OK, Noob here and recently a VW beetle owner...well the wife is but I get to do the "great stuff" required. Very much a novice when it comes to cars and tinkering....anyways....

The VW beetle we have just purchased is a 68 model that has a 1600 in it. The whole car is pretty pimped as we bought it off a young guy.

I just changed the plugs which is a bit of a pain as the engine bay has like a chrome liner in it and makes it difficult to get the plugs but got there in the end. The ones in it seemed pretty damn old.

Adjusted the points as they seemed to closed.

My questions are: what kind of fuel economy should you get from one of these buggers?

On the distributor, there is no vacum advance unit, at lease not like in the manual I have. There is a small attachment on the back of the distributor, could that be it?

I seem to remember long ago that VW beetles have a reserve tank, is that right and if so, where is the switch, how much fuel does it hold etc?

I will have many more questions as time goes on and I thank you all in advance for your patience and assistance.

Rock on...

looks like a 009 dizzy and if its tuned ok fuel economy should be good like evberything the flatter the foot the less saving on fuel
good luck and welcome

http://shop.ebay.com.au/merchant/redbike1000 

Thanks but I already have a manual by Scientific Publications.

If the figures were recorded correctly, the VW done 170 mile and used 30 litres of fuel. By my calcs that is aout 56 kms per 10 litres which aint to good. Hopefully will it get a little better now that i have tuned it a little better.

So the 009 dizzy does not have the vacum advance unit?

Nope no vacume advance unit on that. The fuel tank should hold 40 litres, no reserve tank. I think I get about 25mpg so you can do you calcualtions to see how that compares to yours

Is "Tumbi Umbi" Tumberrumba or a completly different place? I got some mates in Tumber.

Have you got any more pics of the new addition ?

The best manual/information book on the VW is Keep Your VW Alive For The Compleat Idiot,you will be surprised by the amount of useful information it contains. Good luck

that bug was on ebay for quiet a while
good to see its finally found a good owner
i think most ppl were turned off by his attempts to rice it up

stock 1600 should get u around the 10km/L mark driven to everyone elses speed around town
12km/L if u drive sensibly
so yea carb probably needs a good going over

Gday mate,

Economy should be better than that.
Yours definitely has no "reserve tank". Just 40 litres as Simon said (hehe).
After a proper tune up you should see an improvement.
The small piece on your distributor sounds like the condensor. Should be changed if the points are changed. A vacuum advance is the size of a rather large rice cracker!

The "Idiot's Guide" is very handy and you can pretty much repair anything on your Beetle if you follow what the guy says.
Also, change the oil and fit a new oil screen if you haven't already. Castrol GTX2 will be fine if you don't have a preference.

I hope you come to love your VW for it's quirks and charms...

Cheers, Toby

Answers:

Tumbi Umbi is on the Central Coast NSW. Never heard of Tumberrumba

I have a heap of other pics. The guy that sold it to us gave us a disc with pics on the restoration. He was a really nice guy and seemed very genuine. Check it out on ebay: http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT... Not sure how much longer the pics will be there though.

It was on ebay for a while and to be honest we were not really interested in having a look as it seemed a bit pricey. After looking at a few others we realised that to get anything decent, we would have to pay a little more. We did not pay as much as he wanted on ebay but I think we both got a decent deal.

I will need to look out for the idiots guide. Would suit me down to the ground.

OH - one other thing (for the moment) the fuel gauge doe not work to well, seems it likes to show empty when it is not, is that fixable or is that an added feature of the beetle?

Easy to find, just look on Ebay (expand your search world-wide, not just in Australia) for 'volkswagen alive' and they will come up, such as:

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/How-to-Keep-Your-Volkswagen-Alive_W0QQitemZ13026752860...

For your fuel economy, to work it out it's LITRES divided by MILES (as you don't have a metric speedo), times 62. This gives your answer in L/100 km, the Australian standard. 1600 Beetles generally get between 10 and 11 L/100 km around town, and a bit better - 8 to 10 - on the highway.

The link still works John pretty jazzed up inside I like it !

Is your wife happy with it ? Cos you know thats all that matters

I got my girl from Ebay, put in a bid then had a look and then went yep,
at the time ( I had been looking for ages ) she was value for money for what was around.
I also never gave the seller what she wanted....

My girl is nothing special but special to me

Hope you both have lots of fun with your car does she have a name yet ?

are those seats hard to get in and out of????
You may want to join a club . try Club Veedub Sydney. http://www.clubvw.org.au/ 
i even think some of the club guys may have that book as some of them sell stuff at swap meets.

ps you should get a weightbridge ticket to see how much extra weight that bling has added as i think they only weight about 720kg thats why they were good on fuel,

Wildfire - yes she does have a name - Ruby. the wife is very happy with it. Once we get it running nice and smooth she will be very happy. I quite like it to. Although small and compact i do like old cars and this is older than the HT I am selling to accomodate this one. Hopefully it will last for many years.


I hear ya Ian. The bling is not metal though....just looks like it. As for the seats they were hard to get in and out of so they have been removed and the other seats put in. I am going to sell those racing seats on ebay. Know anyone that might be interested?