This is "Olivia", my 11/71 Super Beetle:





I spent a few months looking for a good $5k project/hobby/weekend car and while I cast the net far and wide, as I was keen on something older and fairly simple which was both big enough to fit me inside and small enough to fit in the spare side of my garage, old VWs kept coming up in my search. So in late March I bought this particular example which is generally in good order but needing a small amount of TLC - just perfect for what I wanted to do. It's actually the first car I've owned that isn't a Holden

To date I've brought the paint back from borderline chalky to nice and shiny with a good polish and wax, managed to get most (but not all) of the surface rust off the bumpers, and replaced a rusty and noisy muffler with a new one including neat looking chrome tips.

Most recently I've been attacking underbody surface rust, so we've gone from this...



...via some wire brush, rust converter and KBS Rust Seal work to this:



Which brings us neatly up to date. I have a long list of minor jobs to do so looking forward to getting stuck in and of course driving it around

Very nice! It puts the VE to shame congrats on your bug. It's coming along nicely

g'day and welcome

Nice looking beetle
Should provide you with hours of fun

Hi

Nice bug, al foil and WD40 bring bumpers up nice.

Steve

Quote:

Originally posted by Isola Very nice! It puts the VE to shame congrats on your bug. It's coming along nicely

Hi

Just use the al foil as a scrubber and the WD 40 as a lube, I use Gibbs Brand which is similar to WD 40.

The headlight rings on my sons bug started to rust and this brought them up really good.

Steve

Thanks, will give that a go.

Passed its ACT rego inspection this afternoon - so ready for new number plates. Hooray!

Nice ride and I sprayed aluminium heat paint on the inside of my bumpers and yep the wd40 is a goer

Yep silver on the inside is the plan for my bumpers too

Some progress. Incremental, but progress all the same. One of the things I was keen to do was take it to a car show or two, and with German Autofest coming up here in Canberra on 22 September I'd better get cracking. I need to clean up and straighten the bumpers, and repaint some of the black bits on it which are starting to chip and peel. Went to get some supplies and was trying to decide which dolly I needed when I saw a kit with three hammers and four dollies for $36 - quality isn't top notch but it'll do.

Again with this car, if something is held on with say 3 bolts, 3 different sized spanners will be required. The front bumper was a combination of 12, 13 and 14mm. And whoever had it off previously had sheared off one of the bolts, which was enough to prevent bumper removal with every other bolt undone. The last bolt on the passenger side also retains the horn, and its enough to not be able to get a ratchet in there. Anyway, off it came in the end.



Rear was more difficult. I broke the first bolt I tried to undo, and the other two wouldn't budge. Not wanting to break off all three and have a real problem, I separated the bumper from the mounting bracket instead. Not ideal as I want to paint the brackets, so that will need to be worked out. Surprisingly, the other side undid easily and here we are:





Started on the clean-up of the bumpers. Basically they need a couple of dents beaten out, some surface rust removed, and a repaint of the inner surface which isn't chromed (my bumpers appear to be cheap Brazilian knockoffs, not genuine VW items). If I can't make them look decent then another set of cheap knockoffs is about $340 for the pair and will no doubt outlive my ownership of the car so I'm not too worried about ruining these ones through amateur incompetence.

I don't recommend the plastic saw horses by the way, which saw the bumpers hit the grass a couple of times. Still, in the absence of a proper panel stand or a workbench that isn't actually a repurposed desk, that's what I've got.

(I suspect also that the people across the street wondered what the go was with the dulcet sounds of home panelbeating wafting across suburbia on a Sunday morning, but they'll live).



We'll see whether these can be salvaged, but anything I do has got to be an improvement on this. Plan is to get that rust out of there and spray the inside silver. The mounting brackets will be resprayed black. The brackets separated from the bumpers easily enough, but I still have one of the mounting brackets stuck fast on the car; got one of the two bolts out but there is one that just isn't moving - need to get some penetrating oil and try that, I'm still on WD40 at the moment. Problem is that if I break another bolt, there will only be one bolt holding the bumper on that side of the car...



I tried the WD40 and aluminium foil idea. (This is the before shot). Yeah, kinda works, but no better than metal polish which I used to clean the top side of the bumpers not long after I got the car home.



I didn't get a before shot of the kinks in the front bumper which I successfully managed to hammer out (although you may be able to see them in the earlier photos) - damage was consistent with someone nudging the front corner of the car into something. I need to deal with the smaller dents as above, which look like being harder work (especially without a proper stand or work surface to use for hammer and dollying). Then I need to replace that black tape, which as far as I can tell is just electrical tape or something very much like it.

