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My 1966 Beetle rebuild
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supercub
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 09, 2021 4:20 pm    Post subject: Re: My 1966 Beetle rebuild Reply with quote

This past week the weather has made a dramatic turnaround. Yesterday was sunny with temps in the mid 50's so I shoveled the snow off the drive to the shed where I store the Beetle over the winter and liberated it after 4 1/2 months of confinement. I reinstalled the battery, cranked it a bit to build oil pressure, pumped the gas pedal a few times, and it fired right up like it had ran yesterday. Good little car. I also replaced the dome light bulb that burned out late last year.
Today I took it on a 100 mile trip to Horicon Marsh to see the beginning of this spring's bird migration. It is a bit early in the season and nearly all of the marsh is still frozen, but there was plenty of action anyway. A pair of adult and several juvenile bald eagles were stationed in a tall tree and would occasionally swoop down toward a flock of seagulls on the ice below. This always resulted in a noisy explosion of seagulls frantically taking to the air screeching at the eagle. The eagles would never attack the gulls. It just seemed like they were enjoying harassing and taunting them. I also saw quite a few mallards, sandhill cranes, and probably a thousand geese. The Beetle performed flawlessly but I think the steering seems to be getting a bit loose. I need to look into that.

The Beetle at Horicon Marsh, WI.
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Overlooking the marsh from Palmatory Point.
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Seagulls that the bald eagles were harassing.
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A juvenile bald eagle swooping in to harass the gulls.
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Sandhill cranes.
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supercub
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 11, 2021 4:43 pm    Post subject: Re: My 1966 Beetle rebuild Reply with quote

Throttle cable snapped on me today. Broke at the accelerator pedal. I didn't have a spare in the car but I had a piece of electrical wire that I was able to splice to the broken end and then wrap around the gas pedal to get home. The "repair" wouldn't let the throttle open all the way though so I maxed out at about 45mph. Don't have a spare at home either so I ordered a couple of new ones.
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supercub
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 25, 2021 1:26 pm    Post subject: Re: My 1966 Beetle rebuild Reply with quote

Today I drove the VW for the first time in nearly 2 months. On May 28 I was at work and a 30lb metal grate fell from about 5 feet and landed on my left foot, breaking it. The impact broke the bone completely in two. It needed a plate and six screws to put the bone back together. For six weeks I couldn't do much of anything. I started physical therapy 2 weeks ago and now I can walk pretty well again and have enough strength to push the clutch pedal to drive the VW. It was nice to be back in the Beetle again. I washed the 2 months worth of dirt, pollen, and tree sap off the car this morning and am slowly working on polishing and waxing it. My foot got tired so I'm done for today. I should be able to finish it up tomorrow. It was a real bummer to miss so much of the summer, as I'm usually busy bicycling, running, and hiking right now. I go to the doctor for X-rays on Aug 6, and if all is well I should be able to go back to work again.
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vwuberalles
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 26, 2021 10:02 am    Post subject: Re: My 1966 Beetle rebuild Reply with quote

Jeez, glad you're healing up! Welcome back to playing with the bug.
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1966 Beetle: My new project. (SOLD) Build thread--> https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=678040
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 26, 2021 4:50 pm    Post subject: Re: My 1966 Beetle rebuild Reply with quote

Ouch, that sucks.

If you can push the clutch that seems like excellent progress
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supercub
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 27, 2021 1:41 pm    Post subject: Re: My 1966 Beetle rebuild Reply with quote

vwuberalles wrote:
Jeez, glad you're healing up! Welcome back to playing with the bug.


Thanks. Yep its nice to drive it again. I had been driving my Mercury Grand Marquis, which is mainly my winter car. I don't mind the Mercury at all, but the VW is much better.
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supercub
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 27, 2021 1:44 pm    Post subject: Re: My 1966 Beetle rebuild Reply with quote

EverettB wrote:
Ouch, that sucks.

If you can push the clutch that seems like excellent progress


Yes I am quite pleased with how I'm progressing. I am normally very active so this has been a long, and at times boring, stretch for me.
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supercub
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 01, 2021 4:59 am    Post subject: Re: My 1966 Beetle rebuild Reply with quote

Here's the Beetle as of this morning. This spring I actually made a change to the car. I switched to 15x5.5 wheels and 195/65R15 tires from the old 165/80R15's on 15x4.5's. The overall tire height is nearly the same but there are many more tire options in 195/65. The car looked a little strange with the wider tires at first, but I've gotten used to it. It feels a lot more planted taking corners at speed.

