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63 Beetle Build: The Army Brat
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hewica8
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 28, 2020 7:50 pm    Post subject: 63 Beetle Build: The Army Brat Reply with quote

Greetings everyone! I have been a long time lurker and rare contributor to this forum over the years. I put together a brief build thread for my last bug (found here) before I sold it in 2016. Well, I started to get the desire for another bug some time last year so I began searching. I wasn't having any luck locally here in NC so I expanded my hunt nationally and eventually stumbled across this original '63 pearl white Beetle in WA. I actually passed over it several times before considering it because the description didn't do it any justice. Below are the photos from the ad.

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After speaking with the owner I learned that it had been neglected for quite some time but was mostly original (despite missing a few parts). He had never attempted to get it running, but all the mechanical components were there. Additionally, the body was virtually rust free and original paint which was one of my top priorities. He was more than willing to help with shipping, so we struck a deal and within one day 4 Corners picked up the bug and it was on it's way from WA to NC.

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Last edited by hewica8 on Wed Jan 29, 2020 4:28 am; edited 1 time in total
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hewica8
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 28, 2020 8:17 pm    Post subject: Re: 63 Beetle Build: The Army Brat Reply with quote

4 Corners came highly recommended here on thesamba and they delivered yet again, in 3 days to be exact! They arrived at around 10 pm so I got the bug tucked away in the garage and saved a thorough inspection for the next day.

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So, this brings me to the name of my thread. Why the Army Brat? After speaking with the PO again and inspecting the bug, I realized that I was the fourth owner of this bug that was originally owned by an Army soldier based out of Presidio of San Francisco. It even has the original base permit stickers still intact on the bumpers!

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From what we could piece together, the original owner drove it for about 10 years before parking it for an extended period of time, which is how it developed its patina. The Beetle was eventually picked up by a wrecking yard in 2016 to be scrapped when a savvy eyed employee realized this bug was too good to be crushed. After he bought it from the yard, he resold it to the third owner. The third owner had plans to restore it but lost interest, which is when he decided to list it on thesamba. Ultimately, this is how I discovered the car.

Overall, the car was in better shape than I expected, despite the fact that it would require quite a bit of work to be road worthy again. A detailed inspection revealed a great starting point for a project that would require TLC, but nothing too extreme like replacing body panels.

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One interesting feature of significance that the PO pointed out to me was the locking column. He mentioned this was a Euro only feature which led him to believe the bug was originally from Europe, possibly purchased there by the original owner if he was stationed over seas. Although plausible, other US spec features of this bug like the bumpers, headlights, taillights, mph speedometer, and original '63 CA plate make me think the locking column may have just been an option that the original owner chose. The only other oddity is how the plate was mounted. It has two holes in the decklid that are similar to how UK plates are mounted, and then the CA plate is drilled out to match those holes instead of having a standard US mounting bracket. I am still trying to sort out this mystery of where my bug was originally purchased but regardless of origin, the locking column is definitely a rare option that was a nice surprise to have.

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hewica8
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 29, 2020 4:54 am    Post subject: Re: 63 Beetle Build: The Army Brat Reply with quote

My original plan for the Beetle was to get it running and stopping again to establish a baseline for what needed to be done mechanically, and then start diving into other items like suspension, interior, and general cleaning and refurbishing of anything that needed attention. After climbing in and out of the car a few times, however, this plan fell through since the floor pans were in much worse condition that I thought.

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My only guess is that with the windows being busted out, water sat in the pans and deteriorated them quite significantly even though the remainder of the car was relatively rust free. With this discovery, I decided to jump straight to replacing the floorpans so I had a solid foundation to work with. I separated the body from the pan and put it on a cart for easy manipulation.

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I used Wolfsburg West pans and the job really couldn't have been any easier all things considered. After completely removing the old pans and cleaning up the tunnel, the pans literally dropped right in. Since the body was off, I decided to tackle anything else that could use attention while I had easy access to it. This included a significant amount of cleaning and rubber replacements.

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Chickensoup
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 29, 2020 5:43 am    Post subject: Re: 63 Beetle Build: The Army Brat Reply with quote

WOW, that’s a nice clean bug!!! I like the patina a lot considering I didn’t see any rot and the rust isn’t too far deep down. Also, yes, it does look like a euro deluxe b/c the ignition is on the column, not the dash. Plus, its got the correct steering wheel, trim, etc. Good Luck! Very Happy nice to see yet another southern bug.

