Robert's 1971 411 restoration project!

[Aztecducky]

Hello everyone!

I've always liked aircoolers, but never owned one until a few weeks ago. I picked up this 1971 411 wagon from a friend. It has been sitting in a field in Texas since 1987 or 1988. I have started to dig into the car and get replacement parts. The body is in great shape, the front fascia and the front of the spare tire well has some perforating rust but not too bad. The floorboard where the battery goes under the driver's seat is gone, but the rest of the car (and chassis) is solid. Suspension moves freely, shocks are in working order and pass a jounce test with flying colors. To my surprise, the wheels and brakes were not seized and the vehicle rolled freely on and off my trailer. There are tons of issues with the car, mainly the entire interior upholstery.

I will be manual swapping this car, and have already purchased the pedals, clutch master cylinder, and the elusive 004 transmission itself. I am still in need of the rest of the parts, mainly shifter, shift linkages, and related parts. I have a member now looking through his collection for a complete 210mm clutch kit and flywheel.

I have started to dig into the car, changing fluids, window seals, etc. The 3 speed transmission looked surprisingly beautiful inside, and the fluid was used but not too dark. I have removed the injectors to test them, and 3 of the 4 seem to be operating properly. The 4th does not click when power is appli!ed, but the resistance seems to be close to the other 3. I am hoping that cleaning it out with gasoline will free it up! I would like to retain the EFI, but if all of the parts need to be replaced, I'm most likely going to go with a carburetor conversion as some of the parts are incredibly expensive. The fuel tank will be removed soon and brought to a local shop to be cleaned out and re-sealed. The engine might need a complete rebuild, but I will be trying to get it running as is just to see if I can. If it needs a rebuild, I am not sure if I should rebuild it as a stock 1.7, or build a hot rodded engine or something along the lines of a 1.8 or 2.0. Any input is appreciated!

Moving on to the interior, I have already picked up a lot of parts fron the fine folk here at The Samba, as well as the go-to websites like CIP1 and WCM. I have not found any source for seat upholstery, and will most likely have a local upholstery shop rebuild the seats for me. The dash needs to be repaired or replaced pretty badly, it needs a new steering wheel (I'd like to keep it OEM or OEM style.) It needs all of the interior panels (hatch panels, door panels, rear seat side panels, etc.) as the main structures are curling up and are not reusable. Are there any sources for the panels, or am I going to have to cut them out of OSB myself and cover them with vinyl? Is there a source for pre-formed heat seam vinyl, or am I better off sewing patterns into the vinyl before attaching them to the backing? I am also in need of the rubber pieces that hold the metal panel clips in place as they are turning to dust, as well as the hatch hinge beauty covers for the same reason.

Any pictures of intact/original/restored 411 interiors would be greatly appreciated and a huge help in this restoration project! I will be posting pictures of my progress here. This car is a fun project for me and will be a keeper so I'm not too concerned with the value vs money in.

Thank you all, I'm looking forward to the great advice I'm sure I'll get here!

[raygreenwood]

Congrats!

I will help all I can!

I need to tell you this now though, while the suspension moves freely (pretty common)....there will be nothing that is driveable on it. Trust me.

Hopefully the ball joints are not rusted. Those can be saved if we can find boots for them. They are unobtanium except for NOS. There will besome bushing work to be done and we have solutions for struts and shocks. Tie rods are available. You can rebuild the centerlink in about 2 hours with about $30 in parts. I have a how-to in this forum for that.

You will need new strut bushings and also get rid of the bonded rubber centerlink bushing and install a solid bronze one. Same price and available new.

The brakes are not hard to do. Rebuild the clutch master cylinder while you can. Rebuild the calipers. Kits are available at PMB performance and they have the caliper half seals in their kits.

Right now, today, I am finishing up the details to rebuild about five type 4 master cylinders. These will be "forever cylinders"....nickel plated bores back to factory size and coated with master series silver on the outside.

I am also doing 3-4 clutch master cylinders the same way and about 8 clutch slaves for the late 44.5mm slave size.

DO NOT...have the tank sealed on the inside. Have it boiled out and treat it with phosphoric acid and its far better.

That will be a cool car eventually...hopefully. Ray

[Aztecducky]

[oprn]

Mine is the same color but older and... sorry to say for your sake... not nearly as rough inside. It was running a few years back so I am confident it will run again. Someone smashed the right door glass and 1/4 glass out though. Seat belts are all missing too.
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Our cars get old, we get old but driving an old VW never gets old!

[Aztecducky]

So it's finally cooled down some here in Texas (only been in the mid 90s all week) and I've make some good progress on my 411!!

