Jelebu Run Oct 2011

a bunch of us drove down to Jelebu to visit a friend's family farm. A really hot day but a beautiful drive. We took the highway to Seremban and then drove pass Kuala Kelawang  to Jelebu (roughly 120KM). After a nice light brunch of chapati at the Randhawa residents, we  to the back road back through Hulu Langat and stopped over at The Fish Valley Restaurant in Semenyih for more food and group photoshoot.

Roughly another 100KM or so back to petaling jaya. Apart from the cotter pin from the rear right wheel hub breaking and started rattling in the hubcap, the car ran well.

Finally at a car show with my car

First public appearance of my car at the 2011 BugOrama.  Too bad i didnt have the hubcaps at that time.

The First Polish is the Deepest.....

I must admit that i have never polished a car by myself... i have always send it out to a detailer's shop with all my other cars... but the beetle... i was just a little afraid to do so...  With the help and guidance of a friend who is also a beetle owner... i set out to polish the beetle

..Before polish....................................................After polish

Isn't that a beautiful sight.....  

Xmas came early

My sister gone and bought me a brand new set of hupcaps...  an early christmas and birthday present rolled into one  :D

without Hubcaps....

with Hubcaps.....

SWEEEEEEEEEET!!!!!!

Beeb Beeb!!!

as you guys have seen i put in a 71 standard modal steering wheel and upgraded to a collapsible steering column... but i dont like the brush style horn button contact... so i wired the horn like a normal 65 bug buy removing the rubber piece in the column and ran the wire through it... the horn repair kit had to be modified a little cos the horn button is from a type 2...

i cut this piece to make it shorter so it can fit with the type 2 horn contact piece

the order of assembly 

tightened it fully then loosed it about 3/4th of a turn... 

took a piece of wire from a broken hedge trimmer..

ran the wire tru... but the horn worked intermittently. i then later found a washer with a spade connector from a car wiring shop which worked fine... no photos thought...

BEEP BEEP!!!

You do get a heart attack when you press the brakes and you get an earful of revs

the foot pedals... where a serious issue... If you remember in one of my post many years ago the pedal cluster and fuel pedal were put back together by panel repair shop run by Nanda... this what happens when you do things many years ago... but only can see a problem many years later when you put everything back together...

Im not even sure if its a measuring problem cos even the seat rails seems like its not in the correct place... but i seriously dont know.... anyways for now im just going to redo the fuel pedal...

So after everything was put back together... i found that the gas pedal was actually hitting against the brake pedal ... i had to bend the fuel pedal towards the right so that it would clear the brake pedal... 

I bought a gas pedal repair kit from LKW.

This is after bending the pedal towards the right...

Unhooked the pedal and took a grinder to the bracket and chiselled out the rest of the welds 

Prep'ed the area and put the pedal repair kit together... 

repair kit assembled in this manner (below) ... i couldnt use the s-joint supplied in the repair kit so i reused the old one... as seen below the new part is shorter then the old one... and would snag and jam the pedal when assembled... i guessing this is for a left hand driver car... 

Bolted the pedal to the floor....

hmmmm is there any difference?... it does feel better when driving but i think i cant where my basket ball shoes while driving

looking good with some nice new rubber pads...

Fuel Gauge

The needle on my fuel gauge actually turned to dust.... seriously!!... so i put in an after-market gauge till i can refurbish the old one... or get an a new one that looks original...

Oh! so there's suppose to be something behind the door cards la!...

Tackled the door cards next....   the interior guy was going to do it for me but i was not to happy with how he wanted to do it... If i had let him do it... water wld be coming down the vapour barrier and out the bottom  and onto the inner side of the door sill... just enough to get the carpets wet... and in malaysian kind of rain I probably would have drown inside the car.... you know la...with all the new seals and all....

Spread out the PVC sheet

put the cards on top to roughly draw out the size of the cards

rough guide...

The top and bottom photos shows what i wanted done but the interior feller didnt want to put in these extra sheets of plastic to guide any water running on the vapour barrier to flow into the inner part of the door channels...  You of cos will need to make sure the drainage holes are clear of debris or if the doors even have the holes intact... if not you will need to drill out holes in the proper place... 

Door card clips placed ready to be clipped onto the door...

Blue tacked the vapour barrier in placed and cut out the excess plastic. I did the back also no reason to but i though might as well do it... 

found this clip in the rear inner well. Is this an original 1965 clip?

DOOR CARDS DONE!!!!!!!!!!!

Winding up the Window Winders

I had to tackle the driver's side window winder mechanism again....... if you didnt read my last post on the window mech assembly then here is a short summary...

My original one was seriously worn-out and broken... so i got a secondhand one and put it in when i put all the door stuff back together...... It worked fine before installing it but as soon as i put it in and tried to wind the window up... it broke....ARRRGGGGHHH!#@%$%%&*!!!  do you know how had it was to put it in in the first place.!!???....   anyways I found another secondhand unit and this time i found one that was worked on so i though for sure that it would be in better condition... it did feel really strong ...didnt matter how hard i tugged at it... it worked.... BUT!!! when i got home only then did i find that the number of teeth on the slotted end of the winder was wrong... they had replaced it with some other model... or maybe even from some other car... so i cldnt use the original beetle winders...

SO once again i had to remove the whole thing....

this time i got fed up.. so since i already had a right side that was opened up ... i grinded out the welds and removed the gear... went out and bought another secondhand window winder mech but this time for the left passenger door... since it is mostlikely not as worn out as the driverside one...

I then drilled out the crimps and took that gear out... and slapped it into the right side window winder... bolted the whole thing back together... put the whole assembly back into the door.... and prayed to the heavens that it wont brake...

IT DIDNT!!!!!!!!!!.... interestingly it now works better than my passenger side door.... go figure...

