1973 Sports Bug

[pittwagen]

They might have come over on the same boat together. There was a big press release - newspapers back then. We knew it was coming just did not know exactly when. We bought ours in Winnipeg in May. Our dealer got 8. 4 blue and 4 yellow. Blue ones sold out in less than a day.

[CWAVE]

It's very cool to know that one of my cars likely shipmates as they ventured across the ocean is still around. Very cool that our cars are only a day apart!

Thomas

[CWAVE]

Another update:

Making some good progress on the car. Struggled with getting the horn working, but am happy to say that I have that problem behind me now. The horn is working as it should! This is actually the first beetle that I've ever owned where the horn actually worked and is activated by pushing the button in the center of the steering wheel.

Got the bumpers back on along with the correct bumper bracket grommets. (those came in the last CIP1 shipment).

I installed the 3D printed brackets that I designed to hold the speaker shelf in place. As mentioned before, it holds the speaker shelf tipped down a bit behind the rear seat, by maybe a couple inches. I like that it orients the speakers more towards the front as I'll discuss next.

I had a pair of Rockford Fosgate 6" speakers that I had bought years ago for this car, but when I finally got the stereo hooked up enough to test them, I wasn't terribly pleased with the quality of the sound. That, and the lack-luster power I was getting from the Retrosound. My not-so-stellar hearing wasn't helping either.

So my first thought was that the radio just didn't have enough umpf to push anything decent through the speakers, so I ran out and picked up a 2 channel Pioneer amp. Although it helped a bit, it still didn't sound good enough. I do at times like to crank the tunes a bit. So today I again went out and picked up a couple 6x9's. I didn't want to spend a fortune on stereo equipment like I have in the past, but these seemed to be reviewed alright (Kicker DSC69304 DS Series 6x9's). Well, I have to say, I sure am pleased with how it sounds now. I thought I might have to put a little sub in there too to get some bass, but naw. These 6x9's with the amp really do the job for me. So here are some photos after I got the speakers installed. The amp and wires aren't tidied up yet. I'll do that this weekend.

I think there's enough weight on that speaker shelf to warrant some support off the back of the seat, so I'm going to have to dream up something that I can print that will do the job.

With the speakers installed, I moved on to the radio installation. I finished up the USB switch blank, and installed that and the radio. I also hooked up the SiriusXM tuner. Now that I've confirmed everything is working, I'll tidy up all the wires and button up the dash again. Should be able to get the seats back in the car soon. But for now, here's what it looks like.

Also completed but didn't take any photos of, was I ended up having to take much of the top of the motor off. You see, when I put the parts back on the long block after figuring out my compression issues, I embarassingly didn't notice that the oil filler had slipped down (it was a bit loose) such that the vent was down rather than up! With it pointing down, I couldn't connect the tube from there to the air cleaner. Grrrrrr.... Well, that wasn't a fun job, given that I did it all with the motor in the car. I didn't feel like pulling it out to fix the problem. But, that's done.

So, I guess that's about where I'm at. I spent a lot of time working on little things that nobody will ever see, like making the wiring harness for the radio look nice (with nice solid connections), and taking much time ensuring that the placement of things felt just right.

The list is getting short now. I'll keep picking away at it. Going to have to clean out my enclosed trailer in the coming weeks, as I'm going to need it to take the car for it's inspection, but that's still a number of weeks away before I'm ready for it to happen.

Thomas
_________________
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My 1973 Sports Bug Body off Restoration:
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=666556

[CWAVE]

And so the restoration comes to it's end...

Since my last post, I'd been working diligently towards being able to register the car. There were all sorts of little things here and there that needed to be done to satisfy the rather strict requirements for the inspection that the car needed to endure. Because I bought the shell originally from another province, the rules about registering the vehicle were more strict.

Things that I attended to were mostly small things.

- Got the seatbelt light circuit functioning correctly
- Resolved the engine oil leaks
- Resolved a minor transmission leak
- Tidied up the wiring under the back seat
- Tidied up the amp wiring
- Fixed a small brake line leak
- Tinkered with the wiper-sprayers to ensure proper function
- Made sure all the tires were to the correct pressure

There were probably a few more things that I did that I forgot to mention, but none-the-less, I finished all the tiny things I needed to do, and booked my inspection day.

Yesterday was the day, so I trailered the car to the shop, and with much separation anxiety, I left the car behind in the shop parking lot. Truth be told, I didn't leave the parking lot until I watched them drive it into the shop!

To my excitement, the car passed the inspection with no faults. I was thrilled. Today, I went down to the registries office, registered the car and picked up my shiny new license plate!

It's a pretty cold and gloomy day here, so I won't be taking the car out for a few days at least. Not until the weather smartens up. The car requires a much needed wash, to get years of dust off it.

Thomas
_________________
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My 1973 Sports Bug Body off Restoration:
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=666556

[Rome]

Congratulations on your long-awaited vehicle completion and successful inspection+registration!

[creative native]

Congratulations! We are sharing in your happiness. I hope that your first drive in the nice weather will be amazing.