Separately, I mentioned on another forum I'm a member of that I get out of this car and I don't feel right - a bit agitated, like a sensory overload. I don't know if its the noise (I can't do nightclubs because the noise and lights and people are all a bit much), or that I'm not relaxed driving it (thanks to other drivers and being vulnerable), or maybe there's fumes getting in (windows always open for this reason) but 10-15 minutes at a time is about it before I want to get out of it. In the midst of all the discussion on this point, someone suggested to me that apart from having to be more switched on all the time than you do in a modern car, I might have an issue with fumes getting into the cabin somewhere. This, I thought, warranted investigation.

If I'm looking at this system the right way, I think I have some answers:



Looking at the exploded view above, as I understand it the way the heater system works is that fresh air comes in through pipe J, passes through those egg-shaped extensions on the muffler (which envelop the exhaust outlets for the rearmost pair of cylinders), through where clamp E is located, through blue heat exhanger B, and then heads towards the cabin, now warm, through pipe A.

On my car, the area around clamp E actually looks like the exploded view:





That's the driver's side where there is no connection at all between the two parts of the system and an air gap of 2-3cm betwen the parts. On the passenger side, the two halves are touching but not correctly aligned so there's an overlap of about 1-1.5cm. That's a new muffler so I'm not very impressed with that being the case.

If I've understood this system correctly, this may mean that what I've actually got is a couple of pipes which are directly transmitting engine noise, and possibly fumes, into the cabin. It's kind of like those recent cars which have the pipe through the firewall to pipe in engine sound, but bad.

What I'm not yet clear on is what the story is with the ventilation system when you don't want heat, so it could be that keeping the heater valve closed deals with the problem, but my next step might be to try and block off those pipes at the engine end and see if there's any difference.

Plausible?

More progress on repainting things:

you are better off getting the heating system working properly

When the heat is off the air is waited at "B"

The problem will also be the rubbish joints at "F"

If they are leaking (and they WILL be) then there is a venturi effect that sucks the exhaust into the heater system and into the car.

Best answer is to flange "F" and connect all the other pipes as normal

Thanks, I'll go back and have another look at those joints.

On another note, got the cold start system partially working properly this weekend - the stepped cam wasn't lining up properly with the pin which was part of the problem; but it seems like there's something wrong with the mechanism that triggers it in the first place.

have a look here

http://www.vw-resource.com/ 

There is a lot of things that could be binding or mucked up on a carb

Work proceeds on making this car presentable for German Auto Display on the 22nd. Some new parts arrived:



Not that happy with the repainting results I'm getting so far though. Here's an example:



Will redo tomorrow and see how I go. I could just take it somewhere for painting but I'd prefer the satisfaction of doing it myself.

Hi

That looks like fish eyes caused by silicone on the surface, better prep is needed.

See you in Canberra.

Steve

Yep, have had the same answer in a few places now - looks like bad prep was my problem. I'll do them again tomorrow, properly this time!

Second attempt with the black paint:





Better but I'm not happy yet. Had some problems with runs this time. Worked out a better technique halfway through but by then I'd already messed it up a bit. I'll see how they look tomorrow and see if some polishing will help, but at the moment I'm thinking of having a third go at it if I have time between now and the 22nd. (My wife thinks hey look fine, but the best I can say is that they're better than when I bought it).

Inside of the bumpers went well though:



Unfortunately this badge broke while I was wiping off the grease and wax remover (yeah, I can't explain it either):



But fixed easily enough, and it felt like progress to be putting something back on the car rather than removing it!



To do before the show: finish polishing bumpers and replace black tape bumper trim, and reattach everything I've repainted. Needs an oil change and fan belt replacement soon but that can wait a few more weeks.

Hi

Looking a bit better, black bits go well with that colour, have you thought about painting the chrome strips? Or you can remove the clips and put a 1/4 black pinstripe to cover the holes.

Steve

Hey Marco, Your car looks great. Nice work. We have the same model in the same colour and are also in Canberra. Ours is much more of a project though (normal rust, dead motor etc). Seeing yours is inspiring. Hopefully we can get along to the car show on the 22nd and see yours in person and maybe even have a chat.
Cheers,
James

I'm going to have one final attempt at the headlight and indicator trims this weekend, otherwise they'll go on as is - show is next weekend so I'm out of time.

Meanwhile, the bumpers are just about done. Managed to beat out some parking dents so they're almost straight, and they're about as shiny as they're going to get - the rear is too rusty to be fully resurrected but they will do for the moment.

So because it's Friday night and I'm a party animal, I'm retrimming the bumpers (with, yes, electrical tape)...



