Scrivyscriv's 1967 java green sunroof sedan (stock)

[scrivyscriv]

I started a thread about some previous owner damage to this car https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=728003 but instead of moving off the original topic of repairing the tunnel, I'm making this topic to encompass the entire car.

A few weeks ago I was looking through local Craigslist postings for tools and stuff, and I saw an ad for this 1967 sunroof bug:

I didn't have much to go on but several things immediately jumped out to me.. almost all of the trim was still on the car, the tires looked extremely old, and there was an absence of rust bubbles on the rockers. I went to look at it right after I got off work that day, even though it was almost dark when I got there.
Sure enough, it was an original paint car, with a complete engine, and even had the original bias ply spare up front.

I came back up after the weekend and trailered it back with a buddy and my two boys:

I got it home and started cleaning and evaluating what was there, and what needed work. First thing is the floor pans - both sides are gone, most likely from the sunroof being open to the weather at some point. The heater channels are good!

Judging from the VIN and engine serial number, the engine looks original to the car!
There was a rat in the front that rusted the spare tire well out and filled the engine bay up with trash...

Call me a pessimist, but after mechanicing for so long, I don't trust anyone else's work on a new-to-me car until I've gone through it myself. So the engine came out:

The engine is in ok shape externally; all the tins (even the pulley tin!) are present, the carburetor is stock, and everything is covered in a thick layer of old oil and dirt. The oil cooler was seeping in its past life.. most of the oil cake underneath seems to be from the transmission, but I'm not sure yet.

Everything under the fuel tank looks stock and accounted for.
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Robert in Memphis
Dünkelgrügen 1967 Java Green bug thread
Engine rebuild thread
If you're ever in the Memphis area, you are welcome to stop by for advice and help.

[scrivyscriv]

As a family of 6, it's safe to say I don't have time for extensive projects, or too many projects. So, after evaluating my 1971 Riviera bus, I finally decided to let it go and focus solely on the 67 bug. I posted it, and 24 hours later a friend of a friend showed up with a trailer.

Bittersweet, guys, I mean it was hard to hand the keys over and sign that title. I poured many many hours of my time working on that bus and searching for the right NOS, OE, and good used parts to make it a reliable, fun vehicle. But it was time, and I'm sure he will enjoy it much more than I have time for!

My goal for the engine on this bug is to tear it down as far as I feel like it needs to go - I haven't decided on splitting the case yet but I'll probably open it up all the way and at least check the bearings and look at the thrust saddles. Ultimately I just want a reliable vehicle to daily drive for work. No performance work will go in to this engine, since it's a single port 'H' case. If it needs major work to get going, I'll start with a later case.

That catches us up to today.. an easy afternoon project, the starter. I went a little extra on this starter but as i said about the engine, RELIABLE is the key.
That being said, I took it all apart, cleaned up the commutator on a lathe, sandblasted the case parts, and cleaned cleaned cleaned. I accidentally picked up the wrong degreaser spray for the armature, and I wasn't sure if I broke down the winding insulation.. so I got some motor varnish to CYA.

I took the solenoid apart and cleaned up & rotated the bar, lubed up the plunger, and reassembled with grey RTV around the crimps. Molykote 321R on the bendix and helix, Redline CV for the rear shaft bushing, blue loctite on all the screws, and appliance epoxy black for the steel parts. It ran and sounded good on my bellhousing fixture but I don't have an ammeter that goes up full range for the current draw to see how healthy the windings are.

I'll post some stuff as I go.. hope y'all enjoy following along as I bring this car back to stock daily driver status.
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Robert in Memphis
Dünkelgrügen 1967 Java Green bug thread
Engine rebuild thread
If you're ever in the Memphis area, you are welcome to stop by for advice and help.

[VW_Jimbo]

That is a nice find! Up front, all I see missing is the gas line, the steel one which ought to be sticking out of the tunnel.

Good luck and get the two young men involved. They do not teach blue collar skills at school anymore.
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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!

[wheel607]

" 5 speed transmission"?????????

[VW_Jimbo]

[scrivyscriv]

Haha, I saw that too and was really looking forward to finding that out! No 5 speed there unfortunately, unless you count reverse 😂
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Robert in Memphis
Dünkelgrügen 1967 Java Green bug thread
Engine rebuild thread
If you're ever in the Memphis area, you are welcome to stop by for advice and help.

[joey1320]

Great find 👍

As a father of two kids like you, I totally understand the lack of time issue. I just picked up a '56 and it seems I can only work on it from 8pm onwards LoL.

