Mo's Beetle

Main Harness Snaked into Car May 2011

2011-05-31T15:58:00.005+08:00

Ok so everyone knows i got a LHD wiring harness set from Wiring Works... its an excellent kit but how do i use it for a RHD car......

So i had this bright idea of running the harness through the right side of the car and reverse all the headlight and signal light wires from left side to right side.... interestingly it worked..... but every other wire that ran from the fuse box to all the switches on the dashboard did not quite line up and needed to be extended....

anyways below are a few photos of my attempt to wire my right hand drive car with a left hand drive wiring harness...

I drilled out an exit hole at the rear next to the battery area
then i drilled these holes at the front of the door frame
then another hole at the trunk... tried to get it to look like the hole on the left side of the car....
Cleaned up the fuse box.... all the copper soaked in coca cola for 10 minutes...

Main harness snaked in from the engine compartment and down to the battery area....
then put through the hole i made near the battery area.... then snaked towards the front along the door sill...
.... and through the two holes and straight up through the hole in the trunk....
the main harness reached the fuse box. starter wire, generator and oil pressure wire all reached their respected switches and fuses....
switched the right side light wires to the left side and vice versa ......

.... but the horn wires, high beam wires and ignition wires could not reach their switches... duh!!!.... all these were extended and extra earthing were put in by a proper auto electrician... which will be done at the shop where the engine is being rebuilt....

Misc Seals in the trunk May 2011

2011-05-30T15:37:00.003+08:00

This is the headlight bucket-to-truck seal.... went in with a lot of silicone grease and a lot of fingering... my fingers where numb for a week (wuss)

anyways the signal light seal wasnt cooperating like the other seal...the part that goes into the trunk was so big that it didnt fit into the hole in the trunk .... even with lots of silicone grease and alot of fingering it didnt want to budge.... at last i after literally two hours... i shaved some of the rubber and got it in... then i looked at it and said WHAT THE HELL DID I DO???!! it looked terrible... i know nobody is going to notice it but.... sigh.... im not going to show you guys how it looks like here... anyways so the right side is in and i didnt want to do the same thing to the right side...

so... i used my brains this time and used a taped up small screw driver to drive the rubber into place... it worked and i didnt have to shave the rubber at all... although i did had to use a lot of force...... now if only i did that the first time with the left side...
here is the right side all nice and all....

Engine Tin Sandblasted May 2011

2011-05-29T15:30:00.000+08:00

will be painted satin black ceramic paint

Steering Column May 2011

2011-05-28T14:06:00.009+08:00

Here is my turn signal switch which was hacked by the previous owner to make way for a sports steering wheel... will replace it with the new switch below... this will be temporary as i am looking for an SWF version... the one below is some crappy Taiwanese made stuff... does its job though....

Unbolted the rubber coupling and the the column bracket and pulled the whole assembly out... the steering rod didnt want to come loose cause there was so much of grime, grease and paint on it...but the turn signal switch came off easily only one screw

That grey bit on the steering column is the original colour of the car..... its the only part that i have seen the original colour on... didnt find it anywhere else on the car... it was a nice feeling seeing it for the first time... i was like woah!!.... looks like Fontana Grey...

There was something keeping the parts together... with a small screw driver i pried what looked like a bearing off from the column.... then the whole thing came apart easily....

The bearing looks like its made from copper.... it had a circlip holding it together...

as you can see it was bone dry... im sure bearings need greasing ,....

So i greased it up real good and put everything back together....

I took the steering rod out because im planning to upgrade it to a collapsible type from a post 68 model.... and then mate it with the 70s Aussie Standard Beetle steering wheel i got many moons ago...

that will be show in a later post...

Shifter Bushing Hell... Apr 2011

2011-05-27T03:36:00.003+08:00

How can something soooo small be such a pain to replace......... aaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrr rrrrrghhhhhhhhhhh... !!!!!!!!!!!!!

Removed the shifter to see whats down there,,.. and as suspected the Shifter bush wasnt even there... must have disintegrated and gone before i was born...

The whole shifter rod will have to be removed from the front of the car... to do that you will need to detached the coupling bush thingy which you will find under that cover under the back seat above the chassis vin number... then go under the car upfront and look for a plate that is on the Head Pan of the chassis... (its where the front beam is attached to chassis)... remove the plate and then look into the spare tyre well inside the trunk for the round inspection cover in the middle... Remove this cover and you will be able to look all the way through the tunnel...

Now get back into the car and start pushing/pulling or what ever means to get the rod out toward the front of the car...... when you get towards the end of the rod at the shifter hole... the rod should be peeping out the plate on the head pan... at this point if you are only changing the shifter bushing ... just replace the bushing and using a pair of pliers with rubber tape around its teeth tenderly but forcefully (you will know what i mean) ... levy the rod back into position...

But i wanted to clear up the rust and dirt on the rod... so i took the whole thing out clean it and greased it to hell.... you can see the clip from the old bushing still on the rod... but still no sighting of the the old bushing,....

I used a broom stick (just the stick) to push the rest of the rod out... it will come in handy when you push the damn thing back in.... i've read that its easy for some but harder for others... for me it was the latter...

I later found out that when pushing it in the beginning stage you will need to turn the rod towards the left side of the car (if you are standing in front of the car looking at it... this means your right side) so that it will clear all those mysterious tubes and what-not's in the tunnel...

so do this as slowly as you can and the rod will go in smoothly ... as soon as you feel resistance stop and pull it out a little till is smooth then push it in again (yes this is better than porn)

once everything is in place... bolt everything back together and go through the shifter with glee...

a close up of the new shifter bushing placed in its slot.... by the end of the day if you did it like me... you will be all sweaty and dirty and you will need two many three showers.... ;)

The Engine has Left The Building Apr 2011

2011-05-26T03:03:00.001+08:00

New Conrod bushes.... nice....

As mentioned in a post sometime back ..... I finally decided to outsource the engine work to a garage in Klang called T.T. Auto Sdn Bhd. My back is not playing nice anymore and is acting up more often nowadays... sigh...

so again i would like to apologize to my followers and readers as there will not be detailed photos of the Engine assembly... will try and visit the shop as often as i can but its a whiles away...

good thing about this is that its going to take a lot faster for the engine to be put back together compared to me putting back myself... bad thing is it will take more money for labour.... oh well better save my back so i can actually drive the car when its done ;)

all the engine parts that has been sent out for machining are back with me... just waiting for the heads to be done so i can send it over together with everything else...

The storeroom finally looks clear..... much to the wife's delight...

Valve Assembly OUT! Apr 2011

2011-05-25T02:37:00.002+08:00

removed all the valves, valve springs, keepers and seats....

What i did was i put a rubber door stop against the valve and waged the heads on a piece of wood. then clamped everything together... Then I used a curtain railing bracket which i had laying around the storeroom which i bent and clamped it on the valve spring with a big socket... After making sure everything was secure i proceeded to tightened the clamp down till the springs were compressed just enuff to expose the keepers and then used a magnet to remove the keepers....

the whole thing comes apart easily after that...

Now i can send the head for polishing, light skimming and new valve guides put in.... need to get a set of new exhaust and intake valves too...

Wiper Motor Cleanup March 2011

2011-05-24T02:31:00.001+08:00

Didnt do much here just dismantled, cleaned up, greased up, painted and polished...

Door Seals March 2011

2011-05-23T17:50:00.003+08:00

Door seals easy peas'y.... but took the driver's side out... cos the door doesnt want to close proper... *Mental note next time get the body guy to put in the door seals when aligning the doors and the body and the hinges* same thing goes for the running boards....

will redo the driver side by adjusting the seals... dont want to ruin it further by messing with the doors... not in this country thats for sure....

Door Handles Mar 2011

2011-05-21T16:00:00.005+08:00

While working on my outer door handles i noticed something i didnt noticed 5 years ago when taking the car apart....

My drive side door handle is a crap 1966 repo part (correct me if im wrong, it may just be a really crappy 65 repo).... it actually is slightly different then a OEM 1965 handle as you can see in the photos below... it doesnt really fit in the door ... the only way it will fit is if you force it in, and that would surely lead to damage paint... I thought the holes in the door got different after painting but after fitting my original passenger side handle on the driver side... it was clear that the 1966 repo handle didnt belong on this car...

the good part about the repo handle was that the plunger spring and some small bits inside were still alright... so i dismantles both, cleaned it up and swapped over the good parts....

