1973 Sports Bug

[CWAVE]

Thanks very much and for everyone who followed along.

Here's a parting shot of the restoration.

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

[VeeDubWolf]

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

[r6kid]

CWAVE, I just read the entire 16 page build this morning. I'm absolutely impressed!
I'm perhaps 1/3 into my 72 SB build. If I had welding skills I'd be working on some of the rot on the body instead of waiting for something to do. Alas, I taught myself just enough to weld up some of the small holes in my pans. I'm currently waiting on my Rancho Pro Drag trans to show up so I can finish up my frame and anticipate dropping off the body at Cookers Restoration and Fabrication in Virginia. All in all, it looks like I'm doing almost exactly the same thing you did with a few minor differences. This is my first VW build (2nd VW) so I read a lot of build posts to either get ideas or motivation. And I pay very close attention to the JBugs videos as well.
Thanks for posting so many photos and narrative. I think a lot of your post is actually going to help me in some areas.

[VW_Jimbo]

Thomas. THAT IS BEAUTIFUL!!!! Very well done!
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Jimbo

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

[CWAVE]

Thanks guys for the comments.

r6kid, are you documenting your build here on thesamba? Wouldn't mind following along your build.

Thomas

[CWAVE]

Well, I've been driving the car for a couple months now. No big problems at all. Started teaching my son to drive on the car, so it's been getting pretty much daily use which is tons of fun.

I figured this length of time shaking the car down in and around town was enough that I felt it was time to see what the car would do on the highway. Being a Sunday afternoon traffic was light so I wound out the little car.

Merging onto the highway went very well. Although it's not a rocket by any stretch of the imagination with the 1600cc motor it has, it got up to 110kph just fine to merge into traffic. I then put my foot into it and managed to get it up to 132kph before I was slowed down by traffic. The car felt like it still had a little more to give at 82mph, however, I was already at 3900 RPM, so I suspect it probably wouldn't have had much more to give. I thought that maybe I could have hit 90mph.

Speedo showed that I topped out at 82mph. The kph speeds noted are from my GPS dashcam, so my speedo turns out to be very accurate (at least at that speed it is).

In terms of stability and ride, I have to say it felt (without the word of a lie) as smooth as a modern car. There were no shakes at all, the car drove dead straight, no squeaks or rattles. Just a dead smooth ride. Guess I did it right. Super thrilled with how the car has performed these past couple months, and how it performed on the highway today.

I'll download the dashcam footage and post it when it's ready so you can see for yourself what the drive on the highway was like!

This summer my son and I took the car to a non-judged show'n'shine. That was fun. Alot of people like the car, and heard a lot of stories from people recounting their early days of driving in a beetle. These cars sure bring back memories for folks.

A couple things that I'm going to have to address this winter with the car. The car either runs too fast at idle or tapers down to nothing and stalls. I'm thinking it's time to do a carb rebuild and clean. Also, the odometer as it turns out doesn't work in my speedo. So I'll probably change out the speedo for a metric one this winter. I was originally going to put a metric one in the car but for some reason forgot about that when I was putting the car together. The dead odometer is a good reason then to deal with that this coming winter.

Ended up getting an appraisal for the insurance company on the car. I was surprised that it came out to being valued at $38,000. Can you imagine... for a 1973 Sports Bug. Wow.

Been having a great time with the car. Hopefully we have a nice long fall coming up so we can continue to drive for another month or two if we're lucky.

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

[Tim Donahoe]

There’s a guy in the Samba Classifieds who fixes our odometer/speedometers. You might want to check that out.

Tim
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Let's do the Time Warp again!

Richard O'Brien

[CWAVE]

Reached pretty much the end of the driving season where I live. I can't say how far I've driven my Sportsbug this year, as I didn't want to take the time (and take the car off the road) to replace the speedo. That'll be one of the winter projects.

Since the springtime when I put the car on the road, it's been a dream to drive. Not one problem (of any significance) at all. Starts every time, hasn't used any oil worth noting, and even the bit of oil leaking has subsided considerably since driving it fairly regularly.