Enjoying the pics 🙂
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1971 Super - Sold
1984 Puma GTC - Sold
1971 Campmobile

[scrivyscriv]

The engine is totally torn down right now, mostly checking good and waiting for more parts! I have an engine rebuild topic in my signature for anyone interested.
The distributor appears to be the only non-original piece on the engine (just an educated guess) and I don’t care for any of the generic 009 distributors. That being said I found a crusty old 113905205K distributor on the classifieds to go with my stock 30 pict 1. The carb base number is VW 105-1, which appears to be a match for the 205K.

I’m just like most guys I’ve seen with similar repair or restoration topics, I have a family and we make a budget! So the money allocated to this hobby comes from working a day or two of overtime here and there. It’s not a fast process. I’m also being very particular about what goes in to this vehicle - I don’t want to be stranded on the side of the road! Having a clean, reliable, and well-done vehicle is the end goal here.

So with this matching carburetor and distributor in hand the next piece is to get a stock Pierburg fuel pump, and tear everything down for a rebuild.
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Robert in Memphis
Dünkelgrügen 1967 Java Green bug thread
Engine rebuild thread
If you're ever in the Memphis area, you are welcome to stop by for advice and help.

[daven]

Send the carb to Tim!
Dave

[heimlich]

I love those $1,000 cars. That's a good one too.
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[mattn]

Awesome buy. Congrats! I just recently picked up a 67 Java Green non sunroof project. Looking forward to seeing your progress.
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'67 Beetle

[Chickensoup]

This thread has decent pictures. I’m in
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-'85 c10 5.3 LS, cam, heads, long tubes, x pipe, 3 inch spin tech's
-'01 e46 325ci *tree modded
-'05 B5.5 TDI Wagon 17in sport rims ;EGR + BSM + ASV Delete, Stage-2 Tune, straight pipe
'65 Tourist Delivery Build
'66 RIP

[Gr0unded]

Nice find! Hear you on making it reliable, that makes it more fun to motor on the pleasure cruises. Signing up to keep watch on your progress.

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B r i a n
1976 VW Type 1 Beetle - Standard

Stop Dead Photo Links! Post your VW photos to the Samba Gallery!

[scrivyscriv]

I'm still here, car's still in the garage, the Corona BS was a catalyst for reorganizing time and budget priorities for a few months. You know it's funny when you think about how money is spread out on repairing and maintaining old car projects. Up front you think all the high dollar expenses will do you in! Floor pans, head work, transmission stuff - no way, it's actually the nickel and dime parts combined with shipping that really eat a budget up.

If I'm putting in new floor pans, better do it once and cry once, so let's get the Wolfsburg West pans. If the pans are out, better replace the brake line there since we're there anyway. Oh, since I'm replacing the brake line, lets do all the brake lines, and hey stainless is only a few bucks more! Let's do the brakes once and forget about it. So new drums shoes and hardware all around. While I'm there, lets change the ball joints. Hey the ball joints are off, let's bead blast and paint the spindles.
Oh the beam is apart, let's go ahead and remove it and clean it up.

Hey the suspension is all off. Let's take the whole pan down to the powdercoat shop!

Actual excerpt from my train of thought!
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Robert in Memphis
Dünkelgrügen 1967 Java Green bug thread
Engine rebuild thread
If you're ever in the Memphis area, you are welcome to stop by for advice and help.

[scrivyscriv]

The pedal cluster looked like it could use a little cleanup... so I pulled it out.

Unfortunately after sandblasting I found a lot of pitting corrosion on the aluminum casting. It's still useable.. but it doesn't look pretty. Since everything was apart I went ahead and welded up a stiffener on the clutch pedal arm, welded some of the brake pedal, and converted the clutch pedal shaft to a bolt-on style. Don't ask for photos of the shaft, let's just say I saved a small amount of money but made a large leap in learning how to TIG
Here's the grease fitting modification.. I went with a standard 1/4-28 threaded zerk vs metric, don't shoot me for the witchcraft. Although I was able to cleanly drill the initial hole, and get very good thread engagement, I didn't do a great job setting up the drill press for the end mill I used to clearance the casting. Ended up with some chatter marks... they disappeared during final sandblasting though.