Top is the driver's side and the bottom one is the passenger side

The Stainless Steel Wrapped passenger side door handle goes back on the car... sweet!... now i just need one for the driver's side...

Door and window Assembly completed

2011-05-19T13:24:00.005+08:00

The outer window trim are original so i didnt want to get some cheap repo parts put in... So here is what i did ....bought two sets of the inner window scrapper... One set will be used as intended but the other set will be used to replace the outer scrapper.... this isnt as easy as i thought but it worked well and i got to save the original outer trim....

first remove the old outer window scrappers from the outer window trim.... They are riveted to the trim so you will need to drill it out but make sure not to make the hole bigger.. best to use a drill bit that is smaller then the hole...
Then remove the fuzzy strip from the new inner window scrappers... Again its not an easy task cos it requires brute force but with a lot of care as to not ruin and damage the rubber....
Below is the old brackets which were holding the old rubber in place... it got all bent out of shape when removing the old rubber seals.... so i took out most of the rivet fragments and took a hammer to it to straighten it out...

Then put the bracket, the outer window trim and the stripped rubber piece from the inner scrapper together... align it to make sure it fits properly... so that you can mark where the rivet holds go on the rubber... Then punch holes into the rubber for the rivets...

Align it all together again and rivet all the holes..... now you have a complete outer trim.... well almost....

Decided to polish the trim... i think i shld have done this before putting it all together... anyway.. here is pic of the trim.... before and after polishing the trim... right side before ...left side after... i used a 1000 grit sand paper to smooth it of too

Ok before you put it on the car... you will need to flatten all the rivets so that it will clear the window sill...

As i mention in a pass post... the window winding mech need to be put it first then the vent window is place in the position as seen above to that the base of the vent window is held into place by the window winder mech... (confused yet??... send me Q in a comment)
Cleaned out the window glass slot and then painted it... I used more of the tyre rubber to make a rubber seal and pressed the glass into place... make sure you mark the position before dismantling...
Once the window winder is secured and the glass is cleaned... you can put in the glass by unscrewing the bottom screw of the window winder and placing a rubber mallet to pry in away from the door... the window winder shld be wind down .... then put in the glass behind the window winder between the door's outer skin.... take the mallet out (if you have a friend to pry the window winder so you can put in the glass would be easier)... Push the glass up into the window channel just enuff so that its catches the both channels... Then secure the glass to the window winder mech and tighten the screws a few turns but dont fully tighten it...

this was tedious work so i didnt have time and was to tired to take a shot....

Putting in the door seal was easy but make sure not to stretch it to much... so just place in channel and tuck it in...
Done!!!... now do all that on the other side... and you will finally have now worries about water getting in.... well almost no worries....

Body trim!! Aug 2010

2011-05-01T12:41:00.003+08:00

This was done August last year but wow... its been a hectic year.... Our little bundle of Joy Baby girl Ellie was born last January 2011 .... so time just went by so fast next thing you know its 4 months later... and im scrambling to get the beetle ready....

Thought it cld be done last year before Ellie's arrival..... yeah right.... as if 7 years later and i still didnt know better...

anyways last August i was hit with some news... this was not a good one like Ellie's arrival... This was bad... very bad .... one which will change the way this blog is heading and or presented...

I was diagnosed with Degenerative Disk Decease .... ... Basically which means my Back is screwed .... which means i cant be doing anything heavy or stressful on the back...... sigh... so i cant work on the car too much.... and sure hell cant put the engine back together on my own... so the next few post will be some parts going back on the car... some electrical work... and other misc stuff... engine work unfortunately will be sent out...

So let me apologizes to my readers who have been following my blog as there will not be detailed engine put together shots or how to's.... but i do hope that this blog still helps in some way to all you bug lovers out there...

below are a few shots of the body trim going back on the car... this was done last August after my back was a little better.... it was just light work so it was ok... ;)

put the seals in ..............

Put the clips on to the trim..... then align it to the hole and mate it once its all in line....

new trim make all the other chrome parts look dull... oh well as mentioned im just putting things back together... and focus on getting the car back on the road....

Malaysian Bug Fest Jun 2010

2010-12-08T10:57:00.002+08:00

Took a drive down to Johor Bahru with my sister and a few friends for the 2010 BugFest... awesome turnout and i even manage to source a 77mm High Compassion Piston set....

Fraser's Hill Run Feb10

2010-11-08T10:47:00.000+08:00

Last February a few members from Volksriders took a drive up Fraser's Hill... it was an awesome drive and will one day drive up again once my car is done....

Door Vent Windows

2010-10-06T10:37:00.007+08:00

Installed Rear Popouts

2010-05-24T22:35:00.005+08:00

Paid a fortune for rear popouts and installed after cleaning it a little... i was getting fed up with water getting into the car... so i just went ahead and installed it myself... Its supposed to be originals and its pretty pitted but hey i like the look for now... Not planing to put in AC for now so these popouts will be good for the rear passengers...

2009 Bug-O-Rama Malaysia

2010-03-07T18:22:00.003+08:00

Wonderful turnout, could do with a better venue... i guess its because of the convenience of a cheap mall with a budget hotel attached to it...

Go to my picasa page for more photos of the 2009 Bug-0-Rama or view the slide show below. :)

VolksRiders do Melaka

2009-07-20T22:09:00.003+08:00

VR members from all over Malaysia got together in the Historic city of Melaka last February.

View the slide below or click the link below for tumbnails....

Tumbnail link...
http://picasaweb.google.com/geraldmohan/VDubsInMelakaFeb09#

The Case is Finally Splitteded!!!!

2009-05-17T18:12:00.008+08:00

The past two Saturdays i've been working on the engine.... ....
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The pistons come off by first removing the circlips... one on each side of the wrist pin...

Then put a socket on a long extention and slot it into and against the wrist pin.... then with a piece of wood i struck it to drive the pin out.... just enuff too remove the piston from the con rod..

After i removed all the pistons .... i noticed that one of pistons isnt the same as the rest.... hmmm it didnt have the same hump on the top.... (is that a bad thing) .... it didnt have the same arrow markings that point to the flywheel either.......

Ok.... well its decided then.... i will have to get new pistons......

Now to remove the pulley...... Slot a big screw driver thru the pulley holds and brace it on the case.... then removed the bolt....

Only after removing the pulley can screws securing the pulley cowl be accesed....

After removing the pistons and wrapping the con rods with lots of paper...... i was confident enuff to carry the engine and turn it over upsidedown... This is so that i can remove the Pressure Relief Valve and Control Valve.... having the engine upsidedown also helped me to get finally remove those pesky screws that are securing the side cowling....

The Oil pressure sensor was easy and simple to remove....

So was the Oil Pump cover plate........

Check the oil pump and cover plate for ware.... if its heavily wore out ..... just add it to your growing list of parts to buy.

To remove the whole oil pump assembly you will need a specialized tool.... Otherwise you will just need to split the case slightly before wiggling off the for studs.... for now just remove the the oil pump gears.....

I better put a photo (as shown below) of where the Oil Pressure Relief Valve and Control Valve are........

Ok .... now to unbolt and remove all the Crankcase nuts...... then strike the case with a piece of wood and mallot till it splits at the Flywheel side.... This is when you can wiggle the Oil pump assembly off the studs....

After that tilt the case on to the left side and wiggle the right side off.... if it still doesnt give.... un-tilt the engine and strike it again... tilt it and wiggle again.... for the love of money dont use a sharp object or place anything on the seams of the engine casing.... cos you will muck up your engine and you might as well trow it out and scrap it....

When you are taking the right side off .... four peices of errrrrr... #^&*(!!... i forgot the name lah... hmmm any if you see the photo below you can see 4 small round things will fall out.... so slowly do it so it does not fall out hard..... anyway i will update the correct name of those things later....

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TBC

Coin Box or Ashtray....

2009-04-04T10:31:00.003+08:00

I managed to find this Coin Box before the car was painted.... Bought it from Ah Pin who is an excellent vw mechanic and has a workshop in Old Klang Road. He has a alot of vw treasure in his shop....

