'71 1200 Beetle Dolly ... Page 13. The resurrection shuffle

So, I was looking at Beetles. And man, there are a lot of curse word ones out there. Not just rustbuckets (it's patina, mate) and questionable taste in mods (no, I don't surf. Nor ride stupid ungainly 70s pushbikes. Nor have any need for formica-covered suitcases, thanks. So what would I put on that roofrack?) but also genuinely scary/funny bodges. My absolute favourite was the Herbie "replica" with no sunroof. But Herbie had a sunroof in the films, yeah? So why not stick a square of felt fabric to the tin roof of a stock Beetle? And even better, why not run the vinyl racing stripes right over your "sunroof" to draw attention to exactly how retarded and taste-bypassed a cretin you really are?

I decided after too long immersed in the mire of eBay... drain the swamp, please!... that I'd rather buy a bog stock car that was sound than buy one with a lot of money spent on it but that meant I had to spend time undoing other peoples "taste". But then up popped Dolly and I was smitten. I mean, just look at her little face. Soooooo cute *ahem* Sorry.

Anyhoo, much as I was taken with her flirtacious good looks and curvaceous rump, I'm not a mug and still gave her a good looking over. All seemed fine, there was a slight misfire which the seller was going to put right before delivery but she seemed sound and relatively rust-free. Always hard to tell with restored Beetles how much has been done; are the heater channels quietly rotting from the inside out, for example? I figured I could look forever and still be in a lottery. Might as well take the plunge and sort out what needed sorting. So, with a new electronic dizzy, service, plugs, master cylinder and stuff, she was mine.


R3Q by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Bay by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

And in case you were wondering, no I didn't call her Dolly. She came pre-named. See?


Dash by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

That was part of what sold the kids on her. That and the all-important paw button. (I made the mistake of explaining to my daughter that the headlight switch on 68- Beetles looks like a paw and that then pretty much decided what era car I was going to end up with)

Dolly arrived on Saturday, however, she didn't want to start when winched off the trailer, so the battery was put on charge. Full of magic voltage voodoo, she had a go at it but then died. Ahha, you need to put petrol in these infernal combustion things too, don't you? Off I went to the local garage, returning with 5 litres of BPs finest.

"She's very thirsty" observed Mrs Luckyseven as the go-juice glugged down her gullet. The car's, not the wife's

"Yeah," quips I. "It's probably pouring straight out the bottom onto my feet"

"Ooh, so it is," says she

curse word


Incontinence by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Good job the tank on a Beetle is a case of undoing four bolts and lifting it out of the front boot thing ... frunk? whatever. Underneath is a flexi-hose that connects the steel union on the underside of the tank to the fuel hardpipe that goes back to the engine. This flexi-hose was clearly about as old as I am (the car's a year younger than me and she was born in 1971) so I guess it should have come as a surprise that the hose had genuinely split in two


Cruelly truncated by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Not something I often get to say, but I actually have worn considerably better than this


knackerdy fuel hose by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

No great disaster, I bunged on a random offcut of fuel hose I had left over from RX-7 rejuvenation duties. I'd only lost a couple of litres of gasoline and disaster was averted. I put in what was left, with no apparent leaks, and went off for a test-drive. She ran fine, albeit a bit slower than I was used to. We even got up to 70mph. But what fun it was to potter along, that iconic aircooled flat four chirping away, people smiling and even waving. Hitler called Herr Dr Porsche's finest automotive achievement the Kraft Durch Freude wagen (strength through joy) and you can't help but enjoy the experience of driving a Beetle. Buoyed up on this wave of euphoria, I stopped for a fag (no leaks but the smell of gas was still pungent in the cabin... that's what comes of having nothing between you and the frunk but some mesh holes!). Mrs L7 suggested picking up her and the kids and going to see mum, so we did. The old dear got all misty eyed for her misspent youth clattering around in Beetles and was so happy I'd got rid of that nasty dangerous red fast thing that her good humour even tolerated the big wet stain Dolly left on her drive...


curse word.

