69 Single Cab Find

[wcfvw69]

Great find and at a great price. Post some pictures of the engine. I like seeing bone stock, original engines!
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Decades of VW and VW parts restoration experience.
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[cdennisg]

Love seeing a red bay single cab. Great find! I cannot imagine seeing that truck in front of your house and offering you $500. That is an insult.

From what you are saying you want out of the engine, I would highly recommend a stock-ish single port with those 88's and balanced crank. If you can get a nice pair of heads from the NJ guy, all the better. NOS heads show up from time to time, too.

If the cost gets out of hand, sell a few of those hi performance parts to fund the build. I am betting you aren't planning to build a race engine any time soon.
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nothing

[Q-Dog]

Maybe I missed it? Did anyone say you did anything wrong? I certainly didn't. My post was just a thought that when the world gives me a good turn I spread it around a little. The woman was recently widowed and probably has a lot to deal with.
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Brian

'69 Dune Buggy
'69 Beetle Convertible
'70 Beetle

[Abscate]

[oprn]

[dustnrust]

If I was rolling in cash, then I'd have been more apt to hand her more but I don't have it. When you have $30/wk to spend in groceries on SS you don't spend money where you don't have to. If I didn't see this as a viable replacement for my 'Too expensive to keep' F250 diesel, I'd have likely not bothered getting involved but I think for very little cash it can be a good reliable daily driver.
The thing is bone stock down to the air cleaner and the single pipe exhaust.

The parts I have here were bought 40 years ago when I had a yard full of air cooled buses and a few notchbacks. Most of my buses back then were early, but I had minty clean 70, and a 11,000 mile '72 camper. They all came to me cheap, I think I paid $800 for the '72, in '79 or so. I got the '70 in 1980, only because it belonged to a buddies dad who bought it new, it was our ride to little league and on a few cross country vacations that both our families took together. He didn't come back from the service, and his dad died about 10 years later, the '70 had 69k on it when it became mine. I drove it for four years, then sold it to the grandson of the original owner with about 140k on it. I put a motor in it at 100k.

I've owned 22 buses in all, plus a few single and double cabs but this is the first bay window pickup.
As a tall guy, I always liked the bay window models as daily drivers, but I liked the looks and uniqueness of the older models. My first bus came as a 'parts car' along with a 56 bug I bought, the bus ran but was rusty, the bug had 200k on it and the motor had a rod dangling sticking up into the fan shroud area. I towed them both home from upstate NY in the late 70's, I think I gave $200 for the pair. The '56 bus was rotted pretty severe, but it had one of those bolt on U haul hitches on the back. They were up near Plattburgh, NY, and i was living just north of Philly at the time. I was driving a '71 bus as my everyday driver, which was a former camper with the roof welded closed, and all the windows filled in. It belonged to a Phillies fan who painted it to match the team hats. Phillies red down low, with white above the belt line with vertical red pinstripes onto of the white. With a giant Phillies P on the roof.
The thing was well used at the very least but I bought it from a shop who had just built some guy a new motor, and a custom receiver hitch for it.
The engine had a stock stroke Berg balanced crank, 92mm forged Mahle Pistons, a custom ground Crane cam, set up for towing and hauling a bus load of fat guys and beer to the game. He said the guy had a giant barbecue on a trailer that he wanted to tow, but he refused to pay the bill and it sat, after a year they finally got the title and sold it. I put four new tires on it, lost the Phillies stuff on the outside, and used it as my beater truck. I got it cheap, probably a fraction of what was in the motor. It pulled like a freight train but had little top end, 72mph was all it had, but it was unaffected by weight.
I got wind of the oval window bug for sale and had heard the thing was super clean. I loaded up my bug towbar, some tools, a small compressor, a few spare wheels, and headed up there. What I found was some sort of religous kid's camp, the owner had a ton of old VW's strewn all over the place and they were making him clean the place up. He was a motivated seller.
I made a deal for the bug, then the 56 bus, and then for a 68 panel.
It was dead of winter but the roads were clear, but they were supposed to get a nasty storm that night. It took all day to dig out the parts bus and get it up on wheels. It was also full of parts, including a few motors, a spare transaxle, and milk crates full of other parts for old buses. It was rusty enough that we weren't able to attach a tow bar to the bumper. He had a welder, so we welded a length of an old leaf spring on each side of the frame sticking out the front, and I attached my universal tow bar to the end of each spring.
The 56 had a bolt on rear hitch, the kind Uhaul used to sell. It felt solid, and I made sure all bumper bolts were tight, and we hitched up the bug to the back of the bus, and the bus to the back of my '71. I had a 25ft magnetic tow light set but it wouldn't reach to the rear, so the lights went on the roof of the bug.

