Marmalade, a 1972 autostick Super Beetle

[redeyedtreefr0g]

My twin sister and I always dreamed that our first car would be a beetle. Life happened, and that dream didn't...
Then, when I first met my husband, his grandmother had an orange beetle parked in the way back corner of the yard. I thought they knew I wanted it, but it disappeared from the yard one day, never to return.
When I met our best friend, his mom had a beetle, an orange one, parked in the driveway and I begged her to let me buy it. She refused, she was planning to fix it up herself. Okay. Six years later, in 2019, she calls us up. I can have the beetle, if I come get it from the driveway. We hopped in my 2007 green beetle Sagra and went!

Pretty much everything went wrong on that trip. Then we crashed. Both beetles were damaged. Ultimately that ended up being the start of hospice for my poor Sagra. The classic orange beetle Marmalade got loaded up on a car dolly to get dragged home.

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"Marmalade" a 1972 Super Beetle, autostick

[redeyedtreefr0g]

The car has sat a long while in the yard, getting attention in bits and spurts. In 2020 I had a hysterectomy surgery. In 2022 I had cervical spine surgery to cure myelopathy from herniated disks in my neck.

It took a fun bit of figuring to do things despite a 40lb lifting restriction!

I had a lot of moral support, as you can see, and I managed to put the engine in all by myself!

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"Marmalade" a 1972 Super Beetle, autostick

[redeyedtreefr0g]

Marmalade sat again for a year this time while jobs and doggy needs took our time...

Recently a local was able to stop by and, with apparent ease, switched the distributor around and fired the car right up! I made some mistakes putting it all together, but it seems I did a pretty good job, all things considered! A couple more days of devotion and I was able to get the car into the shop under it's own power (but couldn't stop).

We fixed a separation of the drive plate from shucking all the torque converter bolts away, then fixed stuck wheel cylinders and adjusted and bled brakes...

A few days later, I DROVE MY CAR FOR THE FIRST TIME in some circles in the yard!
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"Marmalade" a 1972 Super Beetle, autostick

[redeyedtreefr0g]

Next steps for Marmalade (I think):

Adjustments for smooth shifting (fix shifter plates, doublecheck vaccuum. We figured out the wiring to the control valve finally.)

Test drive!
What sort of front end damage is there from the crash? We know the front left tire doesn't have enough clearance from the strut spring/coil.
Fix front end?

Paint replacement front fenders yellow and put them on!
Replace broken/missing driver side headlight assembly.

Replace broken driver side taillight lens.

Replace broken rearview mirror.

Add the 3 heater and air ducts.
Fix the broken heater cable with a cable extender?

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"Marmalade" a 1972 Super Beetle, autostick

[redeyedtreefr0g]

We got some donor cars from a local shop. Today we spent getting suspension parts from maybe a 73(?) and taking it apart. We think we identified the major reasons why the spring is so close to the tire after the crash: the bracket welded on to the frame kinked from the force transferred through the track control arm. It also looks like the strut may not be entirely straight. It seems as if the strut may come out at a different angle than the lower housing shell portion of it ( which I haven't looked up the proper name for).

In other news, the donor fenders are yellow now, and Marmalade is going to look awesome!

I've donor car has a headlight we can use. The other has a crunchy, but carefully serviceable rearview mirror.
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"Marmalade" a 1972 Super Beetle, autostick

[jinx758]

Every road trip is an adventure!

My wife of 10yrs has spinal stenosis & facing her 3rd surgery.

I owned an autostick WAY back in the 90s for about 8months. All I did was adjust the brakes, drove it around, & someone offered stoopid money so I sold it.
Still miss that one.

Long journey & kool story, keep after it.

Thanx for sharing ... stay safe

jinx
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" It's not valuable unless you learn something from an experience. " Henry Ford

It's not unlike the same difference ...

My Craigslist rescued 100 footer :
1971 Standard Bug
1776cc dual port
034 distributor
38mm EGAS Carburetor

[Rome]

redeyed, you're doing very, very well with your efforts to revive the Beetle. We look forward to updates and photos, especially now with freshly painted fenders.