Too dark to do anything about it that night, but in the morning the wet patch was still there and petrol was dripping steadily from her gusset (the car, not my mum). Out came the tank again, and this time with it came the stub end of the hardpipe fuel line. Yep, that one that runs through the spine chassis


Frunk by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

That one that's a total nightmare to fix... it goes in the top of the front framehead, turns ninety degrees ad runs the entire length of the sealed spine, takes a right turn into one of the rear framehorns and then turns another ninety degrees to exit at the top besides the transmission. Replacing it sounds like an utter whoreson of a job. But that's what I've got to do, because this is all that's left protruding


The dread amputation by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

So, I seem to have basically traded one very expensive car-shaped driveway ornament for a different car-shaped immobile lump. But a slightly prettier one. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose ? Maybe that willy old sod Karr was right. It seems for me at least, the more it changes the more it stays the same...




Tune in next time to see how our intrepid hero (me) overcomes this first hurdle on the path to righteous, blissful Beetle ownership

I really really like Doly. She is one good looking femme fatale!

I like that old photo with the orange beetle. to be honest not of the beetle but the Escort station wagon.
Mum and dad bought one like that in 74. A baby? blue one. 
Dad picked it up in the morning. Unfortunately it got written of 6 hours later with 21 Km's on the clock!

Keep us posted mate!!

And a different adventure begins!

Got click baited too, all I can do about it now is accept the fact and so... subscribed

Just glad you aren't setting fire to Dolly & vice versa so soon in the relationship. Plenty to look forward to before arguing about make-up & footwear.
Glad she's a nice simple girl at heart regardless of whatever pretensions she might dabble in.

i heard you can fit a rx7 engine in to one of those
kidding

Holy smeg, what a godawful job that was to have to do :mad: Having swapped one expensive car-shaped driveway ornament for another wasn't improving my temper any... and, typically having had the remaining RX-7 in the garage for several months while I "fixed" it suddenly became a bit of a pain because I was going onto earlies at work and they were too early earlies for the early train :confused: No, it does make sense, honestly

So, I had a (now fixed) RX-7 in the garage that I needed to drive and a broken Beetle outside, blocking the door. I imposed upon the neighbour's better nature hoping since he's a large strong bloke and the Beetle's a small light (for a car)... well, car... we could push her out of the way and get the Rex out. Then push Dolly in so at least I could be in the dry while lying upside-down spurting unleaded into my favourite eyesocket. As it turned out, the neighbour's better nature didn't take too much abuse as the garage door support pin sheared off anyway and the whole thing tried to fall off :rolleyes:

That was a result then.


So, while I was waiting on fuel system stuff to arrive via the miracle of the internetz, I thought I might as well add garage door components to the postal bill. And blagged a taxi out of work.

But because this thread, like almost all in fact, is mostly meaningless without pics, have some pics. I bought Th'Boy a model Beetle as he was rather taken with Dolly, but it was a snap-together Airfix one because he's a bit hamfisted to be trusted with glue and stuff. It uses studs rather similar to Lego to stick together. Being the world's greatest living Lego guru, it didn't take him long to realise they were exactly the same size and spacing as Lego and to customise it with some minifigs

Jokerbeetle by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Jokerbeetle II by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

I know all proper Red Dwarf fans are supposed to go for Wilma Flintstone, but is it wrong that I'd happily settle for Poison Ivy?


*ahem* Anyway, the car...

When we left our li'l Dolly she had a cruelly truncated stump of fuel line sticking out of the frame head. A bit of research on various VW websites led me to believe this is the Beetle equivalent of the Hose From Hell (MR2 owners all over the place have just started twitching and randomly swearing at those three innocent words). I wasn't optimistic. However, she couldn't sit there forever. The chrome was already rusting in the rain, lol. So armed with snipe-nose pliers and a massive roll of kunifer, I set to. And as suspected, the fuel pipe wouldn't budge. There are apparently a couple of little bent metal tangs on the inside of the tunnel that clip it into place. Some threads say a bit of judicious wiggling will free them up enough to draw the pipe through... and some say it won't. Well, mine wouldn't

Quelle surprise

I had some wild plan of joining the new kunifer to the old steel pipe with some wizard scheme involving self-tappers and chemical metal and then dragging the new pipe through on the end of the old. But it wasn't having it. The next angle of attack would be try to get what access I could to the tunnel, but I really didn't fancy removing the pedal assembly, which looks a right pain in the prostate and it didn't look like the little round panel through the front of the apron would be much help. Sometimes the best method is just to lose your patience, and a bloody good "sod it" heave with the pliers got enough of the pipe out through the grommet to get a hose from the tank on. Worryingly, at the rear end of the tunnel, the pipe hadn't moved at all so I didn't try again for fear of snapping it off in the tunnel. It might be a bit of a bodge, but at least we had a continuous fuel transfer method again!

