Primer Queen rides again! A 1974 Super and a clueless owner.

[Bob Brugge]

I forgot to mention that it sounds like you may have a bent shift fork if it is hard to engage first gear.

Also, WTH is all the gunkus in your head? looks like hair, dirt, or maybe straw? If I saw that in my engine I WOULD FREAK(caps intended)

[Beetlebaum]

That looks like a great car! I've been fighting with my Super for a long time--I'll be watching your topic for updates.
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1973 Super Beetle
2003 New Beetle
Post your Super here: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=331999
Beetle Bums VW Club Member

[Primer Queen]

[Primer Queen]

Came home from work the other night to see this beaut in the garage! I can finally start this project. Going to see about another '74 engine in the area today or tomorrow. Maybe if its got enough good parts I'll get it, but continue working on the engine I already have.

The garage is slightly cramped (not shown in photo, heheh) so she's parked slanted to give the most room. Its gonna be even more crowded once I start pulling parts off!

[julesmast]

[Primer Queen]

[julesmast]

You go girl!! Sounds like a productive day
I went out and started the painful task of disconnecting all of the wiring and labeling it all. The mice have left a lot of evidence behind and I really want to clean, paint and re run the wiring to the fuse box and other things so it looks neat and tidy! I, like you discovered why my horn and speedometer were t working. The horn ground was disconnected and the speedo has no cable a few wires look like they need some help so I am going to try and clean them up and see what needs to be replaced!!

Have fun! It's great to learn more and figure things out. I am hoping we can ramp up the process, I would really like to take her for a spin this fall!!
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My First Beetle Project: 1968 Bug -

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=7711662#7711662

[Primer Queen]

So today was the first day I did work all by myself! You can tell cause everything is only partly done, and it took six hours.

This is my workspace! Jacked a little chair from the kids. Its perfect height for working on the engine! I'm going to keep the rear bumper on for as long as possible, it makes a great shelf for putting things.

I took the air cleaner off after staring at it for a good solid minute. I was going to drain the fuel, but after five minutes of straight staring at the fuel line I gave up. I'm not sure that using pliers to clamp the line would work, and its a tight spot so I wouldn't be able to maneuver my other hand should I need to stop the flow of gasoline. So I turned to the running boards! All of the bolts are a rusted mess, so I went around and sprayed them all with WD-40. It took way longer than it should have to remove the two bolts that connect the one board to the fenders. I had to wear safety glasses to protect my eyes from the constant sifting of rust from the bolts. And then I encountered this problem

How the hell do I get a wrench in that space? There is a lip of metal from the heater channel I'm guessing. After another five minutes of staring at one part I gave up yet again and moved on to something else--the fender. I can only get to the right side fender since I couldn't remove any bolts from the left side running board. The one is so rusted it wont give. Removing the turn signal was easy until I got to this part

Look at that nice red paint underneath! Well, a step past that [I removed the wires from the metal plate]. Bentley manual just says to pull the wiring through the fender. I wasn't sure how to separate the rubber seal from the wiring, so I gave up and just ripped it. It was already torn in tons of places and would need to be replaced. Then I moved on to the headlight, and that was easy enough until I encountered yet another thing

So I assume you have to take the wires out of the plastic connecter--that's the only way you can pull them out the back. But how do I do that? Bentley manual says to insert a screwdriver in the slot below the--whatever it says, the book is in the garage and I'm not going back down to read it. I'm dead tired. Longest I've ever worked on the beetle! If I close my eyes I swear I'm in the garage, despite definitely being in my room. Going to bed after this, man. Anyways--I couldn't figure for the life of me what it wanted me to do, and a quick search of the samba gave no results aside from needing a tiny tiny screwdriver. So I gave up on that too [being as it was 10 and I've got work tomorrow morning, what do you mean I'm giving up so easily on these things, haha]

I had to put one of those chandelier lights in the drop light. And I would definitely recommend multiple colors of masking tape to mark wiring, or anything really. My box of parts now grows!

I hopefully will be able to do some more work tomorrow. I can at least drain the oil [gasoline isn't going anywhere], and I really want to get the freakin' fender and running board off! Front bumper obviously needs to come off, hoping those bolts don't give me trouble.
Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a nice comfy bed to attend to!

[Primer Queen]

[Chochobeef]

Yes, there are small tabs keeping the spades in the connector. I replaced my plastic connectors with some nice heavy duty ceramic ones. http://www.cycleterminal.com/headlight-connectors.html look for H4-312 Ceramic. They worked nicely and were easy to deal with.

Take wiring slow. Make sure your looking at the schematic correctly and verify that your wires are matching and going where they are supposed to. Any terminals that look dodgy just replace em.

