New (to me) 1965 1500 Variant S(!)

[sjbartnik]

Charging system update:

So I put the battery on the charger last night (yes I have an old crusty Montgomery Ward 6V/12V battery charger that used to belong to my dad - still works great).

Car cranks fast, starts great now. I also pulled out the VR, cleaned up the ground points on the body, cleaned up the terminals with De-Oxit and some sandpaper, and replaced a wiring terminal that was a bit iffy.

Today I took the car to the show on Governors Island and all was well. When I got home, I put the meter on the battery and it was showing 6.5V with the engine just turned off.

Started the car, and with no electrical load it was around 6.5V at idle (battery reading went down to about 6.3V after turning ignition on but before starting engine) and maxxed out at ~7.02V at quite high rpm. Still not quite the 7.2-7.5 I'm looking for but it does hit home the point that you must have a fully charged battery before checking out the charging system!

With headlights on max was about 6.75V. It still seems like charging voltage is a bit low, I wonder if there is any adjustment in the voltage regulator that I can/should make?

I note that a lot of the wiring diagrams show a wire going from D- on the regulator to D- on the generator. There is no such wire on my car, the wiring matches the '65 wiring diagram here on the Samba with the only connections between regulator and generator being D+ and DF. There is a screw on the generator marked D- but nothing is connected to it and there is no D- terminal on the regulator. My regulator p/n is 311 903 801 X. I'm assuming that in this version, D- is handled through the transaxle to body ground strap?
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1965 Volkswagen 1500 Variant S
2000 Kawasaki W650

[sjbartnik]

Spent some time today checking out the electrical system to make sure everything was in order, and trying to eliminate or reduce some previously measured voltage drops.

So today with fully charged battery (6.28V) I measured voltage drop from the + terminal of the battery to:

*With ignition off*
Voltage Regulator B+ terminal: 0.00V
Lug on fuse box were the B+ wire comes in: 0.00V

*With ignition switched on*
Voltage regulator B+ terminal: 0.03V
Headlight switch terminal 30 in from VR: 0.09V
Headlight switch terminal 30 out to fuse box: 0.10V
Fuse box terminal 30 in: 0.28V
At fuse box terminal for 15 wire from ig. switch: 0.29V
At fuse box terminal for 15 wire to coil: 0.30V
At coil terminal 15: 0.56V.

So I was losing over half a volt from battery to coil with ignition on. This may have been my starting problem the other day as the battery was slightly discharged (6.13V) to start with before idling with headlights on to set the aim. When cranking the voltage at coil terminal 15 could have easily dropped to below 4.8V and no sparky.

So I pulled the fusebox down and started poking around, finally decided to hell with it and pulled the whole fusebox out. Hit everything in the fusebox with De-Oxit. Measured resistance across the bus bars that join certain neighboring fuses, 0 ohms. Put fuses in and measured resistance across the fuses. 0 ohms.

Hit some of the wire terminals hanging in the car with De-Oxit. Some of them were a bit loose on their spades so I tightened them up with pliers. Also pulled the headlight switch and hit those terminals with De-Oxit. Notably the terminals for the big red wires to headlight switch and from headlight switch to fuse box were a little loose. Clamped them down a bit.

Pulled the coil and cleaned up terminals 15 and 1 with sandpaper and De-Oxit. Clamped the terminal 15 wire down a bit too as it was somewhat loose.

Measured the resistance of the coil wire from fusebox to the engine compartment and it was only 0.3 ohms. For reference, my meter reads 0.2 ohms when you connect the two meter leads together. Ol' Crispy is pretty non-crispy in my car, thankfully.

Put the fuse box back together, didn't leave out any wires and everything seems to work. This time I measured voltage drop from battery + as follows (ignition ON):
@ Fuse box where 30 comes in from H/L switch: 0.11V (was 0.28V)
@ fuse box where blk wire comes in from ig. switch: 0.15V (was 0.29V)
@ fuse box where blk wire goes to coil: 0.15V (was 0.30V)
@ coil: 0.33V (was 0.56V).

