VWCHI 1969 Restoration

[VWCHI81]

Hi all,

I've been lurking around the Samba for about a year now and I have to say that this site, and its members, are a great resource for newbs like myself. I've already learned a ton and look forward to contributing to the community.

I bought my first Type 1 from a fellow member last year and have been slowly chugging away at it for a while now. This thread will be my attempt at documenting my success (or failures), haha. Feel free to chime in with any advice or comments!

[Cali_Army_Guy]

Welcome. I'm a newb to this site as well and have already learned a ton. Some great people on here. Have any pics and info on your bug?

[Cage44]

My hats off to you for taking the plunge! If you have not done this type of work before (like me), just take it slow, think it through before you act, and use this site often as you have before. I cannot think of one thing I needed help on for my build that I could not find on this site.

Here is my post, use anything that you think might help, and do not heistate to ask questions!

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=510814&start=0

Good luck.
_________________
'68 Bug
Build thread http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5...p;start=20

[VWCHI81]

Thanks guys!

This is a weekend project for me and I only get about 1 or 2 weekends a month to work on it, so it will be a slow build! I'm slowly getting some pictures uploaded to my gallery and will add them whenever I can.

I've got a 69' Deluxe with metal sunroof and matching numbers.

Looking forward to the challenge!

[Cali_Army_Guy]

Looks like a fun project. You can probably literally find every piece of information you need from the people on this site. The search function is your friend. Tons and tons of info on here. What part of the world are you in?

[VWCHI81]

[VWCHI81]

So as I mentioned previously, I'm slowly but surely adding pictures to my gallery to document this build. After reading through some other members' threads I decided to start a notebook to keep track of everything that I do, tag and bag parts, and photograph pretty much everything. I've already taken over 350 pictures of my progress, hopefully they'll be a good reference when putting everything back together!

When I started this project I decided there would be two main portions that needed to be tackled; 1) Chassis work and 2) Body work. I spent a couple days unbolting seats, removing wiring harnesses and anything that could "catch," when I removed the body from the pan. After all this was complete I set out to remove the body from the chassis.

I built some horses based off the templates seen in the bug me videos and got to work at separating the two.

I have to say, I was amazed at how easy it was to remove fenders, seats & seat belts, body bolts and the engine with just basic tools. I've come to the conclusion that's part of what makes working on these cars so fun. Sure you will need more specialized tools the further you get into your build, but you can make pretty good progress with just a ratchet and a metric socket set!

[VWCHI81]

I'm lucky enough to have a second garage bay where I can roll the chassis into while I work on it. As you can see, the floor pans were rusted through and needed to come out.

Before I tackled removing the floor plans I made sure to remove the pedal cluster, body to pan gasket (rubber seal), and the rear break line.

I cleaned as best I could around the pedal cluster to remove all the dirt, sand, and grime that had managed to accumulate there for the past 40+ years.

After I had the pedal cluster out, I removed the body to pan gasket from the chassis (it sits between the chassis and the body/shell). On some portions of my chassis this gasket was actually nailed into the metal frame. Has anyone else run into this??? I removed the nails and the pieces of gasket that were held in by them...

After the body to pan gasket was removed, I started on pulling the rear break line. This metal line runs from the master cylinder, behind the pedal cluster, along the outside of the tunnel on the drivers side floor pan, through the rear of the chassis, and terminates at a "T" junction. The line is held to the outside of the tunnel and floor pan by flexible metal tabs (if they have not rusted or broke off!)

[houseofboyd]

Off to a good start! Keep up the good work!
_________________
Our 1968 Zenith Blue Beetle: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=619501

My '74 SB Build On The Samba: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=609943

Our Web Site: http://www.kentuckyhotwheels.com

1968 VW Beetle
2012 Turbo VW Beetle

[VWCHI81]

After I removed the pedal cluster, chassis to body seal, and rear break line, next up was cutting out the rotted floor pans. Before I began cutting out the pans I made sure to take measurements with regards to the spacing of the bolt holes, both from the front of the frame head and and from the lip of the tunnel. I will use these measurements for a template when I tack the replacement pans back in. Last thing I want is to drop the body back down and realize that the holes in the body don't match up with those in the new pans !

After all the measurements were made (twice ), I began to cut out the pans with a reciprocating saw. Although pretty loud, it managed to get the job mostly done.

I took the pans out in sections, making sure to not cut into the lip on the tunnel that the pans were spot welded onto. I also made sure to keep the seat tracks from the old pans, as I've read that some of the replacement pans have seat tracks that are angled slightly towards the center of the car.

