1957 L41 Beetle...true barn find!

[motofly196]

For years now, I've been reading everybody else's threads of builds. Now I have one that I am proud enough to share with you.

Last fall, a friend of mine stumbled across an Oval parked outside a barn and inquired about it. It took him a month of persistence in finding someone home. When he finally did, it turned out that it wasn't just one Oval...but 3. And 4 other late model cars...and a ton of engines and parts. Our offer was accepted, we split it up between us...and here's what I got. (He had no interest in the early cars, except one parted out 57').

This is a 1957 L-41 Black with red interior, delivered to Valley Vw in Spokane. It has been kept by the same family since new. It got repainted in 1977 with black lacquer, parked in the barn, and never reassembled.

I purchased it on the same day that it was Originally purchased in 1957! This letter describes how it was delivered. The original owner pre-ordered it 6 months before it was delivered.

[motofly196]

Once I got it home, I couldn't wait to see how the lacquer paint survived 42 years in the barn. The original owners son was there when I purchased it, and although being in bad health, he gave me the cars entire history from the day it was purchased new in Spokane. His dad ordered the car with black wall tires and no radio, as this was to be a businessman's car, traveling many miles a day. A no frills car.
It arrived with Whitewall tires, and an extra charge as seen in the Pre-delivery letter. His dad was furious, and walked out of the dealership due to extra charges. The salesman followed him out to the parking lot, and promised he would pull black walls from a car on the lot.

[motofly196]

After a quick wash, and added snowflake housings that the owners son kept in the car. The car was hit in 1976 in the rear from a 1969 Impala. It took out the original decklid, which was replaced with a later lid, and larger lights.

[motofly196]

Once clean, I began detailing the paint. Although the lacquer is heavily checked in areas...it shows fairly well. I have well over 20hrs now cutting and buffing the paint. I was tempted to block out some orange peel, but decided against it for now.

I got 2 sets of original wheels with the car. One used for winter, and another for summer. They are all date stamped 1/57. The winter wheels are rough...but the summer wheels detailed out nicely. Eventually I will install Firestone Bias Blackwalls, but for now I have these Vredestein 155 tires for another project.

The original bumpers were heavily corroded, so I went into my stash for a set that closely matched the overall condition of the car. In a box in the car, I found a set of NOS Vw bumper rubber

[EverettB]

Wow, it cleaned up super nice so far!
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[motofly196]

Thanks Everett! I'm slowly getting trim items together to install. I've only ever put together heavily patina'd cars. Finding parts for nice cars is much more difficult.

[EverettB]

How's the interior?

I can't really see the seats but they look like they might be pretty nice in some of the through-the-window pics
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[motofly196]

The interior is a sore subject, and the main reason the son parked the car and never re-assembled. He paid to have a headliner installed which looked horrible. He also had a set of door panels recovered, along with the B-pillars. The color was too red. He got frustrated, and never reassembled it.
He purchased 2 1957 ovals at a yard sale over 30 years ago, for $10 each. I also got one of these cars. The interior in that car was complete and pretty nice, other than the drivers seat being dry. I bet 30 years ago, it was mint! I'm in the process of getting all of that together. I would of liked to keep the car as original as possible, but it just wouldn't look right. I still have to carefully remove the B-pillar vinyl from the donor car and transfer it to the black car. I'll get some pictures of all the interior before I assemble it.

[ConcreteAce]

Awesome score , and a backstory to boot!!
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Ethan Dunlap
Spring, Texas

'51 Deluxe
'61 Build
'68 Turbo Diesel Baja
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[sunroof]

Thanks for posting this! Keep the pictures coming, it looks like a reallyfun project.

Don
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[stale air]

Yeah, shes looking good! Nice score!
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[motofly196]

Thank you for all the compliments! It really is nice working on a car that was cared for, and stored away indoors (although on a dirt floor). I was going to work on the interior next, but I've decided against that.
Next up will be to get the brakes and transmission all sorted out. Along with getting all the electrical cleaned up. There are many quick repairs throughout the car. I have a complete harness from a 56' that a friend gave me last year for a different project. I will replace all the non-factory wiring with factory correct pieces. Time consuming, yes...but well worth it! It is so nice having all the original lights, bulb holders, and switches that came with the car new. It also has door/ ignition/ and deck lid locks that match!

