TheSamba.com :: View topic - 1966 Sea Sand

Sat Sep 01, 2012 5:49 pm

Last weekend I reclaimed my '66 that has been sitting in a friends parents shed in rural Minnesota for 15 years. :)

A little backstory... I started asking about my uncles '66 around the time I was 16. Buried in his garage and not running for several years, he seemed happy to get rid of it… for free!

Of course, at that age, I had little money or know-how to restore this car, so it sat… I graduated high school, graduated from college… it sat… Got married, moved to the city, bought a house… it sat… I've made many excuses over the years as to why I've never reclaimed it. Everything from money to the means to haul it.

15 years later, I finally got the nerve to take on this challenge and rescue it from its resting place all these years. The problem is now to get it from my home town in northern Minnesota. It's been in a friends parents' shed on their farm, along with several other friends classic, inoperable vehicles. Throughout the process of finding a solution (I don't own a truck, nor have friends who do, I'm city folk!) I ended up stumbling onto craigslist and finding a Pearl White '66 for sale that runs and was only a few hours away. I got a wild hair and rented myself a truck and a trailer and hauled it home.

A thread on that find here:
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=6205674

A couple weeks later I contacted some friends to give me a hand to finally retrieve my Sea Sand bug.

Been parked in this particular spot since at least 2005.

I had removed the engine back in about '97 or so, it wasn't the original 1300, I think a 1200 from '60 if I remember correctly. This also has been under water up to the middle of the windows from a flood we had in Grand Forks, ND in 1997. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1997_Red_River_Flood

When I was in college one summer, I bought a 12v 1600 engine from a '70. My roommate took the engine apart one day when I was at work... I've never put it back together and now all the pieces currently sit in a box in my garage.

Now that it sits in my driveway, I can examine the toll years of neglect have taken on it more closely.

Drivers side front wheelwell, rusted through to the interior.

Another hole. Not sure what this part is technically called... is it just the outside of the heater channel?

Pans are pretty good. No half-a$$ed repairs have been made and you can't poke a screwdriver through any of it. :)

You can see river mud on the tar boards and gas pedal... :?

My plan now is to take all the unflooded electronics and the better parts from my other, recently acquired '66 and put them on this. The pans appear to be in much better shape surprisingly... the PO really made a mess of silicon, sheets of aluminum, screws, angle iron and WOOD in his attempt to avoid putting in new pans. :shock:

Well, anyway here's a window to the next couple of years of my life! :wink:

Sat Sep 01, 2012 7:12 pm

i think 66 is my favorite year. I hope you are handy with sheet metal and the welder :lol: good luck.

Sat Sep 01, 2012 8:33 pm

Thanks! It's been a long time since I've had my hands on a welder. I'm planning on doing a body off resto because of the heater channel issue you can see in the pics. I wish you could buy just the front section.

Sat Sep 01, 2012 8:48 pm

It looks like you have a pretty good starting point, especially having a parts car handy. I'll look forward to progress reports!

I have been considering picking up a project car to work on after getting the bigger jobs handled on my daily driver. Good luck with yours!

Sun Sep 02, 2012 5:27 am

"My plan now is to take all the unflooded electronics and the better parts from my other, recently acquired '66 and put them on this."

...Electronics?

Good thing you've got another '66 to take them off of,because they're all pretty rare parts,those vintage modules,sensors & control boards.

I'm KIDDING.....good luck with the resto - you will definitely be a qualified welder again by the time you get done!

Pretty cool rescue story-I'll bet the Bug was glad to see you after all those years...

Sun Sep 02, 2012 6:36 am

carcass wrote:

...Electronics?

Good thing you've got another '66 to take them off of,because they're all pretty rare parts,those vintage modules,sensors & control boards.

I'm KIDDING.....good luck with the resto - you will definitely be a qualified welder again by the time you get done!

Well, I don't know what you want to call them, or what part you're kidding about, but any part that uses battery power will be under heavy scrutiny being the whole car was under water for a day or two. Knobs, bulbs, fuses, wiring, windshield wiper motor, etc. And it was my understanding that the turn signal relay for one is actually quite rare on the 66's.

Sun Sep 02, 2012 7:39 am

THere sure are a lot of 66's. Have fun with your project.

Fri Sep 21, 2012 6:21 pm

Found a bunch of Speed Holes in the trunk area...

