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Post by Volktales on Jan 2, 2021 18:06:15 GMT -8
I made some inquiries at the time to my local ICBC agents, who flat out told me it the owner was dead, and the car had not been transferred to anyone else, then basically good luck at getting the proper registration. They did look up the status of the car on their computer, which revealed the files had been purged from the system in 1982. Not knowing what to do, I left it at that and figured I would find some other way or maybe things would change in the future... In the meantime, I had gotten rid of the remains of the second parts car and started fitting up some of the other parts. The hood went on first, and revealed just how distorted the rest of the front end actually was... Looked "good -ish" from this angle, but why is that front end seem to stick up so high??? More Hmm... It might look I am ready to go cruising in this shot, but in reality that engine was still seized up nice and solid. The front end damage was quite bad and initially I figured the way forward was new fenders, and a complete new front clip. I actually ordered a new reproduction clip from Peter at Bow-Wow, and he told me that if the quality was not good enough, I would not have to buy it. For those that never met him, Peter really was a great guy! Sure enough, the repro panel was very poor quality, and I had to think up some kind of plan B. Into the depths of the old nasty garage the car would disappear as other things in life took over for awhile... Little things like dating, marriage, and my kid kinda slowed down progress, as well as things like my orange bus and the never-ending Cougar project that took up all the space in my basement garage... Something interesting about the above photo from 2002. Note the expired plate on my old '70 Beetle, permanently retired by this stage. This plate is still in use on the $100 Acura (which is a 2002!) So what happened next???
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Post by Volktales on Jan 11, 2021 21:43:32 GMT -8
Sooo, two years later it is now 2004. The orange Restfalia is up and running, the Cougar is complete and sharing the tiny old garage with the bus (veeery tight squeeze). So back onto the '66 project again! By this time a decision had been made. The car made a trip to Little Valley Restoration where it was attached to an alignment rack to deal with the bashed front-end. I temporarily fitted the nice original fenders from the first '66 to act as a "guide" to how far to pull out the bend front end. The NOS rear fenders from the other car were temporarily fitted as well. I also requested that the nice outer front apron from the rotten parts car be spot welded in place too (I had previously prepared this panel). In the end, the job went very well and the damage pretty much disappeared. Even the bent front quarters popped back into place without any further work required. The replacement hood and apron fit very well, and it was hard to tell it had ever been damaged. Very happy I was, and if I remember right, it cost less then $500 for this work... That decklid with the funky fluorescent green paint was not the original to the car due to earlier accident damage in the back. For a time I considered swiping the nice fenders off the first '66, but was able to resist. I am sure Rob is happy with that decision. In the end the cars original rear fenders (bashed, but not rusty) were repaired, and the fronts were reproductions that fit surprisingly well... Later the decklid was replaced with the one from the parts car, due solely to the fact Dad didn't want to clean off the undercoat on the bottom side of the green decklid... Also note the original rims that were bought new by the previous owner for my first '66. They were swapped with Reagh years ago for some sweet Hazet tools that I still use today... So here is an example how your loses memories with age. I had COMPLETELY forgotten that for a brief period in 2004, I installed the engine out of my first '66 into this car. I did drive the car unfinished like this for a couple of months, but not often. This was because it was so damn unreliable to start with the crummy six volt system. And this now explains why there was a six volt generator on this engine when Rob bought the first '66 from me 16 years later... I remember now that I wanted to drive the car for testing out the transmission and other functions, before rebuilding the car's original numbers matching engine. More on this later... I actually was starting to refit the interior before body work. The inside paint was good and was not redone. Floors had already been repainted properly, and despite being flooded for who knows how long, there was only some surface rust. It appears the previous owner to me poured diesel all over the floorboards in the car for protection, and it actually worked great. The remains of the carpets were mush however... My three year old kid and friends seemed to have approved at the time... Now it is November of 2004 and the car is freshly painted, and assembled barely enough for the trip back home to my house (it was painted at Dads). Victor was a smiley kid back then. Too bad he used it all up in his early days... Dad and my friend Terry inspect the final job. Too bad I didn't take any pictures of the painting in progress... Car needed very little welding to be solid. This was certainly a bonus, and the reason why I saved this "parts car in the first place. So what happened next???