My intention was to get them both down out of that area, out of the mountains, and to leave them at a gas station that belonged to a buddy of mine's uncle. It was dark when I left.
I was really expecting it to be a rough ride, but it seemed to handle just fine, I took it easy, and so long as I didn't have to make any panic moves it was fine. I got back to the point where I had to either turn toward the gas station in a nearby town, or just say screw it and go for home. I chose the latter. Figuring that its dark, and that late at night there would be little traffic on the road and with a storm looming, even less. I get on the turnpike, and head south. I took it easy, not wanting any surprises since neither of the two vehicles in tow had likely seen highway speeds in decades. This was in late 1979 in early February. It seemed like i was making really good time, and when it came time to get off the NY Turnpike, I even caught a break at the toll booth, the woman there looked at the line of cars and made the remark, "all you's all together?" I said yeah, and she charged me for just my vehicle.
I can't imagine what she she thought when she saw all three were attached.
It was snowing a bit already and the roads were getting snow covered for a bit by the time I got to Binghamton and turned onto Rt 81 headed to PA.
The roads never got any worse than just a dusting or so since I was going south, and they were clear by the time I got onto the PA turnpike. I was going to stop at Allentown to grab something to eat but figured I'd just go right on back home. By that time the sun was coming up. About 10 miles south of Allentown a cop pulls up behind me and keeps pointing backwards, I wind down my window, and he's screaming something about a tire, so I pulled over as soon as I found a wide enough shoulder. The cop never stopped. Thinking I must have a flat tire, I got out, and to avoid traffic, walked around front, and down the right side to the rear of the rig, then I saw the problem. The left rear wheel of the bug was gone, drum and all. I didn't have a drum, and without the drum, I couldn't just pop on a spare tire. BUT, it wasn't touching the ground, it was riding about 2" off the ground, but teetering a bit. If I put my foot on the rear axle I could push it down and lift the front wheel. My best solution was to add weight to the right side of the car, I opened the trunk and right door, and started loading in baskets of spare parts from the bus, and found four bus drums, which I put in the front of the bug, plus a spare wheel, and a half dozen starters and a couple generators, all to keep the right front wheel of the bug on the ground. I thought about heading to a relatives house nearby but figured since its early, there's no traffic, and I was only 40 or so miles from home, I got rolling again and towed it all the way home.
I pulled into my yard around 8am or so, just as the neighbor was leaving for work. The look I got from that guy has stuck with me for a lifetime. I pulled up, unhitched the bug, and pushed it into the back yard through the gate. I then unhitched the 56 bus, and pushed that down the driveway off to one side, and then backed the '71 in and called it a day.
The bug had no damage from the lost wheel, and I never felt a thing. If the cop hadn't have pointed at it I wouldn't have seen it till I either got home or the next day. I only pushed it into the back because I figured a bug missing a wheel would cause issues with the township there. I needed it to be out of sight out of mind.
I hunted down two good drums for the bug, and pushed it back into an old chicken coop I had there. I never did do anything with it though. I ended up trading it for a '57 bus, which I drove for 8 years. The following week I did it all over again when I went back to get the '68 panel, which turned out to also be full of parts, and on that trip, I got talked into an engineless '67 Baja bug, which is what most of the engine parts were bought for. I hated the cut up bug and didn't keep it and found a stock '67 to use the parts on, but that stock bug never did need a motor so the parts just sat. Over the years I've sold off most of my VW stuff, but the garage is still packed full.

[Xevin]

dustnrust. Have fun with it. Make a buck, flip it, drive it, put a match to it and burn it down.

Nobody here is judging IMHO. They might offer up an opinion what they might do.l don’t feel anyone hating on you. Bro, it’s your bus. Hope you keep a build thread regardless of what you do. Its a car. You and owner happy with terms. Right on.
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Keep on Busin'

[oprn]

I totally get the lack of income thing. I too have done a lot of hauling home of cheap to buy cars that had potential. In fact a couple years back I had 15 vehicles sitting around here waiting for my attention and I realize that I have neither the time or the money to deal with them all. The thinning out began... and is continuing... I don't have Jay Leno's deep pockets!

