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Sat Apr 09, 2011 9:12 pm

OK folks, been a while since I updated the status on the "63 Project" Well as we all know $$Money drives these projects and that has been in short supply here for a while. Uncle Sam decided to give me back a few dollars so I figured I would spend some of my hard earned cash on rebuilding my worn out rattling doors. $500 dollars later a big box of new hinges, door stops, pins, rollers and door rubber seals arrived at my door from KGPR. I definitely needed to replace the door hinges once I removed the first set:

Nothing better than Brand new hinges!

Got started on replacing the hinges and related parts on both doors, which went without a hitch but when I started to replace the rubber and door felts the project took a strange turn. Drivers door was a non-issiue, but when I got to the passenger door, I had the wrong door! (covered in another post) I was able to identify the door as a 1959-1/2 door that was on the car and nothing on that door matched the drivers door. Luck was on my side and I was able to locate a replacement 1963 door locally here via Craigslist!

The replacement door needed a little work to get it to fit properly and sometimes a few custom shims will help it along!

After fitting the door and taking a good look at the condition, Some hammer and dolly action was in order.

Many years ago in my youth, an old body-man that I was working with told me "Bondo fix everything" I think he was right....

A little polyester primer to finish it off.

And were ready to go!

Now here is where thing got weird, My plans were to just get some paint and shoot only the door and be on my way....well got to the paint store ended up buying a gallon and decided to repaint the whole car (same color) So ended up jambing the door.

and the door jambs

After that I re-hung the door and will finish the blocking when I do the complete paint.

I also removed the drivers door again and shot the door and Jambs so that is also done. Over the winter I acquired a low mile 1600 dual port that I was gonna stuff in the car, now that I have the paint for the car my next move will be to yank the 40 hp motor and prep the engine compartment for paint and ready the car for a 12v conversion. Oh..I also picked up a set of baby Webers at the swap meet with manifolds for the new motor..Nice stuff but I don't have any linkage yet.
It only time and money......

Sun Apr 10, 2011 6:00 am

I don't want to overstep my bounds here, but be carefully with the poly primer. I've been told by a well seasoned hotrod builder that it will shrink and look like $&*#@ after a few years. I squirted a whole gallon of that stuff on my car last fall and I am now sanding it all back off. His suggestion was to use 2-part urethane high build. Apparently the poly works much better with fiberglass bodies than steel.

I'm not an expert, so take it for what it's worth...

Sun Apr 10, 2011 6:24 am

gregmporter wrote: I don't want to overstep my bounds here, but be carefully with the poly primer. I've been told by a well seasoned hotrod builder that it will shrink and look like $&*#@ after a few years. I squirted a whole gallon of that stuff on my car last fall and I am now sanding it all back off. His suggestion was to use 2-part urethane high build. Apparently the poly works much better with fiberglass bodies than steel.

I'm not an expert, so take it for what it's worth...

Don't forget there is an excellent "Body/Paint" forum here on The Samba too, with a dizzying array of professional expertise to help with this kind of information. :) http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewforum.php?f=13

Sun Apr 10, 2011 9:50 am

The car is looking good. I cant wait to get on my 62 coupe soon also. Have a good used 1915 coming in next week. I am going to try and get it running first and then start to tackle all the stuff that you posted also from the time you got yours.

Mine has been parked here in Northern California for the last 25 years. Got parked when it died on the road back then.
So it needs everything mechanical under the sun.

Fri Jun 10, 2011 7:35 pm

Well Folks,
Here is the latest progress update here on the 63 project. I finally got some time and removed the tired old 40hp 6 volt motor and prepped the engine compartment. If you recall it was quite a mess but still original, I had acquired a used 1600 dual port here on Samba that I purchased locally, the motor was test run when I bought it so I figured it was ok (More on that later) so I finally got busy....

After stripping all of the chrome accessories (keeping a few) and purchasing some new tin, alternator kit and a couple of swap meet webbers I decided to install the motor!

Got the motor in and started doing the wiring and misc. stuff when I thought I should adjust the valves on the motor before I started it....Thats when it all started to go downhill :(

The LH head was right on the money and needed no adjustment but the RH head had one exhaust valve that was tight and after looking it it closely the valve spring was hitting the rocker arm Damm! I removed the adjuster it it still hit, so I removed the rocker and found that someone had tried to clearance the rocker by grinding on it NO GOOD...well off with the head and it looks like the exhaust valve seat is pulling int the head! not only is the head bad now and needs replacement but when the head came off, the other cylinder showed signs of water sitting in it :( not only is the other cylinder is scored up from the water and it looks like the cylinders might be 88s. The piston has stamped into the top 87.93.

I am really not happy with the project now and thinking "MoneyPit" I have not tried to build the "ultimate Ghia" just something nice on a shoe string budget using my talents to save when I could, but when crap like this occurs I just want to close the garage door and forget about it!

Sat Jun 11, 2011 7:08 am

Your engine compartment repaint job came out great!

Will you fit original-style black tarboard to the firewall for a near-stock look?

Did you have to grind out the transmission "bellhousing" somewhat to fit the 1600's larger flywheel? Too bad about the bad head. Good that you are diligent to fix it properly. Can you tell on the original head if the combustion chambers have been machined to a larger diameter? 88mm pistons/cylinders were available in 2 types- "slip ins" or "machine-ins". The slip-ins were quite popular in the '70's because it was an easy installation and added at least nearly 100cc displacement to a 1600 (from 1584cc to 1679cc)- just remove the stock 85's and install the 88's. But these had a very thin wall thickness because the outer diameter of the cylinders had to stay the same as the stock 85.5's so that no machining was needed on the engine case nor on the head. That means the extra 2.5mm piston diameter had to be taken off the cylinder wall inner diameter. Those were just about the thinnest cylinder walls ever made for a type 1 engine.

By contrast, the machine-in's required a complete tear-down of the engine so that the case and heads were taken to a machine shop for enlarging the cylinder bores. The cylinders were cast thicker to maintain or even surpass the wall thickness of the stock 85.5 cylinders. Those 88's are really durable. But since the machine work to case and heads are nearly exactly the same for 88's as for larger P+C such as 90.5 or 94's, most people just upgrade to those larger sizes.

Good news for you is that if you have the machine-ins, and want to go back to the stock original 85.5 P+C for the complete engine, this is simply a slip-in fit again.

Will you be using the 40hp while getting the 1600 fixed? Is the car registered and insured now, and otherwise roadworthy?

Sat Jun 11, 2011 2:33 pm

The trans was ground out quite a bit to fit the flywheel, the tar board is not going back, and the 40 HP motor I sold to purchase the alternator and tin. The car has always been registered and insured (this is California :) ) but unless I can come up with some more $$ soon the car sits... :x :x :x