George’s Cars

Well i forgot to put this up but we sold the 1972 blue beetle we had.

This is her loaded up to be delivered to Kevin. I know she is gone to a good home.

I haven’t been updating the blog lately because i haven’t been doing a lot of work in the garage lately. Work has been busy and the family has been a bit under the weather so between one thing and another the garage stuff has been put on the long finger BUT i want to start getting stuff done again.

I’m putting this todo list here as much for myself as anyone else, it nice to see these things in black and white, if might give me the kick i need. Right now I want to start work on the beach buggy BUT i have a few other things to do first.

Blue 72 Beetle:

Sort out the interior, fit rear door cards, install parcel shelf and speakers and fix carpet.

I would also like to do the body work on this but we might have to sell it on so i might sell her as is.

Fit heat exchangers

Red 70 Beetle:

This is away getting the bit of bodywork done, when it comes back it needs a new steering box and front shocks, then it will be sold. We have someone interested in her.

71 Bay westy:

Unfortunately this will have to go to make room for the new camper (more on that later)

Rewire front indicators

Order new door rubbers all round & fit

Clean the interior

Recover the seats and door cards

Sell!

New Camper – Hymer B694:

I’ll put pics of this up soon, I want to finish cleaning it before I start showing it off. As usual, the father and myself bought this together.

She needs a big spring clean and all the appliances need a service, fridge, hot water heater, night heater etc etc

I want to have her ready to use so we can go on short notice.

So that’s what has to be done before I get back to the beach buggy, none of them are big jobs BUT because I’m not getting much time in the garage they seem to be taking forever. I’m hoping to finish cleaning the Hymer over the weekend and maybe start servicing some of the bits in her with the help of a buddy Tristan who works with campers for a living. If you need anything camper related check out the guys on Pat Horan Campers

Well i haven’t done much work on the blue beetle in the last few days. I have the paint ordered. Its taking a while to match the paint. I was supposed to be getting it today but now it is going to be next week.

I know I can start the prep work but I’m funny like that, when I know I can’t finish the job I’m slower to start it. I might do some work on the red one over the next few days instead.

Right, quick update, managed to get the wiring sorted. The ignition live from the fuse box to the speedo had been broken and so it only required a quick repair and all is well and good.

So now all the electrics are working. Thank god, it has seemed like the last week took about a year to pass!!

The next job is the body work. Thankfully there are no major problems but the list is something like:
Repair the rear wing and respray
Repair the bonnet and respray.
Repair the new dent created by the 22month old mechanic-in-training!! My son stole a screwdriver in his unhelpful attempt to assist his daddy!!
There is one little rust bubble over the rear arch or the passenger side, its not bad but since i’ll have the spray gun out I might as well sort it out also.
Last on the list is a good compounding and a wax.

I’m getting sick to the teeth of wiring, how is it that something so small is so blooding annoying.

Yesterday I went to bring the beetle for a test drive. First problem was I had no warning lights, no oil light and no charge light. I know the system is working fine so I drove it anyways. Next up was the indicators, they decided to stop aswell.

The other problem I identified on the road test was the brakes still aren’t right, they are better but its still grabbing on the right and more importantly its pulling to the right. We didn’t rebuild the right calliper because it looked free but i think we will rebuild it now.

Back to the wiring diagram it looks like all my wiring problems could be caused by 1 fuse.

So i’ll take a look at that today and see if it fixes my problems.

I was working on the blue beetle again tonight. I’m nearly there with the wiring. I have two small problems still to solve.

This is how it looked when I started tonight.

First problem I had was the radio issue. After consulting the good folk of www.eircooled.com with no immediate solution, I decided the grinder was the best option.

This was the problem:

There wasn’t enough room to fit the radio inbetween the two. This is what the wiper motor looks like.

And this is after:

It may look like only a small trim but it was enough to give me the clearance i needed for the radio.

Now to finish the radio properly I’ll need to make up and aluminium face plate because the previous owner was a butcher.

Once the wiring was tidied up she looks pretty good. I just need to finish the air ducting under the bonnet and i can put the bonnet back on. Then i’ll move into the interior and finally paint.

Its not perfect but its a damn sight better than it was.