I too have a 1 ton diesel truck here that still has some resale value but it is paid for so it's just insurance and fuel to keep it. I would absolutely LOVE to have a VW single cab! But... it would not pull my 20 foot cargo trailer or my 18 foot car hauler. It would only get at best 2 or 3 mpg better than my Cummins does, would not stay with modern traffic and if anything like my '69 Bus would be a bear to drive in our constant winds here. So that would relegate it to mostly a chore truck.

I still love them though!
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We had the stone age, the bronze age, the industrial age and now we are in the age of mass deception and mind control for corporate profit. (The mass media age)

[dustnrust]

[oprn]

There you got! That's the climate difference between you and me. When I got the Dodge 9 years ago or so the AC didn't work, never bothered to fix it as we get maybe 3 or 4 days in a summer that it would be useful. Never owned a home with AC either, just open the windows at night and close them in the morning. People come in our home and say "Oh, it's so nice to have AC isn't it?" Nope all we have is common sense temperature management...

Now winter on the other hand... the vast majority of air cooled VWs on this site would never get the green light at an inspection to drive on the street. No windshield defrost and no heat? Park that P-O-S!
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We had the stone age, the bronze age, the industrial age and now we are in the age of mass deception and mind control for corporate profit. (The mass media age)

[dustnrust]

Around here, we seem to start getting really humid around the end of May lately, and it lasts into September. The whether changes suddenly these days. I don't remember the humidity years ago. We always had hot weather in the summer, I certainly remember 98°F days here but never the humidity. As I get older, the heat feels good but the humidity is terrible. I find myself running the ac in the car as soon as it starts to warm up, but with the heat still on because it gets so sticky outside. Heat is less important but having defrost is nice. In years gone by I used to use something like Rain X on the inside and outside of the glass and it kept the fog from forming inside. A neighbor who worked at an airbase gave me a bottle of it and said to wear gloves when you use it. If you got it on your skin it was nearly impossible to remove and you lost your sense of touch for weeks. It was some type of polymer that bonded with the glass and you buffed it smooth with a special rag. I had it around here for years but it ate through the can about 15 years ago and rusted the shelf it was on in the garage like battery acid. It was thicker than Rain X and smelled like a new vinyl shower curtain. That stuff got put on my first dozen or so VW's back in the day.
On my past buses, I'd panel off the rear areas in the winter, so I only needed to keep the cab warm. That's already done in the single cab.
I also used to keep a small 12v heater on the dash that someone gave me years ago, it was one from days gone by that someone had used in their big rig for heat, it worked great but it would kill the battery if you ran with it on at night, the combination of that and the headlights would max out the alternator. On my 59 bus, I had made a steel panel that incorporated the window section of an early single cab I found in the junk yard. I made it to rest atop the panel behind the bench seat, it was set back about 6" or so so it gave me some shoulder room and it met up with one roof support with a foam gasket and some steel straps i was able to get around the support where it wasn't spot welded on the corners. It fit like glove and I ended up just leaving it in place year round because it killed a lot of noise as well. I had used sheet foam from the Channel to insulate it with, then I paneled over that with another layer or sheetmetal. I painted it to match and it looked like a factory panel. If I were to do it again, I thought maybe I'd build one using a sliding window from a newer pickup truck instead of the small window.

The one thing I can say for the single cab is that its got heat and defrost. I was pleasantly surprised on the ride home how well it worked. I don't think any of my past VW's had heat or defrost that worked as they should 100%. In the past I had even replaced the heater tube from the back, and tried all sorts of things to insulate it but many were missing their belly pan or the cables were all screwed up and the heat was either on or off depending on whether or not I crawled underneath and wired the heater boxes open or closed.
With the heat on, you always smelled oil or exhaust, regardless of how clean the engine wast. I don't get that with this one, even with all the oil leaks.

