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Sun Nov 19, 2023 11:23 pm

Sunday night update. My back is being a little bitch so I'm gonna get all caught up ... thiis could be long.

I finished "rebuilding" the carburetor and had a leak problem which was just a bad float but I thought I could get by without doing the throttle shaft bushings ... this was wrong. Sent it down to Tim at Volkzbitz for bushings. He also found that the post on the diaphragm from the WW kit was a little too long so he replaced that. Then with the help of theSamba I just needed to clean up the surfaces better and use a thicker gasket. After that it went smoothly and the engine is now running properly.

Hardest part of doing the carb was finding this fitting for the vac line.

It's all together, all the fuel lines and vacuum line installed, BR8 vacuum advance distributor (From the guys at VWNOS, who were super helpful with some trouble-shooting). Some things still need to be cleaned up, like the oil cleaner, and breather tube but this is where it's at now.

Carb issue here:
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=778705&highlight=

Clutch issue here:
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=776763&highlight=

Time for metal work. I stripped out everything that was left in/on the car in preperation. Doors, headliner, hood and hood hinges, decklid mounts, hood latch and release cable, and the glovebox door all removed. I missed a couple door panel clips and, I just noticed today, four nails that hold up the carpet in the footwell area.

Metal work done by Brad Lang @ Plan B Hotrods. Brad was great to work with, lots of communication with little details and which way we wanted to go.

April 2023

Rear apron and bumper brackets removed. Rust underneath the bumper brackets. it's possible with a lot of time and money the apron could have been saved but the top edge was badly beat up and the exhaust area was also in rough shape.

Body braced and heater channels removed. The passenger side wasn't as bad as the driver side but both are getting replaced.

Test fitting the Klassic-Fab heater channels, fit was good as far as fitting to the body but the heater ducts at the back were in the wrong position and at the wrong angle to line up with the original mufflers. Also the lip for the carpet wasn't positioned correctly in the door opening. Had to cut some off at one end and add some at the other end.

Rear window gauges - removed rear inner louver/decklid mount panel and test fit replacement from donor oval window section.

blasting and epoxy

Spare tire well was in worse shape than originally thought and would need work.

Rear fenders are in really bad shape, front fenders are saveable but a lot of work. Headlight buckets are pushed in, dents everywhere, bondo everywhere else, and the metal is razor thin around the bullets. At this point I was still on the fence about repair vs. replace.

Passenger wheel well. May 2023

Test fitting Kaeger-nostalgie rear apron. Seems pretty good, pretty awful colour. The seal lip is a little larger than original but the decklid latch looks more like the original than the Autocraft apron.

Rear driver side crossmember/heater channel end cap area was in pretty rough shape with rust though to the lower edge of the quarter panel. It took some pretty creative repairing to make it look as original. Some repair panels had some things correct and some wrong. Brad and I were pretty happy with how it turned out. Thanks to Mika for his help and parts he supplied. Modified some of his 1955 and earlier parts to fit.

Passenger side wasn't as bad.

Heater channels fit in nicely now, used the heater tube from the original on one side and made the other.

Both rear mounts replaced with Virtanen parts.

Some of the little stuff ... Gauges repair, dents in the luggage area. holes from gas heater that were everywhere.

Close to caught up.

Tue Nov 21, 2023 5:18 am

Nice updates. Keep em coming. We are in the middle of work 3 CDN customs right now, 2 of which are ovals!

Tue Nov 21, 2023 10:44 am

coming along really well Joe!

Thu Nov 23, 2023 3:39 am

earlywesty wrote: Nice updates. Keep em coming. We are in the middle of work 3 CDN customs right now, 2 of which are ovals!

Thanks!

I had to snoop your pics. Both look awesome! I didn't know there were Customs as early as 1953! My 'learned something new' for the day.

bwaz wrote: coming along really well Joe!

Thanks, Brian! Come a long way and a long way to go.

Thu Nov 23, 2023 5:01 am

June 2023

New rear fenders. Perfect fit.

Spare wheel well and lower nose section of the front apron below the bumper brackets replaced. Wolfparts wheel well and a section cut from an Autocraft apron. The nose seems to come to more of a point than what seems normal to me but both parts fit together nicely. Brad hand made the piece that the tire rests on. The original was no good.

Then the decision was made to replace the front fenders. The fear of repair costs made me do it. I'm keeping them and maybe I'll learn to repair them myself when the project is done ...

BBT's. They fit nice, just needed a little massage at the corners where the apron meets the body. Just wish I could get an Oval fender with no horn grille cutout on the passenger side.

Bullet install - template from the original passenger fender.

Cip1 bullets. Is this normal on original parts? The drain hole is in the same location, left or right respectively, but the screw holes aren't.

Original passenger door needed a little work - small crease into the rear quarter.

