Shaka's Mild Refresh (aka Build thread) -- An old fatty!

[Shaka]

Original "Build" thread from Raf:
http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthrea...ir-cooled-n00b

Background:
This is my third air-cooled VW, but my first T3. After selling my 1970 Standard a few years ago to help afford our home and having a child, the time finally had come to get back into a 3rd car/toy. And while I started my search for a Bug, Raf's old SB came into my radar too. It was too hard to pass up, as it had always been one of my favorite ACVWs around. I've got a soft spot for Porsche wheels on a VW. Raf had sold it to Chris, who had it for not a very long time, but family planning forced him to sell too. Lucky me!

What is NOT going to change:
One of my favorite things about the car has always been the wheels and the stance. I'm not a huge fan of polished 7 slots (chrome/polish in general isn't my thing), but it just WORKS on this car. And the color, roof rack, and general style of the car are perfect. It is a good 10-foot car with some patina and some imperfections. The car is great to take to shows, even if not a full-on show car. And that is what I wanted -- something to take the wife/kid places and enjoy. So the overall image of the car will remain.

What is ON MY LIST to do:
At this point I've been taking care of small electrics and such: added a horn, replaced the non-working clock, fixing the brake warning light, adding a 12v windshield washer motor.... and also getting a rear belt in the car for the kid to enjoy cruising with us. Lots of small things have been happening to get the car where I want it, but it has a solid 1600 w/baby dels in it that runs solid, so not much needed in that department.

However, I do have some "modest" plans to update a few things here or there that will change the image of the car slightly, inside and out. I've got a surf board and wicker basket to attach to the roof rack. And inside, I've got some Scat lowback 1400-series seats going in. Have a local upholstery guy who is going to help me give it a "personal/vintage" look by doing tweed on some surfaces of the seats. Front and rear seats will be getting a tweed/vinyl feel, with the front and middle door card panels matched along with them. Nothing massive, just a personal touch ...

There had been some other threads about windows, but I've decided to keep the glass in the car (did get some rubber, currently in transit, to refresh the seals on the door/glass)... my one-piece glass plans have been scratched after lots of feedback here, etc. I had planned to try to retro-fit pop-outs too, but have scratched that idea as well (see classifieds under my name, hah!)

Conclusion:
Rolling down the street, the car will easily look much like it has, with no major changes. The interior work should be done sometime later this month or early next month. My goal is to have it done before June Jitterbug (Niagara Falls) at the latest. Beyond that I just can't wait to CRUISE!!

[Shaka]

So today my retractable front seat belts arrived. But before having a chance to install them, I was invited to dinner at my brother's house. Below is a photo from his driveway -- the first "real" drive the car has had since I bought it almost two weeks ago. Also the first time my wife and kid have been in the car.

Overall a good drive, but some back firing makes me wonder if the carbs are timed right. Have two people whom are local experts on dual carbs / ACVWs that I plan to solicit (at least one of them) for some help getting it sorted. But other than some fun poppin' noises the car drove like a champ.

We even stopped at the grocery on the way home, to which my wife commented something about my grocery-getter wagon ... haha!!

Here is a fun photo (thanks to Instagram) to enjoy ...

[Shaka]

Here is my first real official update, with photos even for some stuff, of the work I've been doing to the squareback since picking it up just under two weeks ago. Enjoy!


Picked up this pewter key chain from here on the samba classifieds. Also got proper keys from WW and had the local auto parts store take care of that. One does glove box, one does doors/trunk, and of course black one does ignition. Now I have two full sets of keys, just in case.


Upgraded the old seat belts to retractable. I had these in my 70 std Beetle and loved them. These are from CIP and were a little bit of a time consuming mess to install, but they are of very nice quality. Worthy of the price of admission IMO.


Of course the kid needs a place to sit, too. There were no rear belts so I bought one and slapped the car seat in place. My wife opted to use the LARGEST car seat we have because it is the safest. Funny part is that it sits so high the kid gets stadium style seating and can practically see over the high-backs LOL


These are low back 1400-series Scat seats, with sliders. Still waiting for the squareback specific Scat adapters to come in. Plan is to add some tweed to the interior too --- so these seats won't look really much like they do now. This is just a "of things to come" photo for the moment... plan to get this work done sometime in late May or early June hopefully. More on that at a future date...

Not pictured but planned is a Parrot MKi9200 bluetooth module. Yes, I realize what you are thinking but trust me, this makes sense. I'll stealth mouth some small speakers in the stock speaker grille, the remote can be mounted to the steering wheel, and the screen will be at the lowest spot of the A-pillar where it meets the dash. So you'll barely notice it. Cool part is that not only will this charge my iPhone, the MKi9200 has an amp so it can stand-alone play music too, with out a need for a headunit. This is more for the 4yr old kid / wife to enjoy than me really... the BT feature I may use, when it isn't too noisy. But the music, well.... a happy wife is a happy life... 8) .... I'll take more photos of this as it develops. Have a friend who spend 10+ years doing car stereo work, and he plans to help when he gets back from vacation in a few weeks ...