The accelerator pedal had a thin area on the little roller arch thingy underneath, and when I went to build it back up with the tig, I accidentally blew right through it on the first arc. Ultimately it seemed like the best option was to get a new pedal from Wolfsburg West when I put in my order for the bushing kit.. I dropped everything (even the old accel pedal) off for a semigloss black powdercoat.

I finally got my driver's side lock and glass all back in! I'd taken the door completely apart to lube the regulator track, lock cylinder, and the lock mechanism. It took a while to figure out the order in which everything goes back together
_________________
Robert in Memphis
Dünkelgrügen 1967 Java Green bug thread
Engine rebuild thread
If you're ever in the Memphis area, you are welcome to stop by for advice and help.

[scrivyscriv]

Although I do like stock, I think VW under-engineered the fuel system. I drilled, taper reamed, and tapped the fuel inlet for a 1/16" NPT to AN4 fitting. I've got some teflon 1/4" stainless braided tubing and fittings to go with it but I'll wait until I get the engine together to decide for sure how I want to finish the plumbing.
I cleaned all the aluminum parts with isopropyl alcohol after glass beading .. the parts started sweating in our 100% humidity, and white powder corrosion formed everywhere. After a second round of glass beading, I brushed on some Alodine 1132 from an expired touchup pen I have.. Alodine is a chemical conversion film that passivates the top layer of aluminum alloy, making it highly resistant to corrosion. I used it all over, inside and out, in the fuel bowl, throat, and on the new fuel inlet threads I cut.

The interior is out, all the bolts are off, and the body is ready to come off the pan. I did find a bit more rust in the package tray and wheel wells but most of it seems to be surface rust. The lower crossmembers will need to be repaired for sure, and the left rear pan support looks like it was cut almost in half with a saw at some point. All the brown stuff on the wheel wells is that compressed felt insulation junk, don't know if the metal's soft underneath or not!

On a closing note, the powdercoat shop called today with my pedal assembly parts so I'm looking forward to the next post having some photos of the complete and upgraded assembly!
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Robert in Memphis
Dünkelgrügen 1967 Java Green bug thread
Engine rebuild thread
If you're ever in the Memphis area, you are welcome to stop by for advice and help.

[Zundfolge1432]

I would hazard to guess most folks here unfamiliar with alodine and what it can do. No doubt you’ve seen it followed by a zinc chromate primer. It worked well but both the alodine and the primer contain hexavalent chromium so watch out.

You picked a solid car to start with, looking good

[wcfvw69]

Some of your comments remind me of what I did when I bought my 67' bug. I also didn't trust the original, numbers matching engine in my 67' bug when I bought it though it ran fine.
I ended up removing it and splitting the case. I was glad I did as I found the main bearings worn through the babbitt material.
I had the rotating parts balanced. The case had its first align bore. I then restored all the original, German VW ancillary parts. It runs like new now and I can trust it to drive anywhere.

Your 67 bug looks like a great foundation to build on. I look forward to your updates.
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40+ years of VW repair, and VW parts and vehicle restoration experience.
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**Now rebuilding throttle bodies for VW's and Porsche's**
**Restored German Bosch distributors for sale or I can restore yours**
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**Restored Porsche distributors or I can restore yours**

[scrivyscriv]

[scrivyscriv]

Y'all, I can't tell you how great the torquemeister tool is! I got out of sequence tonight while I was getting the transmission down, and needed to remove the drums with the mount bolts and spring arms all unbolted. It took about 5 minutes to get both drums off with this tool!!
I've only got a small handful of VW specific tools and this one was well worth the price of admission.

Tonight after sunset I jimmied the body on to a crummy wooden 2x dolly I made this week. It's awful, and I don't know how so many people are able to use wood to make a body dolly with.

Then I got all the loose ends out - spraying all the bolts and nuts with aero kroil, and loosening up everything by hand all over the pan. The entire brake system was replaced at some point in the past, with Varga wheel and master cylinders, some new steel lines, and looks like a couple brake hoses. The brake hose clips were mostly missing, but at least both master cylinder bolt spacers were present and accounted for!
Took the transmission out (that's when I noticed the e-brake cables and realized I had missed a step haha) and then called it a night. Most everything is in decent shape and looks rebuildable at a glance. There were nice oil filled shocks front and back, and a COFAP damper still on.
Only thing still bolted up to the pan are the spring plates and the front beam. Looking forward to getting new pans welded in!

_________________
Robert in Memphis
Dünkelgrügen 1967 Java Green bug thread
Engine rebuild thread
If you're ever in the Memphis area, you are welcome to stop by for advice and help.