Chaos

Been ironing out the smaller issues that have arisen. One thing that always bugged me was the passenger side running board never sat on properly, a combination of a shit design (A-slots instead of holes for bolts) and one or two bolts breaking off etc meant that it sat skew and messed with the lines of the car. After much pondering I decided that drilling new holes in the running board would be the best idea. Through these holes would go new bolts, which would go into new threads. If you're wondering where these new threads were going to appear in 2mm steel, rivnuts are the answer! Such an awesome tool. In case you haven't heard of it before, it's basically like a rivet but instead of it just sticking two things together it has a thread in the rivet so you can bolt stuff to it. See here: All round good bastard George was good enough to bring home a rivnut gun from work and also extra good enough to let me use his hoist which made the job a whole lot easier. Here's a couple of pics One of the other things I had on my to-do list was to get it running mint, it had been popping and spluttering a bit and I smelled fuel so I had assumed it was running rich. Jase and I took a look at the main jet in the carb and discovered it had a 130 in it. Definitely too big for a 1300cc. Whacked a smaller 120 jet in there (probably a tad too small but all we had lying around) and it ran a bit better, so I'd been meaning to take the idle jet out and check what size that was as that would explain it running rich down low if it was too big. Fast forward a week and I took the car down to Hamilton and back on a shakedown run to bring out any more issues before Taupo this weekend. All went well, but when I got back to Auckland I noticed a hesitation in the lower RPM's and a more pronounced sputtering. Ended up taking the car down the road for a friend of mine to have a quick geeze at, with his infinite aircooled knowledge he quickly deduced I had an intake manifold leak and the car was sometimes running on 3 (you may wonder how I didn't immediately realize.. if you own a beetle you'd understand, they can sound lumpy normally and combine that with mixture issues)... fixed that up quick smart and it ran a whole lot better. He also mentioned that due to 1300cc parts having not been available for aaaages, and the fact that it had a bigger jet in it it was extremely likely it had been rebuilt at some point with 1600 parts. He suggested I whack the 130 jet back in and see how that went, combined with the fixed manifold leak it was like driving a whole new car! So it looks like I have a 15/1600. Bloody good! Need to figure out why I keep popping a fuse for the rear brake light and why it's on its own circuit. Suspect a half-assed job a few years ago has resulted in a short.

Been driving this around a bit, it's good fun. Last Friday however I was coming home and the car sputtered and died, and wouldn't start. Dead as shit. Mate of mine and all round general GC Shaun gave me a tow home and I set around figuring out what was wrong. First port of call was the battery. Took a look and 2 of the cells were dry. Not good, new battery time. Next port of call was to find out why. It was possible the battery had just had enough but it was fairly new. Got a multimeter on the battery and found out there was something up with the charging; wasn't charging 14v at idle but once rev'd would shoot up to 16v. Another mate Brendan @ Hope Hickman Auto Electrical (highly recommended) advised the regulator in the alternator was most likely broken, so I got him to have a look at it. Would explain why the car died and why it cooked the battery (and also the coil a few weeks ago). Turns out the whole thing was fried. Get a load of this: So new alternator time: And now she charges at 14.3v at idle. Perfect. Glad this happened now and not on the way to Taupo next Friday..! In light of that situation and the burning smell the fried alternator started giving off just before I swapped it out, I mounted a fire extinguisher. Following that my good friend Jase helped me install some sounds. Well, he pretty much did most of it. I'm terrible with wiring and car audio and he's a good cunt. Head deck in the glove box with some mods: This is just temporary until I sort something to better mount the speakers, so just got a couple of my Yamaha monitors buckled into the back to provide audio for the Taupo trip. The 10" kicker slimline sub went into an old suitcase I got from Junk and Disorderly for $10 (this part was Richie's idea) I cut a hole in the suitcase so it could breath and packed the space with foamy fluffy stuff. Works a treat. Amp is mounted under the back seat. All fairly cheap stuff but it sounds pretty rad! Got a few clips to tidy up the trim and the interior panel cards. Next week I need to find a new jet for the carb also and set the tappets. Also need to cover up the holes in the engine tin that are left by the old exhaust tubes.

Me and a mate painted it. Not something he or I usually do though to be fair man, I'll have a chat to him and see what he says. Cheers bro! Thanks man, I think so too

Thanks man: Yep, is on my list to do. Need to get a seal for the back of it too.

Also, forgot to mention - highly recommend Tyre City Newmarket for tyres and tyre related services. Top service, a bunch of good cunts. Dealt with Mike there and would go back again.

