The Wildebeest

[TDCTDI]

So… yesterday, I decided to do the right thing, sorted the paperwork & made the Beest legal.


With tags in hand, I opted for the total immersion method & gave the Beest it’s first real shakedown.

Here’s the odometer from a few weeks ago…

[TDCTDI]

After another 120 miles of driving, it was time to exorcise those demons responsible for the cacophony of metallic rattling emanating from the back of the cabin.

And with the majority of that removed, I dabbled with some of the piddly crap that just makes it a little better, like replacing the fuel door release handle…

And plugging the rear brake inspection & adjuster holes…

_________________
Everybody born before 1975 has a story, good, bad, or indifferent, about a VW.


GOFUNDYOURSELF, quit asking everyone to do it for you!


An air cooled VW will make you a hoarder.


Do something, anything, to your project every day, and you will eventually complete it.

[TDCTDI]

This weekend I scrounged through a local pick n pull looking for some useable seat belt assemblies for the Beest & since the front seats appeared to be from a Honda, I grabbed a set of belts & latches out of an early Civic.

And while pondering what was useful in the bottom of a buckets of parts that I inherited with the vehicle, I found the remaining switch assembly screw…

Ooh… and the screw & clamp for the horn lead.

Saweeet… the horn actually works!

Unfortunately, it is easily the most pathetic & laughable tone, that is seemingly far better suited for a moped.

While I didn’t find a horn button with the car, I did Shanghai one from another.

And I also caught the odometer at an interesting point.

_________________
Everybody born before 1975 has a story, good, bad, or indifferent, about a VW.


GOFUNDYOURSELF, quit asking everyone to do it for you!


An air cooled VW will make you a hoarder.


Do something, anything, to your project every day, and you will eventually complete it.

[TDCTDI]

Link



Anyway, after trying to exercise the ball joints & tie rod ends to get them to loosen up a bit, I turned my attention to a couple other annoyances.


The first of which was the lack of illumination of any kind on the dash. So after tracing the wiring & finding no voltage to the bulbs, I disconnected the battery, removed the fresh air plenum & radio…

And took the headlight switch out.

Huh, no wonder, it’s missing the little springy thingy that acts as a rheostat.


Oh well, I shnagged one out of a parts car, cleaned the contacts & slathered them down with some dielectric grease & reassembled everything.


Unfortunately, my parts supplier sold me the wrong bulbs

So back to the parts car for the lone remaining functioning bulb.


Woohoo! We has illumination!

_________________
Everybody born before 1975 has a story, good, bad, or indifferent, about a VW.


GOFUNDYOURSELF, quit asking everyone to do it for you!


An air cooled VW will make you a hoarder.


Do something, anything, to your project every day, and you will eventually complete it.

[69aircooled]

It is so satisfying to get those little things corrected and working properly again.
That will be a fun car to drive, great project!

[TDCTDI]

[TDCTDI]

This morning I set my sights on replacing a pop out window seal, so I carefully removed the screws while holding the window in place, & then removed the window.

So nice of VW to install this convenient catch tray.

Once out, I knocked off the loose paint & scraped the scale off the rusty areas.

I then cleaned the aperture & treated the rust with Ospho.

Fortunately, the old seal was just pliable enough to come out in a few pieces.

Since I did a quick how-to in another thread, I’ll just import it here.

[67rustavenger]

The car is coming along quite well!

Thanks for the popout window seal tutorial. That'll come in handy for the future.
Stretching the seal, kinda like when installing hood and decklid seals is the best method of getting the seals in place.
_________________
I have learned over the years.
Cheap parts are gonna disappoint you.
Buy Once, Cry Once!

There's never enough time to do it right the first time. But there's always enough time to do it thrice.
GFY's Xevin and VW_Jimbo!

[TDCTDI]

[Mickey bitsko]

Lookin real good 👍

[TDCTDI]

[vamram]

[Rome]

For those heat lever friction discs, I used the milky plastic lid of a margarine tub to cut two of them out for either my Beetle or Ghia; has worked for decades.

Your almond spray paint match for the right pop-out window rust repair is surprisingly good.

[TDCTDI]

[67rustavenger]

[TDCTDI]

[TDCTDI]

Alright, while driving through hurricane Ian yesterday, I learned a couple of things about the Wildebeest.

One, a lifted Beetle is far more susceptible to cross winds than a lifted Ghia.


And two, I still need to address some water ingress issues.

Fortunately, the passenger side pop out & the rear window sealed great. I guess I should have at least installed the driver side pop out gasket.


However, the most notable leak was the one streaming down the bulkhead.

So, after removing the remnants of the trunk liner, I was reacquainted with all the crap left by the rodents. (Yeah… I shoulda addressed that a while ago.)

Anyway, I removed the ever-so-delicate fresh air plenum drain tube & inspected it.

Since I couldn’t lay my paws on a suitable replacement, I pushed the detritus out, & carefully wrapped it in electrical tape to seal it & keep it together until I can source a replacement (yeah, right, it’ll probably stay there until it leaks again.). That was literally like trying to seal a aluminum foil slinky.

With everything still being wet, I couldn’t treat the metal, so I tossed everything back in place & hopefully that will have remedied that leak.
_________________
Everybody born before 1975 has a story, good, bad, or indifferent, about a VW.


GOFUNDYOURSELF, quit asking everyone to do it for you!


An air cooled VW will make you a hoarder.


Do something, anything, to your project every day, and you will eventually complete it.

[67rustavenger]

Is that more nuts and mouse shit in the tube?

Did you have a look inside the fresh air box, for mouse fun?
_________________
I have learned over the years.
Cheap parts are gonna disappoint you.
Buy Once, Cry Once!

There's never enough time to do it right the first time. But there's always enough time to do it thrice.
GFY's Xevin and VW_Jimbo!

[TDCTDI]

[TDCTDI]

For today’s daily improvement, I removed the passenger side door card to address the almost seized window regulator. I grabbed a can of chain lube, attached a straw from a can of brake cleaner, bent it into a U, & saturated the cable in the track.

Rolled the window up & down a few dozen times while lubricating it a few more.



With the window functioning as well as can be expected, I turned my attention to the bottom of the door.

After blowing out all of the rotted vegetation, I scraped & brushed off the flaky rust, & douched out the bottom of the door with brake clean.

After a bit of dry time, I flooded the cavity with Ospho.

And then distributed it a bit with compressed air.

Now it’s clean & treated.

_________________
Everybody born before 1975 has a story, good, bad, or indifferent, about a VW.


GOFUNDYOURSELF, quit asking everyone to do it for you!


An air cooled VW will make you a hoarder.


Do something, anything, to your project every day, and you will eventually complete it.