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VW_Jimbo Samba Member
Joined: May 22, 2016 Posts: 9966 Location: Huntington Beach, CA
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Posted: Tue Feb 09, 2021 5:16 pm Post subject: Re: September 1955 Karmann, 61,000 mile barn find |
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aa390392 wrote: |
Will, were the square nuts in good shape? Or rusty? I had to drill mine out..to be honest square metric nuts are fun to hunt down.
Watching your preservation.
Thomas |
McMaster Carr has a bunch of choices! Follow this link, for What they have. There are more choices. I just bought a bunch for my ragtop clip repairs. They were M5 nuts.
https://www.mcmaster.com/square-weld-nut-m8-x-125-mm-thread-93975a720/ _________________ Jimbo
There is never enough time to do it right the first time, but all the time necessary the second time!
TDCTDI wrote: |
Basically, a whole bunch of fuckery to achieve a look. |
67rustavenger wrote: |
GFY's Xevin and VW_Jimbo! |
Last edited by VW_Jimbo on Sun Apr 25, 2021 7:44 am; edited 1 time in total |
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oldsplitvw Samba Member
Joined: February 15, 2005 Posts: 285
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Posted: Mon Feb 15, 2021 5:32 pm Post subject: Re: September 1955 Karmann, 61,000 mile barn find |
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aa390392 wrote: |
Will, were the square nuts in good shape? Or rusty? I had to drill mine out..to be honest square metric nuts are fun to hunt down.
Watching your preservation.
Thomas |
Hey Thomas,
Just quick point, the square nuts in the doors are M6 not M5. M5 is the correct size for the ragtop sunroof mechanism. McMaster-Carr and BoltDepot are usually good sources for metric hardware.
I had all the hardware left over from my 1951 convertible build. I bought in bulk, knowing I would probably need them again in the future Most of the screws came out just fine. There is a single screw that sits in the window channel that holds the vent window assembly. The design is such that moisture gets trapped under the rubber and rusts out the screws. The car is in great shape overall, but the screws on both sides were just shot.
Strangely, the screw on the rear-passenger side window channel just snapped with almost no force. That one was pretty easy to replace. The nuts inside the doors are a different story. They are in a little cage that is pretty tough to reach. I bought a pair of long-reach needle nose pliers that fit the bill nicely.
The hardware for the door channel and window assembly frames are an M6x1 slotted screw, square nut, and a special lock washer. Don't skip the lock washer, it will keep the brackets from shifting after years of slamming doors.
Will
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oldsplitvw Samba Member
Joined: February 15, 2005 Posts: 285
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Posted: Tue Mar 09, 2021 11:28 am Post subject: Re: September 1955 Karmann, 61,000 mile barn find |
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Now for a post in the "well, that sucks" department.
The driver side door has a strange outward ding halfway down. After taking the doors apart it was obvious that someone had tried to muscle out the window regulator without taking the time to do the disassembly steps in the correct order
I have receipts for pretty much everything done to the car from 1955 to 1965. I flipped through the stack, and whaddya know?!?! In 1962 Norma was charged $12.98 for a new regulator + $6 installation.
It makes me wonder if the shop bothered to tell her about the door or didn't say a word. Considering that it was reassembled in this state leads me to believe the latter was the case.
Will |
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aa390392 Samba Member
Joined: March 28, 2007 Posts: 3602 Location: So.Cal
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Posted: Tue Mar 09, 2021 4:56 pm Post subject: Re: September 1955 Karmann, 61,000 mile barn find |
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Will thank you for that...i have windows back in and working properly, but not without a whole lot of frustration. Trial and error, unusual facial expressions, a lil cussin, sleepless nights ...this needs to be addressed in the Kab.forum, and saved for all future kab owners, ( Bill Bowman) take heed..lol. again thanks for that Will. _________________ .
getting grumpy & less tolerant!
