1966 Velvet Green Single Cab Pickup - Sitting Since 1995

[j.pickens]

That front floor and battery tray say it all for me. Great Truck!
_________________
Founder and Chairman Emeritus, ECMSAS
BBX BBXII and BBXXI Long Distance Award Winner

[oakman]

I know you're in the area, I hope the fire stayed clear of you!
_________________
Brandon

[Busstom]

[b-man]

[b-man]

Tire sidewall to spring plate bolt clearance is tight, probably about 1/8” or a little more. Moving the trailing arm pivots inward to narrow the rear track and gain some fender lip clearance just isn’t in the cards I’m afraid, though I do have the option of shaving that bolt head down by about 1/8” and moving the pivots in by that much. Every little bit helps when things are this tight.

Squeezed the rear wheel out so I can do some more cleaning as well as replace the dried out tires. Back in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s prices for 16” performance tires were very high, I was running good used tires most of the time. The 205/55-16 size was pretty much the only size that was readily available that would fit my 8.5” wide wheels and still fit inside my wheel wells, I think it was the front tire that was used on the front of the Porsche 944 with the rears being 225/50-16 (same overall height as the 205/55-16).

Here’s the overall width measurement of the old Goodyear 205/55-16 mounted up, just a little over 9-1/2” which is just barely wider than just the wheel itself.

The rear suspension drops just enough to squeeze the wheel/tire out, a little lube on the sidewall would actually be helpful here so I’ll try a little dish soap next time. The 16” rim size also allows you to work the wheel/tire past the brake drum, to run a 15” wheel I’ll need to jack the trailing arm downward for clearance.

Here you can see how the rear brake drums were drilled for the 5 on 4.75” (120.65mm) GM bolt pattern. One stock lug bolt was installed using red Loctite then cut off and ground flush with the drum hub, then the new stud hole was drilled halfway through the old bolt hole. I did the same Loctite and grind flush treatment for one of the drum hold down bolts that ended up right next to one of the studs.

Now actually the single drum hold down bolt really isn’t needed anymore. The lug studs will serve keep the drum from rotating on the hub, whereas they were required when lug bolts were used to keep the drum from shifting and being forced against and fouling the lug bolts. I’ll be removing the hold down bolt now since I’ve found out it interferes with mounting a GM steel wheel, the Corvette wheels have voids on the mounting surface that cleared it.

Spent most of this afternoon cleaning up the wheels to prepare them for the new tires, they were pretty filthy inside from years of commuting and collected plenty of grease from lubing the front end. Wiped them down first with old gas to remove grease and tar and then some acetone to remove any old stick on balancing weight residue. Finished up using Scotchbrite to clean up the inside of the rim and an old wash mitt soaked in Simple Green to clean up inside the wheel spokes, turned out to be a lot of work.

Decided to go for a slightly lower profile tire this time around to gain some much needed clearance inside the front wheel wells. Bought this set of Firestone Firehawk Indy 500 tires from the Tire Rack for $100 and some change apiece, they were offering a $60 prepaid Visa card with a set of 4 tires plus free shipping.

The 205/50-16 tires will increase engine RPM on the freeway at 65 mph to 3331 from the 3223 rpm I calculated with the taller 205/55-16s. This is just fine as you really don’t want to run a bus engine too slow on the highway to prevent overheating, plus it will help my single port 1600 scoot around town with a little more pep.

_________________
1956 Dove Blue Panel
1966 Velvet Green Single Cab
1957 L41 Black Oval Window Beetle

[Busstom]

Nice score on the tires, and at least two of them that I can see the codes on are exactly a year old, not bad for Tire Rack. I left a dismal review for Tire Rack a while back, for selling old tires...I did a search for my review, but I guess it was deleted for some reason.

[b-man]

Got my new skins mounted up today, pretty stoked.

Front suspension downward travel is limited but the truck does ride nicely on our city streets that are in good condition.

_________________
1956 Dove Blue Panel
1966 Velvet Green Single Cab
1957 L41 Black Oval Window Beetle

[b-man]

Was underneath the cab cleaning up the steering box, taking apart the pedals and removing the worn out accelerator linkage and snapped a few pictures.

Dry bus.

_________________
1956 Dove Blue Panel
1966 Velvet Green Single Cab
1957 L41 Black Oval Window Beetle

[b-man]

Freshly rebuilt 30 PICT-1 carb just arrived. A proper carb rebuild that includes new bushings to ensure the throttle shaft is leak free is something I have neglected to do in the past but not this time around.

