1977 Fuel Injected Standard Project Page

[dopeboat]

While I wait for some engine parts, I'm picking away at some other areas on the car. One of the most concerning areas to me is the death foam. I already have rot bubbling through in the area on both sides of the car. I was poking at some of the bubbles and sure enough, my pick went straight through in a couple of areas.

Fast forward an hour and I'm knee deep in foam chunks. The body is actually rotted straight through in a few areas inside the car, as you can see from the below photos.

My question is, has anybody successfully attacked this from INSIDE the car? The rust that has come through to the exterior seems minor enough that if I could get at the backside of it, I could remediate what metal is already there. Some threads show folks cutting away large swaths of body metal to root out the rust. I don't believe this is necessary in my case, which is a good thing, because I don't have the skills to do a massive body repair like that. The holes in the outer body shown in the photos are the AFTER of poking, prodding, hammering, and generally removing all loose, crappy metal. There's more rust on the interior panels than on the exterior, which is great, because I don't care how the spot looks on the interior for now.

I do need to figure out a way to seal these exterior holes up temporarily so I can confidently drive the car to break the new engine in and not be constantly worried about getting caught in the rain. Any suggestions there? Duct tape?

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'77 FI Bahama Blue Type 1

[Root_Werks]

Dang, that death foam can really do some damage. Nice job cleaning it all out.

Never tackled the repair myself. Seen a few threads where either the inside or outside skins were cut out to access the other side.

Maybe less invasive to go from inside to access and repair the outer skin first?
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When I set my timing, why do I flush, then take a pee?

[Rob Combs]

Head over to the paint and body forums to find out how best to tackle the death foam issue, and chemically treat/neutralize the rust inside and out so it doesn't continue to grow, because if that metal is not treated you can expect it will definitely continue to grow, even with the foam removed.

Head over to the performance section to find out what the pros are doing with respect to assembling the engine with the precision of a swiss watch. Careful, precise assembly will make better power with a cooler running, longer lasting engine.

I think you're taking a hell of a gamble reusing exhaust valves. I personally wouldn't do it - I had one snap off at the valve head and pretzel the stem into the cylinder, piston, and combustion chamber. Pretty much destroyed the top end of the engine.

If you're able to reuse a lot of the parts you'd initially been planning to replace, hopefully you can open up the budget to allow the exhaust valves and a good valve job. And make sure to replace that oil cooler!!!! It's very cheap insurance against doing this all over again in short order.

Sometimes cutting the wrong corners costs a hell of a lot more than just biting the bullet and doing it right.

Good luck!

[dopeboat]

[dopeboat]

[Rob Combs]

With only 12k miles on the heads, you might be ok with the valves. I kinda understand that calculated risk, even if I personally still wouldn't do it.

WRT the oil cooler, there are some very fine passages in the oil cooler, with lots of little places to hang onto gunk and junk that was in the engine prior to teardown and inspection. If the case wasn't clean on teardown, you can bet your last dollar the oil cooler isn't clean either. If something is lurking in there and dislodges after you've gone to all the trouble and expense of refurbing your engine, it can all be lost quickly and with little to no warning.

Maybe you can rig up some kind of an adapter to allow you to forward and backward flush your oil cooler with solvent or kerosene, and maybe it will work just fine. Or maybe you can get away with not cleaning it at all. But you won't know until you know, and that, if it goes bad, is too late.

Just as an example, CB has new oil coolers for $42.95 right now. They're just one of many places you can pick one up. It's Cheap Insurance!

Berg has them for about $120 if you're that dead set against metals from countries other than Germany or the US. I don't share that sentiment, because most, if not all, CAN make quality parts if they're contracted to do so and held to their contractual obligations. There's a dude in Taiwan that makes some of the finest VW exhaust systems money can buy, anywhere.

Fixing these things (or any other machine) NEVER comes in on budget because you ALWAYS discover something bad you didn't expect to discover. The older or more worn the machine, the worse the effect is.

This is just my $.02, and I am not trying to belittle your approach. I wish you a successful project all the way through. Just sharing some of my own experience, if it helps.

Watching to see how this all turns out...

[dopeboat]

[Rob Combs]

Please understand I did not take your comments and questions as offensive in any way. I took them as legitimate questions and am glad you're here asking. Just wanted to be sure I didn't come off as offensive. I can be a bit blunt sometimes...

