1971 VW Type 3 Fastback

You are exactly right sir, and ive got a lovely update coming this evening with some very fiddly details. Well that tank sealer has gone in ok, and yesterday it was fully cured. So today will see some fitting and hopefully some petrol go on. then ill tell you if its any good

Its just gone it jim!

Not a lot to show you regarding the tank sealing, Its just a case of following the steps. i spent about 6 hours with the degreaser, shaking the tanks around and standing them in all different potions. I then spent another 6 hours with the metal prep. Which it just a rust inhibitor and adhesion promoter. 5 minutes washing with the hose pipe followed. Then again as you've seen in the previous photo, I put the heat gun in for 15 minutes to make sure it was bone dry inside. I left it to sit in the wind outside for a further 15.

Once I was certain it was dry, I masked off all of the outlets bar the fuel sender hole. Poured in the tank sealer, masked it over and began to roll the tank around making sure I coated all the internal surfaces. I lifted the masking tape and poked a small light in to see if it was covering well. Both tanks had a very liberal covering inside, I then left them to drain.

They are very generous with the sealer, this kit was enough for 78L worth of fuel tank. These two tanks total 80L and I could have easily done another two tanks. If id have known, I would have done the tank for the porsche at the same time! Hopefully it will help someone else in the future though. Be prepared to do all of your fuel tanks

So with that done they had to sit for the week and cure.

Thats a lot of words, so shall we have some photos? I refitted the master cylinder, it was a LHD one, digging through my boxes of parts I found a RHD one and it seemed to be in good order internally. So with a seal kit ive got I cleaned it up, had it powder coated and rebuilt it. Here it is installed, and it tidies up the pipe work nicely.



I then wasted nearly a full day bleeding it, and no matter what I did with the pedal adjustment, rear brake shoe adjustment ect, the pedal was 7/8 travel before it did anything. So I lost my temper and spent some time online looking for a new one.

This is the closest I can find. It requires the OSF pipe to be changed and the port is on the top rather than side of the cylinder. Otherwise it seems to be the same.



And a short while later its installed with new brake light switches.



I think I might have a sick brake caliper, as theres still a tiny bit of sponge in the pedal. But its now firming up before half travel. With near enough a new rear brake set up. Ill get them settled in before I go doing any more work on the brakes.

Knowing the master cylinder was in and sorted, I thought it would be time to put a tank it. First job was to put some fuel in on the drive and just make sure its sealed. It passed this test, I found the threads for the fuel sender just needed a tap running through to remove the sealer. Otherwise it was ready to go. And here it did go.



This next bit is a lot of work for a little detail, but I enjoyed it.

I designed this on actual CAD and the other had used her cutting machine to but it out of paper as a test.



With that, we went for sticker paper, as I'm not looking for a repeatable process I'm just placing the small piece in the middle of the headlamp. But I have a solution for this if I ever make a run of these. The other error was the slash was too close the headlamp.



So with a little redesign I went for it.



And I must say I'm quite pleased



If people like this and they want a go, I can see about producing and selling these?

And finally a little money shot to show the dash build up.

Been a rather big push the last two weeks since you were last updated. So lets see how its looking.

Heres that new boot liner/sound proofing as I promised.



So ive largely split my time between rebuilding the doors and refitting the wings, largely to stop me going mad doing just one thing.

I began by digging out the box full of door stuff and finding out what was missing/knackered. Which resulted in this pile of parts arriving and in addition to this was a bit sheet of door plastic membrane.



After fitting door locks and striker plates. These anti tamper/window guides went it.



The check straps needed rebumpering too. Nothing more than a simple split pin removal and the job was done.





The door window trims/scrapers needed quite a bit of love. And I wasnt prepared to spend over £100 on beetle ones which needed extra work to make fit.



The rubber was well knackered.



As the outter scraper rubber isnt available on its own I have fitted a pair or inners as I had plenty of them in good condition.

