70 VW Beetle- what to look for?
 

My son in Atlanta found a local to me VW Beetle that he wants me to go look over for him. From what I've been told it has minimal rust ( yeah right ) and runs. So where are the rust prone areas on these cars? The battery is under the rear seats right? Other than normal visual inspection and hopefully a test drive what to look for? My son is looking for a cheap project car that has the potential daily driver to save gas. And he likes Vdubs:D

what to look for
 

Jeez Fritz, I almost spit my coffee on the screen!!!
+1 on rust.
I have rebuilt enough rusty VWs to know I don't want to do another one....
Speaking of rust and over the top rust repairs, have you got paint on the 72, Fritz?

Rust is definitely your number one enemy. Check under the battery, along body under the doors, and the floors. Get under it with a phillips screwdriver and poke around. All the sheetmetal on a bug is available. Floor pans are easier to replace then the heat channels.

Also look for fluid leaks. You can get an entire engine gasket and seal kit for around $12.

From experience on my 356... battery area is #1, then door bottoms, and up under wheel wells. Lats and longs too, if the bug has 'em. (Not sure, never had one, but this is a killer expensive thing to fix on a 356)

I had a '70 Bug in high school. One day I'm driving along and I hear a strange noise like something dragging the road. I'm thinking a branch or something is stuck under the car. I get out and look and the damn battery has FALLEN THROUGH THE FLOOR! and is hitting the ground. The ground cable is holding it to the car!

Yes, check for battery area rust.

Check out the shop talk forums on

http://www.sevwc.com/


Good rustoration website

http://www.buildingabeetle.com/

Rust, rust, rust and then...rust.

Trust me on this one, I bought a 70 Karmann Ghia that looked pretty solid only to find it was rotten and had been bondo'd over. Luckily I got out from under it for not much loss.

Be sure to check the heater channels REALLY well. Get in the floor boards and take off the heater vent that is by the rocker panel. Shine a flashlight in there and look for rot. Heater channels on VWs tend to rust out because the hot air from the engine blows through there, causing condensation and the water sits in there and rots it out.

Good luck!

Rust is the main thing to look for, but it may not be bad, being in Atlanta. I bought a 1959 bug a few years back, and it had no rust at all, despite the numerous rips and tears in the convertible top. It had always been a California car. So, if the car has not been in snow country, you may be lucky. Of course, check diligently for rust anyway, especially under the battery.

Has anyone mentioned Rust?

What the going price for a running, decent Bug?

I'm selling my 71 on Craigslist right now for $1400. The market on beetles has....

oh, wait. You said 'decent' bug. Nevermind.

Oh, heavens. I had a '70 Bug. Worst mistake I ever made*. The battery, in case you're not aware, sits under the back seat on the right side, so that's where to look for that particular rust patch. (I didn't know that when I bought mine.) You might also look in the front wheel wells, toward the back edge -- it's also known as the "heater channel." While you're rust-hunting, take a look at the rear suspension -- gets a little wonky back there sometimes. The inside of the fenders, at the bolt-on points where the fenders join to the car are often rusty.

Other stuff -- the electrical system has probably died and been butchered back together by any of of a half-dozen mediocre hacks over the last 40 years. Drive it for a little while and make sure the gas gauge works. High beams, low beams, ALL FOUR turn signals. Run the blinkers for 30 seconds or so, while feeling the relays behind the dash. If you can tell which one is the blinker relay just by feel, you may need to hunt for another car. (My turn signal relay tried to kill us all by igniting late one night in Seattle traffic.) If there are interesting wiring problems, you'll be happier replacing the entire wiring harness, total cost $350 and a weekend of sheer misery, followed by several weeks of wondering why your windshield wipers come on when you flip on the high beams.

Once you get past those things, take a look at the engine bay. If it's missing engine tin, that's bad. See, these old Bug engines separate the hot air from the cold air, much like the newer 911 engines. Except ... they didn't do it nearly so well, I guess. The engine tin and the seal around the edge of the bay are the only thing between you and a winter spent rebuilding the engine because it overheated and blew a gasket. Take a look, specifically, at the fan shroud -- it's the tall boxy thingy at the front of the engine, kind of a semi-circular shape across the top, like it's got a big fan inside or something. Look for a little box poking out the front left side of that shroud (you'll have to look through the gap between the deck lid and the car window to see it) for the oil cooler. If it's not there, you've got an early fan shroud. Replace it with an OEM one when you rebuild the engine this winter. If it is there, look at the build quality of the fan shroud -- if it looks like it was built in Korea by a 6 year old who hadn't slept in three days, it probably was, and it's probably not done very well. You'll have unexplainable cooling issues until you rebuild the engine this winter. If it looks like it could go in your 911, it's probably OEM, and it's much higher quality.

Let me see here, what else ... Carbs. Oh, heavens, carbs. If it's a single carb, it's probably the original, with something like 1600cc's. Properly tuned, you can get, what, maybe 22mpg, and pretty good probability of 0 to 60. If it's been updated to a dual carb system, you could be in real trouble. If it's little-bitty carbs (probably Solex?), you're looking at weird carb-tuning issues for the life of the car. If it's something bigger, you're looking at mileage in the teens.

Oh, let's be honest -- you're looking at weird carb tuning issues for the life of the car anyway, along with weird brake tuning issues, suspension tuning issues, electrical tuning issues, and that funny smell that you get from driving a Bug. I've got to counsel you: unless you and your son have never seen eye to eye, and you're trying to curse him with a white elephant, please, in the name of decency, don't do this thing to him.


Good luck, let us know what you find. Maybe we can interpret it, anyway.

Dan


*Second only, perhaps, to that one time in Tijuana with Tabs...

Rust-free, pristine restoration, from a dealer, in a rich neighborhood ... might see $12-15K. A running Bug from that era, assuming it's mostly drivable, should fetch anywhere from $1500 to about $5000, depending on what's been done to it.

Dan

Most of the responses have been dead on. Your number one issue will be rust. Check all the places that have been mentioned.

Of all the responders, I think I'm the only one who presently owns a '70 Bug. As you probably already know they are great little cars. They're very easy to wrench on and in time you and your son will be experts once you diagnose and replace enough parts. When I was given my bug many years ago the firs thing I tackled was the electrical. Previous owners made all kinds of ridiculous short cuts instead of doing the job the right way. Someone rewired the horn and placed the new horn button under the dash on the lower left side. Imagine trying to reach for that in an emergency.

My future mini project is new seat cushions and covers. Also need to order a good outdoor cover. I just don't drive my little bug enough these days. Good luck!

Someone did that to mine, too. I ended up rewiring it correctly shortly before I sold it.

Ghias are worse than beetles. Karmann didn't do their rust homework when they designed/built the bodies.

Not that VW did either.

The worst rust areas to repair are the heater channels. Also check to see if the front beam hasn't rusted away.

www.thesamba.com is your friend

Buy this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Keep-Your-Volkswagen-Alive-Anniversary/dp/1562614800

'70 beetles are ugly and no where near as collectible as 67 and earlier models. Personally I wouldn't even waste time looking at it.