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PostPosted: Mon Aug 02, 2021 6:42 am    Post subject: Re: My 1966 Beetle rebuild Reply with quote

It looks great with those wheels and meaty tires!
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1966 Beetle: My new project. (SOLD) Build thread--> https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=678040
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Big Bill
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 04, 2021 7:11 am    Post subject: Re: My 1966 Beetle rebuild Reply with quote

It does look great with the new tire/wheel combo. I am using the same wheels but in 4.5 I wish I had gone 5.5 on the rear but mine being a 67 with a little wider rear axels I wasn't sure if they would fit. I also went with the 165s should have gone the 195 route like you did. Looks great.
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supercub
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 09, 2021 5:12 pm    Post subject: Re: My 1966 Beetle rebuild Reply with quote

vwuberalles wrote:
It looks great with those wheels and meaty tires!


Thanks. Now with the wider tires, I can finally get all that power to the ground. Ha.

Big Bill wrote:
It does look great with the new tire/wheel combo. I am using the same wheels but in 4.5 I wish I had gone 5.5 on the rear but mine being a 67 with a little wider rear axels I wasn't sure if they would fit. I also went with the 165s should have gone the 195 route like you did. Looks great.
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That's a really nice '67 just the way it is.
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 07, 2021 5:24 am    Post subject: Re: My 1966 Beetle rebuild Reply with quote

Today the '66 turned 80,000 miles. Well actually the odometer turned 52142 and it was at 72142 when I got the car. Over that 80k the 40hp 1200 has required no engine work. The last time the engine was out was 2012 right after I built it due to my messing up on the main seal install, but it's been solid ever since. I have kept up pretty diligently with maintenance on the car though. I change the oil every 1500 miles and drop the sump plate every 3000. I've used NAPA 10W40 in it for the past seven years. At 3000 miles it gets a valve adjustment and I change the air cleaner oil. At 3k I also file and adjust the points, clean the rotor and distributor contacts, and adjust the timing. The engine is on it's second 28-pict 1 carburetor and second muffler. A couple of years ago the spot welds on the generator pulley hub broke resulting in some horrific clattering and scraping noises. I was driving in northern Illinois at the time and thought something catastrophic had failed. I pulled off the road and discovered the broken pulley. I didn't have a spare so I tightened the generator nut a bit more which helped quiet it down and made it back home with no issues. I am still shooting for 100k with this engine, and am pretty confident it will make it. I think at that point I'm going to pull it out and get a valve job done on the heads as well as replace the engine to body seals which are getting a bit ragged in spots. I was planning to totally rebuild the engine at that point but part of me wants to see how far this engine can go without a rebuild. I'll see how I feel when it reaches 100k which will probably be sometime in 2024. I am very pleased with how reliable the '66 has been all this time.

The engine at 80,000 miles. It's a little grungy, thought I do spray it off every now and then, and uses (leaks) a bit over 1/2 a quart of oil every 3000 miles.
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supercub
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PostPosted: Sun Sep 26, 2021 4:21 pm    Post subject: Re: My 1966 Beetle rebuild Reply with quote

Well this is no good at all.

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This afternoon I noticed some cracking and lifting seam sealer in the corner behind the battery when I pulled up the rear seat bottom to add some new valve cover gaskets to my spare parts stash under there. I picked and poked at it a bit with a screwdriver and the seam sealer pealed right off along with lots of crusty rusty bits. It's pretty bad. There are a couple of holes all the way through. I remember some rust back there and I patched a good deal of it but I guess I got lazy and just seam sealed over some of it and now I'm left with this mess 10 years later.

So here is first hand evidence of what happens when you cut corners with rust, it'll be 10 times worse in the future. I need to get a new cutoff wheel and angle grinder and then the patching will begin. Oh well.
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 27, 2021 10:19 am    Post subject: Re: My 1966 Beetle rebuild Reply with quote

Are you in the Vintage VW Club of America Facebook group or something like that? I'm pretty sure that I remember a picture of your car in front of a mountain with the colored fender and door showing--they're very distinctive. I loved the picture so much that I set it as my computer's desktop for a while. It would've been back before 2015.

