Well I think that it is time For me to start my Build thread.
My Name is Dan, I live in Battle Ground Washinton USA.
I have been following Joel and a few others on here for awhile.
But Joels thread Inspired me to convert a 1303 instead of a Standard.
I do not have the Donor car yet. Hopefully will be getting one soon.
Also i will probably be going a bit out of order sometimes, I will try not to but it is bound to happen.
My plans are to make it a Street and track car. I dont know if I am going to go Turbo to start, but eventually I will.
It depends on the Donor car, If I can find a turbo 2.2 for a good deal then I will.
One is for sale right now for $850, But seller says it smokes alot, so it probably would need the heads and valves redone.
I dont think I want to deal with that to start the project.

Here is a pic of the car the day i bought it for $500 US.



Not to bad. I hate yellow tho. So for now I am going to sand it a bit and primer it Black.
Front seats are bad, but I was planning on putting new interior in it anyway.



Also i was told that the motor was blown. So first going to pull it and check it out.
If it is blown i will just sell it whole to someone for the core.



Also it has a bad rear fender and the valance it bad to.



so time to remove them.




As i was sanding it down i found one bad spot of cancer.




That really sucks but i will just cut it out and replace with new panel or just some sheet metal.

This car is weird. It is a 74 SB but is has had alot of stuff replaced with 73 part.
Lucky for me they put 73 3 bolt front suspension on it. So it saves me from having to swap to it for the struts I need to lower it.

I striped out the seats front and back and cleaned it up a bit.. not to bad. Over all the pan is great.
Only one small coin size rust hole in the passenger side pan.

So the engine is blown. I just sold it to a guy for $150.
And he seemed very happy with the price even tho it was blown. so now that means i only paid $350 for the beetle

So i got a little bored today and got sick of looking at a yellow bug.
So I ruff sanded it and primered it flat black. looks way better to me.
I will be sand blasting it and doing all the body work and paint after i am done with the swap.
I want to do all the suspension, brakes, and get it running perfect before I strip it again and make it all nice.
I dont want to make it nice first and screw it up while doing the swap.
Got my dad to help tape it off.

I see you have encountered the dreaded c-pillar rust. Make sure you scrape ou all the foam from within the pillar. I even POR15'ed the inside to try and ensure it doesn't come back.

But I have to say looks like you got a bargain for 500 bucks, or 350!

Keep the updates coming.

suprized some one has not stolen your lawn mower

Ya the rust is in a bad spot... Thanks for the tip on the foam.. I will take it all out...
And the lawn mower is very tempting to ppl, It is also faster then the bug right now

Off to a good start Dan

already has the vents on the front for the radiator....

if you have any problems just blame Joel.......


good to see you tackling this project keep it going and post heaps of pictures and don't be afraid to ask questions.

Ya all the american versions of the super beetle come with the air con vents... the ones that dont have them here, have been changed by the owner.
Hehe Joel will probably be my life line for the problems I encounter, as will this post and all of you that help... I will only be able to blame him for Inspiring me to do it.

So i got a welder today.. I dont know how to weld but i did not do to bad.. It is a Lincoln SP 125 plus.. Flux feed/MIG..not bad for $200 dollars.. Everyone was asking twice that around here for one.








It says i can weld stainless and maybe aluminum but from the welding forums i read everyone says no no no it will not...
So i was wondering what would be the best piping to use for the radiator lines besides stainless or aluminum? And i will not use copper.

Weird pics did not show up..

i will try again here..

It makes a mess but does the job.. Also the welds i was doing multiple passes in the same spot.. and the blob next to the passes I intensionally burned a hole thru to see if i could patch it, and i did

thats not very good welding at all, do you use gas, did you clean the suface with wire brush or grinder.

No gas, Flux.. And i did not clean anything.. I wanted to see if it would weld thru the rust.. It was just a peice of scrap metal i had.. And plus that is my first weld ever

Quote:

Originally posted by madness726 No gas, Flux.. And i did not clean anything.. I wanted to see if it would weld thru the rust.. It was just a peice of scrap metal i had.. And plus that is my first weld ever

I will.. And i will go turbo eventually, I just dont want to deal with the transmission yet

this vw was do realy well.

click on the link below.
http://forums.aussieveedubbers.com/viewtopic.php?tid=47615&page=1 

go turbo now , youll kick yourself if you dont.

Ya i dont think i want to go threw all of that now... Plus my wife is keeping the budget for this to low to go turbo.. Plus i am getting a donor car with a 2.2L and 150,000 miles on it for $300, well we will see if i get it this weekend.
But i will probably end up going turbo in the future... But i like projects like this so it will be fun the second time around... Well let me see after this round

If I had guys like you around here That have done the swap and could give me some help in person then I probably would go turbo right now. Just would have to convince the wife to let me spend more money...

you can just add a turbo to the 2.2L later on...it will go great...ask me how i know

Cool i will....

they dont cost much more and you just about get every thing that you need.
this ones cheap and you get a trans , so with out the Trans it should be even cheaper..

http://www.ebay.com/itm/92-93-SUBARU-WRX-IMPERZA-2-0L-TURBO-ENGINE-MANUAL-TRA...

Hey Dan, good luck mate its looking good.