Been searching for this for almost a year.... luckily i have the volksriders forum for help....

Bumpers

2009-04-04T09:44:00.004+08:00

I was so excited about the car's paint job being completed that i didnt post a few things that happened before that, like the bumpers...

The bumpers as they looked before restoration....

Close up of the rusted back bumper......

If you noticed.... the front bumper bolts are not original... the past owner for some reason replaced them with regular bolts...

..... i took one of the rear bolts out and managed to get a couple of bolts that match except the rounded top part of the bolt which was a lot bigger.... So i sent them to a machinist to be reshaped....

below is the finished bumpers with the reshaped bolts....

Now for the bad news..... the shop did not knock out the rear bumpers far enough.... once it was fitted to the car the engine lid couldnt be opened.... those #%^%* had it on for days and just convinently did not tell me and actually thought i wouldnt notice..... dumb F#$^@........

All i had to do was look at the rear bumper from the top and see that the center of the bumper is too flat.... the whole bumper needs to be more curved.... dang it!!!!.... $$&()(<>^&*(*(*()!!!!!!

The front looks fine.... but im not too pleased with the way the bumper brackets fit in the braket holes.....

the bumpers arent the only thing i wasnt pleased with..... The fenders were tightened too tightly till the fender beading pinched into the paint.....sigh!!..... anyway the car is safely back home.... i will deal with the bumpers later as i want to concentrate on the engine.....

Paint Part 'Its done!!!'

2009-03-19T23:00:00.003+08:00

Went to the shop yesterday cos Luew Yow said he would be done.... but found that he was not happy with a few spots and was tackling it when i got there,,.... you can see by the patches on the bonet and engine lid.....

oooo... check out Knight Rider (the making of).....

Yow said he will be done today and i must say WOW..... i didnt think the colour would be this dark but i like it..... i cant stop smiling....

now to put all the bits together again......... sigh... wish i had a running engine....

Paint Part 10

2009-03-16T21:35:00.004+08:00

Black Base Coat........

This is the fenders with one coat of the dark green paint......... cant see the difference :) if you see below ...the inside of the bonet is the black base coat.....

The back is still in black.....

Below.... Mics parts with a single coat of green paint after the black base coat....... Still cant see the green???...... see the last photo .... the rear light housing has two coats of green....

The Green!!! a little more obvious after two coats.... ...... 3 more coats and it will be down..... oh wait theres colour sanding........

Paint Part 9

2009-03-14T10:29:00.000+08:00

The guys primered the car and gave it a coat of gloss to highlight the imperfections. Too bad i wasnt free to take photos of the car after they primered the car...... The gloss coated primer made it look like it was ready to roll out.......... sigh!! ..... its not long now....

More shaping and sanding..... more sanding!!!!

The light well is also being dealt with.....

ooooooooooooo...... so smooth and clean..........

The hood.......

Engine lid.........

Engine bay ...... so clean........... sweet.........

Interior............ im the 'standard interior' is coming along ready nicely.....

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TBC

Paint Part 8

2009-03-13T12:58:00.001+08:00

The Interior is all smooth now.... nice!!...

Sanding and more sanding....

I didnt know that they would be this maticulus.... even the underside of the hood and engine bonet is being sorted.....

Paint Part 7

2009-03-12T12:50:00.001+08:00

The rear window sill was very badly welder by the last guys who worked on my car the last time. The new guys reworked its and smoothed it all out..... as seen above comparison...

As you have read before.... im redoing the interior to look like a standard beetle.... On a deluxe there are grooves and grips that hold on to the headliner.... since im not having a full headliner, all these will need to go. The comparison below shows the rear of the interior... shaved and smooth...

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TBC

Paint Part 6

2009-03-11T21:30:00.002+08:00

Some minor metal work (Knocking, welding and grinding) done all over here and there..... The left fender was in terrible shape and i was deciding whether to get a new one or not.... but they seem to have knocked it out the best they could. Getting a new fender would surely be over my budget..... even a secondhand one cost more then RM 150... not more then RM200.

The A pillar window sill was reworked.... no more holes....

TBC

Paint Part 5

2009-03-09T23:16:00.001+08:00

I decided to make the interior of my beetle to look like a Standard Beetle interior. Actually i am planning to only have a single roof headliner installed. So all the other areas of the interior which is normally covered with headliner material will be exposed painted metal.

So the guys at the shop have more work to do... like smooth out the whole interior......

All the grooves that whole the headliner has been shaved and later smoothed out..

As seen below.... the ex-owner had jabbed and drilled holes to screw the sunvisors into placed....SIGH!!!.... im not sure what to do yet.......

tbc

Mo's Beetle's friend all painted all....

2009-03-08T23:00:00.002+08:00

Remember the landie that was keeping my car company.... and even carried some of its part for a few weeks..... who gave up its time in the boot so that my car could be rust proofed....

well as you can see by the photos... is has been painted... not a colour i would pick for a landie but it still looks cool........

Dismantling a 1971 vw 1200cc Engine Part 5

2009-03-04T20:08:00.006+08:00

ok after getting the flywheel off i then started taking the generator stand, fuel pump and distributor off of the engine... which was only unbolting some bolts and thats all...

alamak! the desciption in the photo is wrong.... its generator stand not Oil Filter....

ok ... now i can stand taking the heads out... first unclip the Valve cover.... you will be in full view of the rocker assembly... unbolt the two nuts on in as seen below and carefully take the whole thing out and bag it...

Take the push rods out and bag it.... u can test if they are any good by rolling in on an even surface.... if they roll funny you will need a new set....

The push rods....

Now, unbolt the 8 bolts, 4 on the inside of the Vavle area and 4 out side on the head.... Loosen all the bolts first before going at them fully.....then slowly pull the head off... give it a little tap with a mallet or your palm but be carefull not to damage the fins....

Becarefull of the push rod tube if you want to keep them.... im going to replace them completely with new push rods tube seal too...

closeup of the heads....

i dont know if you can see in this photo below.... there is a deflector plate which is clipped on onto the cylinders.... this pieces is very important in keeping the air circulating around the cylinders... it is on only the left cylinders.... if you dont have one i suggest you get it....

After unclipping it you can now slid the cylinders of.... again you may need the mallet but be very very very carefull to not damage the fins.... While the cylinders slowly come off... make sure that the pistons do not just drop out of the cylinders.... take care not to damage it.... especially if it is in good condition and you plan to keep it.

Ok ....this is where im at with the engine........ i will need to clear some time to remove the pistons next....

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to be continued

Dismantling a 1971 vw 1200cc Engine Part 4

2009-02-17T23:36:00.003+08:00

How to remove the gland nut.....

I finally had some time ...on a saturday ...sometime ago...

You will need a lot of room to set it all up.... I used a 4 feet cheater pipe and a 4 feet 'L' angle frame. The 'L' angle is to brace the fly wheel from moving...I supported the L angle on some bricks to make sure that nothing it is touching the engine main bolts at the bottom cos it might crack or brake easily... you wouldnt want to damage the treads on those bolts .... and it also helps to not damage the floor tiles.

The two bolts which i have braced the L angle on will get damaged so i will need to replace them.

Then gently push on the cheater pipe and gradually put more force into it till the nut comes lose.... i was a little amazed how easyly it came off...

Now all you have to do is take a big screw driver and pry the fly wheel off...... be cautious thought... the flywheel is heavy and it may come off and drop to the floor thus damaging it.... so do wha you can to hold it steady or brace it or something....

Paint Part 4

2009-02-13T01:45:00.002+08:00

Remember that landie...... its now good friends with the bug... The landie sacrifice its place in the booth and delayed its completion so that the bug could be primered so that it wouldnt rust anymore.... it even offered to carry some of the bug parts....

Below.... the bug with fresh primer....

hmmm... Baja buggy??...

hmmm... Baja Buggy??...

After they primered the bug... they started work on the landie again...

tbc

Paint Part 3

2009-02-12T01:37:00.000+08:00

Days of sanding is almost over,,..... and it has revealed some minor metal rot along the rim of the window sills....

but other than that its all good....

