Great Grandpa’s 1964 Sunroof Bug Full Stock Restoration

[Adriel Rowley]

[matthew henricks]

Adriel,

That image will not load. Not sure why. The gas gauge needle was broken when i was given the car in 1988. Rotted away from the sun. I glued it back together. (15 year old's repair job) It has always stuck so that the last 1/4 tank of gas is consumed in 1 mile. No way to repair it so i will replace it.

L91 is used for all bumper parts that are not chrome in 1964. The brackets, US spec over rider supports and clips to mount the blades. It was then later used on bus (and i think bug) rims.

I am learning that VW did some strange things with L codes. Changing the shade or formula over years. Frustrating now down the road when the original codes are not easy to locate. Makes it fun but...

[matthew henricks]

Progress Daily. Love having a focused guy working on the bodywork.

Part of the deal with him is that whatever i could do ahead of time i would not have to pay him to do. I dug out and blasted all the known rust areas. He found some rust that i missed. Taken care of now. ( Notice the super warped quarter panel in the second image. He is a wizard with metal)

I think i mentioned earlier that i looked into sand blasting the whole body. It has 3 or 4 paint jobs on it. I also decided that i wanted fresh paint on the interior that matched the body. To that end after looking up my sand blast options he said he would just strip each panel for me. That way no warpage and since i had already taken care of 90% of the rust...

Front Passenger Quarter Panel stripped and epoxy coated.

All 5 rims are back from the Powder Coat shop. Black. I used RAL 9005. The exact color is L41 but in this case black is black. (I want my baby back...)

Blue White (L289) 2K paint inbound to paint the outside of the rims.

I am going to try and use 56047 Firestone 155R15 radial tire from Coker. Right now there seems to be a nation wide shortage of these. I also looked at Dimax white walls too. Silvertown Whitewalls would be nice but a bit out of my budget. The bug never had white walls anyways. Image below is from Flyboy161's 64 bug thread. "Diamond in the rough"

https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=612776

Lastly. I bought this Eastwood 18" set-up last night to help clean parts. 5 different materials. Love Craigslist.

And i finished the steering box last night by driving out the inner race and shim (without damaging them) from the housing and painting a few parts for the box and windshield wipers.

Making progress daily.

[Adriel Rowley]

[Adriel Rowley]

[matthew henricks]

For whatever reason where my dad stored the bug in the 70's and 80's promoted rot. I was able to buy a nice one although prices today continue to shock me.

Regarding the L91 my parts have long lost that paint. In fact in the 80's i painted it all black. I could have the paint shop match some WW parts i have but that is $65 per match. In the end the silver is really a generic and since they found the code for 1970 L91 i am going to roll with that.

I just got word that L360 Sea Blue is in hand now. Color is coming soon for my fenders, hood and decklid.

[Adriel Rowley]

[matthew henricks]

Last night i rebuilt my gas gauge. The donor one arrived. Good news is its guts were way better than mine. Bad news was that the cable was not. I tried to figure out how to remove the needle but gave up for fear of breaking it.

cleaned up real nice.

Work of the rust was repaired yesterday. Lower Drivers side A pillar from the sunroof drain. Used Classicfab metal. Fit was ok. Gap at the hinge is too big. Not sure if i will fix that or not.

Overall.

Zinc plated all my steering box fasteners last night. It is ready to put together.

Tonight i will take apart the starter and rebuild it.


Here is the question for the day.

Do i rebuild my 40HP or not? It has less than 5K on it but is leaking oil. I have a Judson that i ran 25 years ago until that motor blew. (Compression wrong) I am kicking around doing a rebuild in such a way that the motor could again accept the Judson. Make it a little more health and set-up to accept the vintage speed.

Thinking:
- 83mm P&C and coat the P's with ceramics
- Full balance
- Mild cam.
- Rebuild both heads

Any thoughts or input from anyone? Could i do this for under $700? I do not think so but...

Anyone in So. Cal have experience here?

[Adriel Rowley]

[matthew henricks]

Lot's of good and direct questions Adriel.

I guess bottom line is when this car is done i want it done. Do not want to overlook anything and the engine is one of those places.