First off, I cleaned everything up. Vacuumed the carpets, seats, engine bay, etc.
I ordered a ton of parts, everything I could find that the car needed, and bought a lot of small parts from my local aircooled place (matched up with pictures or bringing the old, broken parts in). I also ordered new wheels and tires.

I got underneath the car and it seems like I figured out why the previous owner parked it 36-37 years ago: the starter was almost off. The solenoid was missing, all the wires were dangling, and the lower nut was removed. I assume they couldn't figure out how to remove the upper bolt (I couldn't either, but figured it out thanks to the 3 shop manuals I bought). I ordered a new starter to replace it.

While waiting for the new starter, I got to work on the rear brakes. I replaced every component inside the drum, and put them back together. I removed one of the headlights to get the hood open as the cable was broken. Finally getting it open, some things were in surprisingly good shape. Unfortunately the hood is rotted out where the latch bolts to it, so I will need a new hood. I removed the front calipers and will be rebuilding them in the next few days.

Then I did a transmission service. To my surprise, the automatic transmission didn't seem to be leaking, and the inside of the transmission was beautiful! The transmission fluid was a nice reddish brown, nothing concerning at all.

I got the rear windows seal from West Coast Metric and replaced it. I have since ordered the front window seal, and a rear window seal for a 71-ish Beetle to see if I can make that work to seal the side windows.

I replaced the entire ignition system, and fogged the engine with some Sta-Bil fogger. Unfortunately, the rear (front? Its closest to the back bumper) left cylinder looks like the valve was left open as it looked pretty rusty inside. That's a problem for later me.

I pulled the injectors, and found that 3 of the 4 were functioning as intended when powered up. They pass air through them when energized and are sealed when they are at rest. I soaked the end of the other injector in gasoline, but it seems to still be stuck. The resistance figure is consistent with the other 3 injectors (3.8-4.3 ohms). Anything else I should try before I buy a new injector?

I then started to get the car's electrical system repaired as best as I could. Fortunately, most of it was still there and unaltered. I replaced the fuse box and all the relays and fuses on it. Using the wiring diagram, I made sure every wire was in its proper place. I replaced all the exterior bulbs save for the headlights. I have 3 relays in the fuse box, but there are two more slots with wiring going to them. I am not sure if there is another relay I am missing, I believe the door buzzer fills one of those slots.

After triple checking all the wiring, it was time to give the car battery power for the first time since 1987 or 1988!

I replaced the ground cable, put the battery on the ground under the floorboard where it should be, and hooked the terminals up. This hole will be repaired of course. Turning the key, I started checking everything I could. The headlights, taillights, and marker lights work! The hazard switch lights up, but the hazards and turn signals flash very strangely, extremely quickly (way faster than your typical "bulb out" flash) or sometimes not at all. I suspect that the used flasher relay I put in is bad. The wipers work, on both speeds too! The interior lights flicker when turning the dimmer switch, but don't light up strongly. I suspect the dimmer switch is bad. Turning on the blower motor/heater (not the gas heater), the switch lights up but the blower motor does not turn or make any noise. The high beam switch and turn signal switch both function. The turn signal indicator on the instrument cluster does light up, as well as the generator light.

Turning the key to the start position, nothing happened. I took off the shifter bezel and found that the metal piece that is supposed to contact the neutral safety switch was not springing out. I checked the resistances, and bypassed the switch to get power to the starter. Unfortunately, the starter clunked but did not turn the engine over. It is completely locked up, not surprising though due to the time it had been sitting outside in a field. I'm going to soak the cylinders in ATF and try again in a few days. If that doesn't fix it, I'll pull the engine and rebuild it!

I am currently on the hunt for the rest of the parts to manual swap this car. I have the pedals, clutch master cylinder, and the 004 transmission. I purchased a 210mm clutch disc, pressure plate, and flywheel but unfortunately the clutch disc has the larger, standard aircooled splines and not the 004 size splines. I need the shifter assembly and all linkages as well as a proper sized clutch setup and flywheel.

Thanks for checking out my project!

[raygreenwood]

Good work! Thanks for saving another one. Ask questions if you need to and we will help all we can!
Ray

[Aztecducky]

[Aztecducky]

So, a little update on these ball joints. I have removed them from the package to inspect the condition and make sure they're correct. The seller on ebay did list them as fitting my 411. I haven't installed them yet, but the shape and size look correct for a Type 4.