You are doing fine. At first things always take a while. When you get frustrated, grab a beer or beverage of choice.

[Primer Queen]

So the headlight connectors are no longer a problem!

Stupid things. It took me an hour and a half to get to that point because you kinda have to keep pushing the screwdriver in whilist pulling the wires out.

Not quite a screwdriver, and I just realized we had tons of tiny screwdrivers, inside.
And so I was really happy and excited to move on, so I got to the bolts for the bumper and nope.

These damned things. On top of being rusty it appears as though somebody sprayed the inside of that fender with some type of liner stuff without...removing anything first [the state of the whole car pretty much] so the screws are coated in this stuff that is rubbery. Like really malleable rubber. After many knuckle scrapings and pounding on a wrench with a mallet I gave up. Common theme! Perhaps I should get an actual breaker bar, hopefully that'll help and I can have them off in a second.

[Busdriver79]

We all have a love/hate relationship with our Beetles at some point...sooner or later it gets much better...now as for your minor rust issues, your best friend right now is a can of POR-15 black paint rustproof primer and a wire brush and a brush...coat EVERYTHING RUSTY LOOKING with it...it won't fix the rust but it will prevent it from spreading...it will definitely buy you time until you can address the issues....believe me...this stuff really works well...I replaced the entire bottom six inches of my 71 Super with all new sheet metal and I painted EVERYTHING with POR-15...it will never rust for the next 50 years. P.S..///this stuff ain't cheap, about $45 per qt....but it goes a long way...and don't, repeat, DON'T get any on your hands !!...it'll take weeks to come off.

[Primer Queen]

I think that maybe I must be inhaling too much WD-40 and PB blaster [so citrus-y though]. I only am admitting this so maybe somewhere else, another newbie won't feel so bad about themselves! The reason why I couldn't get the bolts off the bumper bracket--I was turning the wrench the wrong way. Having gotten past that point, removing the bumper was a cinch. I think the reason the bumper looked pushed up was because the bolts were a tad too tight.

I used those little chairs to support the very heavy bumper while I took the last two bolts out. The result!

Its a lot easier here to see the bends in the apron.

With the bumper finally out of the way, I was able to remove the fender.

Mmmmmm lookit that rust

All of that is whatever was sprayed/coated on.

Looks like that when chipped off, and reveals nice red paint underneath.

Its a thin layer. Also some rust that was behind the fender beading!

And it coats the fender too.

Is it worth saving that fender? The outer edge is bent in a few places and there's some rust. My main issue is the piece of metal at the bottom where the light bolts in.

That sure doesn't look right.

Mmmmmm the sweet smell of progress...and PB blaster. So very citrus-y.

Also, forget calling her the Primer Queen, she's more Spider Magnet. Every time I crawl under her there's five more webs. More annoying than anything. Webs, spiders, just literally floating through the air in front of my face.

Today one of the regulars at the restaurant asked me, "Why? Why choose this car with its array of problems?" Well, because I can.
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[cjsuner]

FOr that running board bolt, are you able to get a socket wrench to reach it? Might need to add a small extension to it.
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71' Super Convertible (Orange)
74 Super Beetle (Red)

[Cmontoya9]

I'm pretty sure that undercoating is either factory or dealer sprayed. It was all over mine (both) also. It was a pain to get off. I used a chisel, paint scraper, and LOTS of time. Just remove what flakes off easily. Duplicolor spray on bed liner is some pretty good stuff to spray on to replace it if you feel like doing so. Good job so far, keep it up. I've been trying to get back to hitting mine hard too. It unfortunately had a one year hiatus in the corner of my shop.
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My First Bug Build:
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=6369627&highlight=#6369627

[Primer Queen]

I'm so long winded that it really makes me mad when I accidentally hit the back button, or the page quits on me, and I loose the fifty million paragraphs I had. Oi.


I brought my beetle shrine in the garage today. If I get enough likenesses of the beetle, perhaps the Volkswagen gods will aid me in my resto-rection. But seriously, its cool to see my favorite little beetle with my favorite not-little beetle! [its on the roof!]

While looking underneath, I noticed this tube.

Following the clamps where it would have been led me to this

and tracing that back led me to the box thing inside the right rear fender. Some research in the Bentley manual tells me that I am missing almost 2 feet of the steel ventilation line that goes from the tank to the charcoal filter canister. How? Why? I really don't know.

After that I was organizing the tool box [how many sets of the same wrenches do we need?] and I found a teeny little ratchet, which was PERFECT. The problem was I was using a ratchet with a larger drive and when I added on the right size socket it was too big to fit in the space between the lip and the running board. Little ratchet did just fine and I got the running board off, along with getting showered with rust and dirt.