55 ragtop
56 delux sedan
56 Kabriolet |
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Volksvr6gti Samba Member
Joined: July 22, 2019 Posts: 298 Location: Jacksonville
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Posted: Tue Mar 09, 2021 5:27 pm Post subject: Re: September 1955 Karmann, 61,000 mile barn find |
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My drivers door had the same outwards crease. It will pound out though |
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oldsplitvw Samba Member
Joined: February 15, 2005 Posts: 285
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Posted: Sun Apr 25, 2021 7:12 am Post subject: Re: September 1955 Karmann, 61,000 mile barn find |
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I was lucky to pick up a very nice 56-59 Petri full circle horn ring for the oval. I love the look of the horn ring, but it had the unfortunate effect of causing the horn to beep almost constantly. I spent a few hours troubleshooting the unit and managed to get it working exactly as it should. I'm posting up these pictures in case anyone else wants to try to make their horn ring functional as well.
This is the center hub that mounts in the steering wheel. Unlike the stock horn button which uses a spring, the ring has a thick piece of rubber-type material to provide resistance and push the ring back up after released. The rubber was dried out and useless
Yup. This is junk.
The bare hub is made of two kinds of metal which need to stay insulated from one another. When installed the brass center plate is "hot" and connected to the horn wire from the center of the wheel
When the ring is pressed it grounds the metal of the ring against the thin ridge shown here. I used some emery cloth to clean up the contact. Also, it is crucial that the pot metal and brass don't connect, as this will cause activation of the horn prematurely. I tried out a product called "Liquid Electrical Tape" between the two halves and it seemed to work well enough.
To recreate the rubber stopper I actually tried a couple of different materials. I originally tried neoprene, and it was simply too stiff. Foam rubber had the opposite problem, as it would not spring back adequately. Silicone had a similar problem. Ultimately latex proved to work out quite well.
The "throw" of the ring is actually quite small. The distance between the base of the brass plate and the contact ridge is only about 2mm. If the new rubber ring was over 3mm there isn't enough room to connect the washer and ring clip assembly. After a couple of trial-and-error runs I ultimately settled on 2x thick rings, and 1x thin.
2.82mm total thickness for the new ring
Done! Back together and good as new.
Link
Will |
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grailoc Samba Member
Joined: March 25, 2004 Posts: 1441 Location: FRANCE and now QUEBEC city
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kaieric Samba Member
Joined: August 15, 2022 Posts: 88 Location: saarbruecken/germany
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Posted: Tue Mar 21, 2023 2:48 am Post subject: |
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oldsplitvw wrote: |
Also, sadly, the outside is not original paint. It has had one exterior respray in a hue that is a little too yellow, and then a couple of fenders have been re-resprayed after that due to minor dings and scratches.
Will |
awesome car! did you figure out the original color code? |
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Patiently Impatient Samba Member
Joined: September 28, 2020 Posts: 128 Location: Tri-State
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Posted: Sat Mar 25, 2023 12:53 pm Post subject: Re: September 1955 Karmann, 61,000 mile barn find |
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oldsplitvw wrote: |
Done! Back together and good as new.
Link
Will |
This is so awesome! |
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oldsplitvw Samba Member
Joined: February 15, 2005 Posts: 285
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Posted: Mon Apr 03, 2023 4:55 pm Post subject: Re: September 1955 Karmann, 61,000 mile barn find |
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Thanks everyone, the car has been an absolute blast.
Regarding the original color: the factory birth certificate did not help. If I had to guess I would say L87 Pearl White. From my understanding this is a Karmann Ghia color from the same vintage. Karmann seemed to paint a number of oval convertibles in Ghia colors. I've seen a couple 56-57 verts painted Amazon Green, so this would seem to make the most sense.
Will |
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kaieric Samba Member
Joined: August 15, 2022 Posts: 88 Location: saarbruecken/germany
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Posted: Tue Apr 04, 2023 6:23 am Post subject: Re: September 1955 Karmann, 61,000 mile barn find |
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good guess as to the paint code - interestingly i found that in 1960 beetle spare parts manual
they called l87 colour simply 'white' instead of 'perlon white' as they did in 1956 spare parts manual. |
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Ted2 Samba Member
Joined: April 07, 2004 Posts: 245
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Posted: Tue Apr 04, 2023 7:04 am Post subject: Re: September 1955 Karmann, 61,000 mile barn find |
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Did you restore the radio? |
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oldsplitvw Samba Member
Joined: February 15, 2005 Posts: 285
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