The Up-Fixing a '65 VW thread

[wdfifteen]

rcooled - that '63 ragtop is goreous!!

[rcooled]

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

rcooled - that '63 ragtop is gorgeous!!

Thanks! Also have this '67 Karmann Ghia ↓

[3rd_gear_Ted]

Originally Posted by rcooled

Thanks! Also have this '67 Karmann Ghia ↓

The blue of the Pacific, the car's color and the sunshine is pure "California Dreamin"

[Bill Douglas]

A Karmann Ghia cabriolet would be my dream car. Has to be right hand drive though for me.

[wdfifteen]

Part 3:

Once I started looking critically at the car it was obvious, I was going to have to do a complete repaint, new interior, and do something about the ugly-ass engine. I was lucky enough to find a shop only 10 miles from here that does restorations. When I drove in with the VW they were thrilled. Their usual jobs were American muscle cars, but every one of the guys working there had owned a VW at some time and they were excited about working on mine. Every time I went to the shop to check on progress I got to listen to another, "My old VW" story.





The car was fairly sad, but some areas were just plain ugly.



Before sending it to the paint shop I removed the hood, engine lid, the fuel tank, engine, glass, and the interior.



When I bought the car I inspected all the usual places these cars rust out and those areas weren’t too bad. It’s not all that common for a car to have good door pillars and rocker panels and battery box, and have a rear floor pan rusted out, but unfortunately, I discovered that mine did.



New floor pans and pieces of floor pans are readily available and fairly cheap. I bought a right side rear quarter floor pan patch, stitch welded it in, and finished it off with seam sealer. The patch panel included the area under the battery, so I replaced it even though the original was relatively solid. I bought a lot of sound deadening mat to use on the floor, doors, and roof to try to make the car sound less "tinny" on the road.







They said it would take about a month to do the car. I planned on two months because this isn't my first car restoration rodeo.





I was happily amazed when it was finished in five weeks.

[herr_oberst]

You sly boots! This whole time the car is in the shop getting a fresh restoration! Who knows what other surprises you have in store!

(And while I was in there I had a supercharged 1835 built by Ed Pink that puts out a relaxed 225 rwhp and returns 25 mpg on the highway)

[Racerbvd]

I saw this one yesterday.

[cantdrv55]

Hey Patrick, where did you put the lift pads under the bug? I want to use my Quickjack under my bug but nervous that it might puncture the floor.

[wdfifteen]

The strongest area in the rear is under the tube that surrounds the torsion bars. Other that that the rim of the floor pan is the strongest area under the car. The large arrows in the picture show where I put the jack pads when using the lift. The small arrows show the factory jack point where you are supposed to lift the entire side of the car. These jack points are not attached to any special hard points, just to the rim of the floor pan.

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by herr_oberst

You sly boots! This whole time the car is in the shop getting a fresh restoration! Who knows what other surprises you have in store!

(And while I was in there I had a supercharged 1835 built by Ed Pink that puts out a relaxed 225 rwhp and returns 25 mpg on the highway)

I can't post progress chronologically. There are too many moving parts. I'm simultaneously working on the engine, the body, the interior, and the electrical system.

For example, I worked on the engine while the car was in the body shop until I got to the point where there were a few parts I needed for it. Placed the parts order and worked on the wiring for a while, then the body came back, I worked on assembling it until I racked up a decent sized parts order, went back to the engine, then to the electrics, back to the body, etc etc etc.

Sorry to disappoint, but no, no supercharged engine. In fact, I'm doing my best to go back to bone stock on the engine.

[cantdrv55]

Thank you Patrick

[porsche tech]

Very nice! That’s going to be fun putting it back together and watching it look better and better!

[Evans, Marv]

I've posted this pic a couple of times before. It was my '65 that got stolen and gone forever back 30+years ago. I dearly loved getting in that car, cranking the sun roof open and taking off. I had a 1776 I was going to install, but it got stolen before I could do that. I bought another car later on & put the 1776 in it, but for some reason, that car never had the same feel. It had new paint, interior, & wheels, & purred like a kitten. I'd still have it if it hadn't been stolen.

[herr_oberst]

Evans, Marv, I love that car. Always enjoy seeing that picture.

It's funny isn't it, how the door weatherstripping always pooched out by the door handle. No amount of sorcery would get that rubber to fit 'correctly' on my 65 or my 68, and I noticed it on most Type 1's. Probably a feature, not a fault, because VW had 30 million chances to get it right.

[wdfifteen]

The door seal was basically a square strip of foam rubber except around the door latch, where there was a "flap" that stuck out. As far as the seal was concerned the door was 2 dimensional except at that kink at the belt line. The seal basically sits in the groove with a few spots of adhesive holding it in at the corners except at the door latch. You really had to glue the seal in hard at that point because of the change of direction. If it came out much at all the flap would show.
Also, VW's door mounts were notoriously flimsy, so the door could get out of alignment very easily. The door usually moved forward, which left a lot of room for the seal to escape.