There are tiny holes at the corners of the window sills..... we need to make sure these are not sealed after painting....

Dashboard metal work smoothened out.....

Back in 2005 when the floors were being done this part of the hood was packed with a thick layer of bondo and it revealed a bad metal job.... Althought it was replaced with new metal, the welding wasnt nicely done..... it was further improved in UEP but again it wasnt to my current liking.... The current body work welding guy asked if i wanted to redo it completely but i didnt want to add on to the bill, so he just reworked the welding and made a smooth finish.... i dont have a good photo of it but just imagine the photo above but with smoother weld work.

Painterman preped the body for epoxy primer..... the car was left in the booth to protect it from moisture.... it was and still is raining heavily....

tcb

Paint Part 2

2009-02-11T01:30:00.000+08:00

A new year ..... and new metal...... ok maybe not new metal.... but after a lot of sanding it looked all shiny.....

But all that sanding revealed alot of bad and rough spots on the car...... i really wonder what this car could tell me about its history....... The only bad history i know about my car was that on the second day that i owned it.... some idiot reversed into my car and dented the right rear fender pretty badly....

As you can see below..... welder guy is working on that fender before he removed it.

It looks nice in bare metal..... hmmmm...

Rear fender removed...

The roof was the only part that was completely free of any bad spots.... as you can see below, half of which was sanded down........

Check out that white E-type Jaguar and the red lotus on the right..... you can even see the bonet of another E-type behind that mini.... The landi behind my car looks good too but has had alot of panel work done to it...... almost looks ready for paint....

Sanding and more sanding........ wish i could buy painterman a proper mask....

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to be continued......

Paint Part1

2009-02-10T01:24:00.000+08:00

The car sat in my porch for about six months before i got the courage to commit to a paint job..... then one day i walked into one of the many workshops near were i live (PJS7) and was pretty impressed with the work done by this duo, a painter and body repair welder guy....

After some discussions i strike up a deal and next thing you know they are pushing my car out of my house..... I asked if we didnt have to use a tow truck as the shop is was very close by....

....on the short road to salvation......

...after a long 200 meter push ...we stopped at the 'mamak' (restaurant) to get a drink.... the car was left at the junction and it drew a lot of attention.... luckily didnt cause any accidents...

(All smiles to the shop... even the car looked like it was smiling)

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....after a refreshing drink in was onward to the paintshop.... the painterman is on the right in green and the body repair guy welder guy is on the left.... The hardworking foreign worker guy in at the back..... (ok enuff picture taking and more helping to push car to shop)....

Let the progress begin.....

Undersealed and safely back home....

2009-02-09T00:45:00.000+08:00

UEP did a good job of undersealing all the relevent area.......

Wheel wells

Rear Luggage area and firewall

Trunk area and spare wheel area.....

Engine bay and fire wall

Front kick panels, floors and underside......

all looks clean and solid.......

All was that was left was the complete metal prep for the shell, primer seal, sanding, final knocking and then a full paint job......

it was mid Jun 2008....... i looked a number of a good painters but the price was very high... it didnt help that it was a complete bare metal strip down.......

So i decided to put the project on hold...... towed it back to the house where it set under a tarp for the next 6 months......

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To Be Continued......

Engine engine engine!!!... what happen to the shell body of the car??

2009-02-07T00:01:00.005+08:00

The last time i left you with updates of the shell was that i had removed all the tit bits and the engine.... That was early last year... so what happened after that?... the car painter dude in Klang was not working out... everytime i went there nothing was being done too it.... Then he started saying that the car needs a lot of body work done before he can continue with anything....

It was all a load of BS..!!!.... so i started looking for a new place to do some body work...... I wanted to get the seat rails welded in and also deal with the radio area and delete plate... It was some time in Jun 2008... through a forum member... i decided to send my car to UEP Auto body repair in USJ.

Car being tow from Klang along the Federal Highway....

Finally the car has seats.... vw seats....

experiment gone wrong......

Althought i was okwith most all the welding work.... i wasnt too happy done to the firewall...

To Be Continued.........

Dismantling a 1971 vw 1200cc Engine Part 3

2009-01-12T23:09:00.005+08:00

So very sorry for not updating this blog for some time...... well... a number of things have been done on the bug since April 2008...... for instants more things have come off the engine like the pressure plate and clutch plate. Im now stuck with the Gland Nut which is holding the Flywheel.... Dang!!!....

Pressure Plate came off by loosening each nut one by one. Before that i marked a line on it on the flywheel to line it up later 'if' it goes back onto the engine.

hmmm doesnt look too bad.... we will see/...

The flywheel still held together by the 36mm gland nut which you see in the middle of the pic above.

I will need to get a cheater pipe which is about 4 feet long to use with my wrench and a angled bar thingy to brace the flywheel from moving. Months and months go by with me not doing anything about it until about a few days before Christmas when i finally bought it. Now i need to call upon all my might to get my ass of this sofa and start on it!!!

ANyway while all that was going on (which was nothing much) i had moved my car from KLANG to a welder in Subang Industrial Park for some metal work. The main things done were welding in the seat railings, fixing that hole which is the radio void and delete plate and coat the chasis with underseal.

After that i brought it back to my hse where it sat under the porch for a few months....

I will blog about all that later........ I promise... :P

Dismantling a 71 vw 1200 engine Part 2

2008-07-03T15:45:00.005+08:00

Back in april... after getting the manifold nut removed i proceeded to soak the bolts which are holding the silencer onto the exhaust manifold... i will need to remove the silencer box so that the whole exhaust and heater box assembly can be removed.....

Before i go into the details... im sure you wld have noticed that the title has 71 written on it instead of 65 ... well i knew that the engine had been changed in my car by the former owners but i never bothered to check the age of my engine.... after checking the Vin number i found it to be an engine made in 1971.... and looking at the number of Brazilian parts on the engine... im guessing it was poorly overhauled.... well maybe not poorly overhauled but definitely not a top overhaul anyway back to dismantling

After soaking it for a week it still did not get loose... i kept soaking it and hitting it with a chisel and hammer hoping it will loosen up ...but nothing... i tried to get a closer look... and found what seem like both the male and female connections had fused together with rust.... then i thought hmmm i might else well put a new Scat system or something like that... basically a new exhaust assembly..... i wanted to keep the heater boxes so used my angle grinder to cut the very tip of the silencer off... as shown below..... as soon ass both sides were cut, .... the whole assembly the came apart easily....

Below is the exhaust assembly.....

Engine looking a little smaller.........

After looking over the engine for no apparent reason.... taking shots in between as i did..... i found a bolt which was missing a nut... its something which is connected with the distributor.... hmmmm i wonder if i had driven 5 years without it........ or did it go missing when my mechanic replaced the contact points and serviced the distributor..... back in 2003??

BUGgers do Cyberjaya

2008-06-26T16:54:00.002+08:00

Woah... the BUGgers club or now known as Volksriders of Malaysia is picking up well.... and our forum is getting more and more lively by the day with over 150 members to date... so if you know anyone who has a classic volkswagen be it a Beetle, Ghia, Kombi, Rabbit, Thing or has a passion on them, get them to join us to learn and share knowledge on the 'Peoples Wagen'.. On behalve of our founder Shawn, i wld like to welcome you to our forum Volksriders

Below is a slide of our 5th G2G held in Cyberjaya last month....

BUGgers go to PD

2008-05-31T15:29:00.002+08:00

A couple of weeks ago a bunch of BUGgers took a day drive to Port Dickson, Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia. We took the old roads through Nilai and Seremban and safely arrived at 10th mile Blue Lagoon, P.D.

It was a pleasant drive there eventhough it rained heavily on the way to Nilai at the start of the journey. I met the guys in Nilai as they stopped for breakfast. Left my car (Satria) there and joined Shawn in his bug as we continued on our journey.

heres a 'few' pixx

4th BUGger's G2G

2008-05-05T17:30:00.003+08:00

The BUGgers had a little get together down in Klang end of last month..... 17 bugs turned up... even a fiat 500 turned up.... well it does have its engine in the rear.....