[Mark Evans]

I noticed in your one posts about getting to buy one of the cars back in the day for $10. Those sure were good times back then!
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'63 Ragtop

['64cal lookdub]

Awesome car, please document all the progress as you go. It's fun to watch them come back to life.

[motofly196]

This is the $10 car that came with the purchase. $10 is what he paid for it at a yard sale 30 years ago...he bought 2 of them for $20. Yes I miss those days too, when a $250 car was running and driving!

So far this car has donated all of it's interior. I tried saving what was left of the original carpet, but as it dried it became even more brittle. Since this will be a family cruiser...it's getting new carpet and headliner. The seats and door panels will remain in original material.

To me, working on the mechanicals can become boring, but I'll take pictures of the before and after.

[motofly196]

It's been quite a while since I have updated this thread, but I've been working constantly on the car on and off since last summer. I completely rebuilt all of the brakes, using new hard and soft lines. I had a few NOS ATE brake cylinders, but not enough for the entire car. Since this car is going to be used quite a lot, I just used new wheel cylinders purchased from CIP1. One major problem...

The shoes don't fit into the wheel cylinder slots!

After using a cut off wheel, I was able to open up the slot, then de-bur the ends.

I was very surprised to find that this car still has all of it's date stamped drums, all the way around! And...they were still in spec! I turned the drums, and brake rebuild was complete.

I will be driving this car mostly with my family to local cruise nights, so I added a dual master cylinder.

[motofly196]

Next up was to address the fuel system. The tank was extremely solid, and unbelievably...this is the 1st beetle I've owned that didn't need the fuel line through the tunnel replaced. That was a relief!!

Cleaned up the tank...original paint underneath all that grime was incredible!

The original fuel tap was completely wasted, so I found a better one to rebuild

And rebuilt an original VW fuel pump, using as many original parts as possible. Really, all I used from the kit, was the diaphram...the rest of the kit was junk

[motofly196]

Now the fun starts...all of the mechanicals are boring and time consuming "Must do" things. This car was rear-ended by a 69' Impala in the early 70's. The damage was concentrated on the deck-lid only...and the original owners couldn't find a W-decklid at the time. So a later model lid was used. In my stash, I had an original black paint deck lid that looked like it just need the paint stripped.

Well, you just never know what you're going to uncover. And this lid was full of surprises. Two extremely thick coats of metallic was hiding body filler and some old school screw slide hammer attempts at body work...no good for this car!

Underneath that body filler, there were some nasty dents and holes. So I stripped the deck lid to bare metal and started addressing the major dents...

I completed the body work with a skim of filler and applied etch primer

Followed by 4 coats of PPG K36 High build primer, then blocked it all out

Once I had that done, I sprayed it in a dark grey primer/ sealer

I had a 30 or so year old can of black lacquer paint. I had never sprayed lacquer, but after talking with a good friend who is very familiar with it...I dove in, and applied 5 coats to the deck lid and license plate light. It ended up being WAY too cold in the booth, and I had some issues with solvent pop. But in the end, the paint looks like the rest of the car. This is how it looked after 2 days of curing...and then blocking it all out again

Once that was finished, I got it all polished up

And installed back onto the car

[motofly196]

With the paint work out of the way...I started on the only rust damage in the entire car. The dreaded battery tray rot! With a 4 year old climbing in and out of the back seat...this wasn't going to fly with my wife!

So I ordered up a replacement section from Virtanen...and started by cutting out all the bad rot.

After cutting/ fitting/ grinding...here is the end result. Mika's replacement pans are a dead on match!!

[motofly196]

Once all of that was completed, I need to address the seatbelt situation...or rather, the lack of seatbelts. No way could I drive this car around with my little one...not having them. So...I took measurements from a few 63' and 64' cars that I have, and replicated the seat belt mounts

And plug welded them into place behind the rear seat back

And into the pan behind the front seats

In the Fall, I assembled a 1957 mystery engine that I removed from a 64' Beetle I bought a few years ago.

Unfortunately...once it gets up to temperature, it develops a rod knock. I do have the original engine from this car, but for now, I've been working on a surprise powerplant for this car...a 1397cc Okrasa. That engine still isn't finished...but it's been broken in, and sounds amazing!
Underneath it's original paint tin, it's got a DPR 69.5mm crank and 80mm AA Pistons and cylinders. Reworked Wolfsburg West heads and Carbs by Joe Ruiz. I am adding a Fram bypass filter and Okrasa style oil cooler before installing it into the car. Just awaiting a few more parts...