Clean up and transmission back in.

After getting the transmission out - I took some time to clean up the mounts. It took some elbow grease and some cleaner, but I managed to get the years of grease and grime off.

With new boots, a new shaft seal, new mounts, I got the transmission back into the car. I recommend not tightening the small end of the boots until you have everything back into the car. That allows you to get things aligned and the boots won't be tweaked.

I have also replaced all the rubber hoses for the brake lines. Better to spend the extra money while things are taken apart.

Then I proceeded with the rear wheels. Reassembling everything with new bearings, seals, and even shocks. (The old shocks would compress and STAY that way).

Transmission out

After pulling the bearing, you need to remove the bolts that hold the axle to the torsion bar plate. Before just unbolting this, it's good to mark where it aligned with a chisel.

Then there are additional bolts to the rear of the axel and front. Don't forget all the cables and things like the clutch!

Once everything is disconnected, it's a matter of jacking it up and out. I didn't remove the two large bolts for the cross member as it was easy for me to wiggle it out. The transmission isn't that heavy, but can be cumbersome.

Rear wheels

Removing the rear axle has some