[VeeDubWolf]

Awesome, congrats!
_________________
Two Bugs-
'70 rust-bucket sunroof sedan
'69 PO hack-job special
-Plus a wide assortment of various parts'n'junk

[Tim Donahoe]

Great work, all around. You should be proud!

Tim
_________________
Let's do the Time Warp again!

Richard O'Brien

[polypetalous]

Looks fantastic!
Nice work, most encouraging seeing others start and complete these projects.

Bet she'll bring ya years and years of joy.


Ben

[CWAVE]

First off, thank-you for the congrats messages. They are very much appreciated, and thanks for following me along my journey.

Yesterday, I did my first bit of work that was not geared towards getting it on the road. I installed a dashcam. That's going to lead into a subsequent post as you'll read about near the end.

Today was the day... the first time I got to drive my Sports bug. I may have mentioned that when I started this whole process, the direction that drove me was the thought that I wanted to experience what it would have been like to drive a brand new Sports Bug off the showroom floor.

So, this afternoon, I loaded the family into the car, and we set off for a short half hour test drive. You may think me over-dramatic, but it was a magical experience. The sound, the smells, the ride... it was like no other beetle I've ever owned or driven. The car drives straight and true, the engine pulls like a brand new fire-breathing 46hp dragon! The rancho pro-street transaxle shifts like an F-18 would (if it had a VW transaxle and needed to shift gears). The clutch is perfectly set up, throttle is responsive, brakes are great.

I've driven a lot of different cars in my years, and never have I enjoyed a ride more than this. When I turned 16, and I got my first car (a green 1974 VW Beetle), the first things I put in it to personalize it was a Garfield plush that stuck in the window and a "Remove for Flight" banner that a friend working in the aviation industry had given me. To this day, I still have those original items that have traveled with me through my life. Today, they were once again deployed in my beetle. Granted, 41 years have passed, and the Garfield suction cups won't hold him on the glass anymore, so he now sits proudly between the speakers looking out from the back seat.

I felt as though I had come home.

On the very first test drive of the alignment around the block, I'd recorded and will invite you to enjoy the very first time my Sports Bug has been piloted in many years. As soon as my son puts the videos together from the dashcam (hopefully tonight), I'll post it for all those interested in watching.

If this weekend gives me a bit of clear warm weather, I'll give the car a much needed wash, then post some photos of the culmination of my years of work.

Thomas
_________________
___
My 1973 Sports Bug Body off Restoration:
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=666556

[Sportbugger]

Truly an amazing accomplishment!
After many years of hard work and effort it's wonderful to see you're able to now enjoy the car.
I'm sure the experience is no doubt the same as one would have felt back in 1973

I can't wait to see it in person one day!

[CWAVE]

Here's the very first time I stretched my Sports Bug's legs. Excuse the dirt on the car... the wash is coming next.


Link


Thomas
_________________
___
My 1973 Sports Bug Body off Restoration:
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=666556

[VW_Jimbo]

YES!!!!

Such a great feeling!

Heads up! The voltage numbers on the screen were low. Might be just a low battery, but may also indicate some needed attention of the charging system. Loose belt?
_________________
Jimbo

There is never enough time to do it right the first time, but all the time necessary the second time!

[vamram]

Wow, fantastic! Love your description of how your build tied together to your youth, very cool. Looking forward to your dash cam explanation. I've been looking for one as well but always get hung up w/the many options and the crazy price differentials - cheap ones getting better reviews from buyers than high end expensive ones. Oy.
_________________
Eventually, "we are what we pretend to be.’”
Give peace a chance - Stop Russian-Soviet Aggression!!

'74 Super 9/16 - present, in refurb process.
'73 Super - 6/18 - Present - Daily Driver!
'75 Super Le Grande...waiting it's turn in line behind '74.
Click to view image
Save the Supers!!

[creative native]

I wish your video had volume so we could hear the sounds of joy in your beautiful Sports Bug. Volkswagens really are the most loved cars in the world. Congratulations again!

[CWAVE]

Thanks everyone for your comments and best wishes. The couple drives I've done since have been absolutely great. I find myself looking at the forecast every day, planning the next nice day to go for a drive!

creative native, you sure are right... I too think our Volkswagens are the most loved cars. I actually didn't say anything during the first drive. I was saying "This is SO MUCH FUN!" in my head while I was driving.

Thanks VW_Jimbo on your comment on the voltage numbers. Noticed that as well, seemed a volt or so low. Granted my battery was a new one, a year or so went by before I thought to myself (geez, you should put a trickle charger on that). I'll investigate this to be sure!

With regards vamram to the dashcam, I'd wanted to put one of these in all my cars for a very long time, but have faced the same thing you commented about. You would think that something as simple as a dashcam these days would be straight forward, but that's not at all what I've found. The very first dashcam that I bought was one off ebay from China. OMG, what a piece of garbage. That experience coupled with others WRT chinese products made me very leery about these. I found reviews all over the board on them as well. What I ended up buying was this Thinkware H50 dashcam. That happened to my surprise when I actually looked up my paperwork on this, in 2012. When I got it, I played around with it a bit and in all honesty couldn't get my head around how it worked. The software isn't very good either. I ended up tossing it in a box and forgetting about it until recently.

