My 70 Baja

[rtaylor]

I've had my Baja for about a year and a half now. My girlfriends parents had 2 thatve been sitting in their back yard for years, they used to use them to go play around in, then tehy let them sit for around 4 years. I was over at her place one day, they were cleaning up their yard(they had alot of broken cars their not working and needed to get rid of stuff) and they decided to give it to me, it didnt run at the time but I hauled it to the marina where I live(I lived on a boat with my parents at the time, we used to go cruising in the caribean but stopped here so me and my sister could go to highschool instead of homeschool) and from there tthe story starts. lol.

The day I got her


The pipes I put onn

crank seall

Didn't latch the hood.....

[rtaylor]

well after about 2 months of barely running and getting around.......I decided it was time to get the engine runnign better, It was constantly backfiring, and a huge lack of power. There was a whistling noise when running, and a putputput when the engine was being turned over, did a compression test and no pressure in number 1 cylinder :/ sooo, started taking the engine apart for the first time

This was what i found, you can see on the right lower stud hole the wall is gone which let any pressure escape

All the partss




painting stuff while I wait for my new heads

the rustoleoum 2000 degree paint didnt last but 2 months before it start coming off.....

[rtaylor]

New parts came in!




no garage tio work in :/ too excited to wait for the snow to melt, extensioncord, heater, and work light. haha

[rtaylor]

marina flooded the next day :/

[rtaylor]

As cold as it was, started up quick enough I coukldnt hear the started engagee

Playing at the school in the snoww

[rtaylor]

For the longest time, I had the worst brakes............I had so many problems and could never get my brakes working right. I loved driving my car so much, I would drive around using the mergency to stop cause my foot brakes sucked that bad. Most of the time the cheap stop light switches I got from autozone that were made in China would keep doing this on me

I litterally went through 16 of these, I then asked for my money back and a refund on all the brake fluid I had to buy to deal with them, I went to napa bought 2 of theirs, they were about 10 dollars more each.........havent had a problem since. My only other problem with brakes were the wheel cylinders, they all had smalllll leaks and it took meforever to find that tehy were the problem

[rtaylor]

threw some rust convertor on the undersidee

[rtaylor]

REplacing the oil seall

[rtaylor]

Both my rear wheels would occasionally shake while driving at higher speeds, and I couldnt figure hte problem out, I didnt knwo there were 2 bearings in that hub, I only thought there was one and replaced it even though it was fine.............eventually I found out there was an inner one and it had gone bad, maybe just a littleee ;P lol

[rtaylor]

I was heading home my girlfrineds house one day on my way to work, im in 4th going 40 flooring it, I had my stereo on so I didnt hear the engine.....so I shifted to 3rd to gain spped and when I shifted back to 4th I heard my engine die, popped it in gear and it "push started" it. haha. but then I pulled over to check out what happened..........it wouldnt start back up, im on the side of a 2 lane road, swamp on both sides, I had to push it 1/4 of a mile to a spot where it could be completly off the road, luckily someone pulled over and helped. Got a ride home and had it towed to my work. Tried starting it and it started up, had a hard time idling and made a "ting" type noise. so after some investigating up here, deicded to take the heads off and see if it was a bearing. ends up number 3 bearing was shot

[rtaylor]

Now goes the rebuildingg. I ended up having to do it twice, I missed something vital the first time. The first time I had to get a new crank (since the bearing destroyed the other one beyond returning), new bearings and rods. Everything went good the first time, put the motor back in started up. carbs got clogged while sitting for 2 months though so it took a while to get running good






Within 3 days of getting her running, I had some pressure plate problems, after a little bit of investigating, I foudn out the PO put in the wrong pressure plate and hte bearing had grabbed the teeth and tore it off the arms, so I replacedd that and there were no problems