So it's been a little while since an update, been flat out with life and working on this thing and forgot I have a build thread. Car got it's WOF, left it with them to sort out the brakes and I'm glad I did because it now drives and stops like a dream. Got some rego (so cheap for a classic!) and the car was road legal. Following that I began sanding down the car for paint. It was supposed to be a rat but that changed, haha. I also test fitted the wheels and they were wider than the borrowed ones. Weird - I got them widened to the same size. Turns out that the info was wrong; their measurements were from the outer edge of the rim to the other outer edge. I was going to keep my wider ones but it would have been too much of a mission to make them fit and seeing as the fronts weren't widened I decided to get an inch taken out of them and then fitted them with some 205/50/15. Here's the car sanded down for painting. There isn't a lot more to talk about other than it then went for paint. It's just a closed door job and it's a bit rough around the edges but I'm happy with it seeing as I wasn't going to paint it originally anyway. This is the result, a comparison of when I bought it until now: Pretty stoked! Got new rubber and seals for it too, In other news, it died while driving the other day and put it down to a bad coil while hot or shit getting into the carb. Took the opportunity to change the coil, leads, plugs and put a fuel filter in it. Also changed the rubber fuel hoses as the old ones are brittle and have potential to leak and cause the magnesium block to put on a sweet pyro display. Also put frost plugs in the old ports in the cooling system that connect to the exhaust; now that I have an aftermarket one and don't have those channels the air is just flowing around aimlessly so it's better to direct it back through and have all of it going down and cooling the engine below. Have a few more things to do in the short term, need to get a new main jet on to the carb as the one on there I suspect is from a 1600 and making it run rich. Want to see if I can do something about lowering the seats too as I'm 6 foot 5. Will probably lower the front a little more too.

Thanks for the comments chaps, hopefully get another update through in a couple of days

Hey! What are you doing on the internet, you have a newborn!

Took it for a WOF this weekend just been (6/9/14). This is it leaving the shed on it's maiden voyage. Borrowed a set of wheels as I don't have tyres yet. Took it to a good chap who knows his VW's. Ended up failing on 3 things; front wheel bearing, door hinge is dodgy as it's rusted out where it goes into the door (I missed that) and the brakes are a bit too spongy and pull to one side. I left it with him as after I hire a welder again it'd get quite pricey anyway and I can't get the hub not off. With things like brakes I'd rather leave it with someone who knows what they're doing. Not that I don't, but it's one of the only things I don't mind paying someone with experience to do. The car outside the workshop: Hopefully get it back in the next couple of days with a WOF on it. Today I got some 165/45/15's fitted to the front wheels, they're fuckin' tiny, I think I might have gone too small. Will know when I get the car back, if they're too tiny I'll flick them and get some 145/65's.

Build thread here: //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/45058-damos-67-bug/

This week's been a good one for progress. Last night was a late one, up late figuring out the guts with the front beam adjusters. It didn't take long to realize I hadn't set them up properly; not in terms of height, but pre-load. You need to set them up so the torsion leaves in the one beam are effectively fighting the other. Went around re-doing that first off, hit a snag not far in to it. Because the top adjuster was going to need to end up pointing upwards, it meant that the spots of weld that the $&((@ who installed them splattered over the teeth were going to get in the way. Fuel tank came out again and I took to it with a die grinder (honestly the best tool I have in my shed, has come in handy so many times, would definitely recommend buying one). Got that set up so that there's enough pre-load against the bottom torsion beam. Next up was the brakes; the car was having an issue pulling to the right under braking. Re-bled them all round. The problem was I can't for the life of me get the hub not off one of the rear drums so I can take apart the brakes and free up the adjusters. Tried the works, including a gas torch and a 2.5" iron bar with a welded socket on it, ended up bending the fucking bar. Also got this special piece of kit which acts as a torque converter, that didn't work either (before you ask, yes I am going the right way) Gave up on that one, so adjusted the handbrake proportion so that the handbrake works evenly on them. It's helped it heaps and it only really pulls a little to one side under quite heavy braking. I'm not going to be able to pull the rear drums off without getting a electric / pneumatic / hydraulic torque converter on it so that'll have to do for now. Hopefully once I get a WOF I can head round to my old work to use some of their gear. It's getting close now! I popped into Qualitat today to get a couple bits and bobs, ended up walking out a couple hundred dollars later with a new exhaust. It was always on the cards, but I had put it off for a little while after buying flights to Thailand whilst drunk on the weekend because of the $ situation but #YOLO. Got home and got stuck into that. Pulling the old exhaust off was a cunt, rusted bolts in shitty locations aren't fun. Here's the old one all off. There's a lot to it as the bugs uses the exhaust gases for the in-cabin heater (safe, yea, I know). New one below. Shit for these cars are super reasonably priced. This exhaust was $200 and is of solid build, all lines up well, good welds, and looks the part. Installed it, went on a whole lot easier than the old one came off I took a video to try and show the sound, it doesn't really demonstrate it well at all as the microphone in my phone is SHIT and it was in the garage, but here it is anyway. http://vid227.photobucket.com/albums/dd267/spankbutt_2003/20140903_211346_zps03a26ba6.mp4 Basically it's all go for the WOF I've booked in for Saturday. Following that, I need to source smart car tyres for the front (135/70r15 ideally, otherwise 165/45r15). These will look better, will lower the front about 20mm further and also give me guard clearance which I don't have when turning on these balloons. Once I get the fronts on there, I will be able to have a measure of the height difference front to rear and then figure out the size tyre I need to run on the rear. The rear guards are going to need massaging and bogging. They're 9" wide. Once I have the tyres on the rear and have checked that there are no leaks on the widening welds at 35 PSI so they don't have to get re-welded, the wheels all round will be getting paint and that will signal the beginning of the first home stretch with this thing. Many plans to potentially come, but I'm beginning to reach the end of the first chapter of this book!