EDIT- YOU SAVED MY LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I JUST SAW THE PIC OF YOUR ODD LOOKING FRONT QUARTER PANEL AND I REALIZED THAT IT LOOKS ALOT LIKE MINE Very Happy Very Happy Very Happy Very Happy Very Happy Very Happy Very Happy Very Happy Very Happy Very Happy i thought mine was messed up but its not. Must be a euro thing.

Thank you
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Raisedup58
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 29, 2020 7:09 am    Post subject: Re: 63 Beetle Build: The Army Brat Reply with quote

Wow that car has amazing patina. Keep up the good work I’ll be following this one.
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muravr
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 29, 2020 9:41 am    Post subject: Re: 63 Beetle Build: The Army Brat Reply with quote

Wonderful '63! Popcorn
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hewica8
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 29, 2020 9:52 am    Post subject: Re: 63 Beetle Build: The Army Brat Reply with quote

chickensoup, could you please elaborate on the odd front quarter and correct wheel/trim. I don’t know much about Euro bugs so nothing on mine looks different to me.

Thanks everyone!
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Chickensoup
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 29, 2020 9:57 am    Post subject: Re: 63 Beetle Build: The Army Brat Reply with quote

hewica8 wrote:
chickensoup, could you please elaborate on the odd front quarter and correct wheel/trim. I don’t know much about Euro bugs so nothing on mine looks different to me.

Thanks everyone!


Here,
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My car looks very similar to your front quart panel than many others I’ve seen. Mine has some damage but i thought mine was completely messed up. However, i just noticed that your passengers panel looks different than our drivers near the apron area? Did someone patch yours at some point?

Oh, and about he euro stuff. So, your car has the same/correct steering wheel, trim and column lock as euro cars should have. So, that makes it a EURO DELUXE (like mine). If it had the earlier style steering wheel, trim options, etc, then it would be a euro standard. However, i see overrides support holes in the apron as well as us headlight lens. But, mine had the same apron. If you look, your dash looks very similar to mine, notice the absence of a cigarette lighter and such. So, my guess is that the PO was correct, it most5 likely is a euro.
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heimlich Premium Member
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 29, 2020 11:37 am    Post subject: Re: 63 Beetle Build: The Army Brat Reply with quote

Nice car!
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hewica8
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 29, 2020 3:32 pm    Post subject: Re: 63 Beetle Build: The Army Brat Reply with quote

chickensoup, thanks for the info. I guess I'd have to see the aprons side by side to notice any difference between Euro and US, but my body is 100% original and damage free so whatever is there came from the factory. The headlights were gone, so those are reproductions and do not indicate anything about the cars origin. As for the steering wheel, it does have the typical broken/missing horn ring and as with the apron, I don't really see what's different between my wheel and a US wheel. And yes, mine does have the overrider holes in the front apron and rear fenders. It is definitely nice though to be introduced to some of these other things to look for, thank you!
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Emeraldlion
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 29, 2020 5:38 pm    Post subject: Re: 63 Beetle Build: The Army Brat Reply with quote

Search for the tourist pass vws. My 67 is a tourist pass. It has the locking column option but everything else is us spec deluxe.
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Chickensoup
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 29, 2020 5:56 pm    Post subject: Re: 63 Beetle Build: The Army Brat Reply with quote

Emeraldlion wrote:
Search for the tourist pass vws. My 67 is a tourist pass. It has the locking column option but everything else is us spec deluxe.


hey, thats a great and probable answer. that would explain the us spec over rider bumper holes.


thanks
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Mister.64
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 29, 2020 5:57 pm    Post subject: Re: 63 Beetle Build: The Army Brat Reply with quote

Dang- awesome find! another pre'65 bug in NC- i'll keep following, keep the pics coming. I like the color combo, those brick colored seats are really nice. I assume going back to all original?
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toxicavenger70
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 29, 2020 6:40 pm    Post subject: Re: 63 Beetle Build: The Army Brat Reply with quote

Dang that is a stunner! Congrats on it.
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hewica8
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 29, 2020 7:02 pm    Post subject: Re: 63 Beetle Build: The Army Brat Reply with quote

Emeraldlion wrote:
Search for the tourist pass vws. My 67 is a tourist pass. It has the locking column option but everything else is us spec deluxe.

Thanks! That was an interesting option and also a real possibility for mine. I wish there was a way I could dig up some old documentation on my bug.

