73 Rolling Creamsicle

[NewTechnicIan]

As Carol was working on installing the interior, we were also working on wet sanding the paint. I had a guy paint the car last year and unfortunately, he really didn't do a great job, especially in leaving me enough clear coat to sand out the orange peel. So before we got too far, I fixed some of the more major issues with the car, like some burn through on the roof and on the rear quarter panels. I had a buddy's gun which is really just a Home Depot jobby, so it did OK, but not great on the repairs. So I just ran 6 coats of clear on everything so I know I can sand out my issues!

And I guess I've learned my lesson, I tried to get a deal and I got one but now I have to go back and fix it all the time. I was bummed when the thing got painted that I won't be able to say I've done everything on this car, but I guess now I can still say it!
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My 73 Standard build - It's painted! It drives under its own power! Time to get it wired and upholstered!

My 1679 Engine build.

[NewTechnicIan]

I've been working on wiring the car while we've been working on the interior too. I'm almost done at this point though I'm waiting on one piece of the steering wheel harness that I must have thrown away years ago
Should be here tomorrow though and then I'll go through and check everything 2-3 more times before attaching it to the battery and seeing if my switched and relays still work. The car came to me as a basket case so I never tried out the electrical system. I really should have but of course I was in a hurry back then, just like now

A few adjustments that I made while I was wiring - I know I have an internally regulated alternator that I'm installing so I needed to change the connections below the rear seat, which a lot of people do. Here was the most helpful diagram I found for making the changes I needed:

You can see it talks about a 3-way splice for the battery +, the alternator feedback B+, and the power to the dash. My wiring harness had 1 ring connector and 2 spade connectors so I made a splice out of some copper piping that would bring them all together:

Feel free to criticize, I think this will work OK. I did cover it in electrical tape to make sure it didn't contact anything back there.

A few other things - my 73 wiring harness was made for 73 taillights, but I like the 68-72 taillights better so I got those and hooked them up. It looks like the older harness had a screw-in ground (shown in pictures) but since mine was a spade connector I snipped a spade connector out of the piece and made my own ground. Again, I'm opening up myself to criticism and this is just what I did. No need to follow, and if it was real dumb, someone please chime in.

One last thing, while I was cleaning up my engine bay for welding repairs way back when, the wire wheel ended up destroying the double ground connection on the passenger side that the license light and tail light plug into. I had some spade connectors laying around that I attached with sheet metal screws and I'm hoping that works pretty well as an ad hoc ground. You can see the added ground in the engine bay photo here:

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My 73 Standard build - It's painted! It drives under its own power! Time to get it wired and upholstered!

My 1679 Engine build.

[NewTechnicIan]

So our Interior Kit came from SewFine! Carol was super excited about working on it so we took a break from the car for a day to put a seat together.

There's a lot of tutorials about redoing the seats and it's actually pretty self explanatory as you're doing it, we got the pre made foam inserts for the seats as well, looking to make our lives easier. Talking to the people from Sew Fine they said to use a dry cleaner bag when we install the seat back and we did that. It definitely helped although we didn't try it without one first.

Anyway, here's some pics! Tearing stuff down!

And a bit of cool history, these seats still had their tags from the german factory. We left them on for fun:

Pictures of the final product with a lovely lady:

One thing we discovered on the driver seat was that some springs were broken:

Looking into this, we found that welding wouldn't work because this stuff was spring tempered steel which just gets brittle when welded, so we used crimpers for fencing to reattach the springs and keep moving:

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My 73 Standard build - It's painted! It drives under its own power! Time to get it wired and upholstered!

My 1679 Engine build.

[57BLITZ]

[Chochobeef]

If your going to do your wiring right, do it right.

[plotch]

That sucks about the paint. The seat covers clash with the exterior colors. Just kidding. See you at Wolfsgart.

[NewTechnicIan]

chochobeef,
Fair enough. I'm going out to the local parts yard tomorrow to scour for a bunch of small stuff anyway. I'll look for the right connection. Is it actually bigger than the normal 4-way busses? because the terminal ends on these wires are so big that they're bigger than the normal spade connections. That was part of my reason for making my own splice.

Plotch, Here's hoping! We're hard at work on the thing and I'm losing sleep every night thinking about how much more there is to do, so I'd say we're right on schedule!
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My 73 Standard build - It's painted! It drives under its own power! Time to get it wired and upholstered!

My 1679 Engine build.