The left side gear above placed in the right side assembly

Its been a year now in use and still works smoothly ....

(Please note if you do something like this im not responsible for any damage and or injuries like a loss of a limb or an eye) 

Door Handles

During the month or so of waiting for the approval letter from JPJ .... I manage to do a few things on the car... namely the Door Handles. Interior door cards and the Fuel Pedal.... oh and also the horn.

The car came with an original stainless steel wrapped passenger side door handle but had a recast driver's side handle... which never fit properly on the car and was horribly pitted...

I was not having any luck finding a stainless steel wrapped 65 driver's side handle... until one day i found a one for a 66 on Mudah... i just grabbed it cos it was in super good condition but i knew that the key mech and the inner stuff will not work on a 65... but i figured i will swap the inner stuff from the 65 to the 66... and it worked...

This is the 66 stainless steel wrapped driver's side door handle....... was so happy to find it...

The 65 on the left has a sliding locking mech while the 66 on the right has a paddle style lock... swapped over these elements and i put it on the car....   It fit like a glove....

I AM THE LAW~~~~!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AAARRRRGGGGHHH!!!!!

GAGAL!!!!!!! FAIL Fail!!!!!!

yup thats what i got after the PUSPAKOM inspection... This is the governing body commissioned by the road transport department to inspects all Vehicles on the road... I had to get the car inspected because its been off the road for so many years...

they mentioned that it failed the alignment test and they want a letter from JPJ for the new floors that were put in.... sigh.... My guess is that the i need to rebalance the wheels... I got it balance at a shop near the house and when i went there to complain the guy confessed that he had used settings for VW Beetle as in the NEW BEETLE.... @#^$#$@$E@... stupid moron... of cos being a typical malaysian shop i didnt get a refund but they offered to give me a free balancing and alignment work done for my car...
gave him a look and drove out of there. Then i went to the shop i originally bought the tyres from and he did a great job la,,... i was so stupid not coming here in the first place

Then I went to JPJ (the road transport department) and interestingly they are wondering why PUSPAKOM is making such a fuss about my floorboards... they said that they only do inspection on floorboards for commercial vehicles only.... but agreed that a letter of 'ubah suai' (replacement and repair) is needed when replacing floorboards... but again complained about puspakom pushing the matter to them...

So they said they can do me a favour and said that inspection is by appointment only which they set ta date in two weeks time !!!!!!!!!!!!!TWO WEEKS!!!!!!!!!!!

Then I went to JPJ (the road transport department) and interestingly they are wondering why PUSPAKOM is making such a fuss about my floorboards... they said that they only do inspection on floorboards for commercial vehicles only.... but agreed that a letter of 'ubah suai' (replacement and repair) is needed when replacing floorboards... but again complained about puspakom pushing the matter to them...
So they said they can do me a favour and said that inspection is by appointment only which they set ta date in two weeks time !!!!!!!!!!!!!TWO WEEKS!!!!!!!!!!!

My local vw club was saying this sounds soooo fishy... as in are they fishing for money... anyways....

he got back after half hour with a file with him... asked me more questioned and got a copy of my id and licence and then told me it would take a week to file the report and a letter will be issued when its approved...

I tell you it was one confusing month... looks like what everyone is saying is right.... jpj themselves dont know whats going on within the rules and regs and guidelines ..... SNAFU!!! alert...
after going from one counter to the other... then from one officer to another... as you all know i got a date for JPJ to inspect my car... which i had to wait two weeks... and when that date arrived i went there early and handed in my car to the officer... who told me to go have breakfast and then said he will call me once they were done...his estimate was around 10am (which meant he wanted to go have breakfast first lah).... after waiting for two hours... i sneaked back to the inspection area to find my car parked at one side... and nobody was around... when asked at the counter if the officer was around and if my car was done... i got the usual "oh dia pergi minum" (he went for a drink) a few minutes later the officer arrives and tell me that the inspection is done and in a weeks time a letter of approval will be issued..

One week later and i didnt get any neas from them... So I called the officer and he said that the letter is ready but just need his director's signature.... and guess what?? The director is on vacation///....

Malaysia Boleh

After two weeks i still dont hear from them...... so I called them up again and he says come by next week as the director will be in.... Wow... i didnt know Directors in a government office can take more than one month holiday... so i let a week go by and i then i just showed up there to surprise them... and he sure looked at me surprised.... I just asked 'Is the director around to sign my approval letter?' and he says yes... 15 minutes later i drive out of there with my beetle endorsed by JPJ........ and guess what... I didnt pay a single sen... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! scumbags!!!

I drive in to PUSPAKOM early the next morning and to my surprise i got into a priority line because one of the officers mistakenly thought i was VIP........ seriously so you mean the rest of society has to line up for hours waiting their turn... while the VIP just cuts into the line...

When they suddenly realized i wasnt a VIP all of them were looking at each other like they were trying to pin the fault on someone... KEKEKEKEKEKEKEKE the look on their faces was priceless....

a few minutes later im out of there with my approval certs.......

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA so long suckersssssssssssssss!!!!!!!!!!!!!

with all those documents i finally get my insurance and road tax done.... and the next day the Beetle is finally road legal again............!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

15th of August 2011.... the day my Beetle was road legal again.... sigh.... finally....

Upholstery

Its custom.... but kept to look like original...  very very slight difference to an original design but ofcos the material is not original at all...

...i love it


I managed to find a 65 driver's side seat but still cldnt find a passenger side one... so my 66 passenger side seat will do....

Picked up the rear seats from the shop but i cant seem to find a before shot of the seats.... hmmmm

Sent the front seats to the shop and after a few days went to visit.....   

 The car pretty dusty at the upholstery shop........ but still looks goood..........

Nope im going to leave those wheels like that.....