Really want to see this thing get on the road and looking sweet for a meet in October, so my mate Jase and myself got into the shed tonight and set about lowering the rear. I got quite caught up with it all and forgot to take photos, so for those interested take a look here - http://mechdb.com/index.php/VW_Beetle_Ghia_%26_type_3_68_or_earlier_-_lowering_the_rear for a explanation on how you lower the rear. Basically the hub is connected to the suspension by means of a spring plate, which you can re-spline to adjust the height of the car. The spring plates in mine were all quite stiffly stuck together and I ended up accidentally pulling the inner spline shaft out so it's not quiiiite even on each side but it's close enough for now. If I can be bothered I'll re-do one side later, it's a bit of a cunt of a job to do. Anyway, just a couple of pics.. Behind that plate is where the spring plate comes out. Bump stops got the hacksaw treatment, no I am not going to take them out completely because A) if it bottoms out the spring plate could warp, and the ride will probably be shitty enough. This is where it sits at the moment. From here the front wheels will be getting the tyres removed and smaller smart car tyres installed to give it further drop and allow for turning clearance as well as looks. The rear wheels will be getting widened 3-4 inches (haven't decided yet, need to do some more research) and get new tyres on them. Tyre size on the back will be critical; They will need to be the right size to sit at the right height and clear the guards but I can't stretch them too much. This is because it cambers like hell on the rear when lowered and if they're too stretched I'll be driving on the sidewall which isn't ideal. After the tyres are sorted and I'm happy with the ride height, the wheels will be prettied up and painted. Following that I'll be getting new seat belts installed and it's WOF time!

Never mind the first sentence in the post above, missed it in the copy / paste The crowd that I got to install the beam adjusters took their sweet time doing so, what was originally going to be a turn around time of a few days turned into 7 weeks. Not impressed, but that's a story for a different day I guess. Back into the shed! Finally got the beam back anyway, with the adjusters put in, see below.. these contraptions allow you to change where the torsion leaves reset back to, effectively lowering the front of the car. So it's time to put the front end back together. Installed the beam, and re-attached the end of the sway bar that had to be disconnected in order to pull the leaves out so that the adjusters could be put in. They attach by these clamps which are a bit of a cock to put on, you slip them over and hold the ends together while you whack on the retainers. Once that was on I put the hubs back on to the link ends, these attach by link pins (which I replaced). When you install them you have to measure the offset between the 2 link pin ends and consult a chart to find out how many shims you put in between the link pin ends and the hub, this sets up the camber for the car. Once it's going I'm going to have to take it for an alignment and re-do it all again I'd say. The shoes were like new so I put them back in for now, replaced the wheel cylinders and got the drums skimmed. Also got new bearings as the ones in there were fairly toasted, so re-assembled those in the drums and put it all back together. The old hammer and wood trick worked a treat So once that was all together we bled the system, did a brake check all round and found the passenger side wasn't retracting. A little investigation deemed the rubber hose wasn't allowing fluid back which was keeping the wheel cylinder open. A bit of soldering wire through it brought out the grease that was jamming it up and she was all good. Following that I set the beam adjusters about 40-50% down off adjustment and put the car back on it's wheels. It doesn't look low in the following pics, and that's because it's not! Haha. The rear still needs lowering, that's this week's goal. Once the rear is lowered to where I want it, I will send the wheels off to get widened before painting. The front wheels can't turn as they are, they hit the guard. Will be getting low profile tyres for the fronts to fix that problem, which will also help the height situation quite a bit. You can't go suuuuuper low on these unless you get the front beam narrowed because the wheels hit the guards, but you can definitely go quite low. Hopefully get some indicative pics in the next few days. Sorry for the crappy pic quality! Also got a new bonnet latch so the bonnet closes now. All the old ones get bent up and they don't locate into the locator thing. Also installed a B18C into it. Hopefully get some pics of the rear lowered this week!

