My 1966 Beetle rebuild

[supercub]

Painted the passenger door today. Ran out of the remainder of the color can from the fender and the new one I grabbed sprayed like crap comparatively, so it ended up with some runs, sags and other stupid stuff. Or maybe I'm just losing my touch. I'll wet sand and polish it a bit in a couple days to reduce some of that crap and give it that show quality shine. The LED lights in the garage are really harsh and make the color mismatch stand out glaringly. It's much less noticeable in natural light. And it's a lot less noticeable than yellow and red. Ready for the summer show season now. Ha!

[supercub]

Got some hubcaps to complete the "restoration". They're used so they have some dings and dents but shined up good and match well with the condition of the rest of the VW.

So beautiful!

[cdennisg]

Looking great!
_________________
Confusious say it takes it takes two wipes to know you need three, but it takes three wipes to know it only needed two.

[supercub]

[supercub]

Today I replaced the spring plate bushings on the VW. They were original and done for. Funny thing is I've had the replacement bushings since I rebuilt the car but never installed them. For some reason I remember being scared of messing with the spring plates back then, but I don't remember why. It wasn't too difficult of a job and wow, what a difference the new bushings made. The rear end just feels so much more planted than it used to. In a high-speed corner, the car used to sort of steer itself into a little tighter radius than the initial input after entering the turn. I got used to that over the years but now it stays solid at the same radius. Nice. Also replaced the front trans mount and rear wheel cylinders a little while ago. The wheel cylinders had a slow leak. The trans mount was getting worn out and the shifter would jump a bit when letting out the clutch in 2nd and 4th gear. The new trans mount looked different than the old one. Turns out the old trans mount was actually for a bus. Must have ordered the wrong part back then. That would likely explain why I had to shim the mount to get the rear toe in spec. The car drives much nicer now with the new parts. The rear of the car always sagged a bit but sits fairly level now with the new bushings and trans mount.

OG 60-year-old bushings with close to either 300k or 400k miles. Could still make out the VW logo on one. Done for.

[supercub]

I was just kind of looking around under the VW a bit yesterday and happened to notice that the heater channels are starting to develop some small rust holes here and there. That's unfortunate, but not too surprising since I never replaced the channels originally. They didn't have any holes in the bottom at that time. Even though I don't drive the VW in the winter, southeastern Wisconsin is very damp and humid for much of the year. I don't see myself addressing the rust at this point though. The holes are small for now. Maybe when the engine finally gives out and I have to go through rebuilding it again I'll pull the body off the pan and replace the heater channels.

Rust holes in the driver side heater channel. This side is the worse of the two. There are probably 10 or so small holes between the two sides.

[supercub]

Drove the VW out to Gibraltar Rock near Lodi, WI to do some hiking. About a 200-mile round trip. Stopped to eat lunch at a wayside rest area on the shore of Lake Wisconsin. It was a perfect sunny day with cooler temperatures, a nice breeze and low humidity for the first time in quite a while.

The VW at Lake Wisconsin. Couldn't leave this thread hanging on a rusty heater channel picture.

[supercub]

I finally decided to add a stereo to the VW. It kind of came about on a whim. I was down in the basement looking for I don't know what a couple weeks ago and happened upon the CD player that I had used in my old '85 Chevrolet G20 van. It's just a cheapo Walmart Pioneer unit, nothing special, but it got me thinking. In my closet was a box with a single Pioneer 4x10 dash speaker. Its twin was mounted under the dash in the '65 Riviera. My VW already has a variety of holes drilled in the bottom of the dash that most likely mounted a CB radio at one time. Everything for that was gone when I got the car except for the antenna mount and the holes in the dash. I always have a good supply of scrap wood in the garage rafters left over from the previous owners of the house. I looked around and found a decent old pine board to construct radio and speaker mounts. I mounted the CD player to a piece of the pine board with some metal brackets that I made out of a random section of dryer duct pipe I found in the basement. I used the existing CB holes under the dash to mount the CD player. There was also a hole already drilled to run the wiring through from the fuse box. I used a short length of some clear vinyl tube I had to make a grommet for the wiring. Then I mulled over how and where to mount the pair of 4x10 speakers. After several ideas that just wouldn't work out, I settled on mounting them under the ends of the dash with more of the pine board I had. I made some more metal brackets to attach the speaker mounts to the dashboard. I had to drill three new holes on each side to mount the speakers. I figured what the heck, the dash already has lots of random holes added already, what's 6 more? Got the speakers all wired up and everything seems to be working great. It's strange listening to music driving the VW after 15 years with no radio. The car has no antenna, so the radio tuner is useless, but I have a few hundred CD's that I still listen to. And a whopping zero new dollars invested in the stereo. I like it. I do need to get another 4x10 speaker for the Riviera now though.

