Long time for an update but I’m going full steam to it right now..

I started putting the rods on the crank shaft only to find that the bearings supplied were undersize.

But it was ok, the guys at V&T did a good job so the main bearings were .25 and so are the rod bearings, just a pain in the ass.

Here is a video of what the issue looked like:

Anyway i went to Euro Imparts on main north road (enfield) at lunch one day and picked up the correct size bearings.

Here is a video of how it should look:

Yes i do realise that the rods dont spin as freely as you would normally see if i were to lube with oil, but i am lubing with molly grease

that is a little stickier (but offers great protection when your gaining oil pressure when turning it over for first time

(note not turning over with spark plugs attached).

Below we have the inside of the case all put together and ready to go.

Thats the permatex aviation sealer around the outside, almost a perfect equivalent to the sealing liquid they used in 1968 when they built the motor.

The other side of the case Moly lubed up with lifters in ready to bolt back together. (don’t forget the oil (return?) thingy down the bottom otherwise you could be in a very bad place )

More aviation Sealant on this side (i really want as few leaks as possible)

Case is together (Some of you may have noticed it obviously was a 1500 single port in the beginning of its life, and somewhere along the way (80-90’s) it was changed to a 1600 Dual port).

Now to bolt the halfs together.. but wait the bolts have been misplaced during my house move.. but stress less i have a new engine hardware kit coming in the mail. Will keep you all updated.

Further to the Previous post, i thought i would document the steps i installed the bonnet hinges on with. (please excuse the car as its in the middle of being done up).

The above pic is just showing what and where the securing bolt and sir clip are. (I have removed the bonnet first to make life easy.).

The above pic is a closeup of the 13mm bolt that needs removal.

This is a closeup of the Sir Clip on the bottom of the original hinge.

Above is a pic of the Cir clip off and the bonnet hinge bottom bit removed.

Both stock hinges are now removed.

New shiny shiny hinges attached to the bonnet. You can see the three adjustment holes for the bonnet to open different amounts (i ended up using the smallest one as it would just clear and i didn’t want to stuff around re adjusting).

This is a closeup of one of the hinges with the new 13mm bolt (unsure if this is the correct side for that black spacer but it worked in the end )

You need someone to help you hold the bonnet whilst you do up the nuts (otherwise you can expect to loose some fingers), Hi Joanne (My other half)

Gas strut installed on the Left. It just pops into the hinge and pops onto the original hinge mount on the bottom (the one with the sir clip)

Closeup of the RHS, again looking good (unlike the rest of the inside of the bonnet.)

Here is a quick shot of how hot it looks opening and closing.

Now again i will apologize for the state of the car as I’m working on it as i get money and time, the car detracts from the awesome hinges. Again i cant say enough about them .

Well i just got my case back from being machined, case savers installed, and crank ground. She looks hot . For those interested it cost about $1200 and took about 1 week, It was done in Lonsdale SA by V & T Motors (08) 8382 8111, They literally have a machine shop just for VW motors which used to operate 24/7 pretty much back in the late 70’s now not so much , but they did an excellent job, even to the point of getting the casing to the correct temp exactly if not they would start again from scratch.

If you don’t know why this was needed basically after years of service the thumping of the cam shaft on the bearings impact into the magnesium case. E.g Follows:

 Now its all shiny.

Other news I cleaned up the front beam blew all the crap off (grease dirt etc), and painted her up.. (but it was annoying moving the front beam around (mental note next time i need to take it off reverse into the garage .

That engine trolley came in useful to keep the pan movable.

Finally put the front end back on (man was that a pain in the ass, don’t look forward to doing it again.

Also blasted the ass end with water and the rubbed her bacl and gave her a nice high temp  paint, looks sweet.

I also grabbed these for $20 both straight and in good cond (unsure if i will use the yet) but i have never seen the  closer style of bumper before, any ideas?

Anyway until next time., I’m a bit slow lately because I’m looking at buying a house to move all my beetles too as their current living quarters are being sold . So wish me luck.

Finally had some more time off to work on my orig 1968 beetle. I need to get this shell into a move-able shell (shed where it is being stored is being sold). So I decided to clean her up and get that motor case looking shmick. After a few chats with people on the aussieveedubbers forum (and previously getting blasted by my other half about putting engine case in the dishwasher ).

This is after several sprays of various degreasers, First off i used oven cleaner to get the basic dirt and grease off, worked good but the cheap $2 degreaser i sprayed on was way more effective, I also tried putting petrol into a sprayer and spray it, again it did work, but nothing like the $2 degreaser and a shot with my high pressure sprayer. Then coated the block with silver enamel spray (about $10 for a can). I did this because it looks cool but also the degreaser/oven cleaner seems to take the finish off the block.

I also started cleaning up the rear end of the pan same way as above.

Tempting to do a rat rod front end on her not sure yet.

Ended up with this welsh plug from when i was cleaning the engine block, downside is i have no idea where it is from :S hopefully someone on the AVD forums will be able to help me .  Will be putting new seals in etc hopefully next week if i don’t drive to melb to get an engine.