Dismantling a 65 vw 1200 engine Part 1

2008-04-25T10:07:00.010+08:00

So i was bored and fiddling around the house and thought hey i think i shall start dismantling my vw engine..... yup just another one of my my wild idea.... so off i went about taking out my tools and dusting off John Muir book 'How to keep you vw Alive'..........

well first thing you need is a 36mm socket..... damn.... i dont have one... so off i went to the hardware shop to buy one......i figured i need to go to big fancy shop to find it but nope... after i went to a few but no luck... the biggest they have is 32mm... i even went to Ace but they didnt have them either.... i finally went to the shop near my house which isnt that fancy....and guess what.... they have a few types!!! but i also need to get a bigger ratchet... :(

ok now to start... Get the 36mm socket onto the that big nut on the fan and a with another hand, get a big/medium screw driver wedged into the slot on the Alternator/Generator to stop it from turning..... once your in position pull on the ratchet to loosen the big nut on the fan... only loosen the nut yah... dont remove it....... as you can see i used a feet on the fan cover for leverage... it was a little tricky trying to keep the generator from moving.......

Ok next, the generator needs to come off.... there is a strap that goes around the generator which you will need to loosen of and get it out of the way... dont bend it too much yah... remove all the bolts on either side of the fan shroud and just pull the whole assembley up and off the engine.. watch the cooling tower which is in side the fan shroud......

I then removed the carburetor which was pretty straight forward.....

Next i removed the cooling tower. It has one nut on the top of the base and two which are under the base.. you will need to remove the left side engine tin to get to this two nuts....I just went and removed all the engine tin........ Once removed, plug the two holes with a piece of cloth .... yeah i know i dont need to do that since i going to try and dismantle the whole engine but... my engine is pretty dirty with not only grease and oil but alot of loose dirt and dust, paint chips etc etc....

Ok now back to the generator and fan assembly.... Place the shroud on its back with the generator facing up.... Unscrew the four bolts around the fan cover and you will be able to pull the generator and fan out of the fan shroud..........

tada!!!!!! its out......

Ok... now we remove the really big nut we loosened at the very first step earlier..... The fan can be removed now which will expose two more nuts which will remove the fan cover from the generator.

Then i wanted to remove the mufflers..... the one on the right came off after some tugging. You will need to remove the clamps on either side lah.... but the left side muffler didnt budge...... some WD40 here and there and it still didnt move..... somemore WD40 and left over night and it till didnot give up..... well... im not going to give up either.....

After some thinking... i decided to tighten a hose clamp on the muffler then using a hammer i tamped on the tightening screw of the hose clamp while pulling the muffler with my free hand..... it worked!!!!!! but goosh was it tight.... i had to reposition the clamp three time before the muffler came loose........

The intake manifold was easy to remove...... all you need to do is remove all four bolts; 2 on each port and 2 one each exhaust..... Then i set out to remove the exhaust which was as simple as the manifold but.... one of the nuts was rusted solid...... tried my best but landed up rounding off the nut.... so i sprayed it with WD40 and tried chipping on it hoping it would turn....... nope ... nothing happened.... so i leave it to soak in WD40 and left it for a week.........

A week later and it still was not budging so ........ out came the hammer and chisel and saw...... the nut was in such a position that i could not reach with any kind of power tool..... sigh..... the finally aafter 2 hours of banging on it with a chisel and sawing the nut....... it came loose/...... but yes ... i damaged the stud... sigh!.........

As you can seen below, theres not much room for me to move about......... but i dont want to risk leaving the engine outside at the back of the house....... not enough someone has stolen my man hole cover.... dont want anyone making of with my engine......

Engine tin after some scrubbing and cleaning.......

End of PART 1

BUGgers & AMC club's Drive to Bagan Lalang

2008-04-11T10:45:00.001+08:00

Did you know that there is a stretch of coast at Bagan Lalang which is now called Goldcoast????... sheesh!!! how original wan......

Anyway a bunch of us vw beetle owners and a few other classic car owners took a drive to Bagan Lalang last Sunday.... oh wait do you guys even know where Bagan Lalang is? :) well if you dont its a coastal area just after Sepang Town.... Dont know where Sepang is? ... You know F1 Sepang Circuit ... aaa thats right! its some what a whiles way from there...

It was such a hot day... but of cos it rained like nobodies business later in the evening... luckily i was already back home by then....

i visited Bagan Lalang almost a decade ago.... and boy has it changed.... it used to be a nice quiet place .... the beach wasnt that great but wide...and the water was not too nice either.... but it was a great place for a picnic...... there was a restaurant there which was famous for its 'Ikan Bakar' (Grilled Fish) and the sea food wasnt have bad either....

So yeah ... now ...almost ten years later.... they are calling it Goldcoast.... and they are building a stretch of water villas on stilts... there goes the neighbourhood lah.... the place was packed with visitors .... the roads are alot better but its jammed with cars... maybe because it was a sunday...... there are alot of new stalls along the stretch.... but the food really sucked!... .... .... sigh!!! it was sad lah... i really hope this place is not ruined further by stupid humans who only know how to leave rubbish wherever they go......

Well anyway.... the drive was ok besides some miscommunication, route problems, car problems, etc etc but hey... thats what you get when you bring more then 5 people/cars together right...

more then 10 beetles showed up and about half a dozen classics of other makes from the AMC club joined us..... have a look at the slide show below.... i felt the gathering was pretty good .... maybe the next time will be better if we can iron out some issues.....

BUGgers meet 14Mar08

2008-03-31T08:49:00.002+08:00

A bunch of us gathered at Padang Utara in PJ.....

VW Air Cool Powered Proton Satria

2008-03-12T11:45:00.004+08:00

Ok i lied.... its just my beetle engine in the boot of my Proton satria..... luckily its only a 1200cc engine which was small enough to fit in there....

Didnt want to leave the engine at the paint shop since im not sure how long its going to be there... you never know what might go missing.......

much to my wife's disapproval... its now in the store room next to the fridge.... :P

mo

How Not To Remove Your Beetle Engine.

2008-02-18T10:16:00.001+08:00

So.... i decided to remove the engine..... weeks of telling myself i will have to read the chapters on Engine Removel fell on deaf ears.... Chinese New Year was coming up soon ...so i needed to remove the engine soon bcos the shop will be closed for the holidays ...

I cldnt wait for my friend to be free... and since i have too much time on my side.... hmmm so i get to the shop with all my tools, two jack stands and a small 2 ton hydraulic jack and i get myself cracking.... There were a few more things i wanted to remove from the car, like the Hood Latch and the Wiper and Break Fluid reservoir.

Both reservoirs removed.......

I started labeling all the wiring on the engine before removing all of the connections..... but then i got a little side tracked and started removing the engine lid latch. The thing was pretty much covered in years of paint... had to be scrap it all off before the screws could even budge......

While i was on that ..... i thought hey i better remove the engine cover too..... unbolt the nuts and release the spring in the middle.... and it was off....

Some engine parts come off like the air strainer..................

U will need to remove this engine tin cover for clearance.

A close up of the spring clip of the engine lid cover....... next we (By that i mean me, myself and I) raise the car on jackstands.... but since i only have a small hydraulic jack.... the back tyres werent event off the ground....... (Pls make sure you have or borrow a BIG hyraulic jack) the car needs to be really really off the ground...... Ok now place the HJ under the engine to support it........

The next thing you should not do is to be under your car which is on jackstands... and start taking pictures of spiders...... ok after a few shots.... i start looking for the bolts and nuts which are holding the engine together.... believe it or not ...there is only 4 bolts holding the whole thing together..........

Above you can see the top two bolts which i found to be the hardest to remove...... oh yeah did i mention that you will need a 17mm bent box-end wrenches for all except one (the one attached to the starter motor).. which incidentally i didnt have .... luckily the paintshop guy had one....

Its pretty slimy and grease under there.... so it was a little hard finding the bottom two bolts...especially when you dont know what you're looking for.... oh by the way remove the bottom two first before you loosen the top two....... and the bolts which is holding part of the starter motor will need another hand to help loosen it.... doing it alone took me nearly half-an-hour for that one nut alone......

While i was taking a breather i decide to take a look around the engine to see if i missed out on any wires or connections which are still attached to the engine........ thats when i found that the accelerator cable was still attached to the trottle..... detached that yah.....

below is a view of the back of the fan shroud/cover...... you can see where the two top bolts are attached too...... and where the trottle cable enters from...