So clearly things are better now. Can anyone with experience advise as to whether these are reasonable voltage drops?

Then I connected my meter to D+ terminal on voltage regulator and the other lead to battery ground. Fired up the engine and not long after generator cut-in, I was showing a good 7.5V on this lead not too far above idle.

However when I switched my meter over to terminal B+ on the VR, I was getting around 6.5V at idle up to about 7.01V at max speed. With headlights on that dropped to around 6.75V at max speed.

I would love to see 7.5V out of the voltage regulator. Is there a good reason why I shouldn't attempt to make that adjustment? I worry that I don't fully understand the relationship between charging voltage and charging current and therefore I'm hesitant to mess with it without fully understanding it.
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1965 Volkswagen 1500 Variant S
2000 Kawasaki W650

[sjbartnik]

Today's other project after voltage drop fun times:

Decided to upgrade the horn while keeping it VW. The Squareback has a crappy single horn. I remember from my Karmann Ghia days that they had a very nice-sounding dual-tone horn so I set about seeing if I could get that in the Squareback.

I sourced a spare horn bracket for the bumper, I sourced two refurbished 6V Hella Karmann Ghia horns, one high tone and one low tone. Also got ahold of an NOS 6V horn relay and of course the usual wiring supplies.

Mounted the new horns up to the brackets and wired them in:

Found a nice spot for the relay under the dash forward of the fusebox, there was already a hole there perfect for mounting:

The problem with the stock horn setup, which does not use a relay, is that the horn isn't very loud and because you are switching the ground for the circuit when you press the horn bar, you have to press it hard to make good solid contact for the horn to sound its loudest. If you just give it a quick tap you'll get nothing or a very feeble barely audible toot.

I changed the design of the circuit to be more like the Karmann Ghia. I took the original power wire for the horn off the fuse box and put it on terminal 87 of the relay. Then I made up a new wire from the fuse box to terminal 30 on the relay with a built-in jumper to terminal 86 on the relay. Then I found where the horn ground wire connected to the turn signal switch wiring bundle just above the steering column under the dash (I confirmed that was the proper ground wire before starting by using a jumper wire to ground it, of course the horn sounded). I disconnected the original horn ground wire from that terminal, then made up a new brown wire to run from terminal 85 on the relay into the steering column via the original path. The horns are individually grounded now at the bumper brackets.

So now when I press the horn button I am grounding the relay which doesn't take much of a connection to make happen and I get nice loud rich tone from the dual horns. No more fweep.

See the video:


Link


Basic schematic of my new horn circuit:

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1965 Volkswagen 1500 Variant S
2000 Kawasaki W650

[sjbartnik]

Today I replaced this:

with this:

When I did my H4 upgrade the other week I saw that one side had the above original spring clip connector while the other side had a plastic connector spliced in from a later car.

The spring clip connector springs are not very tight and while it worked, it can't have been making a great connection since I could pull the wire out of the connector with very little force.

I have replaced the connectors on both sides with ceramic.
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1965 Volkswagen 1500 Variant S
2000 Kawasaki W650

[sjbartnik]

Been a productive week on the Squareback. This week's final project was to finally install the parts I picked up to equip the car with hazard flashers. Being this was a European-delivered '65 it was not equipped with hazard flashers. It had a very basic 2-prong flasher relay, 111 953 185 A, which, incidentally, is date coded 6-64 so it's very likely the original one. Worked fine but did not support 4-way flashers and the turn signals flash a bit slow for my preference.

In '66 the Squareback was first sold in the USA and hazard flashers were required. This meant there was a 1-year window where the Squareback was 6V and had hazard flashers. So I hit the parts book to see what I would need to find in order to retrofit the '66 flashers. I also took a look at both wiring diagrams side by side to see if it was feasible. It actually turned out to be pretty easy.

The '65 flasher is a cylindrical unit with 2 prongs. One prong is switched power in from the fuse box. The other is two wires crimped onto the same terminal. One is black/white/green and this runs into the turn signal switch via the steering column. The other is green/blue and this runs up to the turn signal indicators in the instrument cluster.

