The Up-Fixing a '65 VW thread

[wdfifteen]

Standard wheel size is 15x4.5.

I have 15x5.5 Porsche wheels on mine.

Air cooled VWs tend to sit high in the front if the gas tank is low on fuel.

[Rusty Heap]

The Year was 1981, I'm in high school working at a pizza joint. Car in the parking lot takes my young heart. I bought it.

Lime Green.
Red Velour interior seats
Flared fiberglass fenders
Baja style front hood.
Dual weber carbs, big bore and a god awful loud cherry bomb pipe muffler.

Used a skateboard as an engine stand, and we timed our engine drops.

Went to many Bug-In car shows, for an engine blow contest, drain all the oil out of the Bug Motor, then wire it throttle wide open till she seizes or blows, You bought tickets guessing how many minutes/seconds it'd blow and winner gets a prize.

Got laid many times in at at the Drive-in Theater I worked at.


good times great memories. Life was simple then. GRINS, note the fuzzy dice......

[wdfifteen]

Update:

I'm almost finished with the VW interior, have a little touch-up and a few small things to do. Going has been slow. I have some back pain that puts me back on the sofa for a while after an hour or so in the shop.





I still have to reposition the door handles so the window crank doesn't hit them but I towed the car out to the shop (where the lift is) to finish the mechanical work.

After years of being to busy to slow down and make a decent damn brake fluid receptacle - and subsequently, inevitably, spending more time cleaning up spilled brake fluid - I took the time to glue a soda bottle to a slab of wood so it wouldn't fall over, and drill the cap so a vinyl hose fit tightly in it. It took all of 20 minutes. How many hours have I spent cleaning up fluid after I knocked the bottle over? I'm an idiot - or used to be.




Pressure bleeders are the only way to go. You are supposed to put brake fluid in the tank and pump it through the system, but that wastes a lot of fluid. Plus I use Dot 5 in some of my cars, DOT 4 in others, and ATE in the 911 and don't want them getting mixed. So I just use the Motive to pressurize the fluid reservoir. I could have made one out of a hardware store pump sprayer for 1/4 the cost of this Motive if I'd had the foresight.






I bought new bumpers and running boards - the old ones were rusted to crap. The bumper brackets were rusted too, but I thought I could salvage them.



I put them in a bucket with some crushed limestone. It's not the best medium, but it's what I had.



I strapped the bucket to the wheel of my tractor and drove around a while, turned the compost, moved the chicken palace, and drove around some more. It did a decent job on the brackets, good enough that I could finish them in the sand blaster. It tore the heck out of the inside of the bucket too.

Once I get them painted and get the bumpers on I'll be almost finished.

I'm smellin' the barn now boys - gettin' close to home!

[herr_oberst]

Take a look at this picture and ask yourself; "who's going to be just fine after the apocalypse?"

[Zeke]

I had a '65 vert. Old VW's are very comfortable to drive. I haven't been in one since the '80's so I wonder what I would say now. Probably like it but the prices don't justify having one just for the lark.

[herr_oberst]

The VW is looking great! And that's exactly how I use the Motive, plus I think the build quality over a hardware store hudson sprayer makes it worth the extra dollars spent.

[rcooled]

Wow, that interior turned out really nice. Good job! I like the fabric inserts for the seats. I used fabric on my Beetle's seats too...feels nicer than the vinyl and is a bit more 'grippy' too.

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

I bought new bumpers and running boards...

If you got your bumpers from Wolfsburg West, you'll be more than pleased with the way they look & fit. Put a set on my VW years ago and they still look great.

[rcooled]

Originally Posted by Tobra

It looks a little high in the front to me Patrick

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

Air cooled VWs tend to sit high in the front if the gas tank is low on fuel.

For some reason, early VW Beetles all came from the factory with that 'nose-high' stance.

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by rcooled

Wow, that interior turned out really nice. Good job! I like the fabric inserts for the seats. I used fabric on my Beetle's seats too...feels nicer than the vinyl and is a bit more 'grippy' too.