Picked this up locally on clearance for cheap. Also have a surfboard that I scored off eBay that will be mounted to the roof rack. More photos of that once the weather is good enough to properly clean the car and get it on! (Don't worry I got proper pads, cords, etc to mount it safe!)


Lilo & Stitch, anyone? Keeping with my surfer theme here I got this antenna ball topper. The kid thinks it rocks, and that is really what matters here!

Not pictured but forth-coming are new side-view mirrors. Apparently the mirrors on my car are from a 68-79 Beetle convertible. The OE mirrors didn't want to install (Something inside door was there that didn't allow the full length of the "threads" if you will. So I had to return to ISP the OE-style ones. The one I have on the driver-side matched up to the 68-79 vert, so I ordered a new set of those (DS one is blistering, so wanted new both sides). Car already has passenger threaded hole -- safety first!


One of my biggest projects has been this, the windshield washer system. After the vanagon pump wasn't powerful enough, I found a generic ANCO pump for cheap on Amazon.com that works great. Also on Amazon (gotta love being a Prime member) was a switch (see below). What you see here is the pump (top right corner -- wired, in the loom). Power goes back to fuse box (fused) with a ground-based switch (think horn style). Also visible here is the new wire for the horn I had to run, old wire had a break somewhere and easy to just run at same time as when I did windshield system. BTW, it sprays washer fluid now, like a champ!!


Since my brake warning light wasn't working right anyhow, I just removed it, capped off the old wires, and used that hole for the momentary switch shown here in its place. I had to use a washer due to the hole being larger than needed for my switch -- might paint that washer or make something nicer in the future -- for now this was all I had laying around. It works good!! Also note the new clock, OE but the old one had given up the ghost -- this was a Samba classifieds find -- w00t!


Since I had mentioned it, here is the horn. Less than $10 at the local auto parts store, does the job nicely. Was going to do air horns -- but my project here is a VERY budget oriented one... so the wife was really happy to hear that it was something I fixed on my own and for less than $10 (well, maybe $11-12 if you include wires/crimps haha).


When I first got the car my drive home ended up later than I wanted and in the dark. One thing I noted, the stock lights suck. So I ordered up these H4 bulb-holding style headlight housings from Airkewld. And then I snagged a set of [ur=http://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/detail.php?id=1300069l]H4 HID HEADLIGHTS[/url]. But I've decided I don't really want to go HIDs with this car... so the HID kit is for sale. I can also say just the new housings from Airkewld are a big improvement, so that is good. (my old headlights are for sale HERE, by the way)


The other big project that came to pass was a brake fluid leak I noticed when I got the car home. Unable to tell if it was the blue reinforced hose from the passenger side down-spout, or the reservoir itself, I just ordered both from Wolfsburg West. So here you have it, a new reservoir (which also has new blue hose not visilbe here, but trust me, it is there). That was a messy ordeal.

Yet to come then are the interior upgrades (got new door clips too, and plan to do a little tweed'n to some of the door cards). May upgrade to an electric fuel pump down the road, we'll see. Have all new rubber/felt (a kit from CIP was cheapest option) en-route -- once that arrives my local body shop is going to install it for me (they've done air cooled VWs before and will make better quality/time than I could, and he is cheap) -- then it is off next door to the tint shop for 35% window tint all around. Basically upholstery, window rubber/seals/felt, tint. Those 3 big things remain.... then show season will be here in the midwest in full swing.

There is a big local GTG that I will be attending Sunday, so tomorrow's plans are to clean up the car (won't have time to do a full on detail as we have Cinco de Mayo plans in the afternoon/evening) -- but at least wash it since it hasn't been washed since I got it two weeks ago, and then Sunday I'll snag some pics of the car at the local meet. Should be a fun weekend, and the weather prediction is great.... yay!!

[Shaka]

Here are the photos from yesterday's GTG. For more details on the event or to check out various other photos (like the cool slammed & cambered wagon you can see the guy next to me with his T3 had) go HERE.

[LooseNuts]

Holy fuk, thread intro overload.

Very nice. Looks sick

[Shaka]

Happy birthday to me (tomorrow I turn 36). Got some new bits and bobs to take care of a few random things on the squareback. ISP supplied: fuel vapor hose (from filler neck), plus a new cap and outer neck rubber. Samba classifieds: defroster switch (old one was on its way out, loose contacts), and finally a roller pedal from THIS guy.

Fun stuff to work on to keep this excitement going!

