The Burning Bug

If you follow me on instagram at all, you may remember this picture. The previous owner packed the wheel well with silicone caulking. They might have been trying to waterproof the hole. Im not sure. I’ve been looking forward to fixing this for the last year and a half, and even bought a cheap AC TIG machine to get the work done.

I was given a front end from a ’67 beetle I was planning on cutting all the steel from to splice in. Thanks Dylan.

 

This method of sheet metal work isn’t elegant and wouldn’t be suited for bodywork where it would be highly visible, like on a door skin or quarter panel. Im adding steel overlapping the body, drilling holes and using clecos to hold the new steel in. It works, it still creates a strong and waterproof panel, it just has a seam.  In the wheel well, where its going to be be covered with undercoating- you’ll never know. I chose it because It’s my first go at body work welding.

This piece here I fabbed/fitted myself, the cross members underneath make the section difficult to cut out of my spare bug piece.

Rust cut out, bottom portion tacked in. Note the wrench that someone lost in the body cavity sometime in the last 46 years. I left it for the next guy to find.

 

These are ugly welds. I’m still getting the hang of running a TIG without a pedal. Luckily they smooth out with a sander and a little body mud. I had a little body warping, I was having a little trouble getting the heat right. It wasn’t too bad though, the fender still fit.

 

Here’s a 15 second clip that I posted to Instagram of getting the piece from the other front end tacked in.

 

The other side didn’t go as smoothly. I forgot to remove the carpet…

No damage, just a big mess from the fire extinguisher. Next time I’ll remember to remove the carpet, and any spare parts I have in the car. I lost a $20 door seal, so at least it was a relatively cheap lesson.

 

Sunrise Red

We’ve got a couple key things completed since the last bug post. First, I was able to fix the wobbling pedal cluster. It seems the previous owner didn’t have the second bolt to hold the pedal down, so they tried to weld the aluminum  mount on the pedal cluster to the steel tunnel on the bug. Aluminum and Steel don’t generally mix well, so what I had was a giant weld on the steel side, keeping me from being able to move the cluster to add a new metric bolt I acquired from a specialty hardware place (Champion bolt Supply, Everett).

After grinding the old weld off, which was a pain with the limited grinding capability of a dremel, the real challenge became painfully clear. The clutch cable engages the pedal inside the tunnel on a hook. It took me nearly a half hour of trying to hook the cable loop blindly before I thought to release the cable on the transmission side, to give enough play in the line to pull it out of the tunnel and hook it outside.

Clutch Cable Hook, via http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=407823

Redneck attempt at avoiding the hardware store:

 

 

The weld material kept the pedal assembly from being properly aligned with the bolt hole.

Notice the dark cavern. No foul tempered rabbits here, just a crude weld and rust.

I found out after burning through this grinding stone that we have an angle grinder… Add that to a list of things I wish I had known.

Done.

Properly adjusted clutch cable, check. Non-wobbling pedal assembly, check. 45-year old death-trap slightly more safe, check.

 Paint, and stuff

We stripped a spare fender and smoothed it with mud to test our proposed paint on.

We’re going with a rattle can job, but will be doing some extensive color sanding to avoid orange peel and other defects as much as possible.

 

Rustoleum Sunrise Red

 

 Door Patching

The doors are in pretty good shape, aside from the bottom of the driver’s side door.

There was enough rust to warrant a full patch panel in my mind, so I cut and spliced in the few places that needed it.

Cut & Splice

A little Bondo covers a multitude of sins

Got the welds smoothed up pretty well. A very thin layer of mud fixed some irregularity.

 

Up next,  window seals and scrapers.

First Steps on the Beetle

The first steps I took with correcting the wiring issues was getting the wiring diagram printed and laminated at staples. I spent half a day getting familiarized with the diagram and the unfortunate state of the wiring now. The steering column the bug came with was missing the turn signal bar and had in its place a jumble of cut wires. The horn ground wire that extends the length of the interior of the  column had been cut so close to the edge that I opted to taking it out and replacing it with new wire rather than try to splice in an extension.

I was also able to get the spare column installed and most of the wires to where they belong. It was missing a few parts that I had to go get from a wreck at the Lynnwood Pick’n Pull. I’ll have them installed and the blinkers and rear brake lights working soon.

 

Getting Familiar

Labeled fuse block

I may have gotten carried away with labeling…

Steering column and horn ground wire

Installing the spare column

I love cable organization.

I’m not sure what the button that is hanging there is supposed to do, its going to be ripped out soon.