Original driver door needed a lot of work. I don't remember if I mentioned it earlier but when I removed the door panel there was a flashlight in the door. The batteries in the flashlight ate through the outer door skin, inner door frame and into the heater channel. Even the donor door needed repair just to be the donor. It's gonna need a smidge of body filler.

Hood getting a little attention. Small dents around the wolfsburg crest removed and proprod tear repaired. Notice how nicely centred the trim, crest, and hood handle holes are?

Getting there. I hadn't seen the car with fenders on since I removed them in 2012. It was a little different. Good different.

Decklid needed a little repair. And the gauge repair under the window needed body work before the louvered mount was welded in. Also the over-rider holes were added to the fenders.

Engine Seal C-channel replaced

Dash holes filled.

August 2023

Back home and now I can learn how to do body work because I definitely can't afford not to. Updates complete. We're in real time now.

Thu Nov 23, 2023 11:38 am

Looking great! That’s a SHIT TON of work! It has taken me 40 pages to get all of that in! Great job!

Looking forward to the remaining work!

Fri Nov 24, 2023 8:10 am

VW_Jimbo wrote: Looking great! That’s a SHIT TON of work! It has taken me 40 pages to get all of that in! Great job!

Looking forward to the remaining work!

Thanks. I think I had more details in the original thread before that forum died. I guess this is more of a summary. :D

Fri Nov 24, 2023 4:17 pm

RustPatch wrote: VW_Jimbo wrote: Looking great! That’s a SHIT TON of work! It has taken me 40 pages to get all of that in! Great job!

Looking forward to the remaining work!

Thanks. I think I had more details in the original thread before that forum died. I guess this is more of a summary. :D

I figured. That had to be a great story! Love seeing the bits and pieces come together!

Keep it going, sir!

Sat Dec 02, 2023 3:43 pm

VW_Jimbo wrote: Love seeing the bits and pieces come together!

Yup, and then step back and take a hundred pictures from all different angles as it begins to look more and more like a car again.

Sat Dec 02, 2023 4:22 pm

Siince I'm getting "closer" to paint, I need to sort out all the little bits that get painted so last weekend I found a pair of standard vent windows on Facebook Marketplace. I had to buy the door windows and rear quarter windows also but they were cheap and the vents were in rough shape ... which is what I wanted. The car came with a deluxe chrome vent window on the passenger side and I had picked up a set of standard vent windows quite a while back but they're in such good original driver shape that I didn't want to separate them so it's nice to find a beat up pair.

Original Polar Silver driver's and Chrome passenger's.

1st replacement set I bought (maybe Arctic Blue?) I've also got the matching divider bars.

Beat up set I just got (maybe Prairie Beige?) no dividers.

I also wanted to match the rest of the glass in the car as they're all original Duro-glas except the windshield (not original) and the deluxe vent window which is Sekurit. I picked one up from a local Samba member but it had some wierd markings on it which I assumed was from removing the glass from the frame. It did not come off with anything I had ... disappears when wet, but comes right back. A local glass shop told me to try Cerium Oxide and to lightly polish with no power tools. Yeah, that stuff works awesome!

Thu Feb 22, 2024 6:05 pm

Can't let this get to page 3!

I haven't done much for a while, waiting for better temperature in the shop. I went through some boxes to sort out what's left and hopefully find something to do. I found the wiper motor assembly and all the bits and decided to get that all sorted.

The wipers were obviously later and creatively modified. The motor didn't look to be correct but after some digging I found it's just an older 2 terminal version ... with an odd, unmarked 2 terminal switch (correct me if I'm wrong). The motor is super quiet and seems to work perfectly. The switch also works. After testing that everything works I'm not going to disassemble anything unless I have to. There's a light layer of oil all over the assembly so it should stay protected until I need it and should clean up well enough.

The ends of the shafts are a little chewed up so I"ll try cleaning those up. Maybe replace, maybe have to take things apart.

Pretty much just needed the wipers, the little bearing caps, and all the rubber bits and it should be good to go ... whenever the day comes that I need it. :D

The headlight switch doesn't pull, push, turn so I may take it apart and see if I can fix it next. There seems to be a lot of good write-ups on these.

Mon Jun 03, 2024 11:56 pm

It's been a while.

I put that headlight switch into the "take care of later" pile. I have a good one and I need to get working on the body now that the weather is getting nice.

Got a pair of standard oval running boards. They fit nicely but the BBT fenders don't seem to have the same shape "hump" as the original and there's a little fitment issue. I had to trim the outer edge of the running board and widen the mounting holes so there's a little more fwd/aft adjust-ability.

Before and after trimming, just need to weld them back up.

Also needed to drill a couple holes for the rear fender badge. I'm not that confident drilling holes in new body panels ... but it turned out fine.

Got a busy summer coming up. Fuel tank is next, plan on using it to learn how to do some body work.

Sun Jul 14, 2024 11:17 pm

Few more small updates ...