While the reciprocating saw was good for straight, and some angled cutting, I didn't feel comfortable using it to cut into the corners. I took a trip to the local Lowe's and ended up with a shiny new angle grinder and cutoff wheel This made it 100 times easier to finish the precise cuts that were needed.

[VWCHI81]

After I removed the majority of the floor pans, I set out to separate the remaining sections from the lip of the tunnel. As documented in many of the threads on this site, the spot welds needed to be cut in order to fully remove the excess material. In order to identify the spot welds I used a wire wheel on the lip of the tunnel, napoleons hat and rear of the chassis. The spot welds were pretty easy to identify once I had run the wire wheel over them. I then used a center punch for each spot weld and then a pilot drill bit to "break the weld." Other people have noted that the spot weld will "pop," once the bit makes a couple fulls turns on the weld, however that was not my experience. Generally speaking I applied light pressure and drilled for roughly 2-3 seconds on each weld. After I had a couple of the spot welds drilled out, I slid a small chisel between the lip of the tunnel and the pan metal and hammered on the back of the chisel to fully break the weld.

After I had managed to remove the excess metal from the lip of the tunnel, there was still some slag from the spot welds that needed to be taken care of. I used my angle grinder with a grinding wheel and lightly ground down any remaining metal from the original spot welds.

BTW, some of the metal towards the rear of the chassis is pretty pock marked, should I keep this and work with it or try and install a donor piece when I'm ready to put the pans back on?

Lastly I used wire wheel again to get rid of any remaining debris on the tunnel lip, napoleons hat, etc....

[caffeinebean]

The gasket was nailed in at the factory.

[VWCHI81]

[VWCHI81]

After I was finished removing the pans and grinding down any remaining spot welds, I turned my attention to the tar (from the no longer existent tar boards) that was all over the tunnel. I figured since I was working near the tunnel anyways, I should just knock this portion out as well. I've read that some people prefer to heat up the tar and remove it with a flat edge, however that seemed too messy for me. The weather was cold enough that I could get chunks of the tar board off with just a straight razor and some patience.

The end result was a fairly clean tunnel, however I did end up scratching off some of the black paint. My end game is to have the chassis media blasted and then repainted/POR15, so the scratches (while unfortunate) are not that big of a concern to me.

After I cleaned off the remaining tar from the tunnel I removed the starter from the transmission. While still covered in oil and grime, the starter was fairly easy to remove, just two bolts on the bell housing.

As you can see from the first picture with the starter still on, the transmission was a huge oily/grimy mess. After I removed the starter I tried some Purple Power with a nylon brush to remove the excess grime and dirt, however that proved to only work part way (see second starter picture). Since my initial attempt didn't make much progress I went out and bought a pressure washer, which along with some additional Purple Power seemed to do the trick

As you can see, I still have a little grime to remove, however I'll get the rest once I remove the trans from the chassis.

[VWCHI81]

Next up was the removal of the rear break lines. The rear break line setup on my car consisted of two types of lines, some metal and some rubber. As you can guess, the rubber lines were flexible and the metal ones were, for the most part, fairly rigid.

There is a "T," bracket which is mounted on the drivers side trailing arm. The passenger side trailing arm has another bracket mounted to it, however it is only two sided, not a "T," bracket.

The metal main break line (from the master cylinder) screws in to the base of the the "T," bracket on the drivers side trailing arm. The left side of the "T," bracket (when looking from front of car towards rear) has a metal line which screws into it as well. This metal line connects to the aforementioned bracket mounted on the passenger side trailing arm. The right side of the "T," bracket on the driver side trailing arm connected to a flexible break line, which was then mounted and clipped to a retaining bracket welded onto the driver side trailing arm.

Passenger side....

This flexible line is held onto the metal bracket, welded to the driver side trailing arm, by a "C," clip that pushes on. There is a female end on the flexible rubber line, which the metal break line that runs from the drum is threaded into.

The setup for the passenger side break line, as far as flexible and metal, follow the same pattern. Flexible rubber line, out of bracket on passenger side trailing arm, clipped to metal bracket on trailing arm and held on with "C," clip. Metal line from passenger side rear break drum screws into female end of the flexible rubber line.

NOTE: There is a metal line which connects both brackets on the trailing arms, "T," on the driver and "Non-T," on the passenger side trailing arm. This metal line runs directly above (on the outside) where the shift rod and trans-axle mate.

Below is a picture of all rear break lines taken off the car.

Lastly, there is also a bleeder valve on each drum that I removed. These are located directly above where the metal break line screws into the drum (see third to last picture for visual). If memory serves me correctly, these were both 10 mm...

