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Bahama 65, the not-so-build thread
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Busstom
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 04, 2023 3:54 pm    Post subject: Bahama 65, the not-so-build thread Reply with quote

Goodness, this merely began as a cleaning operation, a thorough, top-to-bottom mop-up effort that required the entire rear end of the car to be pulled apart. Due to the neglect of several past owners (no animosity, they were just oblivious), I’m now on what has turned into a months-long crusade to reverse decades of gnarly, hardened cake formed of gear oil and brake fluid, spun and strewn about the underside of this car as the years came and went – the result of a leaking nose cone, missing detent plugs, torn axle boots and, leaking axle seals, among other things.

This is my “salvaged” Bahama Blue ‘65, the super solid Beetle that I often boast about in the periodic “Should I buy a salvage?” threads that pop up from time to time. The car drove quite well when I tested it (albeit with outrageous end play), but I’m that guy that sees a huge mess and says “Oh this’ll be easy, it just needs to be cleaned up.” Famous last words, as usual, underestimating the scope of work. I really never thought that I’d ultimately be separating the body and pan, and while it’s a very satisfying experience to go all in like this, it’s a huge amount of effort that I haven’t enjoyed since 1983 Wink

So, there’s not so much of a “build” going on here, but more of a collection of random work, over time, that will be undertaken to refresh and improve this driver to get ‘er back on the road in fun, zippy, reliable (I hope!) fashion, and be done with it. Purely a driver.

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It has to be done, so out the tranny comes...

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And off come the fenders...

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I realized I need one of these doohickeys, a "dolly" to replace the transaxle so I can keep this thing mobile, I can't have stuff immobile around here. I've seen a couple different ones over the years, some are advertised right here on TheSamba. The most rewarding thing about this one, it's made entirely of surplus material I've had around, some, like that lone spindle-mount caster, is "new" and I've been tripping over it for at least 20 years. In fact, it's entirely Made in USA, so that gives you some idea of how old it is. Anyhow, I fabbed this up, and while it's made of pretty light materials (other than the wheel post), it's plenty strong since it triangulates off the nosecone mount.

You'll notice the horns are cleaned up, that was from weeks of crawling under the back at the end of last summer. That got old after smacking my skull several times, and ended when I tore a flap of skin off my back on some body sheetmetal Mad

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More to come.
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 04, 2023 8:27 pm    Post subject: Re: Bahama 65, the not-so-build thread Reply with quote

Nice car. The dolly looks good too. Well done.
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 04, 2023 8:59 pm    Post subject: Re: Bahama 65, the not-so-build thread Reply with quote

agreed, my dolly is a scaffold caster welded to a chunk of rusty angle iron. I may have to at least paint it
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 05, 2023 10:08 am    Post subject: Re: Bahama 65, the not-so-build thread Reply with quote

Thanks guys. I'm also working on another dolly, for the front.

By the way, heimlich, thanks for the rapid shipping! I just received a new steering box from you...I actually reached out to Type 3 Tim about a rebuild, but he referred me to you and the new TRW boxes. Looking forward to using it on this car!

As soon as I get my act together here I'm gonna upload more pics to try and catch up with my progress.
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 05, 2023 10:15 am    Post subject: Re: Bahama 65, the not-so-build thread Reply with quote

Busstom wrote:
Thanks guys. I'm also working on another dolly, for the front.

By the way, heimlich, thanks for the rapid shipping! I just received a new steering box from you...I actually reached out to Type 3 Tim about a rebuild, but he referred me to you and the new TRW boxes. Looking forward to using it on this car!

As soon as I get my act together here I'm gonna upload more pics to try and catch up with my progress.


You'll love the box. Care to make another dolly? If so let me know the cost.
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PostPosted: Mon Feb 06, 2023 2:34 pm    Post subject: Re: Bahama 65, the not-so-build thread Reply with quote

heimlich wrote:
Care to make another dolly?

Just PM'd you about the dolly.
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PostPosted: Mon Feb 06, 2023 2:44 pm    Post subject: Re: Bahama 65, the not-so-build thread Reply with quote

So, cleaning commenced and was going pretty good near the end of last summer. Spent many hours with solvent soaked rags, Q-Tips, wire brush, acid brushes, scribe, X-acto, so on, working my way from the outside in, since I couldn't touch or move anywhere around the car without coming away greased up in black.