Big thanks to Tim at VolkzBitz for getting my carb done in a timely manner, I can hardly wait to see how good it runs.

_________________
1956 Dove Blue Panel
1966 Velvet Green Single Cab
1957 L41 Black Oval Window Beetle

[b-man]

Today I took the day off work to celebrate my 60th birthday. Making progress on a my truck project right after not losing my house and car projects to the wild fires in our area is how I’m celebrating this one.

Yesterday after finding my way home from work through numerous closed access routes I spent the evening watering down my yard while watching a few helicopters dropping water on the hillsides behind 3 of my neighbors homes. Thankfully by sundown our firefighters had things under control.

I pretty much finished up the chassis cleanup by cleaning out the accelerator and clutch cable tubes. Last weekend I clamped some plugged off hoses onto at the back end of the tubes, filled them up with old gas and let them soak for a week. The accelerator tube was so gummed up with old hardened grease that the old cable wouldn’t pull out all the way. I had to carefully push it back using ViseGrips after it got stuck and then cut off the front hook to remove it from the back.

I have a few of these cement mixing bins that is use to catch the major amount of crud or any cleaning fluids while cleaning up the underside.

Filling up the clutch cable tube with gas.

The bowden tube had a deep groove worn in it that had raised a burr inside the tube. That burr kept clutch cable from pulling out from the front so I had to cut off the back end of the cable to get it out. I wanted to save the old cable for an emergency spare but I soon found that it was frayed where it had worn into the bowden tube, so saving it wasn’t in the cards anyway. I ended up purchasing a new one to use as a road spare.

The old clutch cable has been repurposed for cleaning out all of the cable tubes in the chassis.

I removed the stacked pallets under the back tires to lower the rear, allowing gas to flow out while rinsing out the tubes.

A lot of crud from inside the cable tubes came out during the rinsing, afterward I blew the tubes out with compressed air to dry them. The shift rod tube was cleaned by inserting the shift rod and working it back and forth while squirting gas into the tube from the front.

Now that all that nasty cleaning work is finished I can start putting the truck back together. Tomorrow I hope to finish installing all the new cables, the shift rods and the transaxle.

Moving forward.
_________________
1956 Dove Blue Panel
1966 Velvet Green Single Cab
1957 L41 Black Oval Window Beetle

[b-man]

Fixed one of the little things that I mickey-moused when if first did the IRS conversion, the brake lines weren’t properly supported where the hard lines joined the flex hoses. I fabricated some brackets out of 2” x 3/16” angle iron, I had my friend mill one of the legs of the bracket down to the same thickness as the factory support brackets on the frame, which is 3mm (.118”). The other leg was tapped for an 8m x 1.25 bolt.

I never had any issues without the support brackets but it still needed to be fixed. Next I finished cleaning up the heater mufflers and flexible connectors and put them back in place.

With all those things done it was finally time to install the newly rebuilt transaxle. I bought new rear mounts but kept the OEM nose cone mount that was still in excellent shape, there’s absolutely no need to replace a good used factory VW part with an inferior failure-prone replacement part.

New ground strap, bowden tube with rubber boot along with the clutch cable and adjusting nut.

Little by little.
_________________
1956 Dove Blue Panel
1966 Velvet Green Single Cab
1957 L41 Black Oval Window Beetle

[b-man]

Pulled the front brake rotors today so I could clean and inspect the wheel bearings. I took a few pictures of the modified spindles and rotors so others could see how the caliper brackets were welded to the spindles and the machine work on the rotors to change the bolt pattern.

It’s been so many years since I’ve had rotors off I’d forgotten what the caliper brackets looked like, very nicely fabricated and welded by the Bus Boys. I had these spindles reworked back in 1989 if I recall correctly, you can see their shop stamp and serial number on the bracket.

I was able to locate the new 12mm studs between the old stud holes and the bolts that hold the rotor to the hub.

The holes for the new studs just barely fit without breaking through the outside of the hub, I had to grind a flat on the head of each stud to clear the inside of the rotors.

Also removed and degreased the CV joints, all of the old boots were shot and grease was getting slung all over. The white painted axles are special slightly longer pieces that came with the Bus Boys IRS conversion kit, these long axles eliminate the need for CV joint spacers.

