This was my 3rd car. It is a 1975 Volkswagon Beetle. The body itself rolled off the assembly line somewhere in Mexico in November of 1974, although the tag in the trunk leads me to believe that it may be a German bug, any ideas? The previus owner said it was built from good out of 7 bad Bug's. I drove it home, although the brakes didn't feel like they had any fluid what so ever, the e-brake got some use. (I fixed the problem, bad rear brake cylinders) It also wouldn't idle worth crap. The body itself is good, although like most of the old VW's, it needs new floor pans, but even those are not rusted all that bad. I went ahead and painted them with por 15. I probably got ripped a new one for the price I paid for it. But it has treated me well, after I swapped engines(read below).
The body was said to have been painted in the 90's. The color is Kenworth Blue. It has 2 1/2% tint windows. I recently got pulled over for it!
(ps. it's obviusly not liquid cooled!)
I had a visor on it, but it blew off on the way back from the Rose City Bug In at PIR. I already have another one, I just have to finish prepping it, I also have to fix the holes from when the last owner installed the old one.
Here is what I got for the engine before I pulled it and found it was not even worth rebuilding.
1. Cone filter
2. ceramic paint on intake manifold
3. new oil pressure sensor
4. new alt. belt
5. new manifold gaskets and rubber connecters
6. Empi exhaust
7. new Bosch platnum spark plugs
8. new spark plug cables
9. new ignition points
10. new cap and rotor
11. fresh oil and cleaned the strainer.
12. Massive cleaning
I also purchased a single 2 barrel weber and manifold as well as EMPI - J tubes from Averies but never installed them on this engine.
before \/ (sorry it's so dark, it was in the garage)
After \/
I did some body work, shaved the rear bumper altogether. I could have done a little better but I am new to the body work. I had some help on the Roadrunner's hood! I also cleaned up the damage on the rear apron. The paint doesn't match perfectly, but it is close enough for now. I plan to replace the rear fenders with fiberglass ones eventually, I will worry about matching the paint correctly then. It still looks alot better than it did!
/\ This is a pic of the hood hinge spacers from EMPI. They cost around $7.99 and help keep the are flowing to that air cooled engine.
These are some pics of the engine as I took it apart, in my bedroom. (It was a clean process!)
This is the 1500 single port from my moms car in high school, It has never been opened up, all original 1967, until I got to some bolt-ons. It has all the stuff above as well as:
13. carb rebuild
14. heater block off plates
15. stainless steel breather filter
16. CB performance high performance oil pump and oil filter kit
17. billet fuel filter.
18. brand new Bosch alternator
19. new fuel pump
20. EMPI quick shift kit
21. EMPI shift knob
That shift plate took a lot of blood sweat and tears to hand make on a milling machine. It is made of stainless steel and is installed in the mach-up for center console. The switch panel is wired up to the fog light,
That tacometer is temperary, as for a few others. I made the stainless steel gauge panel on a plasma cutter by computer. It took a lot of measuring!
I believe they were from EMPI, the window cranks, that is.
I still want to get a 1776 and use my weber! I already had to rebuild the stock carb though, I swear it is this damn e-10 gas. NO ETHENOL IN NORMAL FUELS!!! Keep E-85 if you want but keep the crap out of my gas!
