i picked up my bug (first vw, first car) this evening. jumped in and took her home, she definitely needs some love, but she has a good base to start from.

my going over of the car (in the dark and on the street) yielded a few surprises. none of which were that unpleasant.
1. the car is pretty good in the rust department, the heater tunnels are both rust free as far as i could tell, only the rear lh guard has rust and its only surface rust on the very bottom lip, there is a small hole in the passenger door. the air box in the trunk is as usual filled with wet crap, and has had a repair done on the cover, but is still solid and will just need a clean out. there is a very small rust spot developing above the drivers door and also in the rear, but i will get onto them asap.

2. the car was originally marina blue. since then it has been white white white and then faded purple.

3. it has three different types of tyres.

mechanically, everything works, the engine is a bit ill, i will start on monday with a full going over, will replace points, condenser, oil etc. the brakes suck. it is running drums on the rear and disc on the front. they need some work. overall it's a good base and i ddin't pay much, so i'm pretty happy.

pictures tomorrow if the sun comes out.

no proper pictures because my camera is on the blink, but i did a little more looking around in between exam cramming.

First up i believe the car has had some work done to it, possibly had the floors replaced, but i cant tell as it is, will remove seats and bits tomorrow and have a proper look see.

I did notice my drivers seat was a bit wobbly, and a bit of fiddling found this and it's missing brother as the culprit. if you cant tell from the crappy photo it is the plastic sleeve over the seat sliders, it is cracked and worn and the otherone is invisible. is this replaceable? Having trouble finding it, i don't really have a good name for it.


Car also popped out of reverse, but the syncro and the rest of the gearbox seems fine, so i figure the shifter bushing is gone, will go about finding one tomorrow. the manifold boots are also gone, so will try and find some aswell.

i figure i will replace the wheels now, as it will probably end up being cheaper to replace them and tyres than to source tyres for the original wheels. 165/15 are a pain. total cost for wheels and tyres will be less than the cost of any of the wheels on my bicycles, which is kind of scary, but makes me feel less concerned with buying shiny new bits.

at a guess your seats/floors are earlier than 74, and ditch the plastics on the slides, it will be a tiny bit sloppy without them but most dont exist these days anyway, of my 2 supers, one had them, its had an easy life cos everything interior wise was intact/mint but my other had leftovers of them & wasnt much different, no harm in deleting unless your fussy
location may help sourcing stuff too, i have a stack of lonely stock wheels/tyres at mine i cant use anymore

Hi

You can still buy those plastic strips for the seat runners from most VW shops.

My sons 74 has the same strips.

Where are you located?

Steve

http://www2.cip1.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=VWC-113-881-213-2 

Mines got them too, they stopped in 11/74

ah good, added them to cart. thanks!
I am in Melbourne for future reference.

interesting day with the car, replaced spark plugs and manifold boots, the points and rotor were new so they didn't need anything. I also purchased a new shifter bushing, but didn't get around to that. drove the car a bit after replacing the boots, and it was running beautifully, but was idling very fast (it was doing this before aswell). it was getting late so called it a day and figured will fiddle with the carb/accelerator cable later (cable appeared to be sticking). i took it out for one last spin and then the engine gargled and died. sadface. fortunately a black 67/8 beetle cruised passed whos occupant kindly offered me a hand. he fixed my carb in 10 seconds and we determined that contrary to my fuel gauge, the tank was empty. rookie mistake.

my biggest concern is the car pops out of reverse. i plan on replacing the bushings and checking everything is tight, if that doesn't fix it, i assume it's replace revese idler/new tranny time?

Hi

Your car should have a 34 pict 3 carb, there are some useful sites on settings these carbs up properly.

The screw on the throttle lever is only to stop the butterfly sticking and to touch the fast idle segmented cam.

The idle speed & mixture is set on the side, big screw idle speed, small screw mixture.

Put your location in your profile, its much easier when people reply with help if they know where you are.

Steve

thanks steve, turns out the accelerator cable was simply too tight, it's actually idling great now without any adjustment to the carb. fwiw the carb is a new replacement, done at around the same time as the dizzy cap, point and rotors. i'm going to go fiddle with my profile.