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Post by Volktales on Jan 13, 2021 21:12:40 GMT -8
Sooo, before continuing with the restoration, lets learn a bit about the car's history... First up is something you almost NEVER get with an old VW... Yes, believe it or not, the original sales document was still in the glovebox! Sold new in Victoria by Speedway Motors of course. To a Denis Morneau of 4740 Rose Hill Road, Victoria. Check out his phone number on the document. August 18th 1966 really was an earlier time. Price was a whopping $2188 plus one option of a $90 radio plus the usual taxes and license fees. Denis slapped down $500 in cash which must have been a hefty sum at the time and financed the rest... It would be interesting to know what he did, as it took him only one week after purchase to redeem his one free first oil change at 564 miles. He must not have liked dealer service, as the next oil change was only two months later after driving a further 4665 miles!!! The original owners manual and service booklet survived with the car as well as this one early bill below. I do not have records of when Denis sold the car, but somehow it made its way to Tsawwassen by the early '70's. The following two photos show what transpired next... On October 10th 1973, Hanitjo Soebagio purchased the Beetle as a gift for his oldest daughter, Joyce, and brought it back to Victoria once again. It would have been interesting to know if the car was still original by then, or if it had already been painted candy green. Regardless, the car's time with Joyce was relatively short. Sometime prior to the inspection sticker expiring in 1975, the Beetle's life on the road ended due to the front end collision. I assume Joyce and her father expected to fix it back up someday, but this did not happen. The car was still sitting around when unfortunately Joyce passed away in 1993 according to that earlier mentioned death certificate. The car was never re-registered, and that is why no paperwork came with it. I guess the desire to restore it someday was gone and eventually the car ended up in that Mill Bay storage compound where I "discovered" it... This was not quite the end of the story however... Continued...
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Post by Volktales on Jan 13, 2021 21:45:14 GMT -8
I had all this same information at my fingertips when I bought the car and found out a bit more when I purchased my first computer (and the internet) in 2000. By that time I had learned more about how to potentially get that registration paperwork that was missing. It involved several steps, but one of them was to send a request to the last known owner at their last known address, and basically ask them to sign over the car documents to me. Well the last known (likely) owner was dead, but internet research revealed that the Dad (Hanitjo) still was living in the family home. As much as I wanted to talk to him, I was worried that maybe he might demand the car back, as I really did not know the details of why it left the family after owning it for 24 years. So I waited. I guessed that he wasn't a young man and if I was patient enough, the day would come that he no longer lived in that house. Every year I rechecked to see if he was still listed as living there, and it took 20 years(!) of waiting until he passed on. Too bad I forgot he had a wife, and she was still living in that house!!!
Mr. Soebagio's obituary was very interesting, actually. Turns out he had a fascinating history and was born in Holland, and his mom was Dutch middle class, but his father was from Java and descended from Indonesian nobility! He even had a title of "Raden Mas" with roughly means "prince". Imagine that, a prince once owned my VW! Anyway the other thing interesting about Han (as he was known), is that he eventually ended up in Toronto with his family, and later decided Victoria was a better place to move to due to better weather. What is cool is his obituary clearly states in February of 1963 he loaded up his family in his VW bug and headed out West to find his fortune! He was successful in the insurance business too, and sounds like he was a very well liked individual who always loved helping others. Kinda wished I could have talked to him afterall...
So back to the car. It was not until 2020, that I finally decided it was time to go for that damn registration. Han's wife Elizabeth still was listed as living at the same address, but I just could not wait any longer. I enlisted the help of a specialist broker who deals in getting registrations done for vintage cars (much more on this later). He dealt with the necessary registered letter that would be sent to the last known owner and last known address according to ICBC. Not surprisingly, the last known owner was the long deceased daughter. But the address was not the family home after-all, but a different address in Vancouver that no longer exists. I spent the last 23 years stewing about NOTHING! Had my official registration paperwork in a matter of days and finally the Beetle was officially MINE!
Because the system did eventually work, I decided to try the same procedure on my Savannah Beige 1970 Beetle. That one is not going as well, but am slowly getting there. At least I only have owned THAT car for a piddling ten years...
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Post by Volktales on Jan 18, 2021 22:45:48 GMT -8
Sooo, what happened next to the old '66? Once completed it did not take very long for the first adventure to occur. Instead of writing out what happened again have a look at this... My friend hot-rod friend Terry that has been mentioned here before produces two car magazines, and this is a very early example of the first. He was trying out different things then before finalizing the look of the magazine. In these early issues I even did a column for him for awhile and it was kind of fun. Now read on about the maiden voyage of the '66... Fun, eh? After this was written I came up with a different possible scenario about what happened. The original engine was in VERY poor condition with lots of corrosion externally and internally on the case. After trying different methods that didn't work, I resorted to bead blasting and this turned out to be a poor idea. I think at that time I had not even discovered TheSamba forums yet, and did not know the dangers. Of course I did clean the case well after the blasting, but possibly not well enough. I assume that some glass bead was caught in the oil gallery, and at the right time popped out and said hello to the main bearing and locked it up. I never did find any sign of bead residue however, so who knows? The broken original engine is sitting under my bench in pieces to this day...