^ You can fund it, and live vicariously through me? So I got some time this afternoon and myself and the neighbor pulled the front beam out to get the beam adjusters welded in, and the king and link pins replaced. The only thing that I can say pisses me off is that a lot of the bolts are held in by these cunting lock tabs, and when they've been on there for close to 50 years and also covered in grime it can prove quite a mission to get them of..! Fuel tank out, 4 bolts and 90 seconds Steering box disconnected And front beam assembly out. This thing comprises pretty much the entire front end of the car. Attacked it with a couple of cans of degreaser and a high pressure blaster to try and get some grime off, I'm dutch so anything I can do to minimize labor charges on the invoice is favorable. And strapped to the roof of another beetle to get down to Platinum. Should have it back next week some time.

Hey guys, thought I'd copy and paste my build thread over to here from another forum I frequent. I'll do one post per update as the other one is so it's easier to load. Discussion here: //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/45059-damos-67-bug-discussion/ So as of late I've been trying to find myself a suitable project I can keep myself occupied with over the following few months and get ready for summer. I've always liked the old bugs, and one popped up for a reasonable price so I decided I would jump at it. The plan is to get it back on the road, and set around slamming it to a point that I am happy with. Without too much further chatter here are some pics of the progress so far. It's a 1967 Australian assembled Beetle, with a 1300 engine. Picked it up from Tauranga 3 weeks ago. What a mission; my good friend Phillip and I used his non turbo diesel Hilux, a ute that is built to traverse steep hills and clamber through mud. It is not designed to tow cars over the Kaimais; it took 4 hours to get back to Auckland, being passed by trucks and bicycles. Car on the trailer. As you can probably imagine there are a few things that need attention before it can go for a warrant. Biggest issue by far is the rust, which is not too bad considering the state that some of these can get into. Other things that I've initially seen need fixing: - Front wheel cylinders are fucked - Front seat belts (original ones are missing the stalks, and won't do a good job in the event of a crash anyway so I'm going to put new ones in) - Indicators and brake lights not working - Tires are terrible, will be getting new ones to suit the new height and wider wheels anyway - Link pins and king pins have play - V belt has seen better days; if this breaks then the fan stops working, and in an air cooled car this is less than ideal So started tackling these. Pictures of the rust: Front wheel arch: Inside the rear quarter B Pillar A Pillar: We're not here to fornicate arachnids, so made a trip to Hirepool for a welder (I really need to buy one) and got the grinder out to make a start. Cut out the A pillar section and set about welding the new piece in. You can buy panel repair parts from Qualitat and they are cheap as chips; this A pillar section was less than $40 and included provisions for the door hinge bolts. New section in the wheel arch If I tried to do all this myself I would fuck something up big time as my welding skills leave a bit to be desired, so here's a credit picture of Phillip the metal magician at work. The floors in this car are really good, which is one of the reasons I went for it. Inside there was just a bit of surface rust and battery acid residue so got all that cleaned up, zinc'd and painted. I'll get some more pictures of the progress on the other sections but there should be about 1 day and 3 boxes of piss in it until the rust work is done, hopefully next Saturday should be the go. Got stuck into the other stuff also, brakes apart and ready for new cylinders. The shoes are fairly new but I'll get the drums skimmed also. Not going to put them back together as the front beam will come out this week and get sent off, more on this shortly. Indicator problem resolved by actually putting a flasher unit in. I installed some plugs so that I can take the fenders off, the headlight loom was all one piece previously. It's hard to get a good photo as the lighting in my garage is crap and my phone has been through the wars. This week I'll be taking the front beam out to get adjusters welded in. It's one of those things I'd rather pay a professional to do, and while they're at it they're going to replace the link and king pins also which I can't do myself. Beam adjusters will allow the front height to be adjustable, the rear already is (it is a cunt of a job, need to re spline the spring plates but doable). Rear wheels will also be getting sent off to be widened a few inches. Watch this space!