Red w/ Racing Stripes, a 74 Super Build...

[Nepenthe88]

Just a quick update. I drove to the middle of Hillbilly Nowhere today for a quick family thing and (as always) was busy keeping a lookout for any VW's. I found a fauxtina'd herbie bug, and a red aborto-bug with abnormally gigantic rear tires. I was gonna stop and foto both on the way home when I had more time, but... sadly... they were both gone.

I did however get to stop and see these 2:

Number one: a 74 Super with TEXAS plates. Has a working factory sunroof and a fuel filter in the engine bay. The interior's kinda ratty, but she's SOLID in all the rust prone places with-- at most-- a little surface rust here and there. Turns out my mother's good friends with the lady who owns the property, so there's a fair chance of this following me home someday soon

Then....

I found this 57 Ghia!! i don't know jack snap about Ghia's, but she's real clean, runs, drives and the guy wants a PITTANCE!! I posted a quick something over in Ghia-ville if you want to get a little more info:
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=6178174#6178174

then, last but not least, I talked to the seller of the DOMUS flatback bug as well. He's taking care of some DMV paperwork for me and then... SHE"S MINE!!! The paperwork is gonna take 5-10 days, so check back for pix!!
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a Black & Blue Su-BUS-aroo

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[Nepenthe88]

bought some Hella 500FF driving lights. Got them cheap too cause the box was open. Haha! Paid for tax and then some!! I'm gonna try and get them on in the next couple days. The neighbor hit a deer last night on his motorcycle (he's more or less fine, just road rash and some damage to the bike) but it won't be long before it'll be dark at 5pm (ugh), and I really need to see:

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a Black & Blue Su-BUS-aroo

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[Unclesalty]

Been sitting here at work for the past 5 hours reading your build. I gotta say, great work. The car looks great!
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(o\ ! /o) -Bumblebee a '67 1500cc

[Rome]

Driving lights are a sensible addition. It's one of the very first items I've installed on all of my VWs (see them in my gallery).

I wire mine so that they go on with the high beams, and don;t use a separate on/off switch. Just make sure you use a 12V relay with a separate power feed. Use the small blue wire for the highbeam idiot lamp for the relay terminal 85 to provide the "on" signal from the headlamp highbeam, and have relay term. 86 to ground. Term. 87 to the Hellas, and term. 30 a fused (8amp is fine) power wire.

[Nepenthe88]

[Nepenthe88]

[Nepenthe88]

Wow, I guess I've never troll'd thru your gallery, cause that's a beautiful snowy '77!! Diggin' the faux mexi turn signal bumper and those mirrors... what are they off of BTW? They look to work in all the right ways:

(ps, we have the first heat warning in the history of Buffalo today, so lemme tell you, that snow's looking REAL GOOD right about now!!!!!!)

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a Black & Blue Su-BUS-aroo

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[Rome]

Neppi, my '77 was modified alot by the PO in a Cal-Look theme. When I bought it 20 years ago, it had 4 fiberglass fenders, with the Cal-Look Lucas glass front blinkers flush mounted to the front fenders where the horn grill would be on '67 and earlier fenders. Car had nerf bars, and I think the current mirrors were already on also. Mirrors are Vitaloni Baby Tornado-

http://www.talbotco.com/vitaloni_pics/baby_tornado_2.jpg

I painted them in body color using a can of touch-up paint. These work well because the base can be rotated to mount them on the nearly vertical surface of the door, and still angle the mirror body so it's level to the ground. And they don't shimmy over bumps or at highway speeds.

I wanted to tone down the Cal-Look appearance right away so I found some good used German '74 bumpers in a local junkyard and installed them, then drilled holes using a hole saw to relocate the Lucas front blinkers into them. Filled the blinker holes on the fenders with VW horn grilles.

My driving lamps are 8" all-chrome housings. They are not Cibie Oscars nor the Super Oscars, but I bought them cheap at a VW swap meet also about 20 years ago. Have the same ones on my Fastback, and a 3rd set in the basement.

Wheels in the snow photo are 4.5" stockers (1972 with 34mm offset) with 165 tires. Rears are 165 snow tires. Normal wheels are 5.5" Porsche 914 sport wheels ("+" pattern) with 185/65 tires; rears are SuperBeetle SportsBug 5.5" wheels that have about 1/2" more outward offset than the 914's, with 195/65 tires.

