Engine – Page 3 – VW Semi Auto 1968 rebuild.

Another beetle? Autostick issues?

Well i guess the VW bug has bitten me, And i saw another Automatic stick shift beetle on ebay and grabbed it for $750. Good body, its a 70’s model with early 60’s guards. The story of getting it is pretty funny, I went to pick it up and the guy comes out telling me it doesn’t have a battery.. so off i go and grab a battery (even though a battery was there the day before), come back get in start her up and oh its out of petrol… Man i couldn’t believe it so off i went and got petrol. So finally I’m on my way chugging along at a nice 50kph when bang the front left tire came off, turns out that all the bolts on all the wheels were undone, luckily enough i had the right socket with me and did it up and brought the new beetle home.

The motor a bit of a mess (i took the oil cooler off), the automatic choke and cutoff solenoid were unplugged as well as a few of the autostick pipes were falling apart. So slowly getting her back to what she should be. Changed the oil that was disgusting piles of silt on the sump plate and when i touched the oil i could feel the dirt in it (yuck).

Just a picture showing the paint work, i get the feeling that the paint work was one of those rattle can jobs but it looks bloody good.

The brakes felt like they had air in them and after about 30 minutes of shouting “stop” “pump” to my girlfriend we had the air out (thanks to the back right drum), i continued on around the car getting any and all air out and any crap that was in the lines too (a lot of crap the fluid was black on some and white on others :S) {P.S look at how bald those tires are, will need some new ones}

Had finished doing the back left wheel getting the air out when the actual nozzle snapped leaving part of it in the brake, luckily for me it is broken off in the closed position and isn’t leaking brake fluid, i will need to take this somewhere to get fixed at some point. (yeah please forgive my car on bricks and wood the actual axel stands are up with my other beetle.)

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Just me firing through the gears while she is on blocks. What am i going to do with it i don’t know yet. Was originally for parts btu shes in such good condition its a shame.

The best way to clean parts (just dont tell the misses)

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.