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Post by Volktales on Feb 22, 2016 19:13:05 GMT -8
These heater boxes were universal fit aftermarket. The part that was hanging up was the remains of an extra lever cut off long ago. The original 1200 cc engine, this car would have come with, would have had physically smaller heater boxes as well. Also the earlier VWs had slightly smaller engine compartments anyway, and fitting later engines in is always a bit tighter. Getting close to "fire-up" time...
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Post by Volktales on Feb 27, 2016 21:06:14 GMT -8
Ok, the pace has slowed down considerably once back to work. Crawling around in the attic to install a new bathroom fan did not help either... But work was accomplished and the project continuing...
The shift coupler in the car was a nasty blob of goo and was bent. I thought I would clean it up to take a better look. It turned out to be a genuine VW version and was very solid. I straightened the bent metal and was able to reuse the rubber/plastic parts as well. New replacements are often extremely poorly made and flimsy, so I was happy to reuse this part.
Back in the location, it is surprisingly fiddly to re-install this simple part. Note the sludge in the bottom of the central tunnel. The old trans was happily chucking oil into that cavity for years along with helpings of dust. The result is the best rust proof going, and I did not disturb it at all.
Next up was to think of a way to connect the heater boxes to the original plastic "rippled" tubes, that connect to the body itself. Originally the tubes fit over the stub on the heater boxes. The replacement heater boxes have a larger outlet that is exactly the same size as the end of the tube. I decided to take at look at Canadian tire and found the above exhaust pipe joiners. The 2 1/2" version was a perfect fit over the ends of both the heater box and the heater tube. So I cut one in half and gave it a go.
It worked great. It fit tight enough that no clamps were required, just like the original.
Continued...
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Post by Volktales on Feb 27, 2016 21:29:03 GMT -8
After all this time, it sure felt good to bolt the wheel and tire back on! Even put air in them too!
Carbs are on, it is coming together. Still have to tackle the fresh air tubes, fuel lines underneath, and do something with the wiring harness. Also had to replace the throttle lever at the pedal cluster with the original item, as it was modified and allowed full throttle to be attained.
Here is the secret weapon for doing the wiring. I borrowed my bosses' genuine VW wire crimping tool. I you have the correct size wire, and correct terminal, then this thing produces beautiful "factory type" wire crimps. Another pet peeve of mine is those ALWFUL looking red, blue, and yellow wire crimp terminals that you see on many VWs. Not for me! I also made extensive use of those looong shrink tubes you can buy to use as wiring sheathing. Looks factory-ish if done carefully...
And there we go, basically finished. Would it start??? Well the night before I checked to make sure it would crank and it did fine. That 1000 CCA battery had no problem spinning it over with gusto. The oil pressure light went out quickly which was nice. I squirted a little bit of flammable brake clean into the carbs and it fired. Later once the fuel lines were all hooked up, I cranked it again to verify fuel was being pumped up to the carbs. And then the time came to try it for real... It started almost instantly but backfired through the carbs and stalled. Advancing the timing and trying again allowed it to run a bit longer, with less backfires. One more time moving the distributor a bit and it roared into life and sounded great! Obviously running it in the basement without any exhaust hose for awhile would not be a good idea, so the fun had to stop. I have to move a few things before the car can leave the basement, so cannot make the needed adjustments just yet. Before it returns to the road, I still have to do a few more things like: replace the steering box, get creative with a repair for the hand brake lever mounting, convert the wipers to 12 volts, and also get creative with gaining a working radio. In the future I would like to upgrade to disc front brakes, but the CSP kit is currently over $2000! Probably won't be buying that any time soon, if ever...
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Post by mitchy965 on Feb 27, 2016 21:48:03 GMT -8
kadrons and vacuum advance.......yeah baby!!
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Post by CrazyBrit on Feb 28, 2016 9:33:35 GMT -8
Looks awesome Russ. I really want to hear that Vintage Speed exhaust system and hear how it performs. It might be the future for my non-stock motor, once I save some pennies....
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Post by Brenticon on Feb 28, 2016 9:48:38 GMT -8
^^^^^^^^^^^ What he said
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Post by Wongai on Feb 29, 2016 6:49:12 GMT -8
Looks Fricken Sweet!
Love the wheels. Can't wait to see that hit the road. b
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Post by Volktales on Mar 2, 2016 22:02:16 GMT -8
Lots of stuff going on this week with the house, less so with the Ghia. But I did accomplish this... One of the jobs that needed to be done before the car is driven is repairing the hand brake. Or more precisely trying to find a way to repair the welded flanges on the chassis tunnel where the hand brake attaches too.
Here is the welded flanges that hold the through pin, that attaches the handbrake lever to the chassis. See how the back "hole" closest to the driver's seat is worn?