In the shot below you can see the normal wheels, and '72 taillights. This was returning from a trip to Michigan over 10 years ago, heading east along the King's Highway 402 in Ontario, Canada. Our group (Der Kaefer Fahrer DKF) crossed into the USA near Niagara Falls, continued on the NY Thruway, and spent the night in Batavia- all close to your area.

Current engine is a 1776 single-port with Kadrons, and a hide-away muffler.

[Nepenthe88]

Here's me keeping up w/ the Jonses

It was a good rainy day project. They're not wired up yet, so I can't say anything about how well they perform. Soon enough though! I also think I'm gonna have to take them off and add a piece of strapping back to the bumper cause despite Fabbing 10gauge L-brackets and welding them to the bumper mounts, the lights have a nice side to side harmonic wobble. Bet if I had mounted the bracket a crotch hair lower, everything woulda been fine. Oh well.

Oh... and I think it's just about time to add the stripes in again. The car's woefully in need of a little white paint to set things off.
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a Black & Blue Su-BUS-aroo

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[TjdTaylor]

Are you going to put the white stripes back on her? I thing it looks great the way it is. Seems like the stripes would make it look like its trying too hard. The way it is is a subtle custom, i like it
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1974 SuperBeetle Build

Beetle Bums VW Club Member

[Nepenthe88]

[Nepenthe88]

All fuel line is NOT made equal.

In the beginning of summer I noticed I had a fuel line that was starting to crack as a result of being too short and under too much tension. I swapped it out with a cheap fuel line from the hardware store down the street. Later, while camping in Allegany, that fuel line started to blossom on the ends?! Eeek! Now, I was gonna pull the engine and change all the lines, clean stuff up, etc. I just hadn't quite gotten to it yet. Regardless, I noticed that another one of the recently replaced lines was starting to blossom!? so... I went and got good quality line from the auto parts store and replaced everything. for $12, it was well worth the peace of mind

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a Black & Blue Su-BUS-aroo

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[Nepenthe88]

I also started in on a project that's been on my "To-Do" list for a Loooong time. Rear defrosters. Obviously it's a giant pain in the ass taping off all them grid lines which is why I put it off:

The end result... still doesn't work Haha! I wound up going thru 2 of those little jars of Permatex defroster grid repair stuff, and while that was enough to get the entire grid painted 2 times over, there's still right around one spot per line that's either too thin or wound up getting a small bit torn off with the tape (don't wait too long to pull it off). End result looks a little something like this. Notice the paint bled under the tape in just a couple places too (those smudges are where I tried to scrape the bleed away... unfortunately the paint was still a bit tacky and just made a mess. I'll wait a couple weeks then clean things up real sharp:

I figure I'll go buy 2 more jars of the permatex paint now. One to do random touch ups. Another to go up and down the sides and connect the grid lines to the connector prongs. After that, I should have good working defrosters which I'll then protect with a high quality ceramic window tint. (note, getting the tint off the window was a project in and of itself

...Also note, the stock subaru hood holder-upper stick works GREAT for the rear decklid (w/ '74 bumpers) . I'm determined to use as much of that car as is humanly possible
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a Black & Blue Su-BUS-aroo

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[Nepenthe88]

Oh.. and I broke my sunroof for good this time The little plastic sliders are connected to the regulator wire by... thin pieces of plastic. The Driver's side gave way about a week ago (Snap!) Friggin bloody German engineers... I swear they design things just to be novel and get some kudos from other german engineers sometimes (and yes, I've been to Germany many times, even their architecture is self aggrandizing masterbatory flashiness with all their pullys and cables and custom grommets to suspend a window in mid-air) Ugh... I would KILL for my 1989 Foxbox Mustang sunroof. THAT was good engineering! Simple, Sealed tight, No delicate moving pieces. And just plain ol worked.

Anyway, I tried epoxy-ing the plastic slider to the plastic piece on the regulator, but the Germans made the part from self lubricating wax plastic, and by the looks of things nothing sticks! Now I'm GONNA HAVE TO BUY another SuperBeetle with a sunroof, just to get my hands on an OG mechanism. Good thing I know where I can find one
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a Black & Blue Su-BUS-aroo

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[Beetlebaum]

Dang, this picture reminds me so much of why I love your car.

Beautiful! I too am having issues with my defroster, but I'm not sure whether it's the worn-out and old lines in the window or the fact that the relay isn't grounded to the car. I'll fix that after the engine.