...and a passenger side sandwich storage hole!

Tue Oct 09, 2012 2:00 pm

Not a mechanical/motor person... I've been checking out other pics of 1300cc engines to see if I have everything in it's rightful place and I just found something. Am I missing the vacuum pump on the distributor? Or is it hidden or contained somewhere else?

Tue Oct 09, 2012 2:12 pm

9pin wrote: Not a mechanical/motor person... I've been checking out other pics of 1300cc engines to see if I have everything in it's rightful place and I just found something. Am I missing the vacuum pump on the distributor? Or is it hidden or contained somewhere else?

the vacuum advance mechanism is the little silver circular drum that is screwed to the side of the distributor base and has a arm that advances the points plate as the engine load increases. it would have a tube connected between it and the carb for the vacuum. From your picture your dizzy doesn't have this. I'm not a distributor expert but it looks like you have the 009 dizzy. But i could be wrong on that.

Tue Oct 09, 2012 2:49 pm

Here's a little closer shot:

Tue Oct 09, 2012 3:06 pm

It definitely doesn't have the vacuum advance, so i'd say it is a centrifugal advance 009. Again, i'm saying this just from the picture. To be sure i'd ask Glenn.

here's mine:

it should have the condenser on the other side of it.

Tue Oct 09, 2012 6:33 pm

9pin wrote: Here's a little closer shot:

Your engine has an 009 distributor, and a polished one at that. If the vacuum canister on your old original distributor went bad, it alone would have cost more than a complete new 009, so this was a common swap.

Here is mostly original 1300 down to the paint on the tin...

The distributor I'm using is actually from a 68-70, but the appearance/vacuum can/performance is very similar to the original.

Here is Glutomodo's (Andy's) chart on what you would be looking for as far as originality...

The 009 should work okay for now, it's a good overall distributor if it's the German version.

Tue Oct 09, 2012 6:47 pm

Glad you decided to rescue it from storage. My wife and I just bought a '66 here a few months ago that was originally Sea Sand. We are trying to get it down to what's left of the original paint (my wife loves the color).

Tue Oct 09, 2012 6:58 pm

Wow... You have much bigger "ones" than me. Cars like this are awesome stories and it must be really cool to be emotionally tied to a family car. To me, it would be a bit of a curse because you are going to need some seriously deep pockets and time to bring this car back. I can't gauge the hours that will be needed, but you're looking at $8-$10k+ to get the car solid/ safe/ working and looking decent.

My '63 ragtop was in a similar shape when I bought it (maybe a little better), anyway, looking back, I would rather have saved for a nicer car that was in the $10K category.

Kudos on taking on the project. Keep your expectations reasonable as these things take lots of time and cash. It will be more of a marathon than a sprint.

Best of luck.

Wed Oct 10, 2012 10:21 am

I picked up a '66 a couple of months ago. It is an exact copy of one I had forty years ago, and regretted trading off. I don't know what it is about that year, but I would be most reluctant to part with this one. There are a number of them out there - for a price, but to find a nice one in original condition is a challenge. They have just enough of the original styling, bumpers, headlights and dash, to be of special interest.

Wed Oct 10, 2012 11:35 am

61SNRF wrote: The 009 should work okay for now, it's a good overall distributor if it's the German version.

Thanks for the info. I'm more or less starting at 0% knowledge of engine building and repair. There's a lot to learn. I have all the right books, just have to dive in. :wink:

gondiwindi wrote: To me, it would be a bit of a curse because you are going to need some seriously deep pockets and time to bring this car back. I can't gauge the hours that will be needed, but you're looking at $8-$10k+ to get the car solid/ safe/ working and looking decent.

Yeah, I realize this is the case... I'm not anal enough to want to make it perfect. My priorities are the halt the rust, patch the holes, then make it go and stop. :)

Wed Oct 10, 2012 4:09 pm

9pin wrote: Found a bunch of Speed Holes in the trunk area...

...and a passenger side sandwich storage hole!

All of those holes are from a Sterwart Warner gas heater. The big one through to the wheel well is the exhaust, the big one to the passenger foot well is for the hot air supply

Fri Aug 22, 2014 10:58 am

Major victory for me!

Fri Aug 22, 2014 1:23 pm

A big accomplishment for sure! =D>

Good going, keep it up!