The rubber boots are in remarkably good shape, even when pulling at the extra part sticking up out of the retaining rings with my fingernail I couldn't get it to peel, crack, or tear. The ball joints are MOOG part number K9037. The other box did not have the rest of the label torn off, and there are no numbers after that, I just happened to get a picture of the torn label instead of the intact one. I have not been able to find them in any online MOOG parts catalogs, not even the vintage ones available for download. The box says "same as KF 45" and "Made in Germany"

The box is dated 1986:

Now for the very strange part. In both of the boxes there was this tag, which appears to have some sort of adhesive on the back. It seems like an OEM VW parts box label, complete with the part number of the ball joints themselves and "1 Gelenk" which is German for "1 Joint".
I am not sure if MOOG was an OEM for VW at one point, or if they got these from VW's OEM manufacturer and re-boxed them as their own (I'm leaning towards the latter). Here's the tag:

[heimlich]

Wow. You really have your work cut out for you.
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[raygreenwood]

[raygreenwood]

I almost forgot I did this thread.

There is a ton of ball joint tech in this thread and also some aftermarket boot part #'s and also part of what you need to know to make these joints "greasable"...and details of the eccentric adjustment joints like your part # says you have.

https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=635836&highlight

By the way....6 years down the line...those aftermarket ball joint boots I bought from Howe racing, while staying installed on the joints, in my garage and out of sunlight and weather except for freezing cold....rotted away.

Yes, its probably because they are neoprene instead of voton but also its most probably the grease that was in it.

also by the way and I had completely forgotten before I went back through that thread...that symbol that looked to me to suggest "Ocap" in Italy...is actually the logo for ECO which is Ehrenreich ...which is TRW.

Ray

[Aztecducky]

Hello Ray,

I really appreciate the knowledge. I'm assuming installing the gasket just involves cutting one out yourself, which i have done on many projects in the past. Should the gasket material be rubber?

The ball joints are fully cast, even on the bottom. There is also a dimple/line on the top for caster alignment indication. I remember seeing your thread about the ball joints a month ago or so. Good information there! I will definitely be installing grease zerks and drilling a hole in the bottom to keep them greased properly.

I wonder why there were what appears to be OEM labels in the boxes with the ball joints.

[Aztecducky]

[heimlich]

You can run through fuel filters quite quickly if you have anything in the tank including rust. I had a similar situation with a Beetle of mine. It was a new tank that sat in the car for years empty while restoring it. I ended up replacing the tank as the filters kept clogging rather quickly.
_________________
www.vwnos.com [email protected]
Classic Brands. Classic Quality.
Not all parts are made the same. NOS OE/OEM parts made mainly in West Germany, Early Germany, and Early Brazil are where VW produced the best quality parts and best fitting products.
5% Off your order with coupon code: 5%OFF
Restored Distributors Available (<--Click here)

[raygreenwood]

[Pepperbilly]

I wish you all the best in this very ambitious project. I restored my mom's 412 wagon "Goldie" and it has turned out really nice.

You really have to place close attention to your fuel system. I pulled the gas tank and completely cleaned it inside and out. I did not have any rust really but residue from old gas lined the inside from sitting with a half a tank for over 20 years. The goal is to get it as immaculate inside as possible.

I tried to save my old fuel injectors by having them cleaned and flow tested. Problem was when I thought I had everything really clean I still had residue/contamination and plugged my injectors. This was even after a couple of filter changes. You can see in one of my threads the photo of a filter I cut apart. Very fine residue still existed. I had to take the top off the fuel tank to search for the additional contamination. I certainly found a fine silty layer at the tank bottom. I had to drain the tank again and suck this stuff out with a vacuum suction on a shop vac.

I went ahead and purchased new SMP injectors from Rock Auto. I wanted to stick with original types but made the decision to go with the SMPs after reading favorable reviews. I am glad I did. These injectors work so nicely and they are new. I feel you are taking a big risk with the old Bosch. They are old and the bodies can potentially leak gas.

As a precaution I have changed out my fuel filter a few times in the 1st 1000 miles. Gives me peace of mind. Hope this helps.

Bill

[Aztecducky]

Bill, thank you!! I really appreciate the insight. I will definitely be thoroughly cleaning the tank out and replacing all the fuel lines. I will pay very close attention to the injectors themselves and ensure they are not leaking fuel. I'm hoping to have the car running and driving by the end of this year. We will see how that goes!

To drop the fuel tank, the front subframe needs to be removed correct?

[Pepperbilly]

[raygreenwood]

[Aztecducky]

Ray,

I really appreciate the detailed write up. I've had some experience repairing/replacing captive nuts that were broken loose on my 1998 Forester. I was installing a lift kit and two of the subframe bolts broke their captive nuts free. That car spent the first 150k miles of its life in New Jersey so it had some bad rust. The 411 seems to only have surface rust save for the floorboards, everything I've done so far has been very easy fortunately. I will be careful with those subframe bolts. That picture with it removed helps a lot, now I know what I'm up against and that I need to be careful.

I will be trying to tackle this job and getting the engine free this weekend. I will keep this thread updated!