Not the prettiest install but it's functional and I can't argue with the price. My dash is starting to look like a remedial high school woodshop project. Nothing is in the way for operating the pedals, the hood release knob is still accessible behind the speaker, and the CD player is far enough back that I don't hit it when shifting. Can't eject or insert a CD if the shifter in 1st or 3rd gear but that's alright. I need to figure out some sort of cover for the speakers.

[supercub]

Built some boxes for the speakers hoping to improve the sound quality a bit, especially the bass. I don't know much at all when it comes to speakers but hanging them out in the open was not the best for good sound. I used more of the dryer pipe metal to build the boxes and then covered them with leftover carpet from when we did the interior on the '65 Riviera. It's green but oh well. Christmas spirit or something. The bass is much improved, and the overall sound quality is a lot better, so the boxes appear to be doing their job. The driver's side was a little trickier to make accounting for the hood release knob, which is still accessible. Adding the boxes was definitely worth it. Still thinking on the speaker covers.

Passenger side box.

Driver's side with indent still has room to pull the hood release.

Added some rubber between the speaker and the mount thinking that sealing it may help the sound a bit too. Plus, it was really easy to do.

[Bobs67vwagen]

You probably already know this about the heater boxes but in case you do not, they make bottom plate replacements for the channels. If your side seams are solid you may be able to just replace the bottom plates instead of replacing the entire channel. Good luck Bob

[supercub]

Thanks. I did see that the heater channel bottoms were available. I thought about it but then there's this whole patch job that I did back in 2010.

The driver's side was just as bad and was patched similarly. A couple of years ago I actually had to add a couple more patch panels on the right heater channel side where the running board mounts. With all the previous patchwork I've done on the heater channels, the next time I plan to pull the body and replace them entirely. There are some other things I'd like to take care of better with the body off as well. When I'll actually do that though, I'm not sure.

[supercub]

It was a nice evening, so I went for a little drive in the VW. Took this picture near Rome Pond.

[supercub]

Happy 60th birthday to my VW. It is an early '66, built in October of 1965. Based off of the Chassis Number chart on this site and some math I did, the VW was likely built around Oct 15-16. The driving season here in Wisconsin will probably come to a close in the next month or so. I've put about 10,000 miles on the car this year and it's been pretty good. Unfortunately, it's developed a fairly serious gear lube leak at the front bushing on the trans where the input shaft goes in. Now that the weather is cooling off, I've done more driving with the windows up and have been noticing that gear lube funk smell in the interior. I was adjusting the e-brake and could see the bottom of the tunnel was wet. I pulled up the back seat and took off the cover plate over the gearshift coupler. There was a pool of gear lube at the bottom of the tunnel under there. Upon looking under the car, the seams of the tunnel where it meets the floor pans are damp and gear lube appears to be leaking out the front right and dripping off that tray area in front of the Napolean's hat. It was raining this morning and on the ground by that front right area, there was the tell-tail rainbow colored oil slick where no oil should normally be. I got back in the car and watched the input shaft/bushing area while I moved the shifter and sure enough there is lots of play there, especially side to side. Every time the input shaft moves forwards or backwards while changing gears, gear lube drips out of the bushing. And that's with the car just sitting there. I'm sure while driving it's much worse as the gear lube is being slung around in the transaxle. I decided I probably shouldn't drive it anymore until I replace that bushing. So, I guess the transaxle will be coming out. I ordered the parts but am not sure if I'll fix it this year or just go ahead and put the VW away until next spring. I'm contemplating taking the VW on another longer trip next year, this time out to near Portland, Oregon. That would be around 5000 miles or so round-trip. Gotta get that leak taken care of first though.