And as for that one at the back... well. The shop I bought the car from had renewed some of the hose and stuff; the easy bits in the engine bay. The bit from the framehorn to the tinware was the same manky cloth-covered gruesome 46-year-old cack that had split at the tank end!


More knackerdy hose by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Clearly, that had to go, especially as it runs right alongside the heat exchanger gubbins from the exhaust! Access was... well..


Rear end up by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

... there is no access. Gahhh, and there was me thinking a simple aircooled old thing would be easy to work on. By dint of careful application of swearwords and scraping off a good deal of hand-fat


Blood offerings by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

I managed to persuade on a new bit of hose. My hands might have looked like I'd washed them in a food mixer by the end of it, but at least I felt that the chance of immolating in a glorious Nikki Lauda stylee had been reduced


New rear line by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

I shall get some of the aluminised fabric heatshield stuff to put round that hose to give it a bit more protection from the zorst. And as for the knackerdy old steel pipe? Well, I dunno. I guess one day I'll just have to man up and try to thread some new stuff, but for now it's nice to think I can actually drive the smegging thing for a bit. Orrrrrrrrr.... I could...

....if there was only some means of getting fuel actually into the tank

Y'See, VW in their infinite wisdom decided that simply putting a length of filler hose from the neck to the tank was far to easy. Presumably figuring Beetle owners had put up for thirty odd years with opening the bonnet and pouring fuel straight into the tank, they didn't want to spoil them and have them go soft by introducing too easy a way of coupling the tank to the outside world. So they used two short (100mm) lengths of filler hose joined in the middle by a metal elbow thus;


Tank plumbing by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Which is fine. Until you disturb it from its slumber by taking the tank out. Then you find that's it's gone harder than Vibranium in the forty-plus years it's been clamped around the various spigots, and no amount of tightening the hose clips will ever persuade it to make a fuel-proof seal aver again. In fact, what you end up with is sheared hose clips. Gahhh.

To compound the misery, VW used an internal diameter that corresponds to no know method of human measurement (48mm if you must know) and is nowhere near the diameter of any easily-sourced filler hose. In fact, even VW didn't trust their own sizing "method" because each metal component also has an inch-wide rubber sock to add extra sealing power to the hose itself. Needless to say, the ones on my setup were either hopelessly stretched, perished and baggy, or simply not there at all. I managed to source a proper industrial-strength length of Gates hose in the right diameter, but that proved useless because... errmmm... it was industrial-strength. The wire reinforcing meant not only was it almost impossible to deflect enough to fir over the neck flares, but if you did manage to put in a superhuman effort and get it on, there was no way the feeble little clips would tighten it enough to seal


*sigh*

Looks like a trip to VW Heritage was in order then.

Lovely place, mind, and I go past it on the train to work every day and always wanted an excuse to go in for a neb around, so this might be a positive in the long run. Of course, once in the door I couldn't contain my enthusiasm to something as boring as hose so I splurged on some shiny bits to start the toning-down strategy on the rather camp and excessive two-tone that Dolly's had inflicted on her. Baby steps to start with, such as removing the painted indicator shells


Indicator painted by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

and replacing them with chrome ones


Indicator chromed by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

I wanted to get some chrome headlight rings, but they were out of stock so that's something to look forward to another day. I did pick up a set of stainless mini moon disc hubcaps because the stock dog dishes upset me, and also a locking latch for the engine compartment because Beetle security is laughable enough without leaving free access to the engine. I got three keys with the car, two of which seemingly match none of the locks on the car and none of which match the engine lid lock!


Engine lid lock by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Of course, that didn't fit. Or, it did, but it didn't latch. It pretended to, but as soon as you tried turning the lock it'd spring and the lid would pop open. Weird. Comparison with the old one seemed to show they were the damned same; although the new one had a slightly chunkier body, the important bits matched.


