George’s Cars

Dad decided to start work on the red bug today so he got the engine ready to pull out and I gave him a hand to actually drop it out. I really don’t understand some people who work on beetles, there were 3 repairs to the accelerator cable, the repair parts would have cost more than a new accelerator cable would have costs. There were so many repairs that disconnecting it was the hardest job we had to do to get the engine out.

Before

After

We found a handy new tool to help. An air jack. Basically you set a bag up under the car connect the pipe up to the exhaust of a car and use the air pressure to jack up the car. Sounds strange but it works and works very very quickly.

Once the engine was out it was easy get on with the jobs that needed to be done. There were two main jobs. First one was to fit the heat exchangers. There was no heat in the car which makes driving it in the winter fun. There were J tubes on the engine so these where removed and stored, I’ll need them for the buggy.

These aren’t new but they came with the car and they seem to be in good condition so we’ll reuse them. I do have new ones in the shed but I don’t see the point in using the new ones unless I know the old ones don’t work. Generally when it comes to parts, good original parts will always be better than pattern parts.

Next up was the fan shroud. Before:

The fan shroud was in good condition but it had no outlets for air which are needed for the heating system. I had a chrome one in the garage so that got a quick polish and was fitted.

It wasn’t all easy, we did come across two problems what will need to be fixed before we can refit the engine. First on was one of the mounting bolts. The threads were in bits, so we need to get a new stud and fit it before we can re-install the engine. The other problem is that one of the exhaust studs is badly bent, I don’t know how they fitted the exhaust the last time. A new stud will cost 1 euro!! I think we’ll replace it!

There are two parts which can go on the for sale list.

The old fan shroud:

Bugpack Exhaust:

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.

Well Alma and myself flew over to Mancherster on Thursday morning to collect the 70 (Red Bug). To be honest it was a fairly uneventful trip, thankfully. We had about a 3 hour drive to the ferry and 7 hours to do it so we took our time, Alma even managed to get some shopping done in North Wales! Having arrived early at the ferry we snuggled up in the bug with large cups of tea and a dvd on the laptop, occasionally glancing out to see if there was any movement.

We got the 21:30 ferry to Dublin and arrived around 1:00. Off the ferry we flew through Dublin (in spite of every light turning red before us!) When we were on the Motorway heading for galway we had a quick stop to don extra layers as we were getting extremely cold by then.

At 3:45 we arrived home, had a cup of tea to warm up and hit the sack feeling tired but satisfied with our little road trip:)

1970 CAL LOOK, BRAND NEW 1641CC ENGINE WITH CERAMIC MONDO EXHAUST, PORSCHE COOKIE CUTTER ALLOYS, DISC BRAKES ON THE FRONT, LOWERED FRONT BEAM, NEW STAINLESS STEAL US STYLE BUMPERS

Nicest thing about this car is the interior. It looks better than it did the day it came of the production line.