I actually went to the show last weekend expecting the VW’s to be at the Royal Adelaide Show (Like a giant carnival that lasts 2 weeks every year) but i was mistaken and they were this weekend (so i spent another $40 to get in to see the VW’s ). It was a fairly good turnout with about 30 cars on display (And with the promise of free entry to the show for VW’s who can blame them?)

Okies so yeah click the pics to see a bigger pic. So overall a nice bunch of classic VW and a few new ones. I also signed up for the VW club of SA (as i keep putting it off and this looked liek a good oppertunity, even if the other half wasn’t to happy about me forking over $45.

Just quickly, i was driving home and took a picture of the sun and when i got home i found what looks liek a UFO?? I want to believe

One morning i woke up with an idea. I have been thinking of ways to turn my greasy old motor parts into nice clean motor parts without me needing to get to dirty or smell like petrol for another month

Oh yes the wondrous Dish washer, doing some research i found that the best tablets to clean the motor parts with are the Coles home-brand ones (like 15 in a packet). Supposedly these don’t have anything but soap in them and don’t harm metal stuff.

Trial 1, These parts. In short this didn’t work too well But i decided to try it on something else..

Yes its a disgusting (yet beautiful) 1600 dual port case.

After 20 minutes of being in the wash.

All clean,

I plan on giving the other side of the case a wash in petrol to try and compare the results.

Using wire brush to get some more dirt off the case.

Now what i must quickly explain is if your going to do this make sure you have some WD40 handy for the distributor gears (ideally you should take them out but i couldn’t get mine out). I left it for a Day before putting WD40 on it and it almost seized up, but all in all i am now on a look out for a decent free washing machine to wash the various parts. (after finding out that the oil in the motor can normally be carcenagenic).

I also put the washing machine through with a clensing tablet after. Its also great for when the misses comes home she hears the dishwasher on and thinks your doign house work.. just dont let her open it to get a knife out.

To be continued.

Looking back those previous photos looked kind of crap, so i thought i would take some more to show you how it really looks now its been painted twice and finished off.

So here you can see the pan in its nice red oxide coating, with the blacked out seat rails (as this is the part you can see through the carpet).

Closer view of the front

Coolies and that’s it for now before i lay down the new underlay, i didn’t need to paint the tunnel bit as it was fine but i may do it later as a just in-case. You can also see the cable that hooks the gear selector to the automatic clutch.

That’s it for this topic.

Okies so i had the motor out and i was stumped on how to get it into pieces (another post with the solution to come), so i decided to keep going on the car. I told my father about taking the body off the pan and he wanted to do it so i thought why the hell not.

Built a jig to hold the body off the ground (may need to build a better one at one stage with wheels.)

Car on the jig about to drop, There are 2 bolts on the back near the shockers, 4 inside above where the battery sits, another 18 or so bolts under the heater channels along each side (make sure you check i didnt and alomost ended up foo-bared). and 2 at the front under the tank.

Tank out, good idea before you take it out to try and get as much petrol out, with a syphon .. dont use your mouth as my father found out haha.

Up / Down she goes, a bit of creaking and scary bits but over all was good.

There we go up in the air totally ready to roll the pan out.

Normally they would sit good but i found the automatic tanks tended to get in the way, so i took them off.

And she is out, almost didnt clear the (seriously cleared with about 1mm clearence) jiggs, (so make it a bit higher than 80cm.)

More to come.

Well i think i did this before i removed the engine but i only just rememeberd it. I found info on this part scarce as well. I actually ordered new rubbers with the chrome trim from west coast metric, fast shipping from the US by fedEx so its trackable, and fairly good prices.

So thats the back window (I didnt take pics of the front or the side woops but its all the same)

MY father had this super duper tool to cut rubber, it cut the rubber and didnt scratch the glass. As i didnt need to keep the seals i just cut parralell to the glass and after a few cuts the rubber came out and the glass was removable, i would suggest having two people here as you dont really want to smash the glass (its been 40 years and it doesnt even have a chip).

Front window out

Side window out.

Now for the headlining removal i took a video explaining what i did and what i found, as again i couldnt see to much of this documented.

And thats it really for this post

Thats behind the seat removal

Now as a big surprise to me the flooring in the beetle was still stock, And if you have never seen what VW used to noise deaden take a long look.

It is a Tar with Styrofoam noise deadening thing that is glued or tarred to the pan, Now i gotta admit this stuff has done its job stopping any major rust, but through out the years water has gotten under it and just created surface rust.

This stuff is a bitch to remove as you can see i have a chisel and a hammer and spent 4 hours or so removing every bit of this stuff from the drivers side.

You can see the surface rust but the pan is still basically stock black coated…. but wait whats that near the battery …

Oh man thats a hole in the floor, i was like ahh crap does that mean a whole new floor pan, but luckily for me father is a boiler maker welder and just said ahh that’s just the battery acid eating through the floor after a bit of cleaning up we could see its only the hole the rest is solid.

My superior lamp and many tools that are really useful.

The next day i went out and bought a Air powered chissel this reduced the time it took to remove this stuff from 6 hours to a little over one hour.. and i really enjoyed that part

Filled this bucket up several times

Over all the pan is in great health, will get back to the hole patching later