Chapter I -- Begin Restoration
All the previous work was really clean up, fix up, polish up stuff to make a driver that was not a total embarrassment to be seen in. It served the purpose as such. Now, 20 plus years later, time and elements have taken a toll, appearance as well as performance. It did sit outside for a few of those years and received some minor hail damage. Sanding that industrial orange overspray off left the finish a little thin and over time some of the white undercoating is showing through. I never finished totally removing the dents in the roof. The lacquer I used on the fenders has long since failed. The entire interior is pretty tired looking. I could go on and on but it is obvious. The time has finally come for a proper restoration or at least a comprehensive refreshing.
The front seat covers are not too bad but the padding is shot and I never liked the way
they fit and attach anyway, velcro vs. proper hog rings, etc. Besides, cloth inserts will
be more comfortable. The panels are much too dark and the headliner, although not really
too bad, has to come down to finish the repair of the roof dents. The carpet is pretty
worn as seen. This was fairly inexpensive stuff that looked all right when installed in
the initial refurbishment. Ok, the back seat is not in the car right now and I never did
refresh the rear cargo space either.
Here is a sample of the undercoat showing through where I had to sand too much on the
orange overspray. The other is the worst example of the lacquer on the fenders failing.
Below is the mismatched paint from the engine fire, the dingy looking engine bay and the
wheels that I rattle can painted to sort of match the body.
So It Begins
Actually the restoration started a few years ago with the replacement of the Super Beetle
dash. But then stopped again right away. This started as an attempt to further clean up
the remains of the original air conditioner. There was a big box in the trunk on top of the
gas tank that housed the expansion coil and the blower. I removed that in the initial work.
This left a couple of large holes through the bulkhead that had to be plugged. But I actually
began just wanting to repair the mess resulting from the cold air outlets in the dash from
oversized outlets, etc. It turned out that this was not practical; they needed a much bigger
hole for the cooled air than for the original fresh air and just punched it out of the dash.
Besides, the dash had way too many cracks to be repaired anyway. The first photo shows the
dash removed from the inside. The two ugly holes are obvious on the passenger side. The second
shows from the trunk side. I cut the black patches to cover those holes from steel and formed
them to the bulkhead curve then sealed them with brushable seam sealer.
I bought a replacement dash from a salvaged Super Beetle from Bethany Motors that was in
surprisingly good condition although not perfect. Not really a bargain at $100 but since new
ones are not available at any price, it seemed acceptable. Over the next several days, I
replaced the dash and restored the fresh air ducts in the process that had also been disabled
for the A/C installation. As a bonus at the time, I refurbished the windshield wiper system
that barely worked if at all before. The left photo is the patches painted and the rebuilt
wiper motor and fresh air blower installed. The other is the same area finished and with the
air plenum cover in place. That tan plastic thing with all the hoses attached is part of the
EPA charcoal canister vapor return system. More on this later. These next
two are of the new dash installed. I am quite pleased with its look.
I am a little lucky here. This is nowhere near my other projects scope, specifically the
Prefect or Sprite.
Therefore, it should require considerably less time, work and money. As seen, the body is
in pretty good condition except for paint. I did start to count the small hail dents one
day, thinking there might be a dozen or so. I gave up and stopped counting at about three
times that many. These are all small and will mostly just be filled. I intend to begin
with mechanical stuff, service all the fluids and lubrication, etc. The only known problems
mechanically are a noise when rolling that sounds like a wheel bearing so that needs some
repair or replacement and an occasional starter failure. After those probably comes any body
work followed by paint then a new interior. I think I will make a custom cloth and vinyl
interior rather than the stock VW stuff since good colors (that's good as in my choice) don't
seem to be available.
I started by changing the oil and filter screen. I discovered that VR1 racing oil is also available in 10W-30 so I used it. This motor has flat tappets and standard motor oils today do not have enough ZDDP to protect them and the cam. Racing oil does. Then I adjusted the valves. Number 3 intake was .007 and all the others were right on .006. Next was remove all remaining A/C junk. This was mostly the condenser coil and its high pressure line to the old compressor in the engine bay that snaked its way through the chassis. Finally, there was a small leak in the fuel vapor capture system that smelled up the garage if the tank was more than about half full. I pulled the tank and plugged all three related vents then removed that plastic thing mentioned above and all the related hoses. One of the vents, in the overflow hose now serves as the air relief vent through a hose ending under the fender. After a few more service items, transmission oil, brake fluid, etc, I intend to start using the car more. The next restoration step is probably body work and paint and will have to wait until at least the Sprite is finished and can go home to make space for it in the shop.
. . . Long Pause (couple of years actually) . . .
I finally got the Sprite home. To digress a bit, Onslow was finished enough to come home for the summer, making room for the Beetle in the shop. With a little help from my friend, we got it started and drove to the shop then brought the Sprite home. By the way, after naming the Sprite Onslow and the Prefect Daisy, two of our favorite characters from the British comedies. We have decided to name the Beetle Ilsa, after our favorite German professor at college, Ilsa Adams.
The first matter to address was that wonky starter. It had gradually deteriorated to the point that it rarely worked. The symptom appeared to me like a dirty contact in the solenoid. It reliably clicked but did not spin the starter. After removal and a bench test, I found one winding not working. The brushes looked like new so that called for a new starter. Volkswagen starters come with a new bushing to be installed in the bell housing. Some internet research indicated a pretty strong consensus that one should replace that bushing. Doing that in the car looked almost impossible. Since I had other reasons for pulling the engine anyway, I decided to do it now making that bushing replacement much easier.
It turned out that "much easier" meant maybe possible but still impractical. Yes, access is much better and you can see the bushing but only from the back side. I found the right size socket and drove the old one out with a few taps from a hammer. I had difficulty getting the new one started so I tried to reinstall the old one for experience. With another few taps, I split the bushing. A few more failed attempts to start the new one and I decided another approach was in order. I had seen on the internet that the starter for an autostick Volkswagen can be substituted. I talked to an engineer at the company that remanufactured the starter and he verified that. So, I traded for one with O'Reilly's. Careful measurements comparing the two and some calculations convinced me that it would work. The autostick has an extension of the casting that fully encloses the bendix, exposing only the gear and it has an internal front bearing for the armature, eliminating the need for that bushing. Maybe I forgot to mention that the original starter didn't have a front bearing. That's why the bushing was so important.
A reality moment then struck. My goal here was just to make it start and run. My real project right now is cut and polish Daisy and I need to finish that. Ilsa's motor will be back out when time to paint anyway. That other stuff can be done then. So back in it went. I remembered that getting a Volkswagen motor out and back in is a relatively easy operation. What I forgot is that I was 30 years younger the last time I did it.
With the motor back in, I still wanted to install the Pertronix SVDA (vacuum advance) distributor
that has been waiting so long. It was pretty uneventful except for the sealing rubber ring. It
was just enough thicker that the old one that it was very difficult getting the clamp ring on.
That turned out to be trivial compared to getting it in the crankcase. Once finally installed,
I was able to get it started on the first attempt then set the timing without incident. I set it
at 7 deg BTDC at idle with the vacuum disconnected. The crankshaft degree wheel shown in the photo
makes it pretty easy to also check it at speed which was about 34 degrees. The photo here shows
the new distributor as well as the Empi air cleaner that replaces that over-sized original one.
Compare to the photo above.