A few steps closer.
_________________
1956 Dove Blue Panel
1966 Velvet Green Single Cab
1957 L41 Black Oval Window Beetle

[b-man]

I worked on the rear brakes this weekend, in order to get the drums off I had to make something to hold them while loosening the axle nuts. I had some 4” angle iron so I cut a 3-1/2’ long piece and drilled holes at both ends to facilitate loosening and tightening the axle nuts.

The brakes looked pretty good with the linings worn down about halfway, the bearing seals were weeping a minor amount of grease.

Here you can see the work done to the drum/hub to change to the GM bolt pattern.

I removed the stub axles and bearings to clean and check their condition, everything looked perfect. The original factory lithium grease from 1970 that completely filled the pocket inside was a translucent golden color and looked like new, I guess everything I’ve read here on the forums regarding the long lastingly quality of the IRS rear axle bearings was true. I could have left everything alone and gone another 100k miles without any worries.

I’ll grease the axle bearings with high temperature disc brake bearing grease instead of lithium grease because of the added weight and stress they have to endure holding up the heavier Type II.

I cleaned up the cab floor and everything underneath the seat to prepare for my newly reupholstered ‘59 -‘61 gray arch back front bench seat. I took the seat to Matt Miller’s shop in Orange CA rather than attempting to do it myself, I should have it back sometime before Christmas.

After removing and cleaning the accelerator pedal pivot pin and installing the new reproduction boot and linkage pieces I laid down a decent used black front floor mat that’s been sitting up in my attic for 30 years. The one I removed was tan/brown in color and getting a little stiff and crispy, this black one is very flexible and not the least bit dried out.

Thanks for looking.
_________________
1956 Dove Blue Panel
1966 Velvet Green Single Cab
1957 L41 Black Oval Window Beetle

[EverettB]

Super nice mat.

I guess it has an earlier bench front seat in it?
It looks like whoever did that did it like factory.
_________________
How to Post Photos
Everett Barnes - [email protected] | My wanted ads
"Water is the only drink for a wise man" | "Communication prevents complaints"
Stop dead photo links! Post your photos to The Samba Gallery!

[b-man]

Previous owner (high school friend I’m still in touch with) converted it to the earlier bench seat, guess he didn’t like the 1/3 - 2/3 1966 seating arrangement.

A friend turned me onto that mat. At the time he had a backyard full of buses and just wanted to get off of some of his stash, pretty decent but does have a hole where an earlier bus has the dimmer switch.
_________________
1956 Dove Blue Panel
1966 Velvet Green Single Cab
1957 L41 Black Oval Window Beetle

[b-man]

Assembled the rear stub axles with new high temperature wheel bearing grease along with new seals and o-rings.

Note the large punch and brass hammer used to drive the inner axle bearings out for cleaning and back into place after packing them with grease.

Next I put the brakes together and installed a pair of emergency brake cable spacers sourced from Wagens West.

The cable retaining clips must be modified to allow clearance for the cable spring to pass through.

I assembled the axles and greased up the CV joints with Swepco Moly Grease #101.

I made this messy job a little easier by slicing the grease tube into 4 pieces to distribute the grease evenly to all 4 CV joints along with easier access.

Axles installed, bolts torqued to 25 lb/ft.

One thing I added that’s not a factory part for a split windshield bus was an accelerator cable bowden tube that came on ‘72-‘79 fuel injected bay window buses. This keeps the bare cable from sawing a groove in the transaxle case and hopefully helps prevent breakage. Once the engine is complete I’ll measure how far past the engine mounting flange the accelerator cable tube ends up and I’ll cut the end of the bowden tube to the correct length using a cutoff wheel.

With all that done I need to turn my attention to repairing some wiring in the engine compartment, finishing up the engine details and do some minor repair to the heater boxes.

Waiting patiently.
_________________
1956 Dove Blue Panel
1966 Velvet Green Single Cab
1957 L41 Black Oval Window Beetle

[BIG_TEXAS_PETE]

Looks awesome mate. Real tidy!
_________________
https://www.instagram.com/big_texas_pete/

[b-man]

Haven’t done much on the single cab during the last few months but I did a few things today to start getting the engine ready. I replaced the crispy 37 year old flywheel seal and o-ring then removed the oil cooler to replace the seals and found this:

It’s been there since about 1983, I’m thinking the engine builder probably thought I’d see it sooner than the year 2020.

Message in a bottle.
_________________
1956 Dove Blue Panel
1966 Velvet Green Single Cab
1957 L41 Black Oval Window Beetle

[ryans65]

Yes! That is soooo cool.

[BarryL]

Are you Bart?