Ultimately the goal is reliability which a Judson does NOT fill but if i wanted to play around again with it i would want the motor to be up to the challenge.

[Adriel Rowley]

[offtherailz1]

[matthew henricks]

[matthew henricks]

Update for today.

Front nose body work has started. I tapped the nose at least twice 30 years ago. I "fixed" it but tying the front bumper bracket to a large Ficus tree and driving off backwards.

This time we are doing it right. I have a donor front end as a pattern guide to what bends should be there. Last resort will be to graft the whole front on.

Been restoring my starter. Zinc plated the ends and painted everything else black. Still have not soldered the end cap on the solenoid yet. Trying to decide if i put dielectric grease on the contacts or not.

Work on steering box almost done. Still deciding if i should use heavy oil or corn head grease when i put it back together.

Great thread here. https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=...mp;start=0

Transmission work. Was trying not to take the swing axles off. Blasted the ends and brake back plate and applied some epoxy primer but was not happy. Swing axles came off. I also started prepping the case to be painted. I sanded down what i could, cleaned it really good and applied some zinc chromate primer in prep for black paint.

Scored a NOS Walker 40HP muffler. Plan to re-paint it with heat resistant paint. Using Rustoleum 2000F high temp paint in grey. Close match to original. Will paint heater boxes at same time.

https://www.lowes.com/pd/Rust-Oleum-High-Heat-Flat...oz/3728781


Generator rebuild is next. I am torn on this one. The winding covering is failing. not sure if i should take it all the way down and re-wrap the windings or just get a new one. It needs new brushes for sure. We will see.

Good thread here.

https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=694687

Also started looking at my radio. It worked 15 years ago. My plan is to replace all the caps, restore the push buttons, Clean all contacts and generally clean it up. I plan to run a Redi-Rad to allow me to run my music and leave this one stock AM only.

That is all for today.

[viiking]

I also posted on the link for the generator regarding wrapping the field coils. I wrapped my coils with tape as well but it was too thick to allow the commutator to fit.

I think that’s why they originally used thin paper. Just do a trial fit with just enough tape to cover the windings and be sure that the bunch of wires don’t get out of shape for thickness or you’ll have clearance issues.
_________________
1968 1500 RHD Lotus White Beetle since birth. In the hospital for major surgery
1966 Lancia Flavia Pininfarina Coupe - in the waiting room
Discharged: 1983 Vanagon, 1974 1800 Microbus,1968 Low Light,1968 Type 3

[matthew henricks]

Thanks Viiking. I did see your post on that and it caused me to pause. For sure i have exposed windings on one end. My screw are not going to come out easy so i have yet to decide what i will do.

Thank you.

[67 Sunroof]

Fantastic thread man. Loved reading through it. It reminds me ALOT of my own build. Mine had the same issues. A pillar, rear window rot, etc. Very cool!
Keep at it man as it’s ALOT of work. Never expected this little car to be soo much work!
Yeah.......once you are done the kids will wanna drive it-just watch! 😂😂
_________________
1776cc, CB crank, CB 2241 cam, CB light lifters, CB H-beam rods, CB light flywheel, Mahle forged pistons, A1 Sidewinder exhaust, Dellorto drla 40’s, Hoover modded case, fully balanced, fully flowed, heads by www.type-emotorsports.com, Air ride suspension by https://www.airkewld.com/?Click=3989

[matthew henricks]

Thank you 67sunroof. I appreciate the kind words.

I can get carried away with this but i like things done right and try do learn what is needed to do it myself.

[offtherailz1]

[jays58s]

Awesome thread, I really enjoyed reading and following along. One question, why a 155 tire? You’re only shorting yourself gearing wise by running that tire. 165’s aren’t even as tall as the original 5.60-15’s that bugs came with new, but they’re as close as you can get. Also, try https://smsautofabrics.com/ for the correct seat material, they may have it. I actually found the red cord material through them for a pearl white 64 I had. As far as your engine, if it truly only has 5000 miles on it, you could run it as is, but replace all of the seals, including the rear main seal. If you have the extra money, a set of big bore pistons and cylinders are worth it. I’ve built numerous big bore 40hp engines, and there’s definitely a difference. I just wish there were other options aside from the Chinese parts.