[VWCHI81]

After I finished removing the rear break lines, I started on the front break lines and the master cylinder. Similar to the rear break lines, there were metal lines as well as flexible rubber. The only difference was that the front lines that originated out of the master cylinder were metal and they mated up with the flexible rubber lines, which screwed into the baking plate of the front drums. Similar to the back lines, the rubber lines were fastened to a metal holder with a push on metal clip.

The metal lines were fairly easy to remove from the master cylinder, as well as where they mated with the rubber lines. Using two wrenches in opposite direction seemed to persuade any stubborn mating joints between the metal and rubber lines. Unfortunately it was rather tough to remove the rubber lines from the backing plates with the bleeder valves in place, so I attempted to remove them...and they sheered off

I attempted to drill out the remaining metal, but stopped about halfway through. I'll just replace the wheel cylinders when I overhaul the break system.

After I removed both the metal and rubber lines from the master cylinder and the backing plates, I turned my attention to removing the master cylinder from the napoleon hat. I had the pin pulled out earlier, when I removed the pedal cluster, so all that was left was to remove the two bolts that held the master cylinder in place, along with the rubber seal.

That's it for now, I will attempt to update my progress again soon. I've actually got a quite bit more accomplished than I've been able to post thus far. I always find time to work on the car, but not post my progress here!

[Chochobeef]

Nice work. Its a messy job working on the brakes. On your last set of pictures i don't see the spacers that go inside the napolean hat on the bolts? Hopefully you have them or you might be able to fish them out if your lucky.

Make sure to clean the brake fluid up quickly as it will eat through the metal even more than what you got with the rust.

Again nice to see good progress on saving your bug.

[VWCHI81]

[VWCHI81]

Well, summer is in full swing and I haven't found the time to keep up with this post until now! I decided to get my arse in gear and start posting the remaining progress that I made on the chassis from earlier in the year.

After I finished removing the master cylinder I started on preparation to eventually remove the transmission. First order of business was to remove any remaining items that are tied to the transmission. I started off by removing the the electrical push on plug (and cable) for the reverse lights, which attaches to the front of the transmission cone (facing front of car). This push on connector pulls off fairly easily.

Next I removed the accelerator cable from the tunnel. The accelerator cable starts to the right of the pedal cluster, travels through the tunnel (in it's own smaller tube within the tunnel) and emerges at the rear of the chassis.

If you're looking from the rear of the car (towards the front) the accelerator cable will emerge through the smaller hole on the right hand side. If looking at from the top, drivers side, it's the smaller top tube.

It should be noted that both the accelerator cable and clutch cable emerge at the rear of the chassis near the transmission.

Next up was removing the clutch cable from the tunnel. Much like the accelerator cable, the clutch cable starts behind the pedal cluster and runs through the tunnel (in it's own tube within the tunnel) and emerges near the front of the transmission. The clutch cable is housed in the bigger tubing and after emerging from the chassis runs up the side/top of the transmission and through an arm on the transmission. This cable is threaded at the end and a wing nut secures it through a hole in the arm.

There is a rubber grommet that pushes on over both the accelerator and clutch cable tubes that emerge at the read of the chassis. I was actually surprised to find mine in relatively decent shape!

You can see from the rubber grommet that the tubes for the accelerator and clutch cables are of different diameter. The larger diameter is for the clutch cable and the smaller for the accelerator cable

That's it for now, next up will be the removal of the CV joints from the transmission and wheels.

[VWCHI81]

Next I turned my attention to removing the CV joints, boots and axle's from both the wheels and the transmission. There are six bolts that hold the CV joints to both the wheels and the transmission. The bolts that held mine appear to have been OEM, as they were the metric "starred," (12 point I believe?) type. Surprisingly enough I was able to pick up the special 12 point tool necessary to remove them, at my local Auto Zone.

If you have the 12 point type, be sure to tap the tool into the threads so that it is properly seated, to ensure that you don't strip them out when you are trying to loosen them. You may also need to remove the CV boots in order to adequately access the bolts as well. It should also be noted that there is a crescent shaped spacer for each set of two bolts (you can barely make these out in the below pictures, sorry didn't take specific pics of the spacers ).

Below are some pictures of my CV joints, boots and axles. The CV boots appear to have been original, or at least good replacements, as they had the original German designed clamps on them.

And here are the connection points for portions of the CV joints on both the wheel and transmission...

For now I have the CV joints, boots and axles stored away. Not sure If I will try and re-pack them or just purchase new ones when the time comes. Guess it will just depend on how worn the joints actually are...