You can ahve all the help you want around your vW- airfares, accomodation and a small salary and I'll round up a dozen guys ok? One will be Joel so we can blame him there and then.

I dobbed Joel into my wife for adding a supercharger to my Tweety trike....worked a treat haha.

Colors are subjective but I Looooove yellow!!

I wont be able to advise you much seeing as Tweety is made up of: Panther trike, Alfa radiator, Subaru Brat motor, Toyota supercharger, Harley switchgear, Datsun manifold, Mazda sunroof.....oh, I do have a VW auto trans....so I qualify for this forum

Yellow looks good on your trike Tweety!!!!!
But not on my beetle, here in america.. Police magnet!!!! Yellow and Red get pulled over and ticketed 9 times out of 10 over any other color..
It stands out...
But i do like the offer of meeting all of you once i complete this project... I will pay for all my expenseses. I do plan on making a trip with me and my wife to Aus!!!! SOMEDAY!!!!
Joel Is a must meet! Since he is my inspiration for this whole project.. ... anyway. I think it would be great to meet up with the ppl that help me thru this project. and see there Bugs, Maybe i can be persuaded to got turbo after riding in one . We will see...
Thanks for the reply..


Dan

I got my donor car.. 1993 subaru legacy 2.2L AWD auto.. I pick it up next monday.. Paying $125 and trading my guitar and amp i dont use anymore.. Damn good deal i think.. Motor has 154,000.
Will post pics next week of it and of me pulling the motors harness ECU and trans..

I picked up my donor car today.. It only has 151,000 and runs so nice
Time to strip it....



Put it into my garage and started pull stuff.





tomorrow i hope to pull the engine and transmission, together or separate still tring to figure out which one will be easier..
It has an AWD automatic trans..

So I have completed the motor, ECU and wiring harness pull.





Unbolting the flex plate from the TC was a bit of a pain. I could not get a straight shot at the bolts with the intake on. I tried but it was starting to strip the bolts.
so I figured that i would play it safe and just remove the intake and get them.
It worked out well.


I also decided to pull the AWD auto trans to sell to recoupe some of the money i spent on the car.

Then it came time for the ECU and wiring harness, Which caused a bunch of bloody knuckles and tons of $%%#@ words.
But so did pulling the motor and trans. But the wiring harness was worse.


so I started unbolting anything and everything that I could easily reach and remove



Then after about 2 hours it came time to get the dash out, Which turned out to be harder then it should have been
Because I was tring to be fast and not thinking some things thru.



Then I finally got a good idea and unbolted the steering column. Made it a bit easier to access more dash bolts.

Then I started having space issues with my giant hands.

So i decided to just remove everything. Which made it easy again and is what i should have done in the first place.







And finally success!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I did not remember what I needed to pull and not pull so i decided to pull everything from the doors forward.
I did not cut one wire. Pulled it out all complete.
I am not going to try to do the wiring harness myself, it will be sent to Outfront motorsports to sort it out for me.



And then it was time to put the steering column back in and make it a rolling chassis again so i can get rid of it.





An hour after I got it back together a metal scrapper came by with a car dolly and gave me $50 and took it.
Happy because I got it out of my garage, and ya i could have tried to part it out and make some money
but I wanted my garage back for my bug. I did keep the front seats since the were in great condition.
Well the whole interior was in great condition but I did not feel like stripping anymore, just wanted it gone.

over all it took me about 15 hours from start to finish. But I did not spend all of the 15 hours doing it.

Now it is time to move to the next step, and start the swap to the bug.
I will take me a few months to do since I am tring to do this project as low cost as possible without cutting corners on suspension of course.

So far 1974 bug cost me 500 sold the blown motor for 150 = 350
then sold the bumpers for 125 =225

Got the donor car for 150 and trade (which was a guitar and amp i had)
Pulled the motor, trans, ecu, wiring harness and front seats.
sold the shell for 50 = 100

So far I got a bug , EJ22, ECU and wiring harness and spent 350 dollars out of pocket.
The motor runs GREAT and only has 151,xxx miles.



Overall I am off to a great start.
More to come!

1st on the shopping list - cambelt covers
The mileage might be geniune....I've seen my bus go around the clock - twice But mine does 99,999.9km then back to zero
You'll love the convo
I dpn't think I've seen a full tear down thread on here, keep posting photos please

I have the timing covers, just took them off before pulling the motor so i would not break them.. I tend to break stuff like that.
I will post as much as possible with photos for everything i do... even my horrible welding
The mileage is correct I had the sheriff run the Vin# before I got the car and give me a history report on it..

great work Dan, wow $350 that is a bargain build!

your bug will have some serious go with the 2.2 motor and it should make for a simple conversion with no turbos etc. Make sure you tag all you wires so you know where they all go as it can be a nightmare to figure out later.

you might need to get a shortened sump as well as it will scrap for sure. there are some good forums on here on sumps.

Thanks Lou, I will surely cost more tho... As for the wires, I did not tag any of them. I am going to send it off to get sorted out and they will tag it.. At least i think they will, Or hope..
I will figure it out tho... I do plan on getting a shortened sump, probably from bug@5speed... but that will be one of the last things I do. I an going to run the back at stock height till i get one.