Happy 60th Birthday VW!

[cdennisg]

Happy Birthday!
_________________
Confusious say it takes it takes two wipes to know you need three, but it takes three wipes to know it only needed two.

[supercub]

Thanks cdennisg. This afternoon I pulled the engine and transaxle out of the VW to replace the nosecone bushings. Naturally I forgot to disconnect the ground strap from the transaxle, and it took a minute to figure out why the trans would only move back a couple inches before getting stuck. I removed the nosecone from the transaxle. Now to figure out how to get those thin bronze bushings out without marring up the bore they go in which would create more leaks. The parts are supposed to be here on Monday, so I've got some time to get the bushings out. Then to attempt to get most of the stinky gear oil out of the tunnel. Plan is to remove the front cover where the beam mounts and use something to push some rags through there and hopefully soak up most of the gear oil. It is rustproofing I guess.

Transaxle out.

Nosecone off.

Empty.

Now to figure out how to get the old bushings out without damaging the nosecone bore.

[cdennisg]

Last couple times I needed my nose cone bushings refreshed I sent them off to have it done. Pretty sure I sent the last one (68 bus, three rib trans) to Rocky Jennings in Walla Walla Washington.

https://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/detail.php?id=979107

He also sells a quality DIY kit.

https://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/detail.php?id=928090
_________________
Confusious say it takes it takes two wipes to know you need three, but it takes three wipes to know it only needed two.

[supercub]

[supercub]

The VW is all back together now and works well. Hopefully the nosecone won't leak gear oil into the tunnel anymore. At least for a while anyway. I ended up replacing the throwout bearing while I had everything apart. It was noisy from the start when I replaced the clutch earlier this summer. Spinning it by hand, the bearing now had a tight spot about every 1/3 of a revolution and when I spun it fast it made a buzzing sound. It was a no-name blank cheap looking bearing that came with the clutch kit. I replaced it with a Sachs bearing like the one I used back when I originally rebuilt the car. It's quiet now. I also replaced the headlight seals on the glass lenses and the headlight bucket. They had been getting condensation inside the lens for a few years now after a rain and the seals on the bucket were crumbling to dust. Man, I forgot how horrible those lens seals were to work with. Also managed to have one of the springs clips fly out of the trim ring when I was reassembling the second headlight. It hit my lip right below my nose and instantly started bleeding. Oh well could've hit my eye which would have been much worse. Probably should have been wearing safety glasses. Hope to get another 15 years out of these seals because that was a tedious job. This weekend the local VW club has a fall cruise that I'll be going on. In a few more weeks the VW will likely go into storage for the winter, so I'll try to make the most of the remaining time.

[supercub]

Saturday I met up with our local VW club for our fall cruise and campout. The weather wasn't the greatest with light rain and drizzle much of the day and evening. It was still an enjoyable time though. Took some nice backroads to a few local spots and then back to the host member's house for a nice campfire well into the night. It was a good time with a good group of people. Turned 120,000 miles on the rebuild today. The VW is due for an oil change in about 300 miles, and I'll probably put it into winter storage after that since I always like to store it with fresh oil.

The majority of the club vehicles that went on the cruise. There were another couple of Vanagons and a few newer water-cooled VW's that I couldn't fit into the picture.

[supercub]

I parked the VW in its winter storage a few days ago. Yesterday I finished putting the other old cars away too. Now the VW is boxed in behind the '65 Riviera and my brother's '69 Roadrunner for the next 4-5 months. It was a pretty good year with the VW. Drove it about 11,000 miles. Joined a local VW club in June which has been nice. They are very active and seem like a pretty good group of people. Even took the Beetle to a few shows, though it never draws much attention. Next year I'd like to drive it to Kansas and Oregon as long as it's doing good still. The main seal is starting to leak more oil than it used to but nothing crazy. Guess I should've replaced it while I had the engine out for the trans nosecone bushings. Oh well. See you all next spring.

So long for this year VW.

Goodbye.