Gwendolyn is a 1974 L Bug.

She was rescued from a car lot at Revesby in November 2007.

As you will note from the photos from the lot she is pretty stock standard and shows her 34 years in places.

When I got her she was running on two cylinders and the clutch was more than on the way out.

Unfortunately her master (Craig) doesn’t know anything about mechanics or restoring (I’m an office worker), so she’s going to have to put up with the mistakes I’ll make!

I got her for two reasons:
1. So I could learn about the wonderful world of mechanics and restoring
2. So I could participate in low level club motorsport events.

My aim is for her to eventually be a bit of a sleeper, neat and clean exterior and interior, but packing as much horsepower as I can afford under the lid. I should mention that I’m in no rush, and expect this to be a long and continuing process (but who on this site couldn’t say the same thing!).

There was a bit of delay in progress on Gwendolyn because I live in Blacktown and not long after she was brought home our asbestos garage roof got smashed to pieces by hail, so it was a no go zone until that was all sorted.

So far it’s just the little things that have been done, new tail lights, indicators, ripping out the interior etc.

She’s just come back from visiting my new friends at Klaacks, where she got her pink slip and a new competition clutch.

Obviously there are all sorts of grand plans and I’ll be posting plenty of questions when the money tree grows enough leaves to make further progress.

But first things on my list are:
- Rear sway bar from whiteline
- New rear shocks
- Gene Berg shifter

Meantime any obvious performance / handling improvement suggestions you can make would be very welcome.

Cheers

Craig

one more photo, showing the glorious interior

Hello G M. Nice to have you on board. I have same as yours but red. Liverpool area. Novice also but being on here you`ll get to know a lot of what not / what to do. Like the idea of a sleeper. Just did front shockies on mine. Big difference. Ok. See you around here. cheers

nice looking ride happy dubbing

noice..
there is also another aptly name car on here n its a notch back from tazwedgia..
h

Welcome to the world of Supers
GREAT cars
A little bit of work on the suspension and you will have a wonderful car.

Check out these two sites
http://www.superbeetlesonly.com/ 
http://www.superbeetles.com/welcome.htm 
LOTS of info there

Slow down before you go putting sway bars on
A set of Type 3 rear torsions, KYBs on the rear, either lowered struts or at least new inserts and a poly kit through the front and your Super will be on rails

If you want to go motor sport DEFINITELY have a chat to Richard at V Force - LOVES his Supers. http://www.beetleracing.com/ 
Has all the bits and knowledge to get a Super super

Snotty (1302) came 13th in a field of 54 cars at a Porsche track day

Here is Snotty
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFYB56f_fE4 

Hi guys,

Forgot to say why she's called Gwendolyn, it because her number plate starts with GW, and a friend of mine insists that cars be named based on the numberplate, with no cheating by ordering special plates!!!

Took her out this afternoon for a bit of dirt practice, and the old girl behaved very nicely. She does have a tendancy to want to find Reverse when you're looking for second, but that's driver error to a large degree.

The urgent need is for new seats and some seatbelts that haven't stretched beyond all usefullness (as well as new shocks).

Cheers

Quote:

Originally posted by Gwendolyns Master She does have a tendancy to want to find Reverse when you're looking for second, but that's driver error to a large degree.

Got a set of Sachs for mine. Also a quickshifter & bushes to fit in this week . About $50 for the bushes and $80 for the shifter. Didn`t want too fancy a one. (Not like a Hurst will make it go any faster !! haha).

enjoyed that bit of "private road testing" GM. you've almost got the hang of that handbrake.

Decided I should dredge up this old thread, and keep one build thread, rather than many.

In some ways the old thread is a bit embarrasing because so much has changed in my thinking and what I want to do with her.

Since I bought Gwendolyn a few years ago there have been some long periods where not much has happened, and for the last little while it has been all about saving money to do stuff.

In the meantime she still gets driven every week (usually to and from work) and at various times when my (or my wife's) boring daily drivers have failed us, she has been pressed into periods of daily driverdom.

In terms of things that have been done:

CSP shifter:

http://forums.aussieveedubbers.com/viewtopic.php?tid=72356&page=1#pid675596 

Plastic dash cover (not the world's greatest success):

http://forums.aussieveedubbers.com/viewtopic.php?tid=72373&page=1#pid675505 

It also has some seats from a Proton Satria in it which are better than the standard vinyl worn out ones that were in it, but also not that flash.

Apart from that a lot of rust has gone to meet its maker and a few other bibs and bobs sorted out (inertia reel front seat belts for instance).

But now, having saved some bickies, it's time for a sudden spurt of action before returning to my shell to save more money.

I have been talking with Brendon out at Production Automotive at Penrith, and Richard at VForce, and hopefully over the next month or two the suspension and brakes should be sorted, along with some new seats, new steering wheel and inertia reel seatbelts for the back seat to keep the kids safer.

To that end, I bought Gwendolyn a present today, a photo of which is below.

I always thought that Gwendolyn would end up looking something like Joel or Steve's Bug, but in the end the wheels will be like one of Marty's incarnations.

They are 2 x 16x6 and 2 x 16x7

Richard reckons they'll fit perfectly under an L bug, and who am I to argue!!!

The place that was selling them was a specialist Porsche place doing race prep. I had to stop myself from drooling, and the work shop was absolutely immaculate. It was quite something ducking beneath cars up on hoists worth more than my house

http://www.prtechnology.com.au/ 

Anyway, that's all for now. Hopefully over the next few months there'll be more to report and some photos of Gwendolyn's altitude adjustment.

Cheers
Craig

I like those wheels

So do I!!

There was a tidy 75L on them at actionday on sunday

As much as I love twists its good to see something different

Thanks guys, the look is growing on me.