[Buggeee]

71 and 72 Super Beetles have some unique parts. Like the hood, and a solid control arm, and three bolts connecting the control arm, ball joint and strut.

I think the 73 and afterwards Super Beetles front suspension has a pressed control arm, and a different method of connecting the strut to the control arm. However, something makes me think the strut to body is same, and control arm to body is the same, so maybe if you swap in the whole assembly from the 73 it might work.

I don't know about the tie rods. Maybe just check the vendors to see if the new tie rod sets are sold for all Supers 71 to 79 or if they are unique to the two periods.

Some research might be required to harvest those later suspension parts.

Enjoy the build!
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Big Time 1988 Vanagon Westy
Release the Krankenwagen! 1966 Sportsmobile Camper
Dr. Kompressor 72 Super Duper
61 Turkis Pile (adopted out)

[redeyedtreefr0g]

It's gonna look so awesome!

I haven't been this impatient for the mail to hurry up and get here in a long time! Fender piping gets here tomorrow, but I'll have to wait because the new struts haven't shipped yet. It'll probably be much easier to work on those parts without the fender on yet.
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"Marmalade" a 1972 Super Beetle, autostick

[heimlich]

I can't tell which I like more. The VW are the dogs.
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www.vwnos.com [email protected]
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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.
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[vamram]

[heimlich]

I have a brand new Super Hood in one of my containers. I should go out there one day and find the part number for it. I know they have gotten hard to find for you Super People.
_________________
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)

[redeyedtreefr0g]

The white beetle has the clamp style at the bottom of the strut, but the red one is like Marmalade. Today I got the headlight from the white one.

Clyde is the big happy old yellow dog, he was Grandad's and he passed in 2021.
The black dog is Max, we named him because he's so goofy! He's now gotten a better home where he can safely be silly with a brother just like him, and apparently he loves riding in golf carts!

We still have six.
Thor is the dark silver and white pibble boy.
The "baby" beagle is Pinny, she's still our smallest.
Coconut is the Aussie girl.
The great Pyrenees is Dolly (we didn't name her).
The red pibble girl is Seven. The star trek symbol on her head was much bigger as a puppy!
Our youngest is the white/cream pibble girl Oatmeal.

<3
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"Marmalade" a 1972 Super Beetle, autostick

[heimlich]

We had 4 dogs at one time. We are back down to 1 who we started with. He outlasted all of the others. It's his 15th year providing smiles and love.
_________________
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)

[redeyedtreefr0g]

Learning more about cars thanks to my brat beetle, Marmalade.

I thought I got the shifter right, but I forgot to test it after getting the carpet all vacuumed and put back, and APPARENTLY NOT... so that silly stick came back apart. The old crunchy wire has had it and I discovered it was constantly grounding so the car couldn't go in gear.
Also the engine wouldn't crank because it just WON'T do that without a fully charged battery.
We fixed the battery charger and figured out where neutral is with vice grips on the shift rod finally...

And then we found dirty fuel and also decided it's because we got to the bottom of the tank. Had to go get gas. (Looks like my gas gauge doesn't work.) We changed the fuel filter. Marmalade still didn't want to crank up and run! We poked around some more and decided after fixing the fuel issue that we also had no FIRE...

I have now learned a little more about the mysterious working of distributors and why I have been confused about them this entire time: what everyone calls POINTS is actually just a single "point" of contact on a "breaker point assembly" where a flappy arm rides in and out against the rounded square column of the distributor. The arm claps a contact like you'd clap your hands, opening to a specific gap amount at the high corners of the square column and closing at the low straight sides of the square column. My breaker arm wasn't moving open at all! So now I know how to turn the motor so the arm is against the high corner where the contact should be fully open, and set the gap.

Now the motor cranks strongly and starts almost immediately. Then it doesn't want to stay running...

There was still something funky going on with fuel based on the sightglass of the fuel filter, so we took the electric fuel pump off and bench tested it. It did not have a good seal for the check valve so we took it apart, cleaned it and dunked all the bits in marvel mystery oil, put it back together, tested it pumping oil. Whatever grit was in there is gone now and it doesn't allow backflow seepage anymore. We'll mount it in a better place, since there is no reason to keep an electric fuel pump mounted where the mechanical one used to go.