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Looks almost like it's ready to slap a clean transaxle in, right?
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PostPosted: Tue Feb 07, 2023 6:17 am    Post subject: Re: Bahama 65, the not-so-build thread Reply with quote

WOW, that is a clean car! Nice done!
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 08, 2023 2:16 pm    Post subject: Re: Bahama 65, the not-so-build thread Reply with quote

pastellgreen wrote:
WOW, that is a clean car! Nice done!

Thanks my friend.

Yes, the car is remarkably clean and solid. It had been smacked in the front and has some minor crumpling on the front fender wells, but they totaled it, at some point many years back. So it became a salvage. Believe it or not, it has a 4-tab hood welded closed and made into a later hood, it came from a Turkis car.

I wasn't really looking for another VW at the time, but I always browse. So I watched this one sit on craigslist in 2017, with two awful pics, one dark picture of the interior, and another poor pic of the front quarter of the car. I watched and watched, it started at $5,400, and sat, and sat, then went down to $4,500, and sat, and sat, then it went down to $3,500, and I decided to give the guy a call, then I texted, and finally he got back to me. I went and checked it out, and I couldn't believe my eyes! I couldn't believe how dry and solid this car was. Why and how nobody snatched it before me is shocking. I guess people really are that averse to salvaged cars, well, my gain. I offered him $3k and he took it. Most solid VW I've ever owned, and that's saying a lot since my '64 Bus is nearly as dry, and has almost no rust at all. People can bemoan the salvage title all day long with respect to resale value, but I rarely sell my cars anyway.
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 09, 2023 10:30 am    Post subject: Re: Bahama 65, the not-so-build thread Reply with quote

Busstom wrote:
I offered him $3k and he took it.


That's a good price. I'd buy it for that. I'll give you $4000 for it right now.
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 09, 2023 1:45 pm    Post subject: Re: Bahama 65, the not-so-build thread Reply with quote

What a stunner! I wish I found something that clean when I was looking. Congrats on it!
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 09, 2023 7:32 pm    Post subject: Re: Bahama 65, the not-so-build thread Reply with quote

heimlich wrote:
That's a good price. I'd buy it for that. I'll give you $4000 for it right now.

Well hold on a minute, let me get it back together first Smile

toxicavenger70 wrote:
What a stunner! I wish I found something that clean when I was looking. Congrats on it!

Thank you! It's hard to believe I'm on the 6th year and haven't enjoyed it yet. When I brought it home, I immediately dropped the engine and checked out the thrust, it was okay, then reset the end play, and all was good. Well, I took it out on the freeway and flogged it for a while, 5 miles this way, 10 miles that way, but deep down inside, I knew it all had to come apart...just too much oil going everywhere. Then, after a tandem run with the GF to calibrate the speedo, it suddenly started barfing oil at the front seal, like leaving a continuous trail behind it. I thought for sure something had gone wrong with the thrust, end play was horrible again! So, she sat. And sat. Just didn't have time to dink around with it. Finally, last year, I was determined to get her running before Christmas, so I pulled the engine out again...but this time, something I'd never seen before: the flywheel and clutch were still sitting in the bell housing. Ahhhh, so this is what happens when an "imported" cast gland nut shears! Maybe I overtorqued it.

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So, the whole Christmas deal was off, time to split the case and start from scratch. New Goal: Christmas 2023!
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 09, 2023 11:33 pm    Post subject: Re: Bahama 65, the not-so-build thread Reply with quote

Great project,that is a clean car !

Antoine
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 12, 2023 6:02 pm    Post subject: Re: Bahama 65, the not-so-build thread Reply with quote

Thank you Antoine. Hopefully tonight I can get more pics up, I have to get them off my phone and sorted on the computer for posting. This is my first "project" thread and I never realized how much work it is Very Happy These guys with builds who post so consistently is enlightening, it takes dedication!

Note: for our Samba friends around the world, the Super Bowl is happening right now in USA, so Samba is a little quiet today (and I'm a little lazy Wink )
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 12, 2023 7:13 pm    Post subject: Re: Bahama 65, the not-so-build thread Reply with quote

Busstom wrote:
heimlich wrote:
That's a good price. I'd buy it for that. I'll give you $4000 for it right now.