I figured, I may as well give it another try. I have more time to commit to learning about it's quirks as I'm now retired (not in a rush anymore to get anything done). I did manage to win the battle and got it figured out.

By today's standards, it has a less than stellar camera (by 2012 standards it was pretty good). It has a 720p camera. I ran into great difficulty getting the software to work. The manual states that it's compatible with Windows 7, however, I tried a couple of Windows 7 machines in the house and the software simply doesn't work. I then tried in on a Windows 10 toughbook that I use for vacationing, and it worked on that. Weird.

Now that I've got this thing figured out, I'm actually ok with it. As soon as you apply power to it, it starts recording. I didn't want to have wires hanging about, so I took off my nice new driverside sunvisor, and cleaned up an old one to be my sacrificial lamb for this experiment. I drilled a small hole in the visor hinge mount, and built a little wiring harness to go in between the wires to the interior light to scab power for the dashcam. That seemed to work alright, and disguises the power wire as best as I could come up with anyways. When I'm about to leave, I just push the power connector into the camera and it starts recording, and keeps recording. Every minute takes about 43mb of space. I have a 32gb card in it (the maximum capacity for the camera), so it will cover the longest drive I'd want to do that's for sure.

When I get home, I pull the card, and dump the files out. Every minute is split into it's own file. I get my son to merge the clips together for me...

All it in all, the software could be better (looks to me like whoever wrote it stopped learning about software development in about 1990). But it is marginally functional. There's no screen on the camera, so if you want to review footage you have to pull the card and dump the video. I can live with that.

So, that I guess is my thoughts on the dashcam that I put in the car. OH. One more thing... If you're putting in your own camera, and you're like me, you don't look at the instructions before installing it... Duh... remember to put the camera lense centered over your car. I put mine about 2 inches offset. In my case it doesn't really make that much difference, but I would have preferred a perfectly centered image. And once it's on the glass (for this one anyways), it's not moving again without breaking the mount off.

Thomas
_________________
___
My 1973 Sports Bug Body off Restoration:
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=666556

[VW_Jimbo]

VERY COOL! Loving the enjoyment phase of the project!!!
_________________
Jimbo

There is never enough time to do it right the first time, but all the time necessary the second time!

[Buggeee]

The video is stoking some motivation somewhere in the back of my noggin. This phase of my build has been simmering so long now I'm getting distracted easily. Your build took a good long, patient time and it was worth it. The car sounds as great as it looks. Thank you for sharing the video. There is a light at the end of the tunnel.
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1966 Sportsmobile Camper https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=...mp;start=0
72 Super Duper http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=672387
(adopted out) 61 Turkis Pile https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=728764

[CWAVE]

Buggeee, thanks for your comment. I can certainly relate to being distracted and losing focus. We went through a bit of a rough patch with our builder about a year ago when we moved, and it sucked all my motivation away. The car sat virtually untouched for over a year. I finally kicked myself in the butt, and got it done. I tell you, it was the best thing I could have done. Such a joy to have to drive now. Hope you find the motivation to carry on with yours.

Yesterday I adjusted the idle speed down to 8-900 RPM. With the idle screw, strangely enough, I couldn't get the idle speed any lower than that. With it cranked down all the way, I could get it as low as 800. I don't recall ever having that issue with previous cars.

Ran into my first head-scratcher that I did end up resolving yesterday. After driving to the gas station and filling up the tank, as I was driving home, and most certainly by the time I got into the garage, there was a tremendous smell of gas. Scared the life out of me. Looked everywhere for a leak, but nothing. I was utterly shocked, as I had replaced and clamped all the lines in this build. But still, it just REEKED of gas.

By the next day, the smell was virtually gone from the garage. Took the car out again, and after a few turns, there it was again. Well, if you haven't guessed already, it was the ancient gas cap that I was using. The seal (although it visually looked ok with a cursory glance), it was in fact sunken into the edge of the cap and hard as stone. When I stopped the car to investigate, I noticed the passenger side fender covered in gas, and gas dripping from the fender onto the road.

Carefully drove home (avoiding quick left hand turns), gave the car a quick wash to get the gas off the paint, and took another cap from my collection of spare parts. This morning no smell from the filler area where as it was there the day before. Felt a bit silly that it took me that long to figure that one out.

Still have to put together a parts/tool kit for the car. Won't go on a longer trip until I get that put together. Am interested in seeing how the car is at higher speeds. Feels very responsive at 40mph. Funny thing though, in my Golf R, I feel the need for speed. In my Sports Bug, I'm perfectly content taking my sweet time to get anywhere I'm going. No desire to go fast.

Here are a couple of beauty shots after I washed down the car in the driveway. The sun was pretty low already so the paint doesn't really sparkle in the shots.

Thomas
_________________
___
My 1973 Sports Bug Body off Restoration:
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=666556

[VeeDubWolf]

That's a good-lookin' Bug any day of the week!
_________________
Two Bugs-
'70 rust-bucket sunroof sedan
'69 PO hack-job special
-Plus a wide assortment of various parts'n'junk