[Shaka]

On this 1971 squareback that I picked up there was a bung (hole) already in the passenger door for a mirror. And the driver mirror had a few imperfections so I decided, why not get two new ones? My first set that came in (see front/back comparison photos) was from ISP and supposed to fit. But alas there is something in the doors (see two photos, blue) that kept those from working right. So I sourced convertible Beetle mirrors, as they looked correct (see photo)(too big diameter). However, I think that Bus hardware (see photos of brackets) might work. So that is my next plan of attack.... more to come soon!

photos:

[zzzdanz]

Here.....for the most detailed pics on all of Vortex...I think I have the bus pieces that your thinking will work...I'll have to dig thru the junk buckets to see if I can find them...if I find them they're yours

[Shaka]

Tonight had a LOT of fun activities .... rather than post up a bunch of info, I pretty much did so by adding text to all my photos. So here they are in chronological order... enjoy!





















LATER IN THE EVENING IT WAS TIME TO PLAY WITH PEDALS....

[Shaka]

Scat seat brackets arrived today. Might have time later, if not sometime this weekend to test fit the Scat Lowback 1400-series seats. They still need taken to the upholstery shop ... but I want to test-fit them first at some point here hopefully .... fun!

[Shaka]

Test fit my Scat seats and brackets. They are nice, a little work to make them fit (no photos of that). I'll do a more in-depth write-up on the seats when they are back from upholstery. Till then, here is a photo...



And also managed to make the Beetle 'vert mirrors fit to the car using, of all things, a VW Bus bracket ... nuts, but it does the job well enough for what I wanted to accomplish. So here are photos of the new mirrors on the car.. not "correct" or perfect, but more than adequate and better than nothing ...

[LooseNuts]

Nice work on the ride mang.

I will say you have way to much fukin time on your hands to edit all the pics like that..

[SidVicious]

I always liked what Raf did with this car as far as the ride height & wheels. You're right, the chrome 7 slots look 'right' on it. Glad it went to another good home. You're doing good work- I really like those seats. Enjoy!

[Shaka]

You're doing good work- I really like those seats. Enjoy!

Thank you! The seats are exponentially more comfortable than the OEM seats. Can't wait to drop them off here soon at upholstery....

[Shaka]

Today's morning project: get the car ready for the body shop.

Plan of attack is as follows:
- Remove front door cards and rear seat
- Drop car off tomorrow at body shop
- Body shop installing new rubber/felt in the doors this week
- At end of week, next door to body shop, window tint guy to tint glass
- Pick up car end of the week to bring home
- Meanwhile, during all this, take new front/old rear seats & door cards to upholstery
- He is going to do a little "tweed" work for me (more on that later)
- In a week or two get interior bits back and reinstall myself
- (sidebar: DIY vapor barriers also forthcoming, more on that next weekend hopefully)

Here are the photos of everything out of the car ready for tomorrow's drop off at body shop and ready for upholstery work... (also you can see my surfboard in background, as well as my daughter's collection of garage toys LOL).

PS: Yes the car used to be that tan color ... the paint job on this car is good from 10ft and the over-spray/lack of attention to details is acceptable for the price of the car, but far from perfect. However, I'm still VERY happy with my purchase here. It is a solid enough car to enjoy in the context in which I plan... 8)

[Shaka]

Here is a teaser photo of the tweed that I've picked out for the seats, shown next to the carpet that is already in the car (had a loose piece from back seat section, so I was testing the match to make sure it went okay). Seats are not being entirely covered in tweed, just parts in this material.

BTW, I'll have some OEM high back seats and some spare rear and front covers too .... in case anyone in the Midwest needs such items.

At this point I am expecting the car back sometime end of week from door seals and tint work. Upholstery guy said I'd have stuff back by Memorial Day weekend, giving me a nice long weekend to get it all in the car proper. I love it when a plan comes together... :wink:

[Shaka]

In case anyone is actually reading this thread, here is a brief update...

WINDOW RUBBER
After playing around with the CIP window kit my body shop found the outer scrapers were bent, and two passenger units sent instead of one side each. Beyond that other pieces/parts didn't fit nicely, so West Coast Metric bits were ordered Friday. Should be here Tuesday so we can move forward wtih that and get the door rubber/felt all updated/replaced. No photos there, just headaches and unplanned extra costs (CIP will be getting some stuff returned too, obviously)

SURFBOARD & SKATEBOARD
After deciding to not be a poseur, I sold the surfboard I had purchased off eBay back on eBay. I made $50 on it, less ebay/paypal fees. That is fine because I've never surfed a day in my life, however I did used to be big into skate boarding, so I found a nice $10 craigslist banana board, period correct to my 71 squareback. Photo below.



ISP WEST LOVES ME
Placed myself a nice little order with ISP west for some floor mats, one of THESE WICKER PARCEL TRAYS, and a few other odds/ends the car needed. Those guys are getting a lot of money from me, hope they are enjoying it LOL

UPHOLSTERY PROJECT
My local guy said he'll have photos for me in a few days of the progress -- he expects new materials in today/tomorrow. If all goes as planned the car is back in my hands by end of week, so I can get photos and finish up the interior bits. I got in some glue and carpet nails, so I can get everything more buttoned up than it currently is right now.

Overall not much exciting to write here and only really the one photo ... but as things are, slowly, progressing ... wanted to share. Oh, I've also decided to NOT tint the windows, as I don't think it would look right on this car....