[herr_oberst]

And yet, you still need to crack the vent to close the door!

[Bill Douglas]

Nice paint job!

Better than me. When I was a teenager I woke up one day and decided to paint the VW. I taped some newspaper over bits, ran an extension cord down from the house, and used an electric sprayer to paint the car. Surprisingly it came out looking amazing.

[wdfifteen]

Part 4
Catching up on progress since my last post.
When I first bought the car it ran like crap, and for good reason. The engine had about the worst collection of cheap, mismatched parts on it imaginable. I spent a couple of years getting it to run well, except for an exhaust leak I could not find – then I took the car apart. While the car was out being painted, I turned my attention to the engine. A leakdown test showed less than 4% leakage on any cylinder, so a full rebuild wasn’t in the cards. I would have just cleaned it and repainted the sheet metal, but the pushrod tubes were so rusty I was afraid one would spring a leak, so I took the heads off and replaced the tubes. This is where I made a disappointing discovery about the engine. The paperwork that came with the car showed that the engine had been rebuilt, and from the invoice it looked like it had been done properly, with case savers, align bored, new heads – all the good stuff. Upon inspection it did have case savers and new heads, but it looked like it had been assembled by a monkey. The special cylinder head washers were mismatched, and some of them looked like plain old hardware store washers. The nut on one of the case studs was cross threaded and only held on the stud by a few threads, but he kept cranking on it and drove the stud clear through the case. Worst of all, some knucklehead had painted the crankcase. Most of the paint had flaked off, but what was left was on tight. None of this stuff was a game changer, but it undermined my confidence in the engine.
By the time the car came back from the painter I still wasn’t finished with it.



I don't have any pictures of the engine as it came with the car. Here I've already replaced the distributor and carburetor with proper German parts. It still has the corroded, ugly alternator.



This is the original crap that was on the engine. Brazilian Brosol carburetor meant to be on an auto stickshift car, Brazilian knock-off of a German Bosch 009 distributor, Chinese knock-off of a Brazilian fuel pump, Empi coil, and a fuel filter in the engine bay. ALL WRONG.



After removing the engine I gave it a good scrub down. When I replumbed the house I ran hot and cold soft water lines to the garage. I soaked the engine in grease remover and blasted it with 140 degree soft water. It took off all the grease and a lot of the paint.



Then began the tedious task of scraping off the remaining paint on the case.




I blasted the parts that would fit in the blasting cabinet with aluminum oxide. The rest had to be cleaned with wire brush. Coats of etching primer and primer sealer went on under the satin black paint.

[wdfifteen]

I discovered the source of the exhaust leak. The right hand heat exchanger outlet pipe was rusted through. Both heat exchanger outlet pipes were rusted pretty bad, so I repaired the both.



I had to use a round hacksaw blade to cut the aluminum collar back to expose good steel to weld to.



The repair pipes reduce the diameter of the exhaust pipe a bit, and might reduce horsepower a little. I'd trade a couple of horsepower for the difference in cost of $12 repair pipes and $500 new heat exchangers.



Heater box good as new and ready for another 50 years of service.



This really pissed me off. I don't know how anyone can be so careless. This clown cross threaded the nut on a case stud and just kept cranking on it until he drove the stud clear through the other side of the case.



It took some tweaking with needle nosed vice grips and I had to clean the threads of the stud, but finally put it right.





I had to do some rewiring on the charging system. This car is a '65 body with a '67 engine that someone had put a 1970s alternator on. The '65 came with a 90mm generator with the voltage regulator mounted on top. 67 VWs had a larger 120mm generator with the voltage regulator under the drivers side rear seat. This car had been modified to use an alternator with a built-in regulator. All three systems required different wiring. The alternator was old and corroded and looked like hell and didn't belong in a '65 VW anyway, so I trashed it an found a new, proper VW type 120mm Bosch generator. To integrate the generator wiring into the existing wiring, I decided to put a solid state regulator under the passenger side rear seat and add the required wiring. Whom ever owns this car after I sell it will have a real WTF?? moment when trying to figure out the charging system.




Wires in the engine bay waiting to be finished.



I couldn't help myself. With the engine painted and reassembled with original German fuel pump, coil, carburetor, distributor and that ugly ass alternator GONE I was so excited I plopped the air cleaner on it and stuck some old heater hoses in place while it was still on the engine stand just to admire it. It would all have to come back off when time to install the engine, but it was worth the effort just to see it.



Getting close now. Tar boards are in place and the wiring is dressed and in place. I'll have to finish the ends of the generator wires once the engine is in place.



ENGINE IN!! Just in time. I took the car to the winter shop a few days later.
On to the interior!

[herr_oberst]

What a great thread. Sublime. Inspirational.