Thank you! It'll never look as nice as your '63, but I'm happy with it. I was thinking of a red interior, but my colorist (wife) said with the gray knobs & steering wheel and that shade of white paint it needed to be gray. The inserts look and feel like fabric, but are actually textured vinyl. I got the interior from SewFine - a great company to do business with and great products.

Originally Posted by rcooled

If you got your bumpers from Wolfsburg West, you'll be more than pleased with the way they look & fit. Put a set on my VW years ago and they still look great.

I did get them from Wolfsburg West. I swear if you have a serial number you can build a whole VW out of their catalog.
It has been fun building a car without constantly paying the "Porsche tax."

Re: the "Porsche tax," there are many parts in the 356 engine that are the same as 36 hp VWs. The distributor drive gear was kind of worn on my '56 coupe engine. It had "VW" stamped right on it. Stoddard wanted $90 for one, I bought an identical part from Wolfsburg West for $36.

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by rcooled

For some reason, early VW Beetles all came from the factory with that 'nose-high' stance.

It got briefly worse in '67. Ralph Nader had scared people about swing axle cars. In '67 VW softened the rear torsion bars and stiffened the fronts to help with the "problem."

[Evans, Marv]

Man, that car reminds me of my '65 that got stolen in the early 90s. It was probably my all time favorite car. You're doing such a great job. Congrats.

[motorracer]

Though you guys would get a laugh at this

[rcooled]

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

I got the interior from SewFine - a great company to do business with and great products.

Yes indeed! Sewfine made the seat covers for my '63 and for my Ghia too.

[bob deluke]

Great job so far on the vDub WD. I use a Motive bleeder on the Porsches I had,and all our Volvo’s over the years. I did not fill the motive tank with brake fluid as I heard the rubber hose may blow and brake fluid goes everywhere. I filled the brake reservoir, Motive container is dry, no more than 6-8 p.s.I made a bottle bleeder receiver like yours. Just have to make sure the brake reservoir doesn’t run dry! The Motive is the nuts.

[porsche tech]

Beautiful job. Wish I had the money, the space, the energy, patience, skills, etc, etc to do an oval window vintage type 1. Had several back in the day…fun cars. The slotted Porsche rims are THE perfect wheel IMHO. I’m jealous and living vicariously! Very impressive work.

I had a pressure bleeder that I used for probably 20 years made from an old VW washer bottle. The hose on the top ran to a reservoir cap that I put a metal tire valve in and screwed the spare tire end of the hose to that. One little squirt of air pressure into bottle was good to do all 4 wheels. (Somebody told me how to make one as I’ve never had an original thought my entire life)!

Not mine but bottle looks similar:

[BK911]

Love this thread.
Also love the tumbler!
Been thinking about selling my '74, but this thread always changes my mind.
Thanks!!

[wdfifteen]

The Final Chapter!

It's been a long haul, but my VW is finally as finished as it's likely to get. We've been driving it around running errands and it runs like new. We took the VW and our 911 to a car show last Saturday. People said, "Nice car" about the 911 and talked and talked about the VW. The VW won a People's Choice award.



This is what I started with.





Thirteen months later.

[Scott Douglas]

Congrats!
That looks really nice. I can see why it won people's choice.

[wdfifteen]

I did not have hubcaps for the car and I hadn't planned on getting any. Vicki said we can't be driving around like a couple of teenage hoodlums, so I ponied up $580 for new hubcaps.



I photographed a sign painter friend's wedding in exchange for painting the insignia on the shifter.



I was thinking of a red interior while Vicki was thinking of gray. So it's gray.








The VW fits right in with the rest of the air cooled junk I keep around here.

[herr_oberst]

Fantastic! I'll admit that silently I was one of the uncultured heathens who felt that the front sat a little high. I see the error of my ways. It has the perfect stance to go along with the perfect color combination.

(I sorta think you should hold your painter friend's memory stick hostage until he comes back and paints the center logos on the 580 dollar hubcaps. I mean he did a good job on the knob, but that exchange seems a little off-balance)