Happy Monday!

[Jade Wombat]

Overall a good drive, but some back firing makes me wonder if the carbs are timed right. Have two people whom are local experts on dual carbs / ACVWs that I plan to solicit (at least one of them) for some help getting it sorted. But other than some fun poppin' noises the car drove like a champ.

Make sure you get your backfiring situated, too much of this will put a hole in your muffler. Check your timing, if it's a simple ignition adjustment this is easy to correct. If the carbs are jetted too rich and backfiring on decel. this is a bit more involved.

If the carbs are out of sync. and you drive the car often you might want to consider doing cable linkage instead of the stock mechanical linkage arms (carbs stay in sync a lot longer). Sorry, I don't have a picture of the cable setup but it's becoming more common now and pretty straightforward to get going. Similar to the wheel with a track on the Mk2 throttle bodies (black wheel at the top of the picture).

[Shaka]

BODY SHOP UPDATE:
Nothing but issues. Main vent window seats are too big/thick and even with trimming the vent window binds causing gasket to pull out of the door. Not going to be able to make those work. Vent flap seal from WCM fits perfect, much better than CIPs.

Outer/upper felt too thick, pinches glass so we stuck with the original (which was in good shape anyhow, same as vertical felt). Outer scraper is in and looks/works good. However, inner scraper binds and pulls out of door when you put glass in. Will either run no inner or will have to try to re-fit prior scraper if it can go back in okay.

And worse thing is, this is all JUST on the driver's door. At this point the body shop has 10+ hours invested in just that door. I am confident in this shop as I've used them for over 10 years ... I think it is just the nature of the beast of repop seals in a 41 year old car. But it has annoyed me to no end.

Their plan today is to the passenger door: outer scraper and the vertical flap seal -- those parts should work fine. As for the inner scraper it is fine, and the felts are fine. While they have it all apart they'll test the main vent seal, but assuming that will be the same results as driver side. Bahh....

If all goes as planned I will indeed get my car back today from them but it will not include the front main vent window seals, which (besides our scraper) were the ones that needed replaced the most. I may or may not attempt to find NOS (there is a left NOS vent seal here in the samba classifieds, but overseas)... I may also just let it slide, as I never really had moisture issues and the car won't see much rain anyhow. Still very disenchanting ...

UPHOLSTERY UPDATE:
There is a step that requires glue, and the glue to be used was gone and what little was left at the shop was dried up. That should arrive today. If it does then the front seats will hopefully get finished up today for me to bring home and install. The door panels and rear seats have not yet even been started on, so those are going to definitely dip into next week.

That being said, what has been done on the front seats (85% of the work needed to finish) looks really great. I snagged a few photos of that to show the work. I'm very pleased with how it looks, although I wish it was done already, obviously. Especially headed into a long weekend where I had high hopes of working on the car.

I've attached some photos at the end of this post to show of the interior work. Also to show a small mouse nest they found in the rear seat -- although I had seen no indication of any mouse/etc .... so with any luck this was VERY old ... although you have to wonder where he got the stuffing from LOL

FINAL HOLIDAY WEEKEND THOUGHTS:
As we head into the holiday weekend, my plans will include:

- Install vapor barriers in the doors (DIY, photos coming)
- Re-glue carpet various places and nail using special carpet nails
- Install front seats if they are done from upholstery later today

Not as big a list as I had hopes of ... but really the only thing missing from this list right now would be the door cards & rear seats which are not yet done. Either way, that small list above should keep me busy well enough, tomorrow. Especially if the front seats get done later on.

Real bummer comes from the fact that my garage needs to be 100% empty come Friday night so that the guy I hired to acid wash, skim coat and epoxy the floor can start on Tuesday as he said he wanted. That means any work on my car has to be moved to my 'rents place which is 20-minutes away. And all my tools are at my house too -- making it that much harder to work on with my father's tool selection. Oh well ... here goes nothing!!

Oh and as promised, the upholstery update/photos:

[TerrorSwain]

such a dope refresh!!!! love it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Shaka]

Going to let tonight's update be presented mostly via photos....


Hip to be square .... inspiration


driver side done at body shop ... all new seals except the front vent seal which he was unable to make work (too thick/binding -- guess common issue per other threads on here -- I'll let next owner deal with it and save the spare seals -- but these existing ones weren't too bad so we're good to go)


same as above, other side of the car...


bring on the Memorial Day weekend.... not shown here is that I cleaned out inside the doors (both) and made sure to clean out the rain drip holes ... they were a bit clogged on both sides (mostly the front ones)...


the seats are out... I'm ready to work!


hmm I spy some carpet that needs re-glued ... what else is in store for tonight?


from MidAmerica Motorworks .... loved the fact it was green LOL ... worked really nicely (and smelled, umm, interesting)


cleaned and ready for glue ... I was going to just fix the "droopy" parts up front, and nail down these parts... but due to the sound deadening that Raf did, the nails didn't want to work from MAM .... so instead I just glued this stuff too


a nice coat of green ... I cleaned up the "front" section near feet a bit before I actually put the carpet down, don't worry...