I did make a huge improvement in the engine situation for now though. A buddy works at a place that has their own in-house garage for their trucks, they have a drive-over steam cleaner set up to clean off trucks before they work on them. Its meant to clean the dump trucks of mud and the trash trucks of maggots and such so the guys in the shop can actually see what they're working on. He took the '69 over there and steamed the bottom of the engine real well.
With it clean I could see the main oil leaks.
I found two cracked pushrod tubes on the right side, the bellows part of two tubes had cracked and the tubes were leaking badly, someone had smeared RTV all over them but it didn't do much. As a quick fix, I removed the rockers and pushrods, and used four aluminum spring loaded pushrod tubes to replace them. The other side was dry so I didn't mess with it. When I assembled the spring tubes I lathered the inside of the tubes up with silicone grease so the O ring seals can move without leaking. I know they tend to leak but anything is better than how much oil it was loosing before. Its all but stopped leaving spots on the ground now. Maybe it'll get to park on the driveway now.
I also adjusted the valves and gave it a new set of plugs while I was there since I had everything in the 'spare parts lot' that came with it. I also gave it a proper oil change. All I had was 15W40 Synthetic oil here so it got that for now. The oil in it was a mix of what ever was cheap since it was loosing so much on the road. Its sat in the same spot now for a week and I only see one small drip on the piece of plywood I parked it on.
The rear main seal may be just fine. It still has the end play but my guess is its been like that for a long time and if its not knocking or leaking, it may live a lot longer just the way it is. Meanwhile, I'll likely build it a spare replacement motor just in case. I have the feeling though its not likely going to need one for a long time now.

I did have a guy stop by the other day who was driving a minty clean air cooled Vanagon that saw it and was drooling over it, he even offered to trade but I'm not a fan of the newer models and have zero experience with those motors. He said his had only 44k on it.
I keep finding 'If you want to sell this' notes on it everywhere I go, even at the grocery store I come out and find notes stuck in the window or rolled up and stuck in the handle or door gap wanting to buy it. The chances or me selling it now that I don't have to spend a weekend on the motor leaks is even less likely since now it seems I can rely it on for a bit more.

[cdennisg]

Single cabs have great heating systems. Just keep all the proper tubes and such in place and well sealed.

Might wanna add some zinc additive to your engine oil. Modern oils have little to no zinc, and old flat tappet cams don't like that. I tend to use the stuff from Lucas but have used one by Rislone, too. No issues so far.

Sounds like this little truck is going to serve you well. Don't sell it off, just keep using and improving it.
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nothing

[oprn]

Yes! Great little truck and don't sell it... until I can get there... !!
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We had the stone age, the bronze age, the industrial age and now we are in the age of mass deception and mind control for corporate profit. (The mass media age)

[iowegian]

[dustnrust]

I usually just stick the note under which ever vehicle that's of the least possible value parked near me and let them call the person who left the note thinking they have someone wanting to buy their car. The last one was a Kia minivan.

So far so good on the oil leaks, I've put about 400 miles on it so far and the leaks are almost non existent. There may be a bit from the main seal but its hard to tell, I've been putting cardboard under the motor in the driveway and the largest drip has only been a small spot in the middle, it was so oil soaked before its hard to tell what's just melting off or draining down when it gets warm and what might be a minor drip every so often. I nailed a piece of plywood down to the asphalt where I park it, I simply back over that plywood so if it does drip, its not on the pavement. It does look like the oil spots are taking longer to appear. I may even consider putting a real radio in this thing when the weather breaks, I'm quickly getting used to driving one of these again.
Since fixing the pushrod tubes and changing the oil, I've not had to add any so far, before I was dumping oil in more often then filling the tank.

The side panel hinges have all loosened up nicely thanks to a can and a half of PB Blaster and lots of oil. If i can get the thing under a roof, I may clean off the hinges and try a trick using a plastic bag and some tape to use Evapo Rust to clean up the hinges where they're rusty. It'll stop the rust, and let me paint the area for preservation. Right now I have rusty, oily hinges. The one rear hinge is pretty loose, it looks like the pin itself is rusted away to not much more than a toothpick, but the hinge itself still looks okay.

I was looking at the tires the other day and thinking that if I ever intend to use it in any sort of snow, it needs new shoes. The tires on it are old, its got two Goodyear and two BF Goodrich Town and Country tires, the rear tires are about 1/2 way gone, the front has really good tread but my guess they're likely from the 70's or 80's.

I also want to put something on it other than light car tires so I don't have to worry about flats as much if I used it like a truck. Tires are cheapest this time of year so I figured I'd better look around and see what sort of deals are out there. I figure any new rubber is better than what's on it now. Plus having better tires will let me use it a bit more if needed.

[Abscate]

In cool PA rubber can last a long time. If you are just country roaring it around at 45 mph roll the rubber as is with no worries. Tires are date coded , even my boat trailers 1976 tires have a code
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