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Bashr52 Samba Member
Joined: July 16, 2006 Posts: 5666 Location: On an island in VA
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Posted: Thu Aug 15, 2013 5:11 pm Post subject: The WeddingWagen |
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A little background: I bought this car about 5-6 years ago on a whim off ebay (my then girlfriend always liked the looks of). It had been rear ended, and had an engine fire. It was in terrible shape. I worked on it pretty hard the first year, got the body off and the chassis all redone and ready to go. Then life happened and I was only able to work on the body a little here and there. Fast forward to last Fall. My now Fiance and I bought our first house with a small attached single car garage. I spent the first few months redoing the garage and buttoning it up as air-tight as possible. She decided that it would be cool to have the Thing finished up in time for the wedding 8/10/13. So in January of this year, I brought the body over and set it up in the garage for an all out marathon to finish the car in time. I spent as much free time as I could spare over the next 7 months scrambling to get the car finished up. I finished the car and took the first test spin a week before the wedding. I tried to take as many pictures as I could through out the process, but I admit I was quite busy at times and neglected to photograph a few steps along the way.
Anyway, here is how it turned out!
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77kafer Samba Member
Joined: April 08, 2008 Posts: 823 Location: New Windsor, NY
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Posted: Thu Aug 15, 2013 5:42 pm Post subject: |
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Nice, no pictures with the happy couple? _________________ Supposed to be 77käfer, but there are no umlauts on an american keyboard
Overheard on 27 June 07, one lady to another when they saw my Harli in a parking lot at West Point, "maybe he found it on the clearance aisle at the Volkswagen dealer" |
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GI Joe Samba Member
Joined: April 28, 2005 Posts: 2012 Location: Athens, TN
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citroen Samba Member
Joined: February 28, 2010 Posts: 1578 Location: louisville ky
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Posted: Thu Aug 15, 2013 8:06 pm Post subject: |
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nice job love the dash |
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Chuck Lewis Samba Member
Joined: August 15, 2009 Posts: 98 Location: beaumont texas
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Posted: Thu Aug 15, 2013 9:42 pm Post subject: |
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Looks good. Which bed liner did you use on the interior? |
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GodJockey Samba Member
Joined: April 03, 2007 Posts: 240 Location: Lehigh Valley, Pa
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Posted: Fri Aug 16, 2013 12:19 am Post subject: |
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Wow, just amazing. I'm not usually a fan of red Things but with all the black accents and the beautiful paint job I love it!
How do you like the 2234 you built for it? |
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Bashr52 Samba Member
Joined: July 16, 2006 Posts: 5666 Location: On an island in VA
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Posted: Fri Aug 16, 2013 4:32 am Post subject: |
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77kafer- Waiting on pics back from the photographer, hoping to meet with him this weekend. Will put up a pic of us once I have it.
Chuck- It's Herculiner with a couple coats of their UV protectant on top.
GodJockey- the 2232 has about 60 miles on it now. I went to drive the thing to a local cruise in last night and the voltage slowly crept up past 17 volts, so now I need a new alternator (stupid Chinese replacements). Honestly, I'm not sure if its the added weight of the car or the short Thing gearing, but I'm not overly impressed with the performance. It's got a ton of torque thanks to the 84mm crank, but I think my 69 street baja with the 2085 is quicker. It may just be me though, my dad drove it and had a hard time keeping up with the car (although he's used to his worn out 1641 in his bug). I've got to pull a plug and check it out, I should be able to get more out of it with some tuning.
It's hard to tell in the pics, but that is a full custom exhaust I put together for it. I bought an 1 5/8 mergerd header and an old dual glasspack bug exhaust, and added two deltaflow 40 series flowmasters. It took some bending and welding, but it exits out through the stock bumper cutouts and sounds great. I didnt like how far out the merged flange stuck past the bumper, so I ended up cutting about 3.5" out of it and relocating the flange back farther. Now it barely sticks past the bumper, and it helped the mufflers fit farther back.
I did some more little custom touches, like the early single filament front turn signals I converted to do both functions (turn and parking lights), HID headlights, and automaticly controlled headlights. The rear license plate light is also an LED unit now. The car is running an adjustable Thing beam with ghia spindles and disc brakes, lowered one outer notch out back with flipped rear arms and disc brakes as well. The color is Porsche Guards red.
Last edited by Bashr52 on Wed Aug 28, 2013 3:11 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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JayC Samba Member
Joined: July 07, 2010 Posts: 292 Location: Colorado
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Posted: Fri Aug 16, 2013 7:22 am Post subject: |
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Looks great! Congratulations on the car and the nuptials! |
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mcmscott Samba Member
Joined: March 12, 2010 Posts: 4858 Location: sanger ca
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Posted: Fri Aug 16, 2013 8:16 am Post subject: |
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Before you change the alternator, do you have a regular dash light hooked up to it? (idiot light) And not a gauge or led but regular bulb?