Mister.64 wrote:
Dang- awesome find! another pre'65 bug in NC- i'll keep following, keep the pics coming. I like the color combo, those brick colored seats are really nice. I assume going back to all original?

Thank you. The interior of mine was originally derby grey cloth and I want to go back to that, but I'm having a hard time finding that material. The seats in it now are just something I picked up from a swap meet that I planned on recovering, but the brick red is an option if I can't find the original cloth.

As far as plans for the car, this is where some of you may want to turn away. I love Beetles from completely stock all the way to full custom, but for myself I like stock inspired modifications. I'm after a similar setup I had on my last bug which is basically just a static drop on widened smoothies. I know it's a common formula but I try to put my own spin on it by not going to extremes on any of the mods. I run 15x6s in the rear with meaty tires all around, and I lower it with common methods (narrowed beam, indexed and extended springplates) but it still will have enough ground clearance to drive without too much caution. Here's how my last bug sat for reference.

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With the body off the pan, I did a quick mockup of the tires to see how it would look.

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Last edited by hewica8 on Thu Jan 30, 2020 4:45 am; edited 1 time in total
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hewica8
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 29, 2020 8:25 pm    Post subject: Re: 63 Beetle Build: The Army Brat Reply with quote

While the body was off the pan, I did quite a bit of work to bring the car back to life. I did a full tune up on the engine and it fired right up for the first time in who knows how long. I also did a complete brake job replacing the entire system. Every seal and grommet that I could find was replaced. I installed a Classicbugparts roller pedal. Finally, everything got a thorough cleaning.

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Through this process I discovered a few other interesting things about this car. One is the WF stamped just under the engine code. There is a thread about various W- codes stamped on engines and there's debate about what, if anything, this means, but to me I found it a cool coincidence because I went to Wake Forest (WF) for graduate school.

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The next thing I noticed were numbers written on the valve covers. At first these meant nothing to me but after some research I discovered that they were valve spacings written sometime after the car left the factory. Why the different numbers? Turns out my car fell victim to the common failed long studs in the cylinder head and had to have the right side head replaced with the updated short studs. The left side still has long studs, so someone wrote the valve spacings so they didn't get mixed up!

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WADVR
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 29, 2020 10:19 pm    Post subject: Re: 63 Beetle Build: The Army Brat Reply with quote

Looks good. Excited to see how this turns out. The patina is perfect.
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hewica8
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 30, 2020 4:44 am    Post subject: Re: 63 Beetle Build: The Army Brat Reply with quote

We're just about caught up at this point. I purchased the Beetle in June '19 and just haven't had a chance to sit down and document the build until now. About one month ago I started working on getting the body back on the chassis. I originally planned to have some help from family that would be visiting, but that was still two weeks out at that time and I was getting impatient. So, I rigged up some stands to hold the body, swapped my cart over to the pan, and rolled the pan right under the body. I made some studs to screw into the captured nuts in the front and then I jacked the pan up into place. The studs dropped right through the pan and the body lined up perfectly.

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If you jump through from first post to here, it will look like I haven't done anything yet, but there has been quite a bit of refreshing to get back to this point.

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This Beetle reminds me of my childhood because instead of a swingset, I had an old Beetle parked in the backyard that I would play in. I have so many memories of playing in that thing and it has created a lifelong appreciation for old Volkswagens. While the car was sitting outside, I decided to recreate an old picture from those days and also include my family that has become an important part of my life since then.

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hewica8
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 30, 2020 4:54 am    Post subject: Re: 63 Beetle Build: The Army Brat Reply with quote

Final update for now which catches us up to present day. As I mentioned previously, I want to run 15x6 smoothies on the rear like my last bug. On that one, I built the wheels myself using original smoothie centers and GM truck hoops, but the process was a PITA and I wasn't thrilled to do it again. This time, I opted to get wheels from deepvees here on the forum instead and I'm glad I did. The wheels are top notch quality.

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I attempted to paint them to look old but failed miserably, so at some point I will repaint them. For now, I had to get my 205/70s mounted up so I could roll the car around because up to this point I've actually only had 2 good wheels/tires for this thing. The other two tires were completely flat! This is how the car sits currently.

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From here, the plan is to tackle the suspension.
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 30, 2020 10:02 am    Post subject: Re: 63 Beetle Build: The Army Brat Reply with quote

Looking good, nice work! I also dig the shelves above your garage door, that's a smart use of space.
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