With the pin in place it is easy to see how worn out the hole is. Just another indicator the Ghia has travelled intergalactic distances in the past. This wear would not allow the handbrake to work properly, as the ratchet mechanism could not be engaged enough. The problem is what to do about it. The proper solution would be to weld up and re-drill the hole. This would require to disassemble the interior, and this is not an option for me at this time. But there are other ways to deal with it...
I wish I could take credit for this idea, but it was actually designed by my friend Brian who repaired his own '72 Ghia the same way. This is a piece of stainless steel that he had already cut to shape and gave to me years ago. I had forgotten all about it until I found it under the seat...
And here is how the repair piece fits in place. The back edge rests against the rear of the flange, and sits on a small ledge. Once the pin is in place, the repair piece cannot move. The new "hole" now supports the pin properly.
You do have to grind some material off the handbrake itself to allow this repair piece to fit. As this surface was already damaged anyway, I had no problem making this modification. I do have an original spare handle when the time comes to do a proper repair someday... Don will like this picture of my ancient vise with the moveable jaw in the released position which will allow it to clamp uneven shapes. That vise came from my Grandpa and I am sure it belonged to his dad before...
Everything was test fit later, and worked perfectly well. This is technically a temporary fix, but might remain like this for some time...
The original pin on the right is completely worn out at the groove. The replacement on the left is better, but is worn too. I will find a better one...
Here is the handle stripped and ready for paint.
MMM, fresh paint!
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Post by CrazyBrit on Mar 2, 2016 23:17:05 GMT -8
How did you get the paint to stick to the handbrake and not the stool? ;-)
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Post by Volktales on Mar 3, 2016 8:23:33 GMT -8
Trade secrets...
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Post by Volktales on Mar 7, 2016 20:36:44 GMT -8
Continuing on... Time for some electrical fun.
I really don't like it when electrical items don't work correctly. And on old VWs, this seems to be a common theme. For example the windshield wipers can be especially problematic. On my car the wipers were originally powered by six volts. All VWs up to 1966 were still powered by the old six volt batteries, even after most other manufactures switched to 12 volts in the previous decade. Today few VWs still run their original six volt systems, and for good reason. When the cars were new, six volts was adequate. As the years passed by, 6 volt systems just don't have the "pressure" that 12 volt systems do and are much more susceptible to resistance problems and voltage drops. Anyway most cars have been converted at some time and mine was no exception. Usually when this is done, all 6 volt electrical items are swapped out for 12. The windshield wiper motor is a common exception, and usually some form of voltage reducer is used to power the original 6 volt motor. Mine was done this way with a very hokey looking device that I wanted to get rid of. Also my wipers would not self-park and would stop immediately when the switch was shut off. This irritated me so needed to be repaired as well. Little did I know how difficult this problem would be to overcome...
The first thing to do was to remove the wiper motor and transmission assembly from the car. This was straightforward. Note that this motor is built by SWF. This was one of two main suppliers to VW throughout the air-cooled area. The other was Bosch of course. SWF motors seem a bit more common and this is a good thing. Why? Because you can by a new armature assembly for this motor which will automatically turn it into a 12 volt version! I have had one of these armatures "in stock" for quite awhile, so it was time to try it out... Removing the outer cover allows you to see the inner workings. The brush holders are easily removed and the armature simply lifts straight out past the permanent magnets.
The new armature is on the left. Note the original 6 volt armature on the right has more windings and heavier wire. This is normal for all six volt components. You don't want to try to run those 6 volt motors on 12 volts directly however...
Because if you do, the above is the result. This armature is from a motor in one of my '59 Beetle rustbuckets. That car has not ran in well over 30 years, but the wiper motor still contains a burnt smell...
Anyway back to the conversion. Grease up the peg the armature sits on with fresh grease. The bottom of the armature shaft has small gear teeth ground into it. It just pushes into place easily by wiggling it a bit.
And there it is. Easy so far.
The brush holders are reinstalled and adjusted. The holder retainers have slotted holes where they attach to the magnets. You hold the curved brushes against the armature with the holders loose, then tighten the screws while squeezing the brushes gently.
Reinstall that tension spring, and note that there MUST be an insulator on one end. That is all there is to the 12 volt conversion. Just remember to remove the Mickey Mouse voltage reducer from the car and wiring the motor up to its original proper power source at the fuse box.
Continued...
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Post by Volktales on Mar 7, 2016 21:15:17 GMT -8
Sooooo, the 12 volt conversion was easy. What about the lack of self parking??? When this car was first bought by Chuck, the previous owner, he intended on restoring the car to original including 6 volts and 1200cc engine. Amazingly the car still was 6 volts then, and still contained a 1964 1200cc engine too. I did some work for him back then, including working on the wiper motor. I had vague recollections that something was broken in the park mechanism, but Chuck didn't care as long as the wipers worked. So that was left alone back then.... Many things changed since then, including going for a larger engine, and converting to 12 volts in the "Chuck" era. More on that later...