BTW Does anyone have any leads for finding a space saver spare wheel?

Drawn a blank on ebay so far.

I took me a while to find one on ebay at a reasonable price, have patience they do pop up. I ended up getting an alloy space saver from a 928, I just leave it pumped up and it just fits in the spare well.

Great to see you've rekindled the passion and have some really solid plans. Can't wait to watch Gwendolyn evolve.

Wheels look great by the way ... but you already knew that

Kris.

Great choice of wheels

There is a bloke that gets to the swap meets that always has them
Boris's picnic day is coming up and I will be amazed if he isnt there
He is the bloke with the 3 legged dog

Otherwise - just keep watching ebay

Exotic and the like are 3 times the price

What tyres you going to run

Thanks guys,

I'll have to make it to Boris' picnic day and try my luck, and keep scouring ebay. Saw one space saver on one of those sites Ian put up and it was only $50 shy of what is spent on the four wheels

Damien, is that Volksbahn at Pendle Hill? I sent my wife there today to buy some stuff.

In terms of tyres they came with the following already attached:
Silverstone FTZ Sport
2x225/50/ZR16
2x205/55/ZR16

The tread is still good on them so unless there is a compelling reason, I'll stick with them for the time being.

There is a problem with the photos Joel posted, it's too high up I think I'll need to go lower.

Price came in to do all the brakes today, and whilst it is about what I expected, and more than reasonable for what would be done, the total for all work is now well outside what I've saved to date, which means either I have to delay for a few months to increase the savings or I'm about to have to do some significant grovelling. Working in my favour are three things:
* It's cheaper than buying a new car.
* It's for brakes, which are a safety feature, and I take the children in the car regularly
* We have friends who own boats, so anything I do looks comparitively cheap

Wish me luck with my beloved

Craig

2x225/50/ZR16
2x205/55/ZR16

That is what I am running

They will fit fine

The "only" things you nrrd to do is either "dome" the front Porsche caps or fit a 2mm spacer (I have some if you want them)
I went for a "flat" aftermarket cap that fits fine
You need to belt the grease caps flat to get max "flatness"
You will also need to drill a 6mm hole in the centre of the passenger cap for the speedo cable

You "may" need to turn the 3 bolts around on the spring plates so the head is on the outside

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/Porsche-928-Alloy-Spare-Wheel-/300467447099?pt=AU_Car_...

Not "too" bad
Melbourne though

Thanks Barry, I'm glad that is 'all' I need to do.

I suspect I might be leaving it to Richard to figure all that out.

Where did you get your aftermarket caps? I'm kind of thinking of keeping the originals somewhere because it is likely to be the only genuine porsche stuff I ever have and around here they are likely to be souvenired by some bogan.

Still to speak in depth with the minister of finance, but negotiations have been commenced and the general concepts floated to allow her to get used to the idea.

I'll probably try and go and have a more in depth chat with Richard some time next week if work would slow down for a bit.

Well yesterday I fixed the oil leak from the sump plate due to my inexperience when doing the previous oil change, so hopefully people at work will no longer say "Hey Craig, Gwendolyn's dripping a bit isn't she".

So today was confirm what sort of Super I have.

As per a previous post:

http://forums.aussieveedubbers.com/viewtopic.php?tid=85952&page=1#pid801840 

I am going to get a new steering wheel (BTW is there enough room behind the dash to drop the speedo down to sit more or less on top of the steering column?)

So I pulled the steering wheel off and took the following photos.






It is therefore fair to suggest I have a late spline, which means I can now get the right boss.

And, just to be ABSOLUTELY sure I am saying the right thing (better to look stupid and be sure than order the wrong thing and pay for it because I wasn't), this photo confirms that I have a 2 bolt Super.



Fortunately permission appears to have been granted by the boss to go ahead with the current planned work. So I'll have to find a location to take some before photos so I can go back and take some after photos.

The Bentley Manual has this to say about the change in strut:

"The revision of the steering knuckle and its mounting moves the steering axis outside the centreline. The revised steering geometry improves handling and stability in the event of a sudden tire blowout"

I guess that means I'll be better off if I ever have a tyre blowout then. Let's hope I never find out.

OK, So I have my new steering wheel, and I've tried to install it. Boss fits fine, it all looks the goods (although the speedo will be severely obscured until I move seat or speedo) but I can't get the blasted horn to work. I've tried a few different things and failed, so got myself a multimeter to try and figure out where it is going wrong, but I'm no autoelectrician, and I'm stuffed if I can figure out what's going wrong.

Here are some photos of my results so far:

First photo is merely to prove that it should work:



This photo shows the connection from the boss touching the copper connector on the steering column and then a connection being made from the bottom ring on the boss (which would normally sit on the column) to the spline. Again all good.



Next we prove that the boss itself is providing a proper conduit for an earth. The top of the boss is sitting on the spline and I'm making the connection in where the spline would normally sit. Happily this is all good as well.



So turn it around, sit the boss on the column, and things go wrong from there..

In this one I make the connection to the top of the boss



In this one I make the connection to the spline



In both cases the connection is no good.

Now the copper tang on the column is sitting up high enough that it SHOULD make a connection, but I can't think why else it would be going wrong.

I guess either it's not connecting properly or it's leaking somewhere.

Any one got any bright ideas???

Also given that I've never used a multimeter before, any suggestions for other things I should try would be most welcome.

Thanks
Craig

You can put a smear of grease on that ring and turn wheel and you should see Marks in grease where making contact. You may have to bend that copper tab up.
You dont need a meter, just touch that black wire on the steering shaft and the horn shoiuld work.?????

if all else fails and you cant get the horn working, just use your finger
sorry, just kidding