It took a bit of fiddling, but the end result was as good if not better than the aftermarket tat you can buy to day.













With this skill and knowledge now in the bank, i promptly pushed on with the passenger side. Unfortunately it wasn't to work out quite so well, the trim its self didnt looks half as smart with lots of scratches and tarnished chrome. I did attempt the repair but as it was a bit wobbly too I couldnt get the rubber to sit in a position I was happy with, the end result being I had to buy one of these beetle ones and have a bash at fitting it.

When it arrived though it was bent.





Naturally I wasnt impressed with this and worse still, when I offered it up to the car the clips didnt line up with the holes in the door. Though the supplier has agreed a refund, it didnt solve the problem of my trim requirements. While talking to a friend who had ordered a lot of seals from WCM, he told me he had a type 3 window trim in his shed. I promptly popped round to his!

There is the beetle along side the type 3. As you can see theres quite a bit of difference in the clips alignment.



Still, the assembly quality was left wanting though, I guess it was 5 to home time when this was built.





With a small hammer and dolly I sorted these rivets out and then put some felt backing on to protect the glass from the rivet heads. Still frustrating to have to put this much work in to what is basically a bent metal strip that cost £50. Once fitted it did look rather well, but as is tradition. I forgot to take a photo.

More to come shortly.

Do you have a meet planned as your finish date?

Shall we have the big one then?

I found a gear knob but with no threads in so I made a little insert









That was a simple and enjoy able job. So further rebuilding I have one NOS head lamp bowl and 1 which ive had chrome powder coated. Bit of an experiment just to see how bright it is.





Assembling rather nicely.



I got on with fitting the front indicators and head lamps, the bezels will need re chroming at some point in the future. But ill live with them for this summer.



Following this, I gave the inside of bumper a good scrub down and then but some rust beater in. Then a couple of coats of paint, followed by a coat of dinatrol wax.



The chrome isnt too bad, but again it will need to be done at some point.



Ive then decided to go for a bit of interior work. I got on and forgot to take photos. I installed a plastic membrane on the door along with some blocks of foam on the door operation mechanism to stop rattles. I then bag these nearly new window winders for next to nothing.





Some glazing then followed, A tad more tricky then I expected. But all went in after 2 or 3 goes.





As I expect you've noticed, I put masking tape on the sills to protect them from chips and scratches as I got in and out. With work coming to an end, I removed it. And upsettingly it remove the paint with it on the drivers side. Ive no idea where as this hasnt happened anywhere else. But none the less I had to repaint it. That set me back another day.



Here is it once the weather warmed up a bit, parked on the drive as I carried on fitting bits like the rear lights and door handles



Ive started to run the banger about as a shake down and see what falls off. The brakes are still a bit of a problem, but the fronts lock so they do work well. The engines running a bit rough, but well enough that i can keep driving and it sits happily at 55-60mph.



The first failure was the starter motor, the nylon collars fallen apart and jammed the level. Luckily I had a spare so ive fitted that.



Sound proofing and interior parts to get on with next.

The news is largely good then. Ive got around 60 shakedown miles on the car. A short to do list has arisen. But nothing that is a disaster. The bonnet is still curse word, so ignore that.



The job I needed to do was to get the bonnet springs on the second hook. Something id not been looking forward too and wasnt really sure how id do it.



After trying with my own brute force, some take and mole grips i got no where. So I ended up putting a strap through some coils of the spring. Tying it off to my work bench and then reversing ever so slightly. The whole time the cigar clipper was pulsing.

This photo shows the strap around the hook rather than the coils. This was during an experimental phase and I forgot to photograph the final, I nearly said solution. But thats something else!



The springs are rather strong, it dragged the bench backwards across the the workshop.



Ultimately it got the job done and the bonnet doesnt try to decapitate you when you let go.

Job two, id had a bit of trouble setting the engine up. Always hunting, and kangarooing at high revs low throttle. Under normal condition it drove rather nicely, happily sitting at 60 and not getting hot. After some investigation I found the RH accelerator pump to be weak. I too the carb off for a clean out and inspection. This is what I found inside the pump.