When ignition is on, the flasher relay is powered all the time. When you engage left or right using the turn signal switch, you complete the circuit from flasher to bulbs. The bulbs light up on whichever side but the current to the bulbs is flowing through a resistive element inside the flasher relay which is wrapped around a metallic arm that bends when heated. Once the arm gets hot enough, it bends enough to break the contact to the bulbs and the lights blink off. As the arm cools, it straightens out and eventually makes contact again and the lights blink on. This cycle repeats as long as the turn signal is engaged.

Also interesting is that the turn signal indicator lights in the instrument display are powered all the time the ignition is on. When the arm inside the flasher relay breaks contact for the turn signal bulbs, it grounds the indicator bulbs in the car. The flasher is grounded by its attachment to the car body. So when you have 6V coming out of the flasher on the blk/grn/wht wire which is tied in with the blue/green wire, the bulbs light up. When the bulbs blink off, the blue/green wire is grounded and the indicator bulbs light up. This is why the indicators blink opposite of the bulbs in the early cars.

The addition of 4-way flashers complicates things. Presumably this is why the 4-way flasher relay is a 9-pin affair. Though to be fair not all 9 pins are used in this application - they come into play for vehicles like Buses of the era where the brake light and turn signal are the same bulb. For our purposes, only 7 of the 9 pins are used.

This update worked well because the wiring of the turn signal switch really didn't change between '65 and '66. That made it easy to adapt the 9-pin flasher to the earlier car.

So first was getting ahold of all of the parts including the switch, bracket, and NOS 9-pin relay p/n 111 953 225 B.

Also shown is the original flasher for comparison's sake. The only thing that needs to be improved upon is the bracket, I need to sand it down and hit it with some gloss black but I can do that later. Today I just wanted to get it working.

I first removed the old flasher by unscrewing it from its bracket under the dash.

My first though was to mount the new flasher horizontally in the same spot using an M5 bolt through the hole in the body but I couldn't get the terminals at an angle that worked for connecting the wires. So I wound up mounting it vertically on the rib that the original flasher mount is part of, so it's basically right next to where the original flasher was. There was a convenient hole already existing in the rib to run a bolt through.

Once I had the mounting point set, the rest was just wiring. Comparing the wiring diagrams showed me what I needed to do:

1) original black wire to + on original relay connected to 15 on new flasher
2) disconnect original blue/green wire from back of turn signal indicator
3) connect original blk/grn/wht wire from S on old flasher to 49a on new flasher.

rather than cut the blk/grn/wht and blu/grn wires out of their shared connector, I saw from using the diagram that I could just keep the blu/grn wire attached and run it to terminal K on the switch. I wanted to make everything easily reversible in the future.

4) Make up new red wire from hot fuse of fuse box to 30 on new flasher.
5) Make up new blue wire from KBL on new flasher to turn signal indicator.
6) Make up new brown wire from S on flasher to S on switch.

Here's where VW made it easy on me. The blk/grn/wht wire carries the power for the turn signals into the turn signal switch. Then the power is fed to whichever side you have selected by blk/grn wires for right side and blk/wht wires for left side. The wiring diagram shows these as connected together at the turn signal switch so I wasn't sure if they'd be crimped into the same connector or what. Luckily they are not! There are two spade terminals for each side, one for the front bulbs and one for the rear bulbs but they are both electrically joined. So rather than having to cut wires I was able to just slip a piggyback connector onto one of the terminals for each side at the steering column, then run a new wire for each side from there to the L and R terminals of the relay. This enables the flasher to flash all 4 bulbs simultaneously.

Here's the mounting location, you can see the original flasher mounting spot to the right side.

Then I mounted the switch bracket and installed the switch into it using the standard VW escutcheon, then connected up the two wires to the switch.

I mounted it on the right side of the steering column because there was already a hole there.

Finally, the moment of truth!