Then a few days later i got an oil leak from the main seal, I guess some of the shredded metal(that I stupidly didnt clean out) got up in tehre and cut it. So my sisters wedding was in 3 days, at the beach......I wanted to take it on the beach, sO i decided to replace it, took the engine out, and noticed there was an excessive amount of endplay, so I decided to fix that......but then saw something I had missed last time I rebuilt the engine. there was up and down slop in the crank.........the bearing didnt fit tight in the case. time to split it againnnn. took the case to the "bughouse" in VA to get it alignbored, the thrust was to far gone and the case was shot. got some price estimates.........it wouldve been 900 for a new case, studs, and everything. I managed to find an old engine around here for 150, gutted it and took them the case. got it alignbored and the cylinders bored out for my 90.5mm. after tht put everytihng back together. it went smooth, put it in the car. turned the key, started up so quick I couldnt even hear the starter. time it, adjsuted the valves, synced the carbs, havent had an engine problem sincee

[Conner]

Never seen an exhaust like that, is it custom?
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1965 BAJA

[rtaylor]

Im not exactly sure, all I know is some guy chased me down one time to compliment on it, he told me its a rare one and I should hold onto it. Idk anything else about it though, i tried looking for it online couldnt find it. It's a cool pipe, but it looks like it was customly made

[rtaylor]

Decided i wasnt to fond of the camo anymore. Wanted something nicerrr




Put the engine back in after the 2nd proper rebuild of the case

[rtaylor]

time to playyyyy

[rtaylor]

The wiring in my car is horrible, its something I want to complelty redo, but I dont have the time atm. I slowly redo small things at differnet tiems and do it right, but theres just so much crap in there its hard to do.




That's what I've recently redone, I got tired of messing with the rear lights so decided to jsut redo the rear end completly

[bossride]

If I am not mistaken, the stinger is an old RX one. They used to have ads for them in the magazines in the late '80s and '90s... Very hard to come by, and pretty cool, I think. That would be a great one for somebody to reproduce.

Your bug is pretty rad... sucks you had to do everything over, but I'm diggin' it.
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'59 Beetle.
'66 Beetle.
Yellow rail buggy.

[rtaylor]

Thanks! yeah thats what it is! it says RX on a little tab of metal welded between the 2 stacks.......its almost gone from where it was so lightly imprinted into the metal. yeah the PO didnt care for the car, they took it out and beat the hell out of it, then parked it out back under a tarp for years.
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My '70 baja
www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=492101&highlight=

www.photobucket.com/vwbaja

[rtaylor]

well today I journeyed to VA to get some parts, theres nothing around here in this area of NC that sellls any parts for VW's :/ so made the hour trip and picked up some outer door handles, rear tailights, the brake light fixture(the terminals broke on me :/), and turn signal assemblies for the front. Got everything on now and all my ligths work, got a ticket the other night thats why I rewired my rear lights, so now I can get it dropped

now for the bad news, I have a shaking in my front end, a couple months ago i replaced the uppper left since I thought that was it, then it still shook so I replaced the lower left........still shook. then I noticed it was coming from the area where the arm goes into the torsion frame. so i did some investigating and found out theres a needle bearing in there that went bad. So I thought all thatd need to be done was pop in a new bearing. asked the guy at the bughouse for one and he told me I gotta put bushings in there or get a new frame :/ The bushings arent expensive it jsut looks liek a lot of time and a pain in the ass to take the old bearings out. But for now Im gonna look around to see if anyone around here has a bearing puller.

Also I was having charging problems the other day, I was driving and the light came on, when I stopped I looked and the connection had broken at the bus bar. So I put on a new connection and hooked it back up......still no charge, so I tried polarizing it, still nothing. I messed around with it for about 2 hours, nothing. eventually I decided to put in a generator we had laying around the shop that I took out of a VW the ohter day. it works fine now.......only problem is it slightly squels when I rev it up, it just ruins the nice noise of the engine when you hear that :/
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My '70 baja
www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=492101&highlight=

www.photobucket.com/vwbaja

[rtaylor]

anyone got any suggestiong as to whether I should keep my new tailights red, or put the black lens tint on them and make them black?
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My '70 baja
www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=492101&highlight=

www.photobucket.com/vwbaja