As to hoping and wishing the strainer basket will catch whatever might stop up the oil cooler, I definitely would not trust that. You're doing the right thing by going forward with a new oil cooler, even if CB did not recommend one, and you have to pay for more shipping and endure more delays. It sucks, but CB is usually pretty quick so things could be worse.

Forgive me if I'm oversimplifying, but for some background, the oil cooler more or less works like a radiator on a water cooled engine; the oil slows down through those small passages just enough to make sure the air passing through can "grab" and carry away the excess heat on its way out. I've seen radiators internally stopped up by surprisingly small foreign objects and coolant sludge, and expect the same of our oil coolers. I can't bring myself to expect the passages in the cooler to be larger than the rather large passages in the screen mesh in the strainer basket, which will only stop big pieces of engine debris from going up the pickup tube to the oil pump.

Considering it's $43 for a new cooler, and reading just the commentary about the condition of your cam and lifters, it was enough for me to raise the caution flag.

I hope this proves useful.

[Rob Combs]

Adding to above, just a thought. Not to try to cut CB out of a sale, but have you checked with your friendly local auto parts franchise? The one with the big blue and yellow sign usually has damn good quality parts, and might save you some time and shipping costs. If the price is right of course.

Just a thought...

[dopeboat]

Still waiting on engine parts, but in the meantime I replaced front shocks and tie rod ends, then wheeled the car outside to do an alignment per the Muir book. The bug sure is easy to push around with no engine in the back!

Back inside, I cut open the driver side where the death foam lives, with a fire extinguisher handy. A cut off wheel on an angle grinder makes quick work of it, just make sure you tape the headliner up out of the way. The foam backing on the headliner sure catches quick and makes some nasty smoke. Cutting access like this beforehand makes removing the foam an absolute breeze, although I did come VERY close to cutting into the main loom that sits in there.

The name of the game for me here was to preserve as much USEFUL metal as I could, and get rid of whats totally become rust, as well as the metal that was so thin it just lacked all strength. Using a straight pick from HF, I went around and poked all around the suspect areas. The car had been painted, poorly, and preceding this, whoever painted it had gone around and shot JB weld into all the rust holes in the area, so while some areas had bubbled through, others looked completely fine from the exterior, but one push from the pick, and they caved.

I did about four rounds of this, on either side, alternating between the pick and a body hammer’s sharp end, to locate all the areas where the metal was gone. Once I was satisfied I’d found them all, I went around inside with a wire wheel on the die grinder. This got pretty awkward, and I couldn’t reach EVERY spot, but I could reach most of them. I suppose I could have cut my access holes slightly larger.

Then I blew everything out with the air gun, and applied phosphoric acid from a spray bottle. I used Kleen Strip Metal and Concrete Prep. Throughout the day I applied about four coats of the stuff, even though they say you only need one. I may apply more tomorrow, we’ll see. You can definitely still see areas where there is active rust on the metal (note none of these photos show the “after” of applying the stuff - yet!).

I ran around with the dremel and a small grinding bit and beveled each hole IN, so that nothing is proud of the exterior surface when it comes to fairing all of this in. My original intent was to weld patch panels on the inside of the body, then fill the valleys left outside with bondo, sand, and paint. However, I don’t think I’ll be able to get a good enough, close enough, fit with the metal, so I am now thinking I’ll lay some fiberglass inside, and fill the outside as previously mentioned.

Of course I then discovered there is a similar rot issue at the back end of the heater channel on the driver’s side, so I started the process all over there. This area will almost certainly need metal replaced, the rust is much more advanced. I got to this by removing the heater box wye thingy and cutting an access hole all the way at the aft end of the heater channel, VERY carefully holding the close by wiring out of the way.

I’m hoping the upper areas are ready tomorrow to be glassed, but we’ll see.

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'77 FI Bahama Blue Type 1

[dopeboat]

We have a runner! I got a little carried away between these two updates. The engine is assembled, back in the car, and running. I also finished up the death foam repair and paint. The paint match is PRETTY close, but not perfect, and I haven't blended it in with the existing paint because seeing the new stuff made me realize I want to respray the whole car. The new paint just looks so good!

