I've been fixing up my 1965 VW Bug and I thought I would post the project's progress here as I go along. I'm hoping it will help with motivation, as I've been a real slacker on this project so far.
In 2019 I bought a 1965 VW bug with the idea of fixing it up mechanically and driving it as a beater. Over the course of a couple of years the torn up interior and crappy paint began to get to me. I really, really hate fake patina, but it turns out I’m not real fond of the real thing either. I decided it needed a repaint and new interior, plus tidying up the ugly-ass engine.
I started work on the remake in August of 2021 but the first event of a relentless string of life challenges hit me almost immediately. After being rocked with one hit after another I lost the will to do much of anything. So the car sat.
This summer Vicki told me I needed to get busy do
something or I was going to die on the vine, so I started back into the VW project.
When I first got the car in 2019 it had been the victim of a dedicated follower of fashion who did his best to make this car look like all the other pimped-out “California look” VW bugs. It was lowered front and rear and had a matte white paint job and skinny 145 tires. Fortunately he ran out of money before he completely destroyed it.
As soon as I got the car I rebuilt the suspension, put on decent wheels and new tires, and began sorting the engine out. I had the car running and handling pretty good by August of 2021, when I started taking it apart.
The moron PO tried to give the poor car the "California look" that I guess is how all VWs look in California. It looks like crap.
A suspension rebuild and getting the car raised up to the normal stance was first on the list. The guy had wrecked the torsion bars, but fortunately I had a set I took out of a '65 Porsche SC years ago. They aren't identical, but they work.
The right stance and a set of wheels and tires and it wasn't looking too bad from 30 feet away.
The interior was in tatters, but I thought I could live with it in an old VW beater. I couldn't.
The engine is out of a '67 and I have the build sheet from when it was rebuilt about 10,000 miles ago. From the parts list it should be a good motor internally, but it had a mess of "upgrades" and mismatched parts that were efforts by the PO to make it go fast. It looked like hell and ran like crap. It looked even worse when I first got the car. I took this picture after I installed a proper carb and distributor and repainted the air filter.
The VW "triangle of death." VWs are bullet proof if you don't modify them. If you DO decide to modify one, you need to do it right. The carburetor, fuel pump, and distributor have to be matched to each other to work together properly. This thing had a Brazilian-made aftermarket carb for an automatic stick shift car and a fuel pump and knockoff .009 distributor that were made in China. Plus, there is a plastic fuel filter
in the engine bay.