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Post by Volktales on Dec 5, 2021 20:39:07 GMT -8
Sooo, here is a small update on this "project". I have not actually driven this car since our last show at Bavarian in 2019. And that was the only time it actually went anywhere that year. Those of you with long memories, will remember I installed what turned out to be a tired 1500 in place of my favourite 1600 single port with a cracked oil gallery. The 1500 was dirt cheap and ran just fine, but had very low compression, a noisy valvetrain, and low performance. And ongoing 6 volt related starting issues meant I didn't want to drive it anyway. So it sat, and sat some more... And there is the 1600 with the cracked case. This was the original engine out of my first car (the green '70 Beetle), and the first VW engine I ever rebuilt. And this was around 1990 when you still could get all German parts for the rebuild, which naturally is what I used. It ran very sweetly, better in fact then most of my other VWs over the years. It hurt to take it out of service, with what may be a fatal oil leak... The crack is at the oil pressure sender port, along the visible casting line. After talking about it for years, it is currently on its way to Kent Washington, (with Don), being delivered to Jerry at Northwest Connecting Rod. Don and I have visited Jerry in the past, and were VERY impressed with his knowledge and machinery at his disposal. He is the air-cooled guru of that area and has done work for both Don and myself in the past. He also is an amazing welder, and if anyone can save my beloved 1600, it is him. Hopefully it will prove to be possible... If successful, this engine will be re-installed in the '66 once again, and a full 12 volt conversion will be done to end the starting problems once and for all!!! You have no idea how much I hope this will work out...
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Post by Rob Sannes on Dec 8, 2021 19:00:32 GMT -8
I had Jerry weld the case of my 2017cc in my oval. I cracked the case over tightening the full flow return fitting. If I remember correctly he has fill rod made from the same alloy as the cases. A few different types. It has been a flawless repair for me.
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Post by Volktales on Dec 8, 2021 20:40:36 GMT -8
Hey, who is this Rob S guy? Glad to see you are still around. Apparently the engine has already been repaired, and Don has it sitting in the back of the FJ! Don managed to take pictures of the repair in action, too, and I can't wait to see how it was done!
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Post by 1hotvw on Dec 8, 2021 22:19:41 GMT -8
sooo whats Don buying down south.
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Post by Volktales on Dec 8, 2021 23:24:36 GMT -8
sooo whats Don buying down south. He is going to have to admit to something...
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Post by PICTUP on Dec 9, 2021 11:56:56 GMT -8
sooo whats Don buying down south. He is going to have to admit to something... No I don't! Ha-ha! I will post the repair pics here, but as to the other stuff I did down there, well, we'll see..... Not much VW related so I don't know if there would be much interest. I did however do some VW "horse-trading" with a plan to the future....
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Post by PICTUP on Dec 9, 2021 19:38:44 GMT -8
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Post by PICTUP on Dec 9, 2021 19:57:43 GMT -8
Since Russ didn't want to split the case or remove the cylinders and pistons, Jerry had to go on a search and find his long drill bits to get around the heads Gonna work up in size a bit at a time from here Occasional clean Now comes the pipe thread tap. Jerry's rule of thumb is the tap should go in to the point where 4 threads are showing on the tap The technique is to put the air nozzle in all the way so that the majority of shavings blow back thru the hole around the nozzle Now test fit the plug Once test fit, ie it goes in far enough, some red loctite is applied and it is put in place. Since these are not pipe threads, one need not worry about overtightening, unless one goes well past where threads were cut. Ready to get the sender... Sender installed, but not too tight So there you have it, I hope it doesn't leak!
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Post by Volktales on Dec 9, 2021 20:20:03 GMT -8
Cool! Very glad it was savable!!! And thanks to Don for making this possible!
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Post by Volktales on Sept 25, 2022 21:25:31 GMT -8
Sooo, a little update is in order... No, I have not been out cruising around in the '66. BUT I did have it outside and running again for the first time since the last Bavarian show in 2019. It is my intention to work on this car at some stage during this winter. And what will we be doing??? Yanking out that tired 1500, and putting my beloved 1600 single port back where it belongs... And we won't be suffering with crappy six volt electrics anymore. Have pretty much everything I need "in stock" to do the 12 volt conversion down to another radio, and even 12 volt components to make the gas heater function again. From lack of use, the brakes are binding as well and will need some attention. But this is all going to be done, as I need something to take to the Seattle show next year, and this car will be the one... The reason it was outside was to take the necessary pictures to finally apply for collector plates for this car. And ICBC wants LOTS of pictures nowadays... Oh well... Looking forward to spending some time on this car once again...
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