73 Super Beetle - Build thread?

[cletus_zuber]

Yeah that looks like a Bosch Brazil 094, I liked mine when i had it. If it runs as you say just keep it.

And the sunroof glued is a CRIME, idiot didn't know jack about it obviously, they are DESIGNED to leak, with the water running through drain tubes to the ground. You have to clean the tubes every 40 years or so.......Maybe in the future you can clean up the glue and see if the thing opens or what is the deal...Is the crank still there in the car?
_________________
1972 1302
HPMX 40's & 019

[cletus_zuber]

[Hatracks]

[Lingwendil]

[Hatracks]

[Hatracks]

Well under the weather today so not much work will get done. I did scrape some of the red paint off of and found Marina Blue paint that looks decent. I am considering trying to remove all of the red and see what the original patina looks like...lots of reading to do on that subject.

Here are the head pictures with castings, looks like Mexican VW heads. Also a short video at idle after I got done tuning everything I can hear a little bit of a tap but not sure if it is normal. Timing is about 5 ATDC @ 825 rpm and 30 BTDC @3000 rpm, valves adjusted to .006.

Video of engine running:

https://youtu.be/Zwdi2cAHYh8

Heads:

[Hatracks]

Well the first problem with the shifter was he had the shift plate in upside down. With that right side up everything is a lot tighter (3rd and 4th are nice and crisp) but still wont go into first at all and reverse is iffy. I opened up the inspection plate for the rear connection and the bushings are shot but not enough to cause this.

It looks like the shifter plate is bent a little bit which i am hoping is the cause because it is definitely a mechanical hard stop preventing it from going into first.

[vamram]

[zoobyshoe]

[Hatracks]

[Hatracks]

Spent this afternoon at the Seattle VW show and swap meet, met a couple of people that seemed pretty nice. Walked the swap meet and it sounded like everyone that had original engine tins had sold out earlier in the day. I did find a shifter and shifter stop plate, paid 5 bucks for the set, and guess what....she goes into every gear now!

So I took her out on her maiden voyage and raced it around a bit. Although the engine runs fine at idle and when you rev it while it is parked with a load on her she stumbles really hard after shifting into second or third. The clutch is way out of adjustment also so I will still have to mess with it some.

Next step though after finding that A pillar rust is going to be scraping the glued on sound deadner and completely wire wheeling the floors and interior so I can see just how much sheet metal I need.

Pretty happy with everything though, shade tree mechanic skills come through again!

Shade tree:

[Hatracks]

So to update my build thread I attempted to rebuild the carb in order to get rid of a hesitation and after the cleaning/rebuild it would not idle and leaked at the throttle shaft, you can follow the saga here:

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=659415

I swapped the carb with a knockoff that came with the car and it is running fine again. Next up is gut the interior, cut out the panel the PO scabbed in over rust, and wire wheel the entire interior and A pillars looking for rust.

After that we figure out what to do about the paint...

[Hatracks]

Since I was going to be really digging into the car I took it out and drove it more today. The motor runs so well now that it is tuned that I think maybe it really had been recently rebuilt, also the brakes are pretty nice for 4 wheel drums.

Anyway after some joyriding the passenger seat, carpets, and tar boards came out...I was wrong about them welding a patch panel over rust...they duct taped it in:

Front floorboard wasnt so bad but it will also need some patching:

Drivers A pillar there is rust and the weld is gone, not sure how high or far I will have to cut into that one. You can also see the wiring mess, I will likely just buy a new harness if they make them for the 73 super:

More rust than I wanted to find, but a lot less than I expected so not to bad.

[Hatracks]

Today I got more familiar with death foam. Started with cutting the headliner out and then cutting the really bad metal on the inside/outside out so I could dig out the foam and treat everything. Tomorrow I will cut out the rest of the rust and start fabricating patch panels to fix it all.

[Hatracks]

With all the death foam rust cutout it was time to cut out the door pillar rust and surrounding areas. Now just waiting for some sheet metal/parts to show up so I can decide how far to cut...and get to welding.

[Hatracks]

Cutting out of rust continued today along with stripping the rest of the interior and wire wheeling to be sure I did not miss any rusty areas. Since I was ripping out the interior I also began liberating the formerly glued shut sunroof...not an easy task (if anyone has pointers on restoring the sunroof please let me know!):

View from the bottom, it looks like the gear/mechanism is in good shape I just need to get all of the glue out and free it up:

Floor boards wire wheeled ready to be patched or fully cut out (rear quarter):

Finding all of this marina blue original paint kind of has me leaning to go back that way:

[Hatracks]

Spent the week stripping paint off the fenders and the roof. Also finally got the sunroof out and cleaned up. Looks like I will have to replace both worm gears and the seal but should be good to go after that (those things are expensive though!).

Fenders and sunroof in primer:

Roof Stripped and primered (or soon to be):

Going to have to pick a color soon, I am thinking some sort of orange or gulf blue.

[Hatracks]

Weekly update:

Spent most of the week replacing starter, ignition switch, and all associated wiring you can read the grief that was here:



http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=660462&highlight=

Other than that it is just stripping paint and fabricating the patch panels to weld in. I have to travel for work this week but I am hoping by next Sunday to mostly be complete with the paint stripping and welding, then it is on to body work.

Lots of bondo in the hood, could of easily of been straightened with a little hammer and dolly work:

[/img]

[Hatracks]

well most of the week was spent getting the area where the beetle will live ready for a steel building that arrives sometime in the next 2-3 weeks...lots of gravel, leveling, and shoveling...

Did find some time to strip more paint and get the death foam patches welded in along with finishing the floor pan welding. Once the building goes up all of the windows and doors will come out and I will get serious about grinding down the welds and bodywork/paint.

[Hatracks]

It took forever this week beating all of the fenders back into shape and welding up all of the rips and tears in them. After that I finished the welding on the body and pulled the doors off to find all of the hinge/pillar areas were pretty beat up. I fabricated new patches and cut all of the bad stuff out. Still a little bit more welding to do (and a whole lot of grinding) but we are almost at bodywork.

Drivers door was pretty rough:

Rebuilt all of the area in front of the pillar, need to grind and finish:

Had to race around the neighborhood with no doors:

I did spend time with my other love on Saturday:

_________________
73 Super Build