Link


Not only does it work, but a nice bonus is that the flash rate is a good bit quicker than with the original relay, both for flashers and turn signals. I reckon that'll be helpful in NYC traffic.
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1965 Volkswagen 1500 Variant S
2000 Kawasaki W650

[Rome]

Excellent work. Few VW owners seem to be diligent to monitor, diagnose and then upgrade their vehicles for 4-way flashers. I did a similar retrofit to my '64 Ghia 30 years ago when I converted the body to 12V after mounting it to a '70 pan. I used the 4-way flasher relay from the '70 donor car, and by comparing the '70's wiring diagram with the '64 it was a straight-forward installation. Just like on yours, many of the '64's existing wires would simply plug into the '70's relay, and I needed to only make up a few new short wires IIRC.

Are you planning to drive your S'back to the All Aircooled Gathering in Flanders NJ next month?

[EasternNotch]

Nice work on the 4 Way flashers!

My 66 has that setup but my 64 doesn't. I can remember a few years ago one of my carb linkaged popped off I was on a two lane road with no shoulder my wife was in the car all I could think of was we were going to get rear ended. I got out to fix the car I could feel the wind from the cars passing by me at around 80 miles an hour...not a good feeling
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1964 Notchback
1966 Squareback
1969 Type 34 Ghia
1969 Fastback
1989 Doka AFN TDI

[sjbartnik]

Today I decided to adjust my carbs by the book. I used the "Look, Listen, Do It Better" booklet except I discarded that pamphlet's advice about idle speed of 750 rpm and used the Bentley spec of 850 rpm.

I started by unscrewing the idle speed screws and then screwing them back in until just touching the throttle arm, then 1/2 turn further as specified. Also screwed in the idle mixture screws until stopped (gently) then out 1.5 turns.

At this point I started the engine. The car started just fine with throttle applied but would stall once I took my foot off the pedal. It would just go below idle speed and stall out. So I increased the idle speed screws in a touch on each side just to give me enough to idle.

I used the Snail carb tuning tool to get idle speed where I wanted it while also getting the same reading on the Snail on both sides. Then I adjusted the idle mixture by turning the knob in until rpm started to fall off, then back out until it started running smoothly again and then another quarter turn out past that.

Took a couple iterations of this process to wind up with the correct idle speed and Snail reading but I got there. However the trouble came when I tried to check the carb sync at above idle speed.

So at idle I was getting both carbs at "6" on the Snail. When I went to about 1500 rpm, the right side carb very quickly went up to 10 while the left side carb only went up to about 7. Left side only gets up to 10 much higher in the rpm range.

I tried again with the vacuum port to the distributor plugged on the left carb and same result.

So what does this indicate? Compression issue? Vacuum leak? Valve adjustment issue?

The pamphlet stated that if they are not the same when the rpm is above idle, to adjust the length of the right side carb linkage rod to make them equal. Isn't adjusting the length of this rod the equivalent of adjusting the idle speed screw?

I did not make any adjustment to the rod and I'm not about to until I check out the issues I mentioned above but I would love some guidance on this.

It seems to me that the thing to do would be to shorten the left side rod (or screw in the left side idle adjustment screw more) in order to open the throttle sooner and bring it in line with the right side. Does that sound right or am I misunderstanding something? It seems to drive fine as is.

Also noticed a bit of fuel seepage around the anti-backflow valve, tightened up all the worm clamps as they were a bit loose. Glad I checked. Will be ordering proper metric size fuel line and FI-style clamps to forestall any future issues.
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1965 Volkswagen 1500 Variant S
2000 Kawasaki W650

[Bobnotch]

[sjbartnik]

[sjbartnik]

Think my battery may be a touch on the weak side, electrolyte was a little low so I topped up and put it on the charger. The two outer cells both test great with a hydrometer but the center cell only gets the hydrometer into the "fair" zone. Will have to keep an eye on that.

I haven't used a hydrometer in forever!
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1965 Volkswagen 1500 Variant S
2000 Kawasaki W650

[sjbartnik]

So this may be related to my previous charging system posts, but yeah looks like I have a dead/dying cell in my battery.

After ~10 hours on the charger the middle cell just won't take a charge. The two outer cells show fully charged on the hydrometer, center cell shows in the red on the hydrometer and doesn't outgas when charging (no bubbles).