Yey. Buut yes, the conclusion that I will indeed need new heater channels IS COMPLETELY VALID THANK YOU VERY MUCH. Though that's the kind of thing I'd rather be wrong about.

MMMMMMM HOLES HOW DELIGHTFUL. There are lots. I tried to get the other running board off to fully assess both heater channels, but I'm having difficulty with the bolts connecting it to the fender. Looking inside, I am also surprised that I missed this hole?

The carpet covered it up, but I cant believe I didn't notice it when we were ripping the carpet out. My carpet removal point was ALSO valid, then. So ha. Its right next to the opening for the heater channels. There seems to be some more serious rust inside the rear fenders, and I found holes in the floor pan that wasn't replaced. Man, I turned down that one beetle--The Red Deception [yes, I named it, no, I don't regret it] for floor pan holes.

I mean sure, it had pan rust and fender rust and maybe just a bit of that below-the-crescent-vent rust, but it had a paint job, a running engine, and OVERRIDERS!! I am so getting those for Spider Magnet. And it sure looked sexy from a distance! But regret is not the name of the game here. I love Spider Magnet and I'm glad I get an opportunity to go through all of the systems and body and whatnot and blah blah blah etc etc etc. As long as I'm having fun, who cares if she runs? Wait, no, actually I do. While we're talking beetles I could've but didn't---

Turned this one down for a bit of rust as well. Ah well! Live and learn.
Spider Magnet I swear one day you will be beautiful too. ONE DAY
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[Primer Queen]

[Primer Queen]

More work today, decided to start chipping away at that liner in the wheel well. Ran into this!

Its metal. The metal under it is painted and it doesn't appear to have any problems. So, um, what?

I started sanding some of the rust. Its very pitted and not as easy as I thought to get it all to bare metal. I was getting bothered by the mud dauber nest so I decided to do something about it.

I had seen the female flying around the beetle when we had it outside but I thought she'd moved on. Noooope. I also thought that it was only the larvae in the nest. NOOOOPE. When we were hitting the nest, an adult fell out, and then we found another on the floor of the garage. Fortunately mud daubers are the less aggressive wasps and so they weren't instantly swarming us. Needless to say they are both dead. I normally have no problems with bugs, even wasps and spiders [you'd have to be tolerant of spiders with the sheer amount of them in and around the beetle], but they were not going to settle somewhere else on the beetle. Kinda disturbing how in and around that area I was with live wasps. Glad they didn't fly out when I had my face under there. But that cut my day of work short!
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[relicstone]

Hey, enjoyed reviewing your thread. There are a few of use in Delaware that are always willing to help.

PM me if you're interested.
Ben
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1968 VW Beetle |

[Primer Queen]

After about a month of stalling I decided it was time enough to get back to work on Ms. Spider Queen. I am mostly being off put by the sheer amount of bugs that decide wow, hey look, lets go hang out by this beetle! Every single day another spider puts up another web somewhere on the underside or in the wheel wells. Before I start working I go around with a broom and just brush the underside all over.

Going down the list of stuff I need to do, I strained the oil out. Dear lawdy. I've never done an oil change in my life, and therefore don't really know what I'm looking for in oil, but the consistency and color of melting chocolate probably isn't it.

I mean seriously, look at that!

It didn't even drip off of the cover, I had to scrape it off. And this was all that was left of the seal.

Took a little bit of pulling but I got the strainer off as well.

At least I didn't find any metal shavings in the oil. That's a plus.
Since the oil was still slowly slowly dripping out I decided to do work elsewhere and take off the rear fenders so I could more easily access the stuff underneath. Especially without worrying about spiders up in my face. There was a cellar spider in the one fender that had an egg sac attached to it, and it would NOT leave me alone. I kept on poking it with a screwdriver and it would kind of run away and hide but it would hide RIGHT WHERE I NEEDED TO GO. I removed the rear bumper and the right side fender, since to take the other fender off I'd have to get that stubborn running board bolt off, along with all of the little tiny nuts on the back of the taillight assembly. Obviously I'll have to get to it eventually, but not right now. I keep on finding out that I'm missing nuts and bolts for these fenders. I didn't find as much rust as the front fender, but I did find worse rust.

I was able to poke a screwdriver through that. Yeeesh. But I did find something cool but terrible! When you shine a flashlight in the hole and look through where the bolt is supposed to go--

Foam! Its that death foam that everybody says lives near the vent.
I think today was relatively productive compared to the last month.

I'm just going to let that oil continue dripping for however long it needs. My next steps are whatever the Bentley manual says for dropping the engine out. I'll probably remove as many body panels as possible because that means less places for the spiders to hide, which means less time I have to spend destroying all the webs before I can actually get to work!
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