While I had the wheel off and was dealing with the horn wire I discovered why the brake lights didn’t work. You need wires.

We decided to test a shade of Rustoleum Red on the license plate light housing. We aren’t sure yet what we think yet.

Sad, but it made for a good picture. It also provided me with an Emergency flasher switch and couple other odds and ends.

Welcome to the Family.

Last Monday when I came home, Emily asked me  if we could get a her an old beetle. Shes had aircooled vehicles on the brain for a few months now. Two hours later we shook hands and signed paperwork on an amazing craigslist find. It was crazy! We found a gentleman in Arlington who had bought a basket case back in November and he wanted out so he could have time for a different project. He had a single picture with a short description on Craigslist with the price $1650. It turned out, he had nearly two of everything from stripping a parts car and wanted it gone so bad that the first 10 franklins took it. For $1k I wasnt expecting much but the beetle runs, drives and kind of brakes. Drum brakes aren’t known for their crisp braking. The main project will be getting the wiring corrected. Along the line somebody did a number on the steering column, effectively removing  access to all the light controls. Thanks, pal.  

Though spartan, I’ve always loved the bug interiors.

 

Where do all these go?

Because, why not tear out the steering column and replace half the ignition with a switch?

First thing I did was get the wiring diagram printed and laminated. The second thing I did was realize that I printed and laminated the wrong diagram.

Regardless, these will be indispensable.

All the grounds will need to be cleaned. This one looked like it hadn’t been unscrewed in years

Awesome paint job on the fuel pump. ( Why!?)

Removing body accents, plastics and seals are always a good idea before painting.

This is the locking mechanism for the seats. You can see that the teeth on the seat are too thick for the stops on the frame. The seats are from an earlier year of VW and we prefer them over the stock highback ones. I’ll have to come up with a creative solution for this. I have a feeling that a file and a dremel will be present.

The once removed steering column I’ll be reinstalling and wiring up.

Despite it all, a happy owner.

Bus: Mid-Summer Update

 Over the past few months, we’ve managed to do a little work on the bus. We didn’t accomplish anything earth shattering, however it’s all bringing us closer to our goal.

I timed the bus in May, resulting in a a boost of nearly 6MPG hwy on our trip to Mt. St. Helens! We calculated an average of 24 over our previously logged 18 prior to adjusting the timing. The Bus had been advanced 17° from TDC (Top Dead Center) rather than the suggested 7.5. Alot of  the work we’re doing seems to be split half and half between neglected/regular maintenance like timing and brake flushing and actual repairs.

In June, we bled the brakes. We had no reason to, other than for preventative maintenance. We’re glad we did. I’ve never seen brake fluid so opaque.

Chocolate milk anyone?

(sorry for the low picture quality)

 

 

Cleaned up and and added undercoating to the front skid plate in April.

Below: Installed and after a few days of abuse. After a month the Napa branded undercoating seems to hold up.

 

Next up, our new 1970 Beetle and it’s 44 year old electrical nightmare.

PNW SpringMeet 2014

 

Any Mel Brooks Fans?

 

We got some ideas for interior work

To Do

Well kids, this is why you fix your fuel gauge and carry a AAA Plus Membership.

Fuel sender’s tend to get fouled up on the Transporters (bus) by age. Its a simple fix… once you drop the engine and fuel tank. Since I dont want to remove the engine yet, I’ve been tracking my fuel tank using this little gadget, held on by a magnet to the metal plate where  the dealership-optional clock would call home.

Hence the mileage tracking gadget that didn’t help me in this instance… I may have been off by a hundred miles or so.

This mornings events, pictured above with Roxanne’s corpse on the side of I5, a 1/2 mile south of Everett’s 41st Street exit, prompts a To-Do list for the bus. Most of these will be accompanied by a post detailing the work.

In no particular order,

1. Fuel guage sender fix

2.  Driver/Passenger Inner-door handles

3. Inside paint

4. Fire extinguisher install (will explain)

5. H4 Headlight conversion

6. Sealed heating system

7. Tune-up (spark gap, points, spark cables, fuel filter.. etc.)

8. All New fuel hose

9. Modern Windhshield wiper pump install

10. Door switch for Headlights-On Alarm

11. Cabin Light

12. New Curtains

13. Interior storage (remove “bookshelf”)

14 Radio

Fixing Seat Tracks

 (and Why Neanderthals Shouldn’t Own Cars)

When we first looked at Roxanne, we were impressed by the lack of rust she had. Old VWs are known to get cancerous swiss-cheesesque rust. Now, things are a great deal better here on the West Coast, with the absence of salt on the roads in the winter, but It’s still present and a huge concern for these 35+ year old gems. We found out the PO (Previous Owner) welded in new floor pans and there was an engine rebuild 3 years ago, which took a load off my mind. I would enjoy doing both projects, but at this point I need a project scaled down to the space and time I have.