Tonight I started the wiring on the beetle, boy its a mess.

First problem was that the lights weren’t working properly so that was first on the todo list. I finally figured out the wiring diagram (why are they printed so small) and it was easy after that. Next up I started chasing some of the other wires around dash. First was the radio live. I chased this all the way back to the battery and surprise surprise it was not fused. Actually it was dangerous he didn’t even have the connections insulated. So that was first to be fused.

I also found about 6 constant lives around the bonnet, none of them insulated properly. I still have to identify which wires are no longer needed and remove them, there are way to many.

I also identified a problem with the radio, with the internal heater controls refitted there is not enough room for the radio so I’ll have to get creative with the fitting. I’ll let ye know what solution I come up with when I find one.

Another job over the weekend was the exhaust, it was old and rusty and looked like shit so I replaced them with new ones I had around the garage.

Old

New on the car:

Well I’m just finished in the garage for the weekend. With the two new bugs home we wanted to give them a once over and make a start on the work for them. That reminds me I must start a file for each of them now.

First up was the blue 72 bug. The wheels where the first thing to go there were standard and didn’t suit the beetle at all. I had a set of empi8′s in white lying around the garage so they got new shoes and went under the car. I put 195/65/15′s on the rear and 195/55/15′s on the front just to keep the low look to the front.

This saved me another job. The car was lowered all round, the rear was fine but the front was too low for Irish roads. You may get away with really low cars in the UK or in Irish cities but in the country the roads would just destroy the front panel so it had to come up a bit. Also with the slightly higher profile it will mean she is more comfortable to drive. Don’t get me wrong she is still low,but just not crazy low.

Next up was the brakes, the passenger side calliper was ceased so that needed attention. We stripped it off the car and managed to get one pot out fine, the second side refused to move. I think we found the problem. The only way we could get to it was to split the calliper into two parts. We then used air pressure to get the second pot out. However if you ever to this make sure the calliper is facing the ground before you to it. With the outlet ports blocked on the calliper all the air pressure from the compressor when into the one pot and out she flew, right at my chest. In case you don’t know what these are like there is a picture below.

So it bounced off my chest an landed about 6 feet away. I’m lucky all it did was bruise my chest but it could have been much worse.

Anyway with the piston out we could clean it all up, reassemble and put it back on the car. Success as everything is working normally, but we couldn’t bring it on a proper road test as the wheel bolts weren’t long enough to secure the wheels adequately. When we put the new alloys on the wheel diameter is larger than what was on it so I’m not 100% happy with the wheel studs. Its secure enough for rolling it around the garage but I wouldn’t like to drive her on the road. I’ll order longer studs for her during the week.

So now she is mechanically sound we have to turn our attention to the interior. The wiring is a complete mess but I didn’t even start that today. I’ll leave that for a night during the week. I think that is something that I need to be left alone for. Someone replaced some of the wiring already but it looks like they only had a roll of red wire so half the wires under the dash are red which is not going to make it easy to chase the wires.

We did make some progress on the interior, the one piece windows were sticking, so we took them apart, cleaned and reassembled them, and now everything works as it should. We managed to get door cards from the scrap beetle we have, so they just need a good cleaning and we will then put them in the car. The only other big job for the interior then is she needs a new parcel shelf, also there are two 6×9 speakers in the rear door cards at the moment that will need to be moved to the rear shelf. I know this is adding to my workload but it will look much better when its all finished.

So thats the progress so far, we will be doing more work during the week so I’ll update ye as we are doing more work.

Folks,

As i mentioned last week we were looking at another car. It was “we” because at this stage I don’t know who owns half the cars in our garage. For those of you who don’t know me that well, when it comes to cars my father any myself work on most things together. Its bad enough with cars, you can imagine the fun we have debating over tools!!

Anyways, here she is the newest edition to the family.

These are the sellers pics so I’ll get more up when the car gets home.

She is a 1972 beetle, 1641cc, 1600 gearbox, discs, lowered with early wings, deck lid and lights.

As usual she is not as good as she looks in the pics. There is a little bit of bubbling to take care of and some electrical issues to work out.

The plan for now is tidy her up, sort out the bubbling, put a nice set of alloys on her and enjoy for the summer.