all done with the glue work ... didn't have any other progress photos .. but I'm quite happy with the final results... will help stuff from rolling around ... it will be nice to have the floor mats over top of this, too...


working for my family business (link) it is nice to snag a few odds/ends ... I've got a drawer full of goodies ... so lets get to work some more shall we? (various foams, felts, adhesives, velcros, etc)


About a year or two ago I had a early 90's Mk2 Jetta (VR6 swap) that head lead me to find a really nice DIY ... using some Polyethylene plastic (from my work) and some automotive ribbon sealer... I had enough ribbon left from a year or two ago to do another set of doors, and snagged more plastic from work....


what you do is take the ribbon sealer and create a thin bead around the door where you are going to attach the plastic ... here you can see that I've already made a full run around the window plus two extra lines around the door handle arms for extra seal there .... and I've attached the plastic justified top/left ... now time to trim


trim the excess plastic and you've got yourself a vapor barrier .... of course I didn't worry about being 100% spot on... and I had to make a slit here or there (for the support for arm pull on door card, for the window crank, etc)... but this is still better than nothing ...


a close-up of the work.... also have all new rubber bits for the door card inserts so those were installed too


same on drivers door completed ... note that on both doors I used some Saint-Gobain Norseal V828 foam as dampners .. there had been some there that I had previously removed, but I assume there had been some rattles/etc... this will also help to provide some seal/cushion on the door cards.... and I also applied some Rogers Corp Poron urethane foam at the rear-end of the door handle pull-arm ... where it tends to rub against the door... to provide some "rattle-avoidance" there too...


drivers door closeup #1


drivers door closeup #2


after the vapor barrier work it was time to play with the Scat seat brackets... because the upholstery shop hasn't actually finished entirely ANY of my interior work, I decided I'd install JUST the passenger bracket. That way I could still drive the car if needed with my OEM drivers seat ... but this will get me ahead of the game so that when the stuff is done the passenger seat will go on quickly .. plus I had test fit the drivers seat before, so that should be an easy install too.... above is just SOME of the hardware from Scat....


this is the inner/tunnel side of the passenger seat rails.... I decided I would remove this little bracket because it was interfering with the Scat bracket


bracket removed and I had to bend that tab shown out of the way... this was the only way to make the bracket fit... I'd like to also point out that even Scat doesn't have instructions on install.... they sent extra bracket pieces for the drivers seat but when I asked what they were for they had no clue... yeah, these guys .... so we'll see if I use them as ultimately the only thing used on the PS bracket was a bolt per each 4 corner, lock washer, standard washer and nut.... hmmm..... but they are solid as you'll see here in a moment...


action shot


another action shot


progress .... so see, there are these 4 holes that align with the slots that already exist in your seats (pop off the guides if you have them and you'll see what I mean)... what is ridiculous is that the bolts used are a touch too big of a diameter versus the slides.... AND, to make matters worse, the alignment of them was horrid. To make the brackets work I had to open up these slots a bit ... not all of them just 3 of them and really only two needed "real" work like what you see here. One nice thing is that this COULD all be reversed if you want and/or will not affect the original seats.... and the OE seats/guides will still work... (as tested with my driver side) ... but I have no plans to go back to stock front seats... still for sake of future owners, all modifications being done will not create any inability for stock seats if desired... even all this dremel work doesn't make the OE seats unable to be re-installed... I made sure of that!!


first image of the bracket completely installed


view of that inner rail showing the nut/bolt and hardware... does a nice job and the lower washers are super thick and supportive... these brackets are not going anywhere! I'm happy with the install overall but wish the brackets were more precise and designed slightly differently... I'm not entirely sure how I would have designed them better... I have a few ideas but they would have cost 2-3x more to make the way I'd have made them which would scare off customers no doubt...

Anyhow that concludes my work for today. Real bummer is that technically I'm also done with the car for the weekend. This is sad because a long weekend would have been nice to finish the interior work, but alas, the upholstery shop wasn't on board with that. Some night next week I will finish up and take photos of the final results. Not going to be much "work" to show as it is just re-installing door cards, driver seat, and rear seats. But we're making good progress.

Guess the one nice thing about getting it all done tonight is that I'll be more easily able to enjoy the rest of my weekend as my wife desires -- visit to the zoo with friends tomorrow, attend two cookouts, etc. And then Monday I get to empty out the garage getting it ready for that flooring project.... maybe I'll take photos of that too ... have a great holiday weekend everyone!

[vr6Cop]

Nice progress reports. Not many nice squares left out there.

[GEETi]

Nice stuff

[Shaka]

Today turned out to be interesting, to say the least. Drove down to a local meet of the VW club here. Went to leave only to find my fuel pump had given up the ghost. Luckily some locals were able to help, which included running around to get tools, a used pump that was also bad, and eventually a generic pump from the local hardware store. Wrong PSI but enough to get me home safe.