Latches by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Much faffing about (and swearing) showed that the hook on the new one was just a gnat's too short to engage the striker plate on the bodyshell; fitting it with no gasket gave just enough extra length (and every little counts, just ask yer mum) to latch onto the plate. But given how the car seems to dissolve like an apsirin at the hint of moisture, I wasn't about to leave anything un-gasketed. Some judicious filing of the hook and using the old, squashed gasket from the original lock were just enough to let it latch, and more importantly, lock. Hurrah! Bi-winning like Charlie, me

So, hose then


Hooooose by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

The new VW Heritage bit was a lot beefier than my prehistoric originals, which made for a bit of reassurance. It's kinda a kit in as much as I had to saw it in half to make the two bits I needed, lol. Of course, the extra thickness of ply (and girth matters too, kids, as yer mum will tell you) simply meant that none of the hose clips would fit over it and needless to say I didn't have any that would in my garage. Gahh.

While I waited for some monster strength stainless Mikalor clips to arrive (if a job's worth doing, it's worth overdoing) I swapped out the manky old relic of a breather for some new stuff


New vs old vent by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

and likewise the unfeasibly elaborate vent pipes. Whoever designed that little wheeze was obviously exposed to petrol fumes for too long because it's like knitting. A 5mm tube comes of the tank and joins a T-piece with a clear vent off it. Then it joins another T-piece on the tank filler breather. Meanwhile the clear vent goes up to the scuttle, joins a metal pipe running the width of the windscreen surround, then becomes another vent hose that goes down the other side of the boot (incidentally passing the original tank vent line in the process) and finally goes through a little hole in the flitch to splort any petrol fumes or whatever out onto the road. Wow. Zany. Anyway, I get the impression that whoever "restored" this car wasn't as religious about masking and protection as I might have liked...


breather scandal by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Besides the calamitous overspray, the clear tube was fossilised and crustier than your nan's kecks, so that had to go


breather renewed by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Meanwhile, my Mikalor clamps turned up so I could actually try fitting the filler back together. The little rubber hose sock things from VW Heritage were much more enthusiastic than the old ones, and showed how baggy the ones that came off were as the new ones fitted inside their diameter!


Hose grommets by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

But just to say what a massive pain in the arris it is trying to squeeze the pretty robust new hose over four separate joints without sliding the little rubber sock grommets off in the process. It took a LOT of swearing, that one, but finally I had a fuel system that actually held fuel without filling up the boot or spraying it all over the engine


Tank plumbing v2 by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

There's a lot to be done in there still... for example this;


Scary wiring by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

is bordering on the outright terrifying, and given how many un-insulated spade terminals are liberally scattered like confetti throughout the boot it's amazing any of the electrics actually work at all. I can't live with it knowing that clump of Satan's spaghetti is living under there like a troll under a bridge, so it's near the top of my list of Shiz To Do. And in other news, I discovered another crime my friendly neighbourhood "restorer" has perpetrated;


Vinsanity by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Like, really? Who stonechips their VIN plate and then wonders why it's a bit tricky reading the info?

Anyway, enough negativity. I poured back in all the petrol I'd managed to save from the tank disaster, and she fired up. First time. Time for a drive, then


Woodland Beetle by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Awesome. I actually got to drive the smegging thing! We went for a good long potter through the Sussex lanes and I figured "kill or cure" and cruelly made the poor old girl go up Bury Hill (any locals who know the place might appreciate this is something of an achievement for a 46 year old 1200 Beetle with barely enough grunt to, in the words of the late great Barry Sheene, pull the cock off a chocolate mouse). Only the third time I've driven her in three months; a test drive, the time the fuel incontinencised itself (actually a word), and today. Not a bad average, once a month drive, lol. I stopped a couple of times to immortalise the occasion, after all I dunno how long it'll be before I get another chance to actually use it as transport


On the heath by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

I think Dolly looks very nice in a sylvan setting, and the new hubcaps have helped a lot. Next step is definitely to de-paintify some other bits, I thinks


Mooondisc by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Birch Beetle by Nick Liassides, on Flickr



Like all good tests, this one threw up some questions. Such as why does the nearside headlight want to be on all the time even when the switch is off? And why does she keep cutting out when returning to idle after the engine's been at speed? Hopefully the one is a bad earth and the other is a matter of idle speed adjustment, but for now I'm just over the moon to have actually driven my latest, most expensive, driveway ornamenet!

Thanks for reading (if anyone still is) and until next time, be safe you crazy kids

Still got the CAD file for 13b to beetle gearbox.....

No.  But you need a constant supply of gearboxes. Been there,done that,don't need the tee shirt....But it used to go like stink.  

Damn, I quite like the two tone! I still remember mine!





It does seem the owner went a little overboard in places on yours I admit!

I am glad to see it is progressing in the way that you want.