Ok so now that i have everything off..... i start to yank on the engine..... heee hoooo heeee hoooo...... it comes of about 2 inches then it just stops... "clunck"..... after that its just wont come off....... i was tired and try if i may it just didnt budge ...... so thats when i grew a brain and called my uncle.... (remember him )

Now i dont know why i did what i did next .....but i did it ok.... just dont ask me why.... while the engine is hanging half way like that.... i start draining the engine oil........ i leave it to drain and the take the oil sump cover with me (like i said....dont ask why) ... and then i go pick my uncle up.......

He has a big ass hydraulic jack which cant fit in my car so we take his car.... and when we reach the paint shop he gets behind the beetle to check things out while i get the jack out of his car... before i can even do anything...."boom" he has the engine loose..... but because i didnt have the car jacked high enough ...the engine is just stuck.....

We then jack the car higher and then replace the small jack under the engine with the bigger one and "boom" he has the engine resting on the jack......... but while trying to get the engine off the jack and on to the floor it seems to be stuck..... the egde of the jack is stuck in the sump which i left open.... and forgot to cover back up.... and further more i had left the cover back at my car.....which was back at my uncle's place.... sigh.... in the end the oil strainer had jammed itself between the HJ's teeth.... we get the engine finally off the jack but not without tearing the oil strainer off of the sump........ one more item to add to my long list of parts........... sigh........

Where the engine used to be..........

Where the engine is residing now..........

The torn oil strainer......... :(

end of how you should not remove your vw beetle engine.........

.....mo

TitBits Removel

2008-02-17T09:25:00.015+08:00

Ah... its been awhile izzinit.... well ...as of the begining of January..... the car is pretty much stripped of its paint and bondo and crap... the roof is in better shape that i thought it was.... actually its in better shape then rest of the car... the front passenger side fender is pretty busted up and was not fixed well by who ever the former owners sent it too...

A couple of dents have showed up... not surprisingly lah.... filled-in with so much plaster... hmmm ... anyway all these dents must me dealt with before any prep work can be done...

To do a proper paint job i wanted to make sure that all parts small and big to be removed from the shell..... so since the paint shop does not have enought workers to work on my car... i decided to help remove some of these 'titbits'

The window glass regulator is held on by these 10mm bolts. Remove all these bolts and the regulator should come off easily.... yeah right... it took a great deal of pulling and pushing to remove it. Luckily i managed to remove it without breaking anything ...most importantly the glass was intact.....

To remove the quarter glass, first remove the 10mm bolt holding the metal bracket in the middle... then bend the bracket gently away from the glass as seen above, then look up into the channel as seen below..... you will see a phillips head screw. Remove it and wiggle the quarter glass assembly out whole.... try to be gentle yeah...

Remove the clips gently which holds the window glass rubber and brush thingy (sorry dont know the name). since im painting the car i didnt have to care about scretching the paint.... but be very carefull if your only changing this part with nice paint on your car....

To remove the hand latch your will need to remove the door rubber weather strip near the door catch... Remove the screw and wiggle the handle a little bit to get it loose... use a mallet if nessesary...

Parts slowly pilling up......

The drivers window rubber was of a newer type which was glued on, so it was easier to remove....... while the passeger side was of a rubber fused in metal brace of some kind which was rusted and rotten.... a lot of bending and yanking and it came off....

The window chrome trim on the passenger side was the only one that had proper clips securing it.....

Removing the glove box cover was a breezze...

Removing the headlight, wiper and starter switches where a little harder to do without the proper tools.... Try and find or make the appropreate tools if you dont want to risk damaging these parts........

Twist these metal studs behind the dash to remove the dashboard grill... be gentle yeah....

How do you install a fan into your VW beetle.......? Just jam a few screws into the bottom of the dash and there you have it............. aaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrggghhhhhh!!!!

Removed all the electrical bits...... left over wire... and wires that lead to nothing.... nothing?

Can anyone tell me what this switch below the dash next to the steering rod is for?

Removed the interior light door switch..... checkout the crusted rubber

The paint shop guy removed all the glass for me ... but as seen below .... i removed all the headliner and scuff and other sticky stuff on the interior....

The headliner removed.........

..... had decided to remove the engine .... so without any experience or help i sent out to remove the 1200cc engine from my beetle....... so look out for my next post... as we see... What you should not do when removing a 1965 vw beetle engine.........

Wild on Wheels 2007

2007-12-11T09:05:00.000+08:00

Went to the Wild on Wheels car show which was organized by the AMC club.... a really good turn out of cars but not a good turn out of spectators. I got there in the afternoon and found out that many of the participating had left.... even while i was making my way towards all the cars ... a string of bettles and a combi left :(

AnywaY, click on the picture to have a look at more pictures of the show... some really cool cars...

APD Auto

2007-10-08T09:15:00.000+08:00

My company was closed on the 25th of Sept... So I decided to service the Satria myself for half the price even thought i had to buy an oil filter wrench. The best part is i was able to buy the black oil with a better grade then what is used by the garages. Changing the black oil and oil filter was easy enough but i did have an issue of filling in too much of oil.... which was over the max line by about 5mm... got a little messy after that cos i had to go back under the car and drain it again ...slowly little by little ... but other then that it turned out ok... i even gave the car a wash.

Had to stop over at work that afternoon but then after lunch i made my way to a vw workshop in kayu ara (The shop i wrote about in one of my very first post in this blog) which is not too far from my office. To my shock the whole place has been flattened and there is going to be an apartment built there.... Alamak!!! not where am i going to get a 'radio delete plate' for my bug before its painted...... i had heard that if you continue driving through kayu ara you will land up in taman megah or the old lim kok wing building... so i though i will just give it a try since i had the time.......... i found myself near the Projet Petrol Station near Atria..... imagine my surprise and delight when i drove by another VW workshop called APD Auto which is run by an elderly chap named Francis Lai...... he is a pleasant guy who has run the shop for the past 15 years... and guess what? he has the radio delete plate that im looking for ........but he doesnt have the chrome trim that goes with it... no matter..... i will get it anyway.... but he has a few plates which are from beetles and ghias of a few model years.... unfortunately he and I cant seem to different shade which is from which year because the differences are so small... so i will be taking the whole bunch tomorrow to match it with my car in Klang and picking the one that looks best on it...... i cant wait lah...

The 5th of October came quickly enough... took half day off and made my way to APD after lunch at Devi's Corner TTDI... picked up the Radio Delete Plate then when over to Klang to check if it will fit... It did fit but unfortunately the former owners had made the Radio Void bigger by cutting it about 3 or 4 mm at the bottom lip... sign!!... to all vw beetle owners... if it does not fit... then look for one that will fit... dont just shove a radio in there by cutting it or bending it till it fit... im sure there are many radio players out there which are slim enough to fit the original gap..

Here is the radio gap unlawfully cut out of shape... also note the two switches (I took out one) in the middle drilled into the dash without a care..... not even place squarely in the middle... sign... will have to get that sorted out too...

Here's the radio delete plate... its in perfect condition... i think it belonged in a 66...

It fit perfectly too... but as you can see... the bottom lip and the left top corner has been cut...highlighted below in red..... why!! why!! why do you people do these things to your cars.... :(

Oh well... hopefully the metal beaters can fix that..... Anyway the three holes in the delete plate are for the chrome trimmings which i will need to find....

Well im sure you guys are wondering how come my car is still not painted.... the Indonesian workers who are working on my car had gone back to Indonesia to get their paper work sorted out and are also on Hari Raya Holidays... so they will only be back after Raya .... so there hasn't been any work done on my car in the past 5 weeks....sigh!!...

the saga continues...

btw:

APD Auto

1069 Jalan Jejarom
Kampung Sungai Kayu Ara
47400 Petaling Jaya
Tel/Fax 03-78052185
(Not opened on Weekends)

Kumbang Riders Sept 07

2007-09-18T09:43:00.000+08:00

From Kumbang Rider...

A bunch of us beetle lovers got together at Astaka Feild near Armada Hotel... 7 beetles altogether including my scale model of a vw beetle (My car is still in the shop remember)... last Friday nite... It was cool meeting up with these guys... chatting about our beetles... tech stuff and all...

