Kevin's 1966 Beetle - Bay Area

[euroimage]

Just as another mini intro; I'm Kevin. Not new to VW's.. just still semi new to Aircooled VW's.
My Mk4 in its prime:



The beetle when my friend first purchased it:


Then when I got it:


And after the first round of bringing it back to life:


This is not a restoration by any means and is also not for any "purists" out there, just a documentation of my car and what I have done and am doing to it.
Been a bit burnt out on working on it everyday after work and whenever I can find free time.. bit hard when you've got 2 kids so hopefully you guys will help keep my motivation and inspiration up, as well as provide help along the way. I will get more photos and back story as soon as I have some time to type it up, just wanted to get this started. Thanks for reading. hopefully get this wrapped up before the end of the year.. HOPEFULLY

[euroimage]

So the back story..
When I first bought the car it had no decklid, clutch cable was on its last leg, horrible stinger faded shotty paint job, aftermarket steering wheel, rusty chrome tins, etc etc.
Body and pan were in fairly good shade from what I could tell at the time, matching numbers on them, engine is out of a 71 or 72.. i have to double check. I unfortunately do not know any specifics about it as I havent torn into it yet. 1641 with an empi dual carb set up and mild cam.
First things on the short list were, removing the portawalls, installing the decklid and a new exhaust


While swapping out the exhaust a stud broke and caused some unnecessary extra work to get it handled
(decklid was not installed all the way at this time.. there were chrome hinges that were bent and needed to be replaced with OE ones)

The aftermarket wheel needed to go

drove it around like this for a bit before the exhasut got removed.

Not too much longer after that I pulled the engine to clean up the chrome tin nonsense

parts like it was christmas.. oh wait it was

[euroimage]

I got tired of looking at the car the way it sat.. if it was original paint I would have considered keeping it as is.. but this car was resprayed at least twice before I took possession of it. Original color appeared to be white, then a heavy flaked lime green, then the flat black..
anyways

stripped it down.. note the awesome chrome hinges

and the awesome junkyard special seats

finished painting the car and was pretty happy with the results, looks like a older enamel style paint job.. works well for me and the car. Also added the blade bumpers and an OE steering wheel

Painted the wheels:


picked up some smoothies. pretty beat but price was right:

got them chemically stripped and blasted:


Gave them a quick coat of paint:

Finally washed the car haha

Then it finally happened, what I knew was going to happen since i havent had the time to FULLY go through the car.. brakes got to this point. someone did not install the adjusters correctly

so new shoes, lines hardware:


while I waited for the new drums to show up I FINALLY fixed the door locks so they actually work and use the same key.. no I did not shave tumblers, i did it right

i would love to have the time and space to pull off the body to clean up under this car.. this is a before shot.. i will spend some time cleaning it up under there

New rear brakes were ready to go.. time to toss on the new drums and move to the front


well.. that might explain why the ride is so horrible..

uhhh there should be some sort of bolt there im pretty sure..

oh wait.. it gets better. no wonder this thing bounced all over the place

whyd you remove springs with an adjustable beam?? no wonder the adjusters never stayed in place.. didnt have enough to grab on to

tank out.. would you look at the bow on that pass. side tie rod?


and this is where the debate kicked in on what to do.. replace the spring packs, tie rods etc finish the brakes and get it back on the road... or take my time and do a few more things while ive got it taken apart, like knocking off that surface rust/oxidation to not have more headaches when the body comes off the pan.

[euroimage]

so decision was made after i measured the front beam that it was time to upgrade. The costs of making the current front beam "up to par" for a while until I was ready for a narrowed beam did not seem worth it IMO. I opted for just biting the bullet and dealing with all the suspension and wiring now so not have to deal with it later on. TRYING to prevent doing some of these jobs twice, but I know its not 100% possible unless I wanted to dive into a full body off deal.. just dont have the space or time for that now.
anyways photos:
pretty filthy under there.. old beam out

Panhead area needs some attention

how it sits:

Wiring is a mess. I really kick myself for not re-doing it when I painted the car. made the mistake of rushing myself just to drive it again

piling up parts to keep nice and organized

old seam sealer removed and redone and painted with a nice epoxy paint. may not be perfect but itll keep things a little nicer for the time being

Wiring pulled, gotta fill some holes under the dash from the previous owner

while im at it, going inside the car to make sure the pans are cleaned up and put some coating on them to again prevent further headaches later on

holes filled (didnt smooth them out perfectly, oh well), and luggage area painted

more stuff piling up


organized in as much detail as possible

wheels are getting some attention to small bends and re-blasted/painted. Caps need to get chemically dipped (sandblasting didnt want to remove the chrome.. not surprised but was worth a shot) and rechromed


old tar board was pretty beat and stuck on pretty good

but eventually got it off

new tires arrived:


Steering box got taken apart for a rebuild:

front glass out, going to take this opportunity to ditch the "cal look" rubber

pans basically done, little dusty from sanding but pretty solid

now just to get the dash ready for paint

more stuff:



made a ghetto bench test rig for double checking all wiring before reassembly

and then started making a better one, i couldnt stand the wiring going everywhere



and thats pretty much where it sits as of now. just waiting on more parts, figure out what else Im missing and order more parts and slowly put it all back together.

and that brings us up to about 2 months ago.
just to reiterate..
I do not have time and space for a full body off resto. I would love to do it but just cant at this time.
I do not care about everything being factory original or year correct.. but do prefer to re-use / refurb. parts when it can be done

[darzoom]

a lot of nice work you have done there. Keep it going.

[euroimage]

a lot of nice work you have done there. Keep it going.

Thank you sir

[euroimage]

I still have a bunch of photos I haven't uploaded.. that should go before this.. but I will update that as soon as I upload them:

More parts collection / organization and Parts getting cleaned / sandblasted painted etc
















Turns out the front apron and drivers side front qtr. were caked with bondo



So that had to go

and new one mocked up


Got this sweet bracket for the fuel filter from wes (pandraggers)



And upholstery stuff:






Cover was just placed on top.. not attached at all

any advice or pointers on the rear seat strap would be appreciated. the car did not have one when I bought it, and my reading turned up slightly vague results for how the strap mounts to the frame.

oh and pedal cluster almost completely back together.. not sure what the pedal arms are from.. theyre horizontal vs. vertical so no pedal pads fit properly except the bus ones.. i plan on replacing this down the road at some point.. for now its better than it was. unique parts pedal upgrade and clutch cable rod


started redoing the wiring sub-harnesses to replace connectors and eliminate butt splices


annnd basically how its still sitting

[euroimage]

Just a quick overview of my "plan" to make a little more sense of my flurry of photos

• Suspension

Airkewld 4" Narrowed beam
Airkewld shocks all around
Airkewld drop spindles
All new front suspensions components, tie rods ball joints etc
Rear 3.5" drop plates prefer not to mention who made them.. horrible experience
stock smoothies - personal opinion.. do not like the stock slotted 66 wheels, any aftermarket wheel or even widened smoothies, look fine on some peoples cars but not what I would like for mine

• Brakes

All new drums
All new shoes and hardware
New hard lines
New flexible lines
New reservoir
New MC
New Wheel cylinders
New ebrake cables

• Interior

Since I have no headliner and busted uncomfortable seats
Black vinyl headliner
Black Carpet
Red oem low backs
Reusing the black door cards i have for now, undecided what the final will be
I haven't seen this exact color combo and i know its not correct at all, but im not a fan of the white headliners or two tone door panels.

• Exterior

Ditching the "cal-look" weather stripping
New "euro" front apron - I am running blade bumpers and do not plan on using overriders in the future.
Respray - wish I was having it professionally done but it will be DIY again and staying white. Just a few areas that needed attention and would rather repaint the whole thing
New running boards

• Misc. Details

Cleaning any surface rust prior to painting
All electrical will be gone through with new connectors, routing, actually having the appropriate flasher mount bracket
Correct accelerator cable.. one in the car was a hacked up mess
Cleaning and refurb/repainting any small details along the way
There is a million more small fine details, cleaning up past owners mistakes, missing parts etc

[euroimage]

Too hot to do much recently. Added some webbing the frame and burlap, foam and a test fit of one of the lower covers. Need to add some batting and attach the cover to the frame. small progress but progress none the less

[darzoom]

Why "Volkswagen" on the hood? For 66 it said 1300? Just wondering.

[euroimage]

Why "Volkswagen" on the hood? For 66 it said 1300? Just wondering.

That would be a question for the PO. Decklid I got from the guy I bought the car from, was either a pre 66 lid and the po didn't change the emblem... or it was ditched at the same time they put in the 1641. I do no know.. wasn't my doing.

[euroimage]

Hopefully this weekend I will have some time and motivation to get some work done; main goals for the weekend:

- get my wheels back from the body shop
- get front apron at least tacked into place
- measure and order my seals for the steering box
- reassemble wiper assembly and other smaller items
- finalize seat covers for the two sections I have burlap/foam on already

we shall see how much of that gets accomplished

[aaronh]

Why "Volkswagen" on the hood? For 66 it said 1300? Just wondering.

what size motor does your bug have in it? My 66 has the 1500 single port and the hood says Volkswagen.

[aaronh]

Cant wait to see it finished. I know what you are saying about time I got three kids and full time job it sucks sometimes.

[euroimage]

Cant wait to see it finished. I know what you are saying about time I got three kids and full time job it sucks sometimes.

I hear ya. I got 2 kids and 2 jobs. Time is always lacking, just gotta find a balance and take things slowly.