? Would you recommend it for someone planning on protecting their patina ?

Ben.

Personally I'm not that big a fan of rat look etc - I prefer my cars to be nice and shiny! But I must admit, it's a really easy car to take to a show - don't need to wash her, polish her, smarten her up etc... and it doesn't matter if she gets scratched in the garage! I certainly like the advantages!

The laquer is excellent - she's not deteriorated and when she gets wet, the water just beads off nicely. As it's matt laquer, it's not obvious that she's got anything on her, which is what I wanted to achieve - I don't like it when people put normal laquer on and the old paint comes out all shiny. A lot of people over here put 'ankor wax' on their cars (I don't know if you have it over there?) which does the same job, but can be a pain for causing reactions in the paint if you ever want to respray it.

68AutoBug wrote:EXCELLENT WORK LUCY..

Very interesting photos too..

keep up the great work..

LEE

Thanks 🙂

This car is perfect.

You might want to source sealed wheel bearings if you plan on longer journeys as your grease may run out and cause bearing failure. Looks great.