We are hoping to meet up more regularly so look out for this site for more details... Unofficially i have called this meet 'Kumbang Riders Sept 07'... (Kumbang is Beetle in Malay)... here are some pics from that night...

I love those wheels man....

From Kumbang Rider...

The guys getting all technical...

From Kumbang Rider...

Click on the Kumbang Rider link for more pictures.

END

Week 3 - Paint Shop

2007-08-01T08:29:00.000+08:00

Visited my beetle last Saturday, …. work on it is pretty slow…. The old paint is still being removed and some interesting things are being uncovered (accident damage, bad repair jobs, Bondo magic!!!)…. Slow and easy I say… im still wondering if I shld have removed the engine earlier… if I remove it now then I need to find a way to transport it back to my place…but where am I going to keep it…. hmmm I think I will just leave it in and remove it once its back at my place…. Maybe I shld have removed it before sending it to the shop for paint…… but then again….like I said…where the hell am I going to keep it!!!… arrghhhh!! decisions decisions!!!...

Golf for Sale!

2007-07-23T13:11:00.000+08:00

1985 Blue Volkswagen Golf
Only 15 km
Only first gear and reverse used
Never driven hard
Original tires
Original brakes
Original fuel and oil
Only 1 driver Owner
Wishing to sell due to employment lay-off
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..........

Week 1 - Paint Shop

2007-07-17T08:48:00.000+08:00

So far its been a week at Ah Wah's Paint Shop they have stripped the fenders of its paint and removed as much of the trim and other big and little bits from the shell.

Looks kinda cool without the license plate light housing and Tail light setup doesnt it.

As you can see its going to be a slow process... cant wait for it to be finished but then its still going to be alot of work to be done after that.......
.
to be continued.....

Electrical Madness

2007-07-16T09:52:00.000+08:00

Lets have a look at the Complete Wiring Harness i bought from CIP1.

The first thing you see when you open the box

Oh dear... what have i gotten myself into........

The kit comes with all the connectors and rubber gourmets that you need... but the connectors look a bit gimpy... i think i would reuse the car's original connectors if they are still in good condition or buy new ones... if i can....

All wires are colour coded to the original specs... heck even the insulation is colour coded...

and it already has the female connectors attached to it... no fuss just plug and play.... i hope.

The manual is pretty ok but not as detailed as i wld like it to be... or maybe i just dont understand it... like i said... do i know what i have gotten myself into?... will i be able to wire the bug myself?.....

The last picture on the right is the wiring schematics of a 1961 bug... i suppose its about the same as a 65 but that ok... i do have the the 65 schematics .... in colour some more...

Just one more thing... in no way am i encouraging anybody to rewire their bug on their own. Please be warned that badly done wiring can lead to short circuit or worse... fire.... You wouldnt want your pride and joy to go up in smoke would you........ So please be very careful and patient or request the aid of a professional.

END

Finally sent for paint...

2007-07-13T09:35:00.000+08:00

Meet my uncle Raveendran, he's had a passion for classic bikes and cars all his life..... and has owned many classics in his time. In his stable he has a Norton , a Triumph and a custom made copper bike as seen in the pictures. I dont have to say that he has been riding Norton and Triumph bikes before there were even called classics...keke sorry uncle... hope you dont take that the wrong way...

Anyhow all my life i have seen him restore classic cars and bikes for as a hobby and also for clients. He himself is a Morris Minor fan and has owned and refurbished a few Morris Minors before.. You can see a blue one in front of my beetle in the picture...... which has seen better days....

Its no wonder that he is currently the President of the Classic Bike Association of Malaysia....

You could say he is one of the people that influenced my love for classics too. I really appreciate his help in keeping my car in his place till i had the time and resources to send it for paint. And that day was last Saturday.... i finally got the car towed to the paint shop called Ah Wah in Teluk Pulai, Klang ....

Unfortunately the tow guy was a dud and did not secure the beetle properly.... so when taking a sharp turn into the shop area the rear driver side tyre came out of the clamp.... and the clamp ramped my new floor boards....WTF...%$%%&()...... it was hell trying the get the car or the tow clamps off.... and the rear apron got damaged in the process.... luckily the floor board seems to be ok and still look ok..... &amp;^$##!!&*(^*(%$$...... im getting it flat bedded the next time..... in all that excitement i forgot to take my camera with me... will be going to the shop this weekend to pass a door lock lever cos i didnt realise the passenger door is locked..... pictures coming soon....

PS.... by the way my uncles custom bike is for sale ...... drop me a comment if youre interested.

END

Rewiring Tips!

2007-06-05T12:33:00.000+08:00

Found some good articles about rewiring your beetle on the VWtrends website HERE and HERE
Will be really useful when i rewire my 65...

END

Thunder!! bad for glass

2007-05-31T09:45:00.000+08:00

Last January 07 the driver's side window shattered during an electrical storm at my uncles house. can tunder shatter glass ..hmmm..... As you can see the window is missing.

There was glass everywhere..... on the floor on the seats... in the door wells too. It took forever to get the glass out of the door innerds.

There was glass on the ground too which I tried to clean. Glass on the door sill and floor was easily cleared.

Removing the window winding mechanism looked easy. Just removed a few bolts and pull it out... ....but it took me about half an hour to get in out of the door... i must be doing it wrong....

finally its removed.......

All the glass cleaned up... check out the nice new floor... ok maybe not so new..

END

Have Beetle Will Travel...

2007-04-03T14:26:00.000+08:00

Need I say more....

Mo...

Wiring Harness

2007-03-21T15:44:00.000+08:00

Its here!! Its Here!!!... i ordered the Wiring Harness for my 65 beetle online at www.cip1.com on the 12th of March and it arrived last Monday. Picked it up at the FedEx HQ in Subang Hi-Tech Industrial Park. Had to pay quite a bit of tax for it too... but hey it was all good. Its the complete wiring loom which is colour coded with the original colour description as shown in the image below.... If you need more wiring diagrams for all models and makes of classic VWs, go to The Samba dot com.

END

How to keep your Volkswagen Alive!!

2007-03-14T10:02:00.000+08:00

This book is essential for your guidance in vw beetle up keeping. The Author explains everything in layman terms so as to not confuse the average reader. Thats why the rest of the title reads 'A manual of step by step procedures for the compleat (spelt that way) idiot!'. This book is absolutely great.....

2005 Body Shop

2007-03-01T10:18:00.000+08:00

I struck the deal in January 05 but the shop could only start on the car after chinese new year in March 05. I only got the car back at the end of Jun 05. The work done on the car were; new floors, new heater channels, bottom part of the doors reworked and about 6 inches of the side lower part of the car replaced with new metal. Body rubber seals and Body to Chasis rubbers were replaced too. The following pictures were taken before completion.

(The car at the shop) (New metal all around the side lower part of the car)

(All four door hinges were worked on and bolts replaced),

(Checkout the new floor) (the battery area was not completed when i took this piture)

(You can see the new heater channels in black) (Some work done in the front headpan area)

(The spare wheel well done) (I had broken a few fender bolts and tread area which was replaced)

(The secret compartment still being worked on)(The front apron)

...
I pretty much did not do anything after that because i had planned to get married in 2006. I had also moved out of the house and was renting a room. I also was saving to go for the U2 concert in Melbourne. This forced me to put the beetle project on hold... ...

by Jun of 2006 i moved into my own house (renting), got married in August 2006 and I went to Melbourne for the u2 concert in November 2006. To me 2006 went by really fast. Bam!! its 2007... the car has been resting under a shed in my uncle's place in Klang since i moved to my house last Jun06. I would like to get the car sand blasted next and then prep it for paint. fingers crossed....

to be continued........

2004 Tear down

2007-02-23T10:55:00.000+08:00

The photo that you see in the very first post was taken in November 2003. I had bought the car in 2000 and eventhought it was in bad but running condition i just fell in love with it on the spot(i ignored all advice that i read in the Bug Shop website). The only thing i did to the car after i bought it was a new paint job and new tyres. Wish i had a picture of it when i bought it. I changed the absorbers a few months later and also changed the tie rods and steering damper a year later.