Well hold on a minute, let me get it back together first Smile


Then it will cost more. You got a good buy that's for sure. Really what you are looking for is a car without rust or rot. Everything else is easy to fix.
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PostPosted: Mon Feb 13, 2023 12:00 am    Post subject: Re: Bahama 65, the not-so-build thread Reply with quote

Nice job on the dolly. I see you, too, have a problem with rabbit trails while working on stuff. Smile
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PostPosted: Mon Feb 13, 2023 6:23 pm    Post subject: Re: Bahama 65, the not-so-build thread Reply with quote

scrivyscriv wrote:
Nice job on the dolly. I see you, too, have a problem with rabbit trails while working on stuff. Smile

Yes, story of my Life! Very Happy

So working toward the goal of really freshening things up and throwing some black paint on all this, I had a few more things to do. First, I was hell-bent on chipping off every last dingle ball (aka weld spatter) that had made my cleaning efforts so damned aggravating. You know the ones, you’re gliding your putty knife so smoothly along, scraping up a thick layer of cake, and BAMMM! You run right into a big #~@$\&! dingle ball left behind by VW! They’re everywhere. So, I got out my chisels, files, and hammer, and hunted down every last one of them. While I was down there, I took the file and sandpaper to every sharp corner and edge on all the stampings, you know, the brake hose mounting brackets, the gussets, the tail-end of the horns, etc, etc.

Look ma, no more sharp corners and edges! Rolling Eyes
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Oh, and this…..when I was removing the cradle and transaxle, the left side screw was a beast to remove, it fought me the whole way. I had to take a couple breaks, there wasn’t much room for a cheater bar down there, so I battled back. I really feared the female thread was toast. I don’t know, sometimes I wonder if the VW assemblers just slammed some of this stuff together with muscle-truck force and never gave it a second thought. I also don’t know whether this trans has ever been “out,” it’s the original transaxle. Maybe someone mucked up the left screw putting it back together (but I somehow doubt it, I doubt it's ever been out).
Anyway, on to Amazon to order this fantastic tap and die set, and boy did it work wonders. Just what the doctor ordered.

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I forgot to take pics of the tap and the chips after clearing out the hole, but it took some torque to drive past the trouble zone, those theads - at least deep down in the hole, were wasted. But I proceeded slowly and gingerly, and found smooth rotation eventually.

Then I ran the die onto the screw, I don’t have a die handle that big, and I didn’t want to clamp it in the vise, so I rigged a grinding disc wrench into the die, and cranked the screw with a ratchet. Man, that one seemed tight too. But I went as far as needed (just the front 3/8's or so, and then transitioned and polished it up with a thread file. Put a dab of oil on it, took it to the horn, and she went in like hot butter. What a joy (and a relief!).

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Now to clean out all the control cable tubes, standard procedure. They don’t have to be sterile and spotless, may as well capitalize on that lifetime of residue already inside. But the bulk of it should be chased out for sanity’s sake. So I went to Lowe’s and grabbed some tie wire.

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Then cut a piece of the thick stuff about 2 feet longer than the overall clutch cable tube (7 feet did the job), which is also a good size for the P-brake tubes. A piece of the thinner wire about the same length works out well for the accelerator cable tube and heater cables tubes. Then I cut a bunch of T-shirt swatches and dip ‘em in solvent. Smaller ones for the accel/heater tubes, bigger ones for the P-brake and clutch.

For the clutch cable tube, it can be a little tricky to get the swatch in ‘cuz the tube is hidden inside the tunnel a bit. So I like to loop an eye on one end like in this pic, make the eye no more than a 1/4" wide and a couple inches long. The pic below details it, but it makes all the difference to fold the tail forward so it doesn’t hang up on the tube opening. Then take a swatch about 5 to 6 inches long and a couple inches wide, saturated with solvent, and feed it through the eye-hole in the wire (half way through the eye so that the drag on the swatch is equalized), then stuff the bare straight end of the wire into the tube at the pedal end first. When it's nearly all the way through, and it comes time to start the swatch into the tube, it takes some finesse to feed the swatch-laden eye into the tube, but getting cozy down there with a flashlight, it's easily done with some patience. Once the swatch is started in the tube, go out to the other end and pull 'er through. Gunk will keep coming, but a half dozen or so passes usually does the trick. You can experiment with increasing size swatches to get it tighter. With a well-formed eye on the wire, like shown, you can pull so tight and hard that the swatch chatters as it's being pulled through.
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I don't think these are from the first set of passes, these are the last passes, the first ones were way dirty.
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Here's the thinner wire with a smaller eye that works well for the accel/heater tubes...

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Feeling pretty good and thinking I’m close to painting, I lay on the creeper and gaze around, pondering the project. And I focus on this….