Now the question is do I just stick with the electric pump and get a regulator to resolve over-psi ... or a lower psi pump ... or get a mechanical pump to replace the stock no longer working mechanical pump ... decisions, decisions. Ahh joy and rapture.... the fun of an ACVW!

[Shaka]

Just a quick, photo-less update...

FUEL PUMP
As noted in the thread above, I drove out on Sunday (27-May-2012) to a local VW event. Went to leave and my stock Brosal fuel pump died. Managed to get the car home with an electric pump temporarily after 4-hours of chasing around for hardware, tools, etc (darn holiday weekend). The next day I properly installed an electric fuel pump under the gas tank, relayed and all. It is THIS unit, as suggested by a few people on here. Will be getting a Holley FPR on shortly too just to get it dialed in 100% proper. I had planned to do an electric fuel pump eventually anyhow, so this just sort of adjusted my time-tables a little bit.

ON THE FENCE
After being stranded on a 95-degree day for four hours in a parking lot, managing to burn my calfs really good (forgot to sunblock those areas), I had really lost the romance with my car. It was compounded by the fact my car is smoking a bit right now, but more on that in a second. It hasn't been that long but between that and my body shop's inability to install the gaskets at the vent windows, I was just sorta down on the car. This extended into the fact that we have 2 cars that are "toys" -- but after a nice long chat tonight with a friend who helped talk me off the fence, I'm back to wanting to make this work. I think we've probably all had moments where we realize we're driving 40+ year old cars ... but for me I admittedly enjoy the tinkering, but more so when "planned" and when the results are achievable. Anyhow just wanted to vent some frustration there... it is a learning curve but we're getting there. This friend (introduced by a mutual friend) tunes AC-VW's for drag racing, and he felt confident we can resolve my issues here soon, and inexpensively. Hopefully that is the case... since the smoke started only from fueling changes he felt confident that we can resolve it here soon, meanwhile the car is sitting till resolved obviously (better safe than sorry) (and hey, just need an excuse to build that 1776 anyhow LOL)

UPHOLSTERY
I've been told the glue he needed is in, and the work should be done by the end of the week. So it only took him 2x as long if that happens, we'll see. I'm going to drop off the steering wheel tomorrow AM to him to repair the black vinyl that appears at the end of each spoke (2x were in bad shape, and removed). Hopefully this weekend will yield completion of that task, and photos to boot.

ISP WEST
Last but not least, I've got some goodies in transit and on-order for the car from ISP. Some oatmeal floor mats, a bamboo parcel tray, spare tire bow seal (missing), and some other misc maintenance items that were on my to-do list. Gotta love ISP!!

Sorry for the lack of photos. Once I get the FPR installed in the engine bay I'll try to get some updates photos there. I also installed a BugPack block off plate for the pump area (sold to me by a local retailer for cheap!). So yeah... weather permitting, lots of fun updates coming soon. Things may slow down a bit though as I'm currently kicked out of the garage for repairs/epoxy coating by a professional installer ... yay! G'night all!

[Max_O]

Inspirational, love it

[Shaka]

Started off my evening with a little touch-up on the wiring for my fuel pump. Previously I had used the "constant" 12V at the relay to be from wires that ran from the old FI wire hardness for ECU near the coil and used the 12v switched off the coil. However, since I had noted that the steering column/ignition was properly run to the original FI relay under the back seat, I turned that relay into my fuel pump relay. It has a constant fused 10A off the battery now (as shown above, the smaller red wire zip tied) and the switch off steering column, and then uses a blue wire with a trace (yellow was it?) that was then spliced up front from old FI setup to get 12V down to the pump. Works like a champ and cleanly wired now.



This was a quick photo I took of the fuel pump installed. Not much to write about here, and the photo is as far away I could get since the car wasn't lifted THAT high on jack stands .... but you get the idea. IIRC that red/brown set of wires was the original fuel pump wiring and I was able to utilize that for my install here too! Airtex pump unit as mentioned in this thread prior. Plan to install a Holley FPR here soon too.



While my oil was draining I used the free time to remove the driver's seat and get the Scat seat bracket installed. This is the final photo showing the car is ready for seat install. Upholstery is done on the front seats they just need re-assembled. Per my visit today, my guy said I can plan to pick it all up tomorrow after work. Weather permitting I will install the seats tomorrow evening. However there is a bit of rain predicted for this weekend, which may slow my row a bit sadly...



And then the evening turned into a lot more "fun" as you may say. I had done all the stuff above, had installed my awesome little air filter on the oil breather (see my other thread about all that stuff), and the oil was more than well enough drained. I had noted that two of the nuts on the oil screen plate were a bit easy to remove (they had dripped bad, too) so when re-install time came, it was no surprise that one of the studs was pretty well stripped. There wasn't much meat on there, but I ended up having to do an emergency run to Home Depot to get a die/tap set and redo the threads best I could. Also snagged some new open nuts just in case and used those as they seemed a bit better for sure.