Which is my long way of saying that I love your car.
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supercub
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 27, 2021 4:51 pm    Post subject: Re: My 1966 Beetle rebuild Reply with quote

Beetlebaum wrote:
Are you in the Vintage VW Club of America Facebook group or something like that? I'm pretty sure that I remember a picture of your car in front of a mountain with the colored fender and door showing--they're very distinctive. I loved the picture so much that I set it as my computer's desktop for a while. It would've been back before 2015.

Which is my long way of saying that I love your car.


I actually don't have a Facebook profile. There is a picture on this site from my road trip to California in 2013 where the beetle is parked in front a large mountain in Nevada. Maybe someone reposted it on Facebook. I did make a thread about that trip in the Stories section on this site so maybe you saw it there? Anyway thanks for the compliment and I'm glad you like the '66. I like it too. Your thread about your '73 Super is one that I always enjoyed and have kept up with for a long time.
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supercub
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 27, 2021 5:15 pm    Post subject: Re: My 1966 Beetle rebuild Reply with quote

Well I spent pretty much all day working on repairing the rust on the '66. When I was cutting it out it seemed like the more rust I removed, the more I would find. Ugh! I finally got to the point where I was satisfied with how much I removed. It was good enough. I found a broken Toyota Tundra skidplate in the basement at work so that is lending itself as patching material. The beetle now has some '65 Buick, old refrigerator, and Toyota metal in it.

I then cut, bent, and welded in the outer metal which used up the rest of the day. I realized that I really don't miss doing rust repair. Naturally I ran out of shielding gas in the midst of the project, so I spent an hour going to the store and getting another tank. I was never the greatest welder but not having welded for 10 years, it turned out kind of crappy. Oh well. If the repair lasts another decade I'm good with it.

Rust cut out.
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From the outside.
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Broken Toyota Tundra skidplate that will become one with the VW.
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Outer metal welded in. Made in three pieces. Noticed a section of bad weld penetration when I uploaded this picture. Need to fix that.
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From the outside.
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supercub
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 28, 2021 6:07 pm    Post subject: Re: My 1966 Beetle rebuild Reply with quote

Finished the welding today. It's not pretty but it's solid for now. I ran out of welding gas with about 3" left on the last piece, so I had to get another tank of gas and finish the last little bit after work. Now I just need to prime, seam seal, and paint it.

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PostPosted: Thu Sep 30, 2021 2:30 pm    Post subject: Re: My 1966 Beetle rebuild Reply with quote

supercub wrote:
The beetle now has some '65 Buick, old refrigerator, and Toyota metal in it.


Classic! Laughing People have done worse repairs than that on their VWs. I applaud you for making the best of what materials you have, and doing a better job than most did back in the day. Applause
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supercub
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 30, 2021 5:31 pm    Post subject: Re: My 1966 Beetle rebuild Reply with quote

sportin-wood wrote:
supercub wrote:
The beetle now has some '65 Buick, old refrigerator, and Toyota metal in it.


Classic! Laughing People have done worse repairs than that on their VWs. I applaud you for making the best of what materials you have, and doing a better job than most did back in the day. Applause


Thanks. The body on this Beetle is really pretty rough all around, with lots of old poorly repaired accident damage and dents. To me it has always seemed right to continue repairing it in a similar manner. Mechanically though, I am very diligent with maintenance to keep the car reliable.


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PostPosted: Thu Sep 30, 2021 5:38 pm    Post subject: Re: My 1966 Beetle rebuild Reply with quote

So after I primed the repaired area, I found another small hole down low which became a bigger one when I poked at it. Also the back corner of the heater channel was looking somewhat suspect, so I took off the running board and stabbed at the heater channel side a bit with the screwdriver and punched through in a few places. I cut out the back 6" of the heater channel side and welded in a new piece. I also cut out the bad area below where I had patched already. I still need to make a new piece for that. Then I'll prime it again and if I don't see anything else suspicious, I'm painting it and calling it done. I'm kind of bummed about how eaten up this corner of the car is.
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