Speaking of engines, what size is yours? I'm about to stalk your thread to see details of it.
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1973 Super Beetle
2003 New Beetle
Post your Super here: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=331999
Beetle Bums VW Club Member

[Nepenthe88]

Haha! All the specs are for a 1776. But the builder made a 1915. Oh well somewhere in this thread theres a link to a engine build subthread where people in the performance engine forum commented on aspects of the build. I'd read thru that as well.

Other than that... The 1915 is real fun and practical. I have no problem pulling up hills with a load (with power to spare). And I still get 19-21mpg.


Ps... Im currently buying a subee outback for winter duty/ future donor car
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a Black & Blue Su-BUS-aroo

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[Michael5892]

I love your restoration thread man! I think I spent a good 2 hours today reading the whole thing and looking for ideas for my own super. Love the tail lights I saw those on cip1 a few weeks ago and didn't know if they looked good... now I know
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'74 Red Super Beetle - New project and soon to be daily driver

[Nepenthe88]

^^^ Thanks bud. Just be real careful buying stuff like this. Make no bones about it, they're cheap china crap. My suggestion is... KEEP the stock lights and spend your money on getting the bug running and driving / stopping well. That's the stuff that matters! And that's the stuff that makes driving fun!!! Taillights (almost exclusively aesthetic in nature) should be WAY down the list of things to do to the car. Just my opinion. It's just that I'd spent enough time / money getting everything driving well that I decided I was finally able to "treat" myself to some cheap china crap
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a Black & Blue Su-BUS-aroo

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[Michael5892]

Definately! Thanks for the heads up. I am for sure focused on making her run well and fully functional before I get involved in customization. keep up the great work on yours! One day mine will look good too lol.
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'74 Red Super Beetle - New project and soon to be daily driver

[Nepenthe88]

ok, so this is gonna be a "fun" post.... I'd like to introduce the newest member of my FLEET

Hahaha! YAY!!!

pssst... I bought the Subaru, not the Bug Here's the thing. I have every intention of using stripes as my daily driver, Summer, spring and winter alike... just not THIS winter.

Problem is, she really does require a lot of TLC to keep her up and running well and once school's in session again, (student and professor at the same time) and I'm going to be limited in terms of "free time". My other, related problem is that despite having a 4.0, if I miss TWO days of class (clinicals) I get kicked out of the program, no questions asked... And there's no amount of begging or bribery that will get me back in. That would cost me a year of life and damn near $70k in unearned income. Sad, but that's just the way it is (life's like that sometimes). Knowing that's the case, I can't be 100% sure I'll be able to keep the 1303 up, running and reliable for an entire winter... without a garage.. and on a shoestring budget (of time). So. Buying a Subaru becomes "cheap" insurance getting me to and from school reliably for one additional year. (once I graduate and have a "real job" the penalty for being late or absent due to potential car issues is almost non-existent, which opens up the possibility-- and future reality-- of daily driving the bug.)

I guess I'm just trying to be responsible in my own risk adverse way.

Now as this is a VW forum, I wouldn't even bring up buying a Subaru if it wasn't pertinent in some way... so... know that THIS sweet little outback is gonna be a donor car for some VW of mine in the future (I think I've decided to put the EJ22 in the Flatback bug, meaning "Stripes" is staying aircooled for a little longer ). I found and bought this Subee cause it was a good deal (been looking all summer) was low miles for a 2004 and because it has all sorts of fun bells and whistles that would be a hell of a lot of fun to shove in a host VW. (oh, my brain's been spinning dear readers, SPINNING!!)

...

Regardless... I went to pick the subee up this evening and on the way saw this sad little blue bug. She's been in a bit of a crackup. According to the repair paperwork sitting on the passenger seat, the damage you see is gonna cost approx 5k to fix (and there's no order for a new engine!!)

I don't know who the owner is, but I woulda done my best to get a new powerplant out of the deal as well. I mean, it doesn't LOOK like much engine damage, but it did crack the dizzy cap, gouge the top of the rotor and bend both the pulleys (according to the writing on them). I just don't see how you can bend the crank pulley and not damage some internals as well?! Regardless, Here's hoping this car (and engine) have lots of life left after the repairs!!! Thankfully the car's at a nice import auto shop that generally has a handful of REAL expensive stuff sitting on the lot.

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a Black & Blue Su-BUS-aroo

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