The car was in terrible shape, badly rusting (I have seen worst) and the engine needed a complete overhaul, but as usual, money was a deterrent. The floor was barely holding on to the main shell of the car. If you looked down you could see the road and if it rained very heavily, water would start flooding into the car. When that happened, a small wave of water will come splashing onto the front passenger's feet whenever i braked. I know i love the beach and waves and all, but hey... this was too much.

I would wave my hand out the window when i turned right because only the rear left side signal light was working. I would flash my headlights when i wanted to turn left. Talking about head lights, they were only there so that people could see the car coming down the road, otherwise it was useless. I could not see anything with it... its amazing how i used to drive at night and in those days i used to do alot of night driving. Another nice feature was the left door, ....it would open on its own, even when it was locked whenever i made a sharp right turn because the left door was hanging on only one hinge (Each door had two).. the bottom part of the door where the second hinge were was rotten with rust.

The pickup from standstill was pretty good though... i used to cream those kelisa fellows at the traffic lights... kekeke... then they would beat me at the straight... the car never could get past 60 miles/h (about 90km/h), but i would then overtake them at sharp corners. The car cornered like a dream. I would over take atleast a dozen cars left and right when coming down the sharp curve at Jalan Dato Abu Bakar, Section 16/1 (the road that leads to phileo damansara). But a drive to Klang would take a toll on the engine and i would have to stop at the side of the road for a little while.

So in November 2004 i decided to start restoring the car. Since budget was a concern i told myself that i would take my time restoring it. The first thing that i wanted to do was get a new floor pan into the car and attack a few rust spots.

My mum wanted me to sell the car and discouraged me from restoring it... under pressure from my mum and my sister i almost did. At that point i did what i thought was a good idea. I tore the car apart to prep it for body work. In my haste i yanked out all the wiring from the front. Dont get me wrong... the wiring was shit and everything was shorting, but i think i should not have messed with the wiring so that i would not have had to tow the car everywhere now.......... Here is the carnage;

(First to come off was the bonnet and the signal lights ; I had to rip out the running boards which were welded on the fenders and side)

(Removing the front and back fenders which took some time and i broke a few of the nuts and the treading at the body... oops!)

(The Petrol Tank , Wipers and Wiper Motor was easily removed)

(Removed all electricals from the car the speedo, petrol gauge and front main wiring loom; The wires looked like that even before i took it out of the car)

(The non vw seats removed, note the modified seat brackets arrggghhh!!)

(The batery area was badly rusted, you can see the road, found this pen stuck between the metal; The steering wheel and steering rod removed)

(You can see that the floor pan was hardly connected to the body; a little hard to see in the photo)

(The signal switch was cut in halve to accomedate the so called sports steering wheel arrrgg!! so sad; The floor looks good in this shot but as you can see below.......)

(underneath you can see that the floor was a bad patch job...so sad so sad..)

(more modifications from the former owner, a secret compartment; there must have been some clutch problems and the mechanic did not know how to tackle it the proper way)

(a closeup of the secret compartment; yet another modification which i never came around fixing. The wire would sometimes get stuck and the pedal would stay down when i was driving. I would have to reach down and yank it loose... used to scary my passenger when this happened...kekeke)

In all it took me about two weeks to reach this stage. By that time i had scouted a few body metal shops to get quotes on putting in the new floor. i wanted to put in new floor pans (german metal replicas) but i only found that they sold brazillian one here which were notorious for being low quality and very thin. I settled on a shop in Subang Jaya near Giant who would fabricate the floor out of thick metal. There where two beetles there getting new floors done so i got to see how they did it. I liked it and the price was good so i struck a deal with him and set a date to bring the car.

Next - Body Shop!

Bug-O-Rama 2006

2007-02-22T09:54:00.000+08:00

Went to the Bug-O-Rama last year, which was held at the Summit in Subang Jaya. I blogged about it HERE. It was my first big VW Show but i did not have my bug with me lah. This 50s beetle as seen in the photo here was the best car and the oldes beetle i have ever seen in the flesh. It was in prestine condition. Wish i could chat with the owner and view every inch oh this car in more detail.

The Kayu Ara Shop

2007-02-12T14:45:00.000+08:00

Most of you vw nuts will know this place. its in Damansara at the Kampung Kayu Ara junction. Location:- Along the NKVE towards the toll from Damansara uptown, stay down to get to the Traffic light junction where you can either u-turn to Damansara Uptown or turn left to go to The Atria (Forgot whats it called). Pass the lights and you will see in on the left.

I managed to find seats for my bug. I had to scavenged the piles of parts that they had but i only found two 64 seats for the right and two 65 seats for the left. There where alot of post 70s seats in very good condition too but i wanted the 60s look. Well i did not want to come back again because the pre 66 seats are hard to find, so i bought one of each...

So now i have one right seat which is a 65 model and one left seat that was a 64 model... hmmm wonder if the 65 can be modified to look like the 64, or vise versa... actually there isnt alot of difference between the two, the most obvious being the top part of the seat is more curved on the 64 compared to the 65. As you can see in the photos below, the red seat is the 64.

As i mentioned in my last entry... i need the original bracket/runners to install original seats. The foreman cut out the brackets from one of the junk cars which i think was a 69 model. The body work/metal beaters should be able to weld the brackets onto the floor of my car. Ofcos the seats and the brackets will have to be restored first.

Seat covers will be one of the last things i do for the car. So for now i have to see about wiring the whole car..

END

Sulaiman's Place

2007-02-05T16:58:00.000+08:00

Last Saturday morning, I went on a quest to find a VW mechanic shop which was recommend by a few VW nuts I know. It is a shop located near Taman Botanic Klang on the way to Banting. The owners name is Sulaiman.

Directions on getting there:- On the Kesas from Sunway, head towards west port. Get off at the Tmn Botanic/Banting exit. Turn left towards Banting. The shop is on the left about 1 kilometer from the exit. There is a Petronas Station next to it.

I knocked on the door and rang the bell a few times but no one came out. Looked around the place and tried a few more times but I guess no one was home… Oh well…

There seemed to be 4 cars there being worked on. I guess progress was slow.. Anyway at least I know where it is now. Took a couple of pictures of a few abandoned bugs…

The objective of going there was to get original low back vw seats which was standard on 65s and fit original seat runners/ guides for the seats. I noticed that all vw beetles that I see including mine do not have the original seats, thus are modified with brackets to take different kinds of seats………. Looks like it is going to be impossible to fit original seat runners and almost everyone (VW nuts) are telling me to just install any kind of coupe style seats……..sigh…

I am going to hold on to my objective……. for now..

Stopped by at Concept Auto Parts after leaving Sulaiman’s workshop to buy the following:-

1) Front Windscreen Rubber Seal (has chrome trim groove)
2) Rear Windscreen Rubber Seal (has chrome trim groove)
3) Bonnet Rubber Seal
4) Engine Lid Seal

Directions in getting there:- from Jalan Templer, turn right at the Old Klang Road traffic light junction. You will see Wisma Peter on your left. Take that left and then turn right, into the shop lots. You should be able to see a mechanic shop that has many Audis outside it. Concept Auto is next to it..

END

Intro.......

2007-01-31T12:08:00.000+08:00

My love for vw beetles goes back all the way to ‘diaper hood’. There are two kinds of kids… the one that gets scared and cries their lungs out … and then there is the one that smiles and was always in a good mood when they where confronted with a vw air cooled beetle. No points for guessing which kid I was.

I would look all starry-eyed when I hear a beetle pass by. In fact I still do …till this day… I would tilt my head as soon as I heard the distinct sound of an air cooled beetle engine... just to see what make/model it was.

Yes, I can tell the difference of each model year starting from 1930s right up to 1970s …not to mention the Mexican beetles which ended its run at the end of 2003. Did you know that that was the 21,529,464th beetle.. Yup! The vw beetle has been around for many many years…

I would like to chronicle the restoration of my 1965 beetle… it has been a really slow work in progress and maybe by blogging about it… it would inspire me to work harder and faster in getting the bug not only back on the road but also improving it along the way till it becomes a show winner….. ok maybe I’m getting a little ahead of myself….

And so it begins…….

Mo..