Research and clean out

Once Ruby was safely in my garage, I started to scour the net for parts. The vendors that I have used so far are:

• Wolfsburg West
• California Pacific Jbugs
• Mid America Motorworks
• JC Whitney
• Airhead Parts
• Hot Spark Performance Parts

And a great source for parts and information is:

• The Samba
• Rob and Dave’s Aircooled Volkswagen Web Pages

I also gathered together my books:

• How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive - John Muir
• How to Restore Volkswagen Beetle - Jim Tyler
• AirCooled VW Engine Interchange Manual
• Volkswagen 1949-71 (Chilton's Repair & Tune-Up Guides)
• VW Beetle & Karmann Ghia 1954 through 1979 All Models (Haynes Repair Manual)

Once I found great places to get parts - I started ordering. My plan is simple. I am not trying to build a show car but I want something that is dependable and comfortable. The first priority is to make everything safe.

So I started with the brakes. Up went Ruby on jack stands and the wheels came off. Since it is easier to work on, I took the fenders off as well. They were going to need some bodywork anyway and I might as well work on them off of the car.

As expected on a 50 year old car. There were plenty of things that needed replacing. I knew that the rubber pieces needed replacement, so I ordered a complete rubber kit. This isn't ALL inclusive, but gets most of what you would need. WolfsBurg is a great place to get the items that are missed.

Taking things apart I found that previous attempts at "fixes" where haphazard and just wrong. There were ball bearings on one side, tapered bearings on the other and the brake shoes had been installed incorrectly. It just goes to show that if you don't know the history of the vehicle that it's best to check these things out.

Something else was interesting to find. This car was a 1960 but has a lot of the mechanicals from the 1959. There is no steering wheel stabilizer for one. It will be interesting when I get to her "heart". The old 1200 engine has been replaced by a 1974 Super Beetle 1600 single port. It runs but I know the oil is black as midnight.

The best part is that although she has been neglected and abused for so long, she isn't full of cancer rust like others. That's great just in itself!