I don't really have the patience or the precision for this sort of thing, but it turned out well:



They can go back on the car tomorrow and then we're nearly done for the time being

Anyway, close to finishing this today but not quite there. I had hoped to actually take it out for a drive but that didn't quite work out. Read on for a Tale of Woe...ish.

But first: I had this Matchbox Beetle when I was a kid and it turned up disassembled a few years back; my Mum's hobby, nay, mission in life is throwing stuff out that you want to keep, so some of the disassembled bits are gone but I found a use for what was left:



But enough of that. Started out well enough with the bumpers reattached to their brackets, but had to enlarge one of the holes in the bumper as it seems my home bumper straightening caused the holes to no longer line up. (In hindsight I needed to bend the bumper back to its original shape - I merely hammered the kinked area flat). Still, so far so good:



The horn attaches to one of the front brackets and I'd left it dangling in place by its wiring; it fell off with a slightly alarming thud when I was moving the car around last week. Reattached and reconnected it and...no sound.

Swapped the connectors around in case it made a difference. Still no sound. Pondered whether I should have disconnected the battery first. Further pondered whether a car battery has enough voltage to harm you. This is ponderous, man. Really ponderous. (Ten internets to you if you know the reference).

Made sure everything was attached properly, swapped sides again, peered intently at the horn in case some obvious problem jumped out at me (optimistic, I grant you, given I don't know how it works...) - not a peep. Or, should I say, not a beep.

Hmm. Irritation level going up several notches. Decide not an essential component for a quick drive this arvo. Move on.

When I was taking the indicator bulbs out last week, this happened:



Because I'm an idiot, I assumed that it would either be a screw or bayonet bulb and twisted. In fact it was a bayonet bulb, but not inserted properly so they came out very easily when I merely...pulled straight up :facepalm: On the upside, I now have a set of six nice new pliers that I bought to extract the broken bit. (This project is proving great for acquiring new tools and learning new ways to use existing ones).

But now the new orange bulbs won't go in. Why not? I put on my most serious "inspecting things" face and compare and contrast the two bulbs like a HSC essay. The pins on the new bulb are in the ten to two rather than quarter to three position. Thats novel. Well there's nothing for it, one of those pins will have to go. I've never filed a lightbulb before today...but it worked. (Is that likely to be harmful? I can't see why it would be).

New clear indicators look good, I reckon:



It looks like the headlights are done in that pic too but...they're not.

The backstory is that I'm not mechanically minded, and I struggle with fiddly jobs especially - my fingers just aren't that agile. I knew when I took the headlights out that I'd have trouble getting them back together, and I was right. The shop manual isn't much help ("reassembly is the reverse of the disassembly procedure" when the disassembly procedure is only scantly explained reminds me of Year 11 maths, where you had an x and a y and some numbers, something you didn't understand happened but apparently everyone else got it, and the answer was 42) and by this point I was rushing to get finished, like an American Hotrod episode where the unveiling is tomorrow and the car's only just come back from the paint shop and Gabe needs half a day to do the interior. I could feel my inner Duane coming out.

Damned if I could get them back together. I can get the trim ring to hold the glass in place so it doesn't fall out, but the light assembly isn't otherwise held down in any way. I've obviously done something wrong. But by this point the neighbour's cat, and possibly their kids, have expanded the profanity section of their vocabulary, and suddenly I'm channeling my father, who is a bit of a tool chucker when frustrated. Memories of hunting around in a garden bed looking for a thrown screwdriver after an unsuccessful lightbulb change in his VP come back to me. It's now 5:45, it's getting dark, I don't want to also have to go looking for a Philips head amongst the springtime blooms...I give up.

Grumpy and frustrated, I briefly consider leaving the Beetle outside just to spite it, but drive it in anyway. Out of sheer, unbridled optimism I try the horn again.

"Beep" comes the cheerful response.

Well, at least that's something. Maybe the horn only works with the ignition on?

I'll try the headlights again tomorrow. I think now i can visualise what is needed to hold the glass in place, now that I'm past the point of attempting distance records for tools. There's a slim possibility that someone, somewhere, has done this job before on one of the other 21,529,463 Beetles built since 1938 too, I suspect...

Quote:

Originally posted by Marco_VESS But first: I had this Matchbox Beetle when I was a kid and it turned up disassembled a few years back; my Mum's hobby, nay, mission in life is throwing stuff out that you want to keep, so some of the disassembled bits are gone but I found a use for what was left:

Maybe the horn only works with the ignition on?

correct

Quote:

Originally posted by Marco_VESS but the light assembly isn't otherwise held down in any way.