Thoroughly irritated now, we got The Winch.

Marmalade got coerced backward and then slowly coerced forward into the shop.
We're done for today. Take that, brat!

A new shifter contact wire is ordered... Also a strut tower support bar, I saw that's a thing and one of my cavaliers had one so it seems like a good idea, especially since we aren't sure what kind of buckling damage might exist due to the crash.
Tomorrow we'll start replacing the struts.
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"Marmalade" a 1972 Super Beetle, autostick

[Rome]

[redeyedtreefr0g]

We're working on front suspension and stuff... Not done. Some improvement in that we replaced Marmalade's driver side strut housing and spindle after just a strut and the new ball joint and control arm grommets and bushings weren't going to fix anything. The strut housing and spindle seem to have helped, they are from the red donor car VIN 1332908936.

Today I installed the rear seat backrest! I had to do it dodging yellow flies and black widows, which is just ridiculous. Folks, be careful around those yard cars!
I couldn't find anything resembling a seat pivot bolt... Luckily both donor cars had posts on the passenger side. I snapped the red one off. The white one came out whole, and I decided to use both. The rear seat I stitched a liner to the bottom to contain upholstery debris. The backrest got some thin plywood backer.

Not putting the bench back in until I'm sure we can reliably start and drive the car, since battery strength seems to be an issue, or something.
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"Marmalade" a 1972 Super Beetle, autostick

[Bobs67vwagen]

I may have missed it in your posts but I do not see mention of the gas tank being removed and cleaned. Do it if you have not as it could continue to provide new headaches with your fuel pump and carb. Good luck with your project-Bob

[redeyedtreefr0g]

Hi Bob! We had not checked the tank yet, but we have now!

It turns out I have some rust in the car under there. The drain plug was not properly installed and was seeping around it's poor old gasket which had been tightened onto whatever undercoating is all over the bottom of the car. Also the antique original fuel hose had developed about a billion cracks and was functioning as well as you'd expect a holey straw to do.

I'm honestly surprised Marmalade has run as many minutes as it has with those hoses. They held together so well at first, haha!

The good news is the tank seems to be pretty clean inside. We did a crude sort of pipe clean with some wire through the pickup tube. There is no screen filter, but we'll have an inline filter so I'm okay with that.

I'm not ready to deal with the rust yet. Since it seems so relatively easy to get to, I'm gonna fix the current problems first.

The electric fuel pump is unbolted from the plate covering the original mechanical pump hole. Fuel hose runs from the carburetor to three front left corner by the control valve, where there's now a check valve inline.
The fuel pump I've mounted to the outside of the spare tire well in the front. I still have to finish putting the hoses and filter on, then get some power run to the pump.

Hopefully tomorrow after that little bit of stuff, the car will start up and run like it wants to live again!
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"Marmalade" a 1972 Super Beetle, autostick

[redeyedtreefr0g]

Oh and the mail arrived. I'm so mad. The shifter contact was a piece of junk and the wire was already halfway fallen out of the contact disk. It failed a little bit of further investigation, and came apart entirely (also why is it blue?).

So I went and found some wire, did some calculating and some electrical surgery. I spliced the old wire into new wire just under the contact so the weak section is wrapped and kind of protected inside the shifter. Only new and fully insulated wire now comes out. I was careful not to twist the wire itself when putting the stick back together.
The book says to tighten all the way down and then back off half a turn. Doing that didn't seem to allow any movement to the top of the shifter stick so I gave it one more half, making sure to keep the top slot lined up with the bottom dowel pin so the stick can only tip front-to-back. I'll get to see how well it works later, and if it doesn't I now know exactly how to adjust it for contact.

My reverse lockout plate did not survive my husband. The tall narrow tab was completely flattened and cracked on the fold. I gingerly stood it up again... I don't know how long it might last. The stick is installed and bolted onto the tunnel...

I've got no idea what, if any adjustment needs to happen there. Its just bolted down. I'll have to get the car running, then the contact known working, to see if the stick itself shifts properly. It feels fine with the car off, but then again it did before too. I guess we'll find out!
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"Marmalade" a 1972 Super Beetle, autostick