Once the car was warmed up, the "worst" of the two studs on the drain was definitely leaking a bit still, but I guess that is kind of to be expected with these cars. Something I'll worry about more down the road I guess especially when time comes for my 1776 upgrade haha... when the motor gets pulled apart, maybe over the winter, LOL .... overall though the oil changed was a success but had an extra hour or more of Home Depot Racing (HDR) action of course...

At that point, since my carb syncrometer had arrived today, it was time to play. When I had originally purchased the car there had been issues with the linkage although it took me time to figure out it was loose and binding. Additionally, the passenger side carb was loose and was "clocking" itself, which wasn't just messing up the carb sync, it was the main source of the binding linkage. I had tightened the linkage, but in doing so the driver side carb was tweaked too. After a call to my friend who is doing the work on the car, he explained the whole setup a lot more clearly than what I had read on here, and I was able to figure it all out... learned a LOT tonight!

Unhooked the carbs, but having no tachometer and my timing light doesn't have that feature I just did my best to set the carbs in sync at an rpm that "sounded" good by ear. Set the enrichment screw and adjusted the linkage to get them to be in sync. They are both around 7 kg/hr or whatever the heck that reading is on the gauge. And they are in sync which is what matters most. Timing set STEADY this time versus other day when there was a little of "wiggle" in the timing. So I feel pretty good about this now.

However, there is still a bit of smoke with the car, and some seepage near the exhaust too. I'm in hopes this is still related to the extra fuel, so the next step for sure is the plan to get that Holley FPR installed. Plan is to do that with a local next week some night and hopefully he can diagnose any other potential issues. But right now the car seems to be solid and sounds really good... so the only "issue" is the smoke -- it purrs, sounds good, revs nice... and hopefully I'll get a chance to drive it this weekend to verify it runs good too.... just some extra fuel on the carbs I'm guessing... hopefully we can fix this soon and easily.

Finally finished up around 10:30 PM, ate dinner, spent some time with the wife, and replied to a bunch of emails. And here I am... midnight, another fun evening working on the Squareback. Accomplished 95% of what I wanted to this evening.... pray for dry weather so I can install my seats/door panels tomorrow and drive the car too... good night!

[Jade Wombat]

Found a picture of a cable linkage, these are becoming a lot more common. I'm sure someone on thesamba is selling a setup or soon will be.

I've set up cars with brand new ICTs out of the box and the linkage arms and a few weeks later something is out of adjustment.

[Shaka]

Found a picture of a cable linkage, these are becoming a lot more common. I'm sure someone on thesamba is selling a setup or soon will be.

Sweet! Saw a YouTube video recently of a home-made one of those. I'd love to upgrade to that exact type of setup soon. How do you handle the throttle cable, does it require a new/longer one? Because i doubt my current throttle cable would come close to reaching either carb at current length....

[Shaka]

Today was a "spendy" kind of day for me. After work I shot over to the body shop to finally pay them for the "minimal" labor they did on my new door seals/scrapers/etc. Then I went over to the upholstery shop, paid for his work and picked up what he had done thus far. Since his supplier shorted him on the tweed I'm still waiting for the rear seats. But the front seats are done, as are the door panels and the steering wheel.

As you'll see in the photos below, the seats once again are Scat 1400-series low backs which were ordered in black vinyl. The "main" surfaces were recovered by my shop in tweed, and the door panel pockets (which were falling off anyhow) were replaced with matching tweed. The rest of the door cards were left un-touched for now, but I could see myself changing those to something more flashy down the road. The steering wheel black vinyl was re-done as only one of the 3 spokes was decent, but we just did all three new, with vinyl-over-metal like the originals, to refresh. (Keeping with my "mild refresh" theme here, of course!).

After that I came home and had dinner with the family. Then it was a family road-trip to Summit Racing (approx 45min drive for us, but hey something fun to do on a Friday night I guess and the girls wanted to go!). You'll see my shopping in an image below, too...

Purchased at Summit Racing:
Holley 12-804 Fuel Pressure Regulator (adjustable from 1-4 psi)
Mr. Gasket 1561 Fuel Pressure Gauge (to monitor those adjustments)
Summit Racing NPT Fittings (to go into the regulator)
Summit Racing Pressure Fitting (to put in-line somewhere, to measure psi)
Pipe Plug (to possibly plug hole when not using gauge if I don't keep it in all the time)
PerTronix 1847A Electronic Ignition (to replace cond/pts on my 009 dizzy)

Assuming the weather behaves I'll install some/most/all of this over the next few days. Worse case, the weather is due to dry up by early or middle of next week. And the latest "estimate" on my getting the rear seat is around then too. By next weekend I'd really like to have it all together, giving me 2 weekends to drive around and make sure everything is okay before my drive/trip to Niagara Falls for the June Jitterbug car show up there...

Here are the photos....

