Squeaky Clean 68 - Father/Son Project

[wrdrew]

Little update:

We got a sand blasting cabinet for Christmas as a little gift to ourselves. Dad couldn't make himself wait until I come down to visit and work on the car in a few weeks, so he went to town cleaning up some parts from the car. The wiper parts are from our car, and the glovebox door/ash tray/vents are random parts we've purchased from members on here and ebay to start completing the dash. Ended up winning the bids on two different ash trays by accident, so if anybody needs a tray with the autostick shift pattern on it, let me know.

Before pics:

After blasting:
He's since primed the parts as well, but those pics aren't terribly exciting so I'll spare you.

The vents and glovebox door should match the body color, right?
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1968 Beetle - Father/Son Project

[Deebs]

Wish I had a blast cabinet!

If you're going to install a dash pad, they should be painted the L43 Grey Black color.

If no dash pad, then the body color would look great.

Keep the progress going!

[viiking]

Please don’t take my comments as criticism. I just wanted to point out what may not be correct. I have a Euro delivered 68 here in Australia which has been in my family for 50 years since new so I know what should be right with it.

Yours looks like a great car. Just that not everything is original.

[challomoner]

[Buggeee]

Is Pops blasting with sand, glass, soda or ?. Looks like a really smooth finish without tearing up the surface.
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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)

[wrdrew]

Good to know that going with body color on the grilles and glovebox door is the right way to go. I love that blue, so that'll bring a fun pop of color back into the dash now that the pad will be installed.

As far as the speedo is concerned, I did a bit of research and what I seemed to find was that about half the images online I found of 68's had either an earlier style speedo, or the type that is in my car. Maybe it has to do with build date? I'm not too terribly worried about it, but I do find it to be curious. Here's a picture of the back of ours in case anyone is interested. I didn't go as far as to look up the part number and figure out the year by that, but it looks like it might have a 68 or 69 punched onto the back under the p/n.

Regarding the blast material, I'll ask my old man what he's been using. I've used walnut before with his old blaster and had really lovely results, so that may be what he's been using with this one but I will ask and find out.
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1968 Beetle - Father/Son Project

[challomoner]

Speedo in my 69 is same as yours, looks like 4 69 date stamped on yours.

[viiking]

[wrdrew]

Verified for sure today that the speedo is not from our car. So as far as the actual mileage of the car is concerned, who knows. The engine runs incredibly well, and it feels strong, so we probably won't dig much more into it. Now the question is: do we replace the speedo with a correct 68 unit, or keep the properly working 69+ model? Hmmm decisions, decisions
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1968 Beetle - Father/Son Project

[viiking]

If you don’t want a perfect restoration then run with the speedometer that you have. It’ll work fine and will be more useful with the 10ths odometer.

If you are going to lower it it won’t be original anyway so spend your money on the drop spindles rather than spending it on the speedometer.

[Frederik]

I wouldn’t be conserned about the accual milage/ speedo. It’s hard to tell from the picture but the engine is a dualport and are not original for a 68 (if they didn’t changed out the heads?). So the acctual milage on the engine would probably be unknown anyhow. It also looks like there is a new aftermarket H30/31 style carb with adapter plate and a 009 style distributor. The alternator and fuel pump are also ”new”. This is probably the refresh they did alongside the new aircleaner. What’s the engine number? I don’t think it matters if the engine isn’t original as long as it runs good but it might be good to know if you’re going to buy new parts.

Looks like a real nice car to drive! Save the parts you like and change what you don’t like and don’t worry about if it’s original or not, chanses are you will find a lot of stuff that ain’t original. The only thing I would be worried about is if the seller changed the speedo and put a new paint on it to hide something nasty and say it was a 33k..

[Tom K.]

Sorry you were mislead - but mileage mean nothing on these old cars anyway. You will drive yourself crazy trying to get everything back to 1968. I have a similar situation - the 1970 chassis and body match up (same serial numbers), but about everything else is from a different year. This is how our cars evolved. Back in 1978 or so, the car was running bad and the owner probably took your 10-year old VW to his favorite mechanic who recommended a new distributor and carb. The car then ran better. The last thing on that owners mind that day was keeping everything at 1968. Today, if the oxygen sensor on a 2010 car needs replacing, do we ask for a 2010 oxygen sensor? Or do we get whatever solves the problem? Keeping your bug as it is, in effect, celebrating the practical problem solving that happened over the years to keep the car running well.

*If* something (carb, fuel pump, dizzy) needs replacing one day, then, yes, go ahead and get the 1968 part. But until things break, leave them alone.
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'91 Vanagon Westfalia
'70 Beetle Convertible
'71 Super Beetle Semi-Automatic: https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=714131&highlight=
'65 Ghia: https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=762478&highlight=

[wrdrew]

[wrdrew]

Not much of an update, but we have officially collected every part we needed to get the interior back to a stock-ish look, along with lots of other parts here and there that the car needed. Decided to go with an ivory wheel and shift knob over the oem black/grey look because the stock wheel was cracked up and painted very poorly to match the car. Plus, I'm a sucker for ivory! Also very excited to get the bamboo parcel tray installed once the dash is finished up.

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1968 Beetle - Father/Son Project

[Buggeee]

I like the ivory choice, it's going to look really good with that blue.
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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)

[wrdrew]

[wrdrew]

Alright, so we have some new progress to post. First off, metal dash is a GO! We decided against going with a dash pad, and are having a buddy of my dad's weld the holes in the dash/fix the damage. My dad and I will follow up with filler and paint. We've begun massaging the dents as much as we can with body work hammers, and it's going pretty well. I'm going to split this between a few posts since I have a ton of pics of what we've been up to, so expect a second update tomorrow.

pardon my house shoes

Also, last update for the night: finally replaced the awful miami vice door cards that were on there before. Barf

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1968 Beetle - Father/Son Project

[wrdrew]

Sorry this update took a bit longer than I previously said. Anyway, small update.

Wiring work is well underway, as well as the replacement/install after previous owner removed all air vents/outside water drain tube.

New headlight buckets as ours were tweaked, with stripped bolts galore. Also, new set of keys and tail light trim that was missing

Finally, I have no idea how the previous owner messed this tail light mount up so badly, but this fender must have been replaced at some point. I had to drill a new hole an inch to the left of where it was just to straighten this light and make it match the drivers' side.

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1968 Beetle - Father/Son Project

[wrdrew]

Got the dash all finished up. A friend of my dad's came and welded the holes shut, and welded in our radio surround panel. Filler and paint work was 100% us. Pretty excited with how it came out

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1968 Beetle - Father/Son Project

[raydog]

Lookin good. Not sure if it was intentional or not, but I think you have the headlight and wiper switches reversed. I have always seen the lights on the right side and wipers on the left.