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Post by Volktales on Apr 26, 2015 18:11:27 GMT -8
Don and I took a little drive out to Chapters today in the Fastback. Lucy the dog fell asleep in the back so I guess she approved. We hit 70 mph with ease and the car felt fine on the highway. We will need new tires eventually, and when the time comes, they will be era correct whitewalls of course! Still have to remove the generator and replace the brush holder springs before we go too far...
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Post by Volktales on May 9, 2015 20:50:45 GMT -8
Well I have been driving the Fastback daily for two weeks now. Still have not fixed the generator brush springs yet, but the car has not missed a beat. Despite its somewhat shabby condition, it has been generating a lot of smiles and thumbs up from other road users. I have to admit I am enjoying every minute of driving it, and unsurprisingly I have been neglecting the Ghia as of late. I need to focus more on specific projects instead of jumping around. It is hard to do that when you are a serial rescuer of vintage VWs and cannot say no to strays that follow you home. And it continues to happen...........
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Post by PICTUP on May 14, 2015 21:26:59 GMT -8
The dash in the Fasty is rather cracked. Russ and Reagh came up with one that wasn't so cracked, but it still was and unfortunately along the RHS of the speaker perforations. There was actual material missing between the holes so I had to use some sort of black glue with filler, and preferably one that is flexible when cured. Lately I have been using a bunch of Sikaflex 291 and being able to adhere to most things but flexible when cured seemed to fit the bill. I had no idea of whether or not this would work, but I thought I'd give it a go. Here is the dash with the break cleaned/dried and taped off Thought these finish nails, coated in silicone might work to keep the holes open as the Sikaflex cannot be drilled once set and I don't have a punch that could be used. Open up the crack and get some goop in there Insert the nails after it is smoothed off Had to weight it to get the proper shape Had to twist the nails to break any bond they had to the Sika Cut off any excess Not bad… Had a couple more cracks to repair before spot cleaning and protecting so will show final product later…
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Post by mitchy965 on May 14, 2015 21:30:39 GMT -8
Brilliant!!
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Post by Brenticon on May 14, 2015 21:58:59 GMT -8
Wow ...
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Post by Volktales on May 14, 2015 22:13:03 GMT -8
Much better then I could have done! Nice work!
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Post by busaddict on May 15, 2015 0:15:39 GMT -8
This reminds me of an interesting story. I was going through the basement of an old house with a friend of mine a while back. His mother had passed away and the family house was being cleaned out to be sold. His late father had been a mechanic and the basement was FULL of vintage car parts for everything from flathead Fords to Austins. He gave me a the only VW items that turned up, a few Beetle NOS wheel cylinder kits and a cool brochure for the '66 bus lineup (I should post that.) Anyway, amongst the family memories and automobile nostalgia my buddy turned to me and said, "let's play name that tool," as there were many lying around. He held up a rounded thing with a handle and pattern on one side. I couldn't guess what it was, it turned out to be a tool for repairing dashboards. The pattern dipped in paint, or something like that, would allow you to match the painted design on an old metal dash. I've heard dash repair can be one of the most tricky restoration tasks, especially with imitation wood on metal. The majority of the parts collection went to a business in California, a fellow came all the way up here with a trailer. The house even had a 1924 Mclaughlin-Buick under the deck waiting to be reunited with various parts in the basement, it went to a Canadian vintage car enthusiast who took it for free and simply paid the cost of moving it. Nice to see treasure find a good home.
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Post by Volktales on May 23, 2015 22:05:07 GMT -8
Well it was finally time to tackle the dreaded dash-pad and instrument repairs! I hated looking at that cracked up pad and rusty gauge bezels, everytime I drove the car. Don finished off the restoration of the replacement pad as show earlier, and I had the replacement bezels painted and ready to go. Removing the instruments on Type III's suck really bad! They are held in the dash holes by spring loaded clips on each side and are very difficult to get your hand on. The clock comes out easily, but the other two will remove time off your life when removing them. I even did some butchery, as the old dashpad was scrap anyway. I broke away the remains of the pad around the gauges, which gave me something to grab onto, and then they finally came out. Cleaning the gauges and transferring the new bezels over was a piece of cake in comparison...
Rip and tear.
Rusty bezel and cracked lens looked awful.
Much better. Different bezel set repainted, and new lens from a parts speedometer. Thanks to Reagh for these goodies.
Everything reinstalled. A much nicer place to be now. The replacement dash pad was from an earlier model and needed some modifications to allow the grab handle to fit properly. We saved the VIN number plate from the old pad, but won't install it on the new one as there is no spot for that on the earlier dash.
Had a good fiddle with the radio. The original radio would have been installed at the dealership, and a very poor job they did too. The installation was sloppy, misaligned, and they never even hooked up the dash light circuit. If it had been my brand new car, I would have been pissed off big time! The radio was never adjusted to the antenna either, and the ground source chosen was incorrect and poorly done. This has all been corrected now and the radio works much better...
The dash light circuit was very dead. The rheostat control on the headlight switch had self destructed and was not repairable. I rewired it to the parklight circuit and they now work fine but cannot be dimmed. This doesn't bother me at all and works just fine. Very happy with the way things worked out...
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Post by Brenticon on May 23, 2015 22:39:35 GMT -8
That's not the same car ! lol Looks as good in person as it does here
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Post by PICTUP on May 24, 2015 20:45:15 GMT -8
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Post by Brenticon on May 24, 2015 20:52:26 GMT -8
Well, it is a " daddy", isn't it? And that fast with three grown men and a dog ........... AMAZING!!! ........
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Post by Volktales on May 24, 2015 22:03:29 GMT -8
And no that was not 75 kilometers per hour!!! Ol' Leadfoot couldn't help himself as usual...
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Post by PICTUP on May 25, 2015 7:50:45 GMT -8
Apparently I am still trying to figure out how to operate a clutch though
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Post by Brenticon on May 25, 2015 8:45:58 GMT -8
It wasn't the clutch, it was the "short" shifter!
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Post by PICTUP on May 25, 2015 8:51:10 GMT -8
Am I going with that as my excuse, or my nervousness that I was treating Russ' car right( with him in the passenger seat )?
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