I do, however, now have a mysterious ticking sound. It gets more apparent when the engine is hot and has idled down a bit. It's RPM-dependent. I have checked the valve lash, they are within spec. It sounds like it's coming from the driver-side of the engine, around #4 cylinder, but up top. Is it normal? I have the engine timed to 30 deg BTDC at 3600 RPM with both hoses off (and plugged). I'm wondering if maybe the timing is just a little too hot and it's pinging? That's my next avenue, but open to suggestions. See video below.


Link

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'77 FI Bahama Blue Type 1

[Root_Werks]

Always really liked the late Std FI Beetles. I think they are very underrated.

Nice progress and updates! Sheese, that painted section looks amazing!

Hard to tell in the video, but the valve lash sounds pretty normal. Maybe just get some miles on and check lash again? Lots of new parts settling into each other.
_________________
When I set my timing, why do I flush, then take a pee?

[dopeboat]

[busdaddy]

Congratulations and well done!

Don't sweat a little tick for now, put a few hundred miles on and readjust everything then.

Right now your top priority is to break in those rings, no babying it, find a long stretch of road (preferrably with a long hill) and do some hard pulls accelerating in a long steady pull in third or fourth gear followed by letting off the gas with it still in gear and decelerating back down, repeat 6-8 times or more. Then go home and change the oil while it's still stirred up and warm.
_________________
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[dopeboat]

[busdaddy]

That's the first I've ever heard of that, bearings work right out of the box, but if the rings get shiny before they conform to the cylinders it'll burn oil for life.
_________________
Rust NEVER sleeps and stock never goes out of style.

Please don't PM technical questions, ask your problem in public so everyone can play along. If you think it's too stupid post it here
Stop dead photo links! Post your photos to The Samba Gallery!

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[Root_Werks]

[dopeboat]

Did my ring break-in as suggested. I -thought- the 100-mile easy-driving period was excessive. That aircooled.net break-in procedure should really be taken down. This way makes much more sense.

I put another new starter in the car yesterday. I'd converted to the autostick self-supporting one, which seems to work for everybody else, but made a horrific clacking noise in the split second after the engine started and before I let go of the key. I went with a NAPA rebuilt unit, which I've had trouble with in the past, but this time works like a champ. We'll see how long it lasts.

I'm now trying to troubleshoot two different (but I think interconnected) systems which are not functioning the way I'd expect.

First, and most annoyingly, my brake warning light is on. In the course of all the work I did while the engine was out, I replaced the MC and all the soft lines, the brakes have been bled and adjusted. The pedal is firm. I'd adjusted the MC pushrod, and my first thought was that maybe I'd over-adjusted it, which wasn't allowing the pushrod to fully return, so I adjusted it back the other way, light still on. The e-brake contact switch is working as it should be. Would a faulty brake light switch cause the system to put the light on? If I recall correctly, the 3-prong brake light switches are a real pain to come by...

Second, the door buzzer does not work. If I understand correctly, the buzzer sounds when the key is in the ignition and the driver's door is open. Looking at the electrical diagram, power is supplied via terminal 85 on the J34 relay when the key enters the ignition cylinder. Then, when the driver door contact switch F2 is grounded (i.e. door open), the circuit is completed and voila, buzz! Except, not for me! I've removed and cleaned the driver door switch and confirmed I'm getting contact on both tabs when the switch grounds. Aside from that, I replaced the J34 relay with a used unit, and that one also fails to buzz.

I should mention, I've also replaced the seatbelts in the car with WW modern equivalents, thus, the two wires for the seatbelt contact switch are dangling. I've tried leaving them like that, twisting them together, it makes no difference. The seatbelt light turns on for a moment when the ignition is turned on, then goes out, no matter what I do with the wires. I obviously don't care about the seatbelt light working, but I'd like my door buzzer to work. Suggestions?

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'77 FI Bahama Blue Type 1

[busdaddy]

You might regret your getting the buzzer working after a few weeks of it's annoying song, but by all means have a go at it.

The brake warning is triggered by one of the brake light switches being out of step with it's buddy, if you are sure you are getting pressure on both hydraulic circuits then a switch is to blame, try unplugging one at a time till the light goes out.
_________________
Rust NEVER sleeps and stock never goes out of style.

Please don't PM technical questions, ask your problem in public so everyone can play along. If you think it's too stupid post it here
Stop dead photo links! Post your photos to The Samba Gallery!

Слава Україні!

[dopeboat]