[Jade Wombat]

Sweet! Saw a YouTube video recently of a home-made one of those. I'd love to upgrade to that exact type of setup soon. How do you handle the throttle cable, does it require a new/longer one? Because i doubt my current throttle cable would come close to reaching either carb at current length....

Not sure, I started a cross-post on STF.

http://shoptalkforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=139588

[Shaka]

Today's projects were simple: install the interior (everything is done except the back seat), and install a Holley fuel pressure regulator. The purpose of the FPR is to dial down the electric fuel pump I upgraded to in order to also determine if that was causing the smoke.

First was the interior ....



Having already installed the rubber boots when I did the DIY vapor barrier, it was time to tap into my stash of new clips. I had to re-use two old clips because I had ordered every last clip Wolfsburg West had at the time a few weeks ago. That was fine, most of the old clips were still in very good shape hence why I saved them. Can never have enough spare parts..



Detail of the back of the passenger door panel showing the new clips installed (this side got all new hardware). You can see the new pocket the upholstery guy made. I forgot to tell him to avoid the holes, so I think 2 or three lower holes were covered up but it will not affect the door's secure feeling.



Here is the passenger door panel installed. I was very happy with how they both went on -- I tried to take a driver side photo too but the sun/shadows made the photo useless. Anyhow, you get the idea. Pretty cool too is that he used the black vinyl behind the pocket, so it really ties in with the seats as you'll see...



Speaking of the seats... time to install those. This is during the process of installing them showing the sliders in place ... just a few finishing touches from there, then just 4 bolts hold them to the seat brackets which are fixed position in the car...



View from the sides of the seats, both of them fairly forward -- there is WAY more travel with these seats than stock which is super cool and nice. Also note that I have them installed at the HIGHEST of the three possible settings because I'm short. The seats have a lot of adjustment -- way easier/nicer then the stock seats. I'm really pleased with the tweed as far as how it matches the carpet... really dead-on actually and compliments nicely. Floor mats (oatmeal) from ISP show tracking arrival Monday ... so hopefully next week rear seats go in, vacuum inside, and install mats....



Just to show how much "flip forward" articulation you get. The seat here is still not slid forward (although you could slide it forward too) -- just showing how nice they lean forward for entry/exit ... good for the kid.



View from the trunk as it sits now w/o the rear seat installed since that is still at the upholstery shop. Quite pleased....

AFTER all of that was done it was time to start working on the FPR setup from Holley...



Testing out the hardware first... this was before I slid the hose up further on the barb and screwed in the NPT fittings all the way. Just doing a quick "do I have everything I need?" run. Ultimately I wanted to get a 90-deg NPT for driver side, but didn't do that... maybe down the road upgrade. Did have to run to store for some hardware for the bracket... and some fuel hose line to get new stuff from FPR-to-carbs...



Bracket installed to tins above motor. This was really the best/only place I could find that would be easy for install where I could see everything and have FPR adjustment. I really wanted it in the bay, not up at the tank. So alas, this was my "optimal" install choice. I'd have loved to make a custom bracket somewhere else personally... but this motor isn't an "all show" motor so keeping it easy/simple took priority...



Here we are all done. Runs just over 2psi at the gauge which is in-line with the passenger side carb fuel run. You can see everything here in final state .. the car is even running here after my 20min test drive.



Lastly a shot during the day light hours to show the motor as she sits right now. It runs great! So over the last week I've done a valve adjustment, re-sync'd the carbs, re-adjusted the linkage, installed an electric fuel pump and now a FPR, set the timing and idle and enrichment settings ... basically everything you'd do as a full on tune-up of the car. She purrs really nice although the idle is still a touch high I'm happy with it.

Drove around for 20 minutes and there is no more smoke. So as my local mechanic friend said, it was prob just extra fuel on the carbs. Everything seems to be back to normal now as far as the motor goes -- although still slow haha!! Needs more power, especially for the crazy long gearing.

Hopefully I'll have another update in a few days when the rear seat is done and the floor mats arrive. Also have a bamboo parcel tray, spare tire bow seal, oil filler pipe (early style) and new steering damper on the way. And at that point I'll be done for the season with the tinkering hopefully. Just time to drive it and enjoy it ...

[Jade Wombat]

Not sure if you followed the topic on STF about the cable linkage, seems pretty straightforward if you DIY. You'd have to replace your throttle cable with one long heavy duty cable (like in the picture above) and cut to length some sleeves. Seems like it would be about $125 Supa said for parts and then just the time involved of popping each carb off and fitting the throttle wheels, mounting each bracket to the manifolds, and cutting the sleeves, fitting and then adjusting the tension/tuning.

[Shaka]

Interior done .... I'll let the photos do the talking. Came home and the wife/kid had washed my car, so after I got the rear seat installed I was able to head around corner to get some nice camera-phone shots... enjoy!























A whole album of photos mostly from today here:
https://picasaweb.google.com/1042672...agenSquareback

[TerrorSwain]

Coming along awesome!!! Love this car!


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