Now I knew this was there, but I didnt know (I still havent been able to understand why) this corrosion was detrimental to the pumps operation. Both ports are clear and the ball valve is moving freely. Ive ultrasonically cleaned another body with a much better looking pump.



I then swapped all the parts over from one to the other, so I am using the same jets, same diaphragm, top, float ect. I want to change as few parts as possible to isolate the issue. So its essentially the same carb apart from the lower half of the casting its self.

I primed it with petrol and the pump operated perfectly a dozen times on the bench.

Back on the car and it runs much better. Still not at 100% but a little bit of set up work should sort it out. The engine even sounds smoother and is even happier to bimble along at 60mph. With noticeably less throttle.

Tracking wise the car is pretty close, I gave it a quick tweek with my optical gauges. The rear drivers side sits about 15mm lower then the passenger side, so ive got a little adjustment to make. The only other thing for you today is some sound proofing.

I needed something to give the carpet a bit of padding as well as reduce the tin rattle from the floor. I found this Dodo linner.



Very easy to work with and I could already tell the difference before id stuck it down. At £30 for 10 sheets of closed cell (It wont absorb water) its perfect for the floor.

God knows, I gave up on the stock VW carb on mine because even changing everything it still ran like a fox picture's backside It seems they get to a certain age and just turn into paperweights

I took my Beetle to a local expert cos I just despaired of ever getting it to run even half-decent. He diagnosed the actual butterfly spindle as having worn in the carb casing, so essentially instead of opening square to the venturi, it goes slightly on the wonk (unpredictably) and also never quite closes properly, giving all kinds of mutant rough running problems. You would only really know if you already knew, the amount of float is barely detectable if you hold the ends of the butterfly spindle and rock it but certainly it's enough to make it run like a three-legged dog

Lets see if I can remember what I was doing then.

Its more story than photos for you all now. With the local miles covered I started to spanner checked it all. The running is much improved and the engine is running nice and cool.

Some time was spent properly installing the seat belts and tidying up the brackets. I may improve on this further but that's something to do as and when. Ive also thrown the carpets in with out glue. This was just to improve the presentation for Stanford hall. Its also given me a good idea on the noise level in the car. I may yet add a little more sound proofing. So the carpets would need to come out for that.



I cleaned out the inside of the rear bumper, applied some rust beater, a good few coats of paint and then some clear rust proofing wax. The only photo I managed to take was this before shot of the chrome.



So last sunday up nice and early, set off at 7am with 90 miles to cover. The ole banger ate up the miles, 1 hour and 45 minutes later we were parked up in the grounds of Stanford hall. First check was to lay my hand on the engine block. I would say its warm, maybe very warm. But by no means hot after cursing along at 65mph.



A great day out, and the car run home very nicely. I even spent a spell on the M1 at 70mph. Its still got a hesitation that feels like out of balance carbs. But they're perfectly balanced. I'm suspecting more and more that its an air leak. But that's a minor issue. Initially it had been burning a bit of oil, but now 300 miles have been covered it doesn't use a drop. I expect it was down the fact it had been stood for about 2 years sticky rings and rough bores. Call it "run in" now eh.

The brakes have also improved at the 180 mile trip, I bought new rear drums a few years ago and have only just fitted them. It would seem they're curse word and oval. Or were to begin with. The more ive used them the smoother braking has got. The fronts work well and I can lock both wheels.

I had intended to MOT before Stanford hall but the weather was curse word and I wasn't prepared to get the car covered in salt. So that fateful day came today. I was using it more as a duplicate inspection of my work, rather than a MOT.

All 4 corners of the brakes passed with flying colours, one or two loose fasteners were found. These were tightened and respected, a current MOT was issued. I drove home a happy chap with a bit more peace of mind that the car was safe and solid.

I hope you enjoyed my spelling mistakes, I'm sure if included a few