Here is a photo from yesterday when I was coming back from grocery shopping.

The list of work for this winter is quite short.

#1:
Idling is quite temperamental. When the car is warm, it hunts running fast then real slow (many time stalling if you don't catch it). When it's cold it does the same but to a lesser degree. Plan on going over the ignition system and rebuild the carburator. I'm figuring refreshing these things should fix that.

#2:
Replace the speedometer. I was originally planning on putting the speedo in there with KPH rather than MPH, but I don't know how I overlooked that. Anyways, it's gotta happen because the odometer as I'd mentioned, doesn't work.

#3:
The horn is feeble sounding, so I bought a replacement Hella OEM horn, so that'll be replaced.

#4:
The windshield sprayer is a little incontinent, so I've bought a replacement valve that I'll put in. Keeping the original sprayer connected to the tire because it's cool.

#5:
Might take on connecting the gas heater. It's all installed, but I never hooked fuel up to it. Not that I'll ever drive the car when I'd need it to work, but still it SHOULD be connected and working.

Otherwise, just the usual. I'll go over everything. Make sure everything otherwise is still good for the start of next years driving.

For now, I haven't pulled the plug yet. There still might be a few more nice days left where I can cruise in my absolutely FAVORITE car!

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

[Maddel]

[DesignBuild]

[DesignBuild]

[CWAVE]

Thanks for your comment.

The reason why the fender bead (welt) is not painted is because that part of the car was never originally painted. It was always the plain black plastic material. Typically (here in Canada) if you saw a beetle with the fender bead painted, it denoted someone that didn't bother taking it out when they repainted the car.

I like the look of the black between the fender and body, as it looks like it's supposed to look and the way it came from the factory.

[DesignBuild]

[DesignBuild]

Take a look at factory press photos in the archives on TheSamba or any of the brochures for the 1972, 1973, 1974, etc. and see if any have black fender bead. You will find only pictures of the Beetle or Super Beetle with body colored fender beading. Even the factory photos are obviously not black fender bead even when the pictures are in black and white.

The fender bead on every 1973 Beetle or Super Beetle only came in body color from the factory and there are hundreds of photos on TheSamba to prove it.

[Buggeee]

What a phenomenal build this was! That silvery Sport Bug paint turned out so nice. I'm glad the thread got bumped so I could be reminded of your success and pick up on that energy. It will be a good day today for my VW!!!
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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

[vamram]

[CWAVE]

DesignBuild, Bottom line is, I don't care for body colored fender beading, and it's never happening on my car, so let's give it a rest shall we! Black looks better IMHO, and afterall who's car is this?

[CWAVE]

Thanks for your comments. Glad to hear Buggeee that my thread has given you a push.

Still not nice enough yet to take it out on the road yet. Probably another month before the roads are nice enough for that.

Thomas

[pittwagen]

Black is the correct colour for the Sports Bug fender bead. I have owned this one since it was new. It came standard with the black bumpers, trim etc. Blue stripe on bumper was body colour. The body stripe kit was never installed. There was a list of Sport Bug options that could be dealer installed. I wish I had asked for a copy of the list.

Fog lights, roof rack, bra and black trim pop out windows were not standard. Original bra was checkered. Not seen is the S&S header and muffler. I had an S&S header installed at the dealer before I drove it off the lot. The current one dates back to the late 80's. Tires were 175/70R15 Continentals. Spare is original. Wheels are 5.5x15. Similar to the 914 Porsche ones but with a different offset. Current tires are Conti Pro Contacts - 195/65R15 rear and 175/65R15 front. Gas heater was standard equipment in Canada for this model.

Oh and for other bugs, the fender beading is body colour. I have a 73 standard as well and still with the original fender beads. FYI.

[davidw99]

Pittwagen,

Very nice car.
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Dave

'73 Saturn Yellow Sports Bug that has undergone a full pan off restoration. "Herbert IV."

'67 Sedan. "Bellamy." Currently being "refreshed" and recently repainted.