Repaired the damaged threads on the fuel tank. Who knew an M18x1.0 thread chaser was so expensive. Thankfully a handful of M18x1.0 nuts off Amazon aren't. Filed a few groves in the threads and I have my own little make-shift thread chaser ... good enough for what I wanted to accomplish. There is still a little defect in the last bit of threads but it doesn't cause a problem.

Fuel tank is ready to learn how to do bodywork on.

Sand blast -

Glass bead -

Epoxy -

Little dent on the edge of the opening that I never noticed before ... I think I'll keep it. Cap is dented up a bit too. :P

The steering column support still has some good paint on it ... hopefully can get a good colour match for the fuel tank colour.

A friend of mine keyed a door handle and decklid T handle to match my ignition key. The car came with 2 passenger door handles and a non locking decklid handle.

I've finally cleaned up all the threads on the last batch of hardware. I think this should do it for the rest of the car. Plus some spares.

Snag on the running boards.
Driver's side is fine now, but it seems the passenger side heater channel has had the holes and captive nuts for mounting the running board set too far forward. When I mount the running board it sits far enough forward that it gets in the way of installing the front fender properly and leaves a big gap between it and the rear fender. I'm still debating on whether I should just open the holes in the running board up and use bigger washers, or fill the running board holes and redrill them so they fit.

Traced the holes in the running board onto the heater channel with it bolted to the fenders only and the fenders in good position.

Gap between running board and rear fender. Doesn't look as bad in the picture as it does standing next to it.

Mon Jul 15, 2024 8:23 am

A lot of great stuff happening! It is looking great!

In regards to the running boards. If you modify them, is there a mat big enough to cover it all, or is it still the same size?

Keep on pecking away! I call them all “Baby Steps!” One step after the next!

Tue Jul 16, 2024 6:24 pm

Right, for somebody who's expressed some trepidation, you're turning out some masterful work...body lines/gaps are awesome, it's in the right hands.

Wed Jul 17, 2024 12:09 am

VW_Jimbo wrote: A lot of great stuff happening! It is looking great!

In regards to the running boards. If you modify them, is there a mat big enough to cover it all, or is it still the same size?

Keep on pecking away! I call them all “Baby Steps!” One step after the next!

Thanks! Yes, the baby steps! I love them, but sometimes I get carried away and end up cleaning old tires, that I'll never use, just to see what they'd look like cleaned up. 8) I'm quite happy with the results.

On the running board, I'd just be filling and re-drilling the bolt holes on the inside and just slightly changing forward/aft position so the mats will just need to be trimmed where the bolts go through. I bought a pair of mats so I can keep checking that I'm not screwing up. :lol: Hopefully the rubber lasts long enough for me to finish the car. :(

Busstom wrote: Right, for somebody who's expressed some trepidation, you're turning out some masterful work...body lines/gaps are awesome, it's in the right hands.

Aww man, I wish I could take credit but the metal work wasn't me. I've got mechanical knowledge so I'm OK there, just no body/metal work knowledge. I'll be learning though and hopefully not messing up the lines and gaps. I'll pass the kind words on to Brad, though.

... except the running board to fender gaps. Those are all me. :D

Wed Jul 17, 2024 9:49 am

Ahh, that's okay...you're still the Senior Project Manager! :D

Sun Oct 06, 2024 10:14 pm

Senior Project Manager. I like the sound of that.

Small update. Today I tried doing some bodywork on the fuel tank. My first ever attempt and, as expected, I'm not super good at it ... but I did kinda enjoy it and learned a few things.

Made a box to keep the tank steady - which just happened to fit nicely on one of my little push carts.

These are the two spots I want to repair. One is from where the gas heater was and the other is just two small dents.

Scuffed up the area with Red ScotchBrite.

Applied some filler, which I later realised was a bit too much. Made it a lot more difficult to sand.

I found it hard to tell how much (or how little) to sand and was going through the primer so I decided to clean up and continue next weekend. After cleaning I threw on a quick coat of primer ... which really showed what I had missed.

Since the fuel tank is relatively small and the area I wanted to repair was small I really thought it would be easy to learn ... but the corners and curves proved to make it a little tricky for someone inexperienced. No big deal, if I screw up too bad, worst case scenario is to media blast and start over from scratch. Can't do any damage that can't easily be fixed.

Also, I recently blasted the last of the assembly hardware and took them for black oxide. Had a little panic attack as the guy I take my hardware to had quit since the last time I visited. Fortunately for me, his replacement was just as cool about small side hardware jobs and, apparently, more and more car restorers have been taking their hardware there.

Something about fresh black hardware just looks cool to me.

Today 8:50 am

Love it, keep it coming.

Don

Today 10:52 am

Beautiful!

Here's mine!
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/gallery/pix/2148228.jpg

Not hijacking.....Just sharing the fun. :D