[TX-73]

NT, also taking you to task about the wiring Dump the electrical tape mess - you can easily install a proper single post connector for the 3 wires. Change the spade connectors to ring terminals if needed and IMO solder terminal ends to the wiring. I understand the factory did the crimp ends but I'm not a factory and I want to ensure a secure wiring connection.

In the case of your connector, I used a circuit breaker instead that provided not only the basic connectivity, but also gave a means for protecting the downstream wiring/circuit.

Wiring from the battery is also through a main circuit breaker, I also added a starter relay (usually called a hard start relay).

BTW that color combo you've got is outstanding.
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My 1973 Standard Beetle Build SOLD
Click to view image

[Chochobeef]

[NewTechnicIan]

No no no, you guys are great. I put my progress up here for (hopefully) encouragement but also for criticism. I figured my fix would be pretty good but obviously I'll go fix it. And no one's coming off as rude, I deserve a good Razzing if I mess up

Thanks for the help all. TX-73 I should have known I could look at your wiring for a good pic of the splice. It's hard to find pictures of it but that's awesome.
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My 73 Standard build - It's painted! It drives under its own power! Time to get it wired and upholstered!

My 1679 Engine build.

[Beetlebaum]

The car looks beautiful!! I can't wait to do a full restoration on my '73!
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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

[NewTechnicIan]

Beetlebaum,
Thanks a ton! We put in a huge effort this summer and I had to take a couple week break after we got it to its first car show, but I'm back at it this weekend fiddling with the engine and getting the thing inspectable. More on all these stories soon!
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My 73 Standard build - It's painted! It drives under its own power! Time to get it wired and upholstered!

My 1679 Engine build.

[evillrdnikon]

Hey nice build! I have a 1973 Standard beetle I JUST got back from paint. I am doing my sound proofing right now and soon to have the interior worked on. Keep it up! Whats the progress at now? I have a bunch of pictures and video I have been taking, but i have not started my build thread yet. I will though maybe this weekend after I upload my photos to the samba!

[Buggeee]

[Asleep@thewheel]

where is this now? complete yet?

[NewTechnicIan]

Hi all,
evillrdnikon, I gotta check out your build, sounds like you're where i was last year around this time. It goes fast after that, it's crazy what you can get done when you're putting parts on the car instead of just welding and sanding all day!

Buggeee, wow thanks so much for your compliments. I have to laugh thinking about this project pretty much daily because if I had known what I was getting into, I would have run away from the car on day 1 but it was the project I wanted in the end. It gave me an education that I can't be happier for and now when I'm broken down on the side of the road, I know every bolt on the thing so I can generally bet on what's wrong.
But seriously, I got chills reading your compliments. I still have a ton to learn and it may not be perfect but I'm proud of the build as it's finally coming together.

Asleep@thewheel, I need to update this so bad! I've made a ton of progress and I'm driving the thing! I have so many pictures I need to dig back through and put up some updates on, it's just so hard when I can just go out and drive it instead
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My 73 Standard build - It's painted! It drives under its own power! Time to get it wired and upholstered!

My 1679 Engine build.

[alfascott]

I appreciate the responses. I have done some research into welding magnesium and it is similar to welding aluminum as long as you use the correct filler rod (and be wary that magnesium can burn). I am going to try welding up the corrosion and see how it turns out.

Thanks,
Scott

[NewTechnicIan]

Hi Scott, did you respond to the correct thread here? Just making sure.

But! Yeah I didn't have enough experience welding, certainly not aluminum or magnesium, to try fixing my engine case with anything except the JBweld I used - so I'll see how that holds up over time. The engine has about 400 miles on it now and seems to be running well and minimal leaking, mostly through the oil sump studs.

Another thing I've heard about welding magnesium from the engines forum is that you'll want to get the engine case real hot ahead of time so that you're closer to the welding temp you'll be working with - it's supposed to make it easier for the welded metal to stick and make a complete weld. Hope that helps direct your research!
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My 73 Standard build - It's painted! It drives under its own power! Time to get it wired and upholstered!

My 1679 Engine build.

[plotch]

Ian, see you at wolfsgart! It looks really good. Blinky.

[NewTechnicIan]

OK, so I'm gonna do some big photo dumps to get you caught up to last summer

Headliner Padding:

That gray padding was all included in the Sewfine kit.
We added some extra padding above the doors to make it a bit more plush there, shown in greenish/blue - It worked well although it's harder to find screw holes for the grab handles and sunvisors
We used Lowe's carpet padding, the same stuff we'd eventually go on to pad the floor with.

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My 73 Standard build - It's painted! It drives under its own power! Time to get it wired and upholstered!

My 1679 Engine build.