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Uggghhh. For the first time, really giving it some thought, I began to realize d'oh! I’d better check the source of this mess. And sure enough, a peek through the inspection hole near the coupler revealed my fear: the tunnel has a ton of gear oil in it! After starting this thread here https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=773630&highlight=90+weight and with Jimbo’s affirmation, I finally realized it…the body has to come off. There’s no WAY I’m going to live with oil weeping out of this tunnel for the rest of my life. Nope. No can do.
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PostPosted: Mon Feb 13, 2023 6:56 pm    Post subject: Re: Bahama 65, the not-so-build thread Reply with quote

Busstom wrote:
There’s no WAY I’m going to live with oil weeping out of this tunnel for the rest of my life. Nope. No can do.


I don't mind oil in the tunnel. It sounds like a lot of work. Easier to just sell. I see those pictures of the bottom of the car. You got a good deal.

If you are going to separate the body from the frame you may as well strip the frame and make it real nice.
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PostPosted: Mon Feb 13, 2023 7:36 pm    Post subject: Re: Bahama 65, the not-so-build thread Reply with quote

heimlich wrote:
It sounds like a lot of work. Easier to just sell.
Too late Very Happy

It won't be going on the block, it's far too clean to let go of, and it has a lifelong local history right in the Bay Area with documentation. And I don't mind the work, but I do draw the line somewhere, even if those lines seem blurry to some. This car is and always was intended to be a driver, so the lines are drawn based on that premise. And my definition of the detail required for a "driver" may vary from others' criteria, but a clean (but not necessarily perfect) underside is on that list. I can always separate the body again later, but I've gotta get it driving and get back to my '64 Bus, first and foremost.

The nice thing for any potential "next owner" is, if they decide to separate the body and do the pan real nice, I will have paved the way by preserving it, renewing all of the fasteners and threads as necessary, and gotten the lion's share of the work out of the way. (Two of the 8mm screws did snap on the right side removing the pan.) Thumbs Up
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 18, 2023 12:29 pm    Post subject: Re: Bahama 65, the not-so-build thread Reply with quote

So as I mentioned earlier, I certainly hadn’t planned on pulling the body off with this car, but I had purchased a gantry crane to pull a different body off, that’s my other BB ’65 (of which I haven’t gotten back to just yet). (Yes, and the Bus too.)

So I had the crane, had it for a couple years already. It’s from Titan Attachments, it was priced well enough, and it’s the same one that several other vendors sell branded under different names. But when I received it, I was less than impressed with the heft of the I-beam that it comes with. It was a wimp, and nothing like any I-beam I’m used to seeing, even though it’s just a half-ton crane. I’m sure it could do the half ton, but I suspect there would be some deflection of the beam at full load.

So I sourced a beefier beam at my local supply house. I also went shorter, decreasing the overall usable width of the crane by 1) going with a shorter beam, 7 feet in total, and 2) by changing the way the beam mounts to the uprights. The stock system incorporates some ridiculous brackets that are used to extend the width of the crane by holding the beam further away from the uprights, but this takes the load path away from the vertical posts and places it on the 45˚ braces, imperfect at best, so I did away with them. I went shorter on the beam for two reasons, first was it’s so much heavier, the new beam is 70 pounds, which is about the limit for me to be lifting, carrying, and manipulating on my own. The second reason is, my working space on the ground is narrow, and the stock width of the crane would have put the wheels of the crane on the edges of the concrete, leaving me no room to walk the crane to and fro over the vehicle and then out of the way, etc. So all in all, it was a win-win for my situation.

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Also purchased leveling washers for mounting the wedged I-beam flanges, don't want the bolts angling inward under the post brackets.

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But there was more to this than just having a gantry crane. While I could’ve juried something together to get this job done with just the chain hoist, I wanted more, so I kind of went off the deep end. I made my own sling (lifting beam) with modular lugs that I could move anywhere along the sling beam to adjust the lifting CG and the pick points along the beam. The basis for the new sling was the old I-beam that came with the crane, it was ideal since it was relatively light in weight, and I shortened it a bit for my purposes to keep it more manageable while it hangs from the hoist.
Then I made these lugs for it (the green bits). Yeah, I know it all looks like overkill for a body lift, but I will be doing at least a couple body lifts, and using this crane for other things as well, the sky’s the limit, I guess.

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My name's Steve and it's pronounced "Bust 'em" (cuz people think I'm Tom) 😏
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