If not, run a jumper wire from positive side of coil to a generic bulb and the other side of bulb to the push on terminal of alternator and retest. You can also do this with a test light _________________ There are no stupid questions, only stupid people,
68 Ghia
67 T-1
65 Notch
02 Mexican beetle
74 Thing
15 Long travel rail
07 Nomad
05 f-250 |
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Zylinderkopf Samba Member
Joined: September 09, 2012 Posts: 679 Location: SE Oklahoma
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Posted: Fri Aug 16, 2013 10:34 am Post subject: |
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Looks fantastic ! Love the digital readout. How does that exhaust sound? |
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Bashr52 Samba Member
Joined: July 16, 2006 Posts: 5666 Location: On an island in VA
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Posted: Fri Aug 16, 2013 7:07 pm Post subject: |
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mcmscott- The alternator is indeed bad. I verified the voltage with a multimeter across the alternator and battery. It is overcharging. There is something bad inside the case. I can disconnect the exciter wire and the alternator will still produce an excessive voltage. I shouldn't be getting anything out of the alternator without the exciter at that point.
thatthing- Exhaust sounds good inside the car. the delta flow mufflers are advertised as an aggressive exterior tone, with a moderate interior volume. It sounds good to me in the car, but I havnt had anyone drive by me in it to know how it sounds coming at you I took it by the house and got on it a bit and the wife said it sounded really good. |
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mcmscott Samba Member
Joined: March 12, 2010 Posts: 4858 Location: sanger ca
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Posted: Sat Aug 17, 2013 10:20 am Post subject: |
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If it is over charging, then the regulator is not working(internal or not). The alternator uses the field wire to determine voltage.
Just trying to save you a buck and some time. Congrats on the wedding stuff,my wife is my best friend of 20 years. I wish you the same _________________ There are no stupid questions, only stupid people,
68 Ghia
67 T-1
65 Notch
02 Mexican beetle
74 Thing
15 Long travel rail
07 Nomad
05 f-250 |
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landkholdings Samba Member
Joined: March 11, 2008 Posts: 250 Location: N. GA
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Posted: Mon Aug 19, 2013 4:58 am Post subject: |
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Sweet ride!
I dig the matching front door as well. _________________ Kevin |
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Bashr52 Samba Member
Joined: July 16, 2006 Posts: 5666 Location: On an island in VA
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Posted: Mon Aug 19, 2013 5:20 am Post subject: |
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landkholdings wrote: |
Sweet ride!
I dig the matching front door as well. |
Lol, thanks! That was last weekends project, new front and storm door. That one on there was solid wood, its one heavy sucker! Unfortunately it sagged, closed hard, and leaked like crazy in the winter. |
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dagimp Samba Member
Joined: July 30, 2008 Posts: 282 Location: Philly
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Posted: Thu Aug 22, 2013 12:06 pm Post subject: |
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Congrats on the new wife and the new mistress (Thing)! Car looks great! Hope you have lots of great drives in it. I took my now-wife on our first date in my Thing in Binghamton, NY. I knew when she didn't run off after seeing it, she was a keeper! _________________ Buck
1973 Orange VW Thing, "Otto". |
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Shoyrtt Samba Member
Joined: August 21, 2010 Posts: 1009 Location: Redlands, CA
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Posted: Thu Aug 22, 2013 5:32 pm Post subject: |
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Very nice! |
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carterzest Samba Member
Joined: January 22, 2008 Posts: 3842 Location: Eagle, ID/Sun Valley, ID
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Posted: Fri Aug 23, 2013 12:55 am Post subject: |
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Bashr, I cannot believe how good that looks. you did it. Awesome, and congrats on the nuptuals. I recall seeing pics of this on another wildlife forum years ago back when I still had a 181...it really came out nicely. WOW!
What is the story on the dash pod, what did it come out of? I really like it a lot! _________________ Happiness=Portland, Oregon in the rearview mirror! |
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Bashr52 Samba Member
Joined: July 16, 2006 Posts: 5666 Location: On an island in VA
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Posted: Mon Aug 26, 2013 12:51 pm Post subject: |
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dagimp wrote: |
Congrats on the new wife and the new mistress (Thing)! Car looks great! Hope you have lots of great drives in it. I took my now-wife on our first date in my Thing in Binghamton, NY. I knew when she didn't run off after seeing it, she was a keeper! |
Dagimp, thanks! We are both from the Binghamton area (endicott and port crane), and we now live in Johnson City. Doing our part to keep at least one Thing around the area!
carterzest: The dash is an intellitronix 6 gauge panel. New they are 3-400, but I found a dealer on ebay that rebuilds the units. It has all the factory support, lifetime warranty, and came with the electronic speedometer sensor, special oil temp, and oil pressure sensors needed to make it work. With free shipping, it cost me around $150! Couldnt beat it! PLus it originally was setup to have a water temp gauge, but I contacted the vendor and told him what I was using it for and that I wanted oil temp instead, and he replaced that module in it free of charge. I designed a replacement dash panel at work, and had it laser cut and bent to fit. |
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Bashr52 Samba Member
Joined: July 16, 2006 Posts: 5666 Location: On an island in VA
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Posted: Mon Aug 26, 2013 6:10 pm Post subject: |
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We finally got our wedding pictures in. Heres some real pics of the car. I wish I wasnt squinting so bad!
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GI Joe Samba Member
Joined: April 28, 2005 Posts: 2012 Location: Athens, TN
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