A voltmeter across the terminals after resting shows 6.1V.
EDIT: 6.1v was right after I took the charger off. After resting all day out of the car it now reads 4.2v which is exactly what I would expect of a 6v battery with a dead cell.

It's an Interstate battery, date of purchase code on the top shows 2010 so I guess that's probably about right. Optima red top on the way.
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1965 Volkswagen 1500 Variant S
2000 Kawasaki W650

[sjbartnik]

The other day when I had the air cleaner off and was messing with carbs, I noticed a little fuel seepage from the hoses around the anti-backflow valve. Touching the hoses there revealed them to be scary loose so I tightened up all the visible clamps and ordered some new stuff.

The hose that was on there was Gates 1/4" fuel hose with worm-drive clamps. 1/4" is wayyyy too big for the 5mm hose barbs in this carb system. I ordered OEM German cloth-braided hose from Bughaus, which is rated for E10. Their web site says you'll get either Continental or Cohline depending on what they have in stock, I got Cohline. I also ordered up a bunch of FI-style clamps in the 5mm size and a new fuel filter. Spent the day yesterday replacing every piece of rubber fuel hose on the car and I'm glad I did, some of them were scary loose. It all went well but of course the worst one is the one between the tank and the hard line that goes through the tunnel. No way to avoid having a gusher for a second when you pull that hose off. My personal method is to cut the new section of hose to length, put the clamps on it toward the middle of the hose and snug them so they don't fall off, then pinch the new hose shut with a Vise Grip. Be ready with the new hose so that as you pull the old one off and it starts gushing you can instantly slip the new one on and it won't keep gushing because the Vise Grip is holding it shut.

While I was in there, pulled the left carb off to try and clean up the choke vacuum plunger some more. I think I had some success. With the choke off I was able to play around and understand how the fast idle cam works and once I did that I was able to see why I didn't have fast idle when on the choke! The relay rod that connects the throttle lever to the fast idle cam was adjusted so that the throttle stop came into effect before the throttle lever ever rested on the fast idle cam. So I adjusted that rod on both carbs so that when the choke is on, the fast idle cam is actually holding the throttle open a bit so I can get fast idle.

Also while I was in there I did a valve adjustment. I had not done one since buying the car and I wanted to check the adjustment, especially on the left side since the left carb was being "lazy" as Tram said when I was attempting to sync them.

Glad I checked, here is what I found:

Cylinder 1:
Intake .005"
Exhaust .004"

Cylinder 2:
Intake .005"
Exhaust .004"

Cylinder 3:
Intake .0025" (smallest feeler gauge I have)
Exhaust .003"

Cylinder 4:
Intake .003"
Exhaust .003"

Hmm left side was quite tight compared to right. I know that VW specified .004" for the early engines and .006" for the later ones but I elected to set all at .006". Is there a reason I should not have done that? When VW changed the spec to .006" was that retroactive to the early cars? In my own view I'd rather it be a little loose than too tight.

I'll have to wait for my new battery to arrive in order to see if this has made any change in the response of the left carburetor in carb syncing.
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1965 Volkswagen 1500 Variant S
2000 Kawasaki W650

[ataraxia]

Your horn mod is very similar to what I am looking to do on my 64 - it's 12 volt so I'll be using Hella SuperTones.

Nice work on the mods you've been doing...

[Tram]

Yes, VW superseded all cars to .006 valve adjustment.

Exception: the very earliest Type 3s had a "bolt through" rocker arrangement on the heads. These should be set at .008. VW retrofitted almost all these heads over the years, though, to the later style so there likely are not very many out there.
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Немає виправдання для війни! Я з Україною.

[sjbartnik]

[sjbartnik]

[sjbartnik]

Does anybody have any experience with the West Coast Metric vs. ISP West seal for the engine compartment lid?

I suspect mine to be original and it is looking pretty rough, quite cracked, dry, and brittle. It can't be sealing too well.

Just wondering if anybody's tried either and what are your impressions of the quality and how well it's held up?
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1965 Volkswagen 1500 Variant S
2000 Kawasaki W650

[ataraxia]

[sjbartnik]