The Ghia's wiper motor is on the left, the burnt up '59 Beetle one on the right. The pictures show the little brass contact arms which control the parking mechanisms. You can see the Ghia is completely missing one of the contact arms... Fortunately I was able to carefully remove the necessary parts from the '59 motor and transfer them into the '64 Ghia motor. Easy to say, not that much fun to do... Also note the assemblies have different wire mounting terminals on them, so a swapping of the complete units was not practical. VW changed from the screw terminal to the much simpler spade connector in 1962?
Here is a close-up of the contacts installed in the Ghia motor. I used small brass nuts and bolts to replace the rivets holding the contact together. The tiny contact arms required tweaking to get them into the correct operating range. This was tedious as you might expect... The thing to understand about this system is that the motor only really needs one wire connected to run, the one closest to the right in the picture. The other two wire connections are for the park circuit only. If you look carefully, you will note the contacts to the left are connected in such a way that will allow power to continue to the motor even when the switch is first shut off. This allows the wiper motor to continue running after the dash switch is shut off until the "park" position is reached.
Once the motor runs until the "park" position is reached, the little pin barely visible pushes up against the contact arm and effectively reverses the current flow in the circuit. This is important to understand because the current reversal acts as an "electrical brake". If the power was only cut off, the momentum of the electric motor is enough to go past the "park" position and re-apply more power to the motor. The effect is the wiper motor momentarily slows down but then accelerates when power is re-applied. So the damn wipers won't shut off!!! The electric motor MUST be momentarily fed reverse current to stop it completely...
Which leads to this issue... This is the wiper motor switch. Looks innocent doesn't it. This little bugger also was faulty in how it is grounded. Originally the switch body itself grounds out against the back of the dashboard when it was installed at the factory. Over the years corrosion can affect this grounding method. The result is that the wiper motor looses its ability to switch the current direction and the "electric braking" effect is lost. Many just disconnect wires to the motor to get around this problem... Later on the factory realized this method of grounding was inadequate, and provided the wiper switch with a dedicated ground wire. I decided to ad one to this switch, as often the rivet that connects the internal switch ground terminal, to the switch housing fails. This bypasses the switch body completely, and FINALLY allowed the wiper motor to work as intended...
Lots of effort went into this, but was finally happy with the end result... Will eventually find a suitable microswitch, and convert the windshield washer button to electric operation, but that will wait for another time...
More to come...
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Post by Volktales on Mar 7, 2016 21:47:14 GMT -8
So with the wipers finally repaired, it was time to move on to something more fun. What to do about the radio???
The Sapphire 1 built by Bendix was by far the most common radio found in sixties VWs. This American made radio was dealer installed like all VW radios at the time. The same radio was used on both Beetles and Ghias, but the Ghia faceplate and knobs are different.
This radio is in decent cosmetic shape, so why replace it??? Because A): It doesn't work. B): It is 6 volts, so never will work in this car anymore. C): AM radio sucks. So what to do about it? You could find yourself a vintage Bendix or Blaupunkt AM/FM radio, but they will cost big $$$. You could also by yourself a Retrosound radio from CIP. But they are expensive and look a bit cheesy with their non-retro digital displays. Or you could do what I did, and make a free '70's era aftermarket Japanese radio look older then it really is...
But first you have to find a suitable speaker. My long suffering '70 Beetle coughed up a suitable candidate, that despite appearances worked just fine. I replaced the rotted foamy dampening material with some cork cut from an old valve cover gasket. Would this ancient German Blaupunkt speaker work with a generic Japanese radio? Damn rights it would!
After MUCH screwing around with faceplates, here is the result. Not totally retro, but close enough for me. Works perfectly too. In case you have not figured it out by now, these electrical repairs cost a lot of my time but absolutely NO money! So I am happy with the results...
I did take the radio partially apart to paint the indicator needle ivory over the original fluorescent yellow! And as you might expect, nothing was modified to the dashboard in any way. Someday the original radio could be reinstated if necessary, but I really don't see that happening any time soon... I also fixed the instrument lights as well It seems two of them were still 6 volts and one of them was still working and extra bright!
So why am I doing all this stuff that some may find relatively unimportant? Because I want to have all the things done that were bugging me when driving the car before. And once the car is back on the road, I may not find the time to fix this stuff properly. There is still a lot of things to do, but many of them will be saved for the next time I want a "project" Look forward to driving it again soon...
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Post by PICTUP on Mar 7, 2016 23:03:02 GMT -8
That radio looks great Russ! If my wipers ever need attention you'll be getting a call You are that much closer to having the Ghia on the road, must feel good!
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Post by Wongai on Mar 9, 2016 7:55:45 GMT -8
Looks awesome man. Thanks again for sharing your project and knowledge with us. I had no idea how those wipers worked. My 61 bug is still 6 volt, so I might have some issues moving forward. We will see.
Thanks bro! B
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