The only glaring issues were the absence of an installed passenger seat, seat-belts and a slow oil leak.  (What can you expect from a 35-year-old car?)

We bought her anyway.

I knew there was something up when I noticed the driver’s seat was NOT stock. It had been jerry-rigged, with two hardware-store bolts through the wheel well and a slot cut to accommodate the seat being an inch narrower than the stock seats. Luckily, 1976 1/2 Buses share the same seat bracket as the early (or maybe all?) Vanagons. $80 and an hour drive got us a near-mint set of seats.

 It needed some grease and coaxing but the passenger seat installed flawlessly.

Then I took off the Redneckified seat. Oh, the humanity.

My theory is that somewhere along the line a neanderthal owned the bus and could’t get his protruding forehead/brain around the fact the seats SLID. Yes, pull lever. Slide seat out. Depress tab du-dad keeping seat from sliding completely out. Seat removed . I can just imagine the hours hours of  sweating,  swearing  and finger-jamming  this person did with a crow bar and  hammer trying to pry the seat out. Well, I suppose they should get credit for sticking with it and accomplishing the task. One participatory bronze star for you.

After a day or two contemplating the issue and some help from the peanut gallery at TheSamba, this was the fix I conjured.

Broken center-punch, peen hammer and a jig to make sure the bracket didnt get over bent

Testing to see if the tracks were bent down enough

Tada.I would have preferred  low-backed seats of a different color but for the price, I’m ok just using seat covers.

After owning two air-cooled VWs, I’ve realized that much of the work involves correcting previous owner’s “fixes” or “features.”

Welcome, Roxanne.

A few months ago Emily and I made a knee-jerk decision to buy a VW Bus. The seller was leaving on a trip of epic proportions for an indefinite amount of time and didn’t have a good place to keep his baby. We were able to snag the bus a few hours before his flight took off, and for nearly half what we felt it was worth.

After handling some titling issues, We named her Roxanne. (We like The Police, not that she is promiscuous but i’m sure she’s seen a thing or two. )

I’m hoping to use this from here on to document the adventure of restoring Roxanne.

I plan on having a lot of pictures and not many words. I’m a picture-book kind of guy.

You can barely see it here, but she has a Westfalia camper seat on the back. Also, she has nasty curtains.

A Confession

“We were all then convinced that it was necessary for us to speak, write, and print as quickly as possible, and as much as possible, and that it was all wanted for the good of humanity. And thousands of us, contradicting and abusing one another, all printed and wrote— teaching others. And without noticing that we knew nothing, and that to the simplest of life’s questions: What is good and what is evil? We did not know how to reply, we all talked at the same time, not listening to one another, sometimes seconding and praising one another in order to be seconded and praised in turn, sometimes getting angry with one another— just as in a lunatic asylum… It is now clear to me that this was just as in a lunatic asylum; but then I only dimly suspected this, and like all lunatics, simply called all men lunatics except myself.”

-Leo Tolstoy, A Confession, 1882

It would defeat the heart of this post to not be brief.   Tolstoy penned a lingering thought I’ve had  about my and my peer’s narcissistic behavior.  When I read this several months ago, it struck a cord with me.I had seen what he described before. If you don’t believe me, check your twitter feed. Human behavior hasn’t changed much in the last 130 years. I have a fear we speak, text and tweet a lot, and yet say very little of substance— or if there is substance, we want a thumbs up and a pat on the back for our opinionated word vomit.

Be silent. Contemplate. Admit you don’t have the answers sometimes. You haven’t and never will arrive.

——

As a Side: If you had asked me a year ago where I wanted to be in 2013 I would have said, “Anything preparing me to become a Pastor”. I have doubts with that path because I fear that I and many men like me are like Tolstoy and his fellow authors: a rabble of amateur philosophers who enjoy the sounds of their opinions set to flight upon a crowd rather than their message. Importance, power and influence is a very real temptation, especially for men my age. Let’s let our goal be to not be profound or gain a following but that we would preach the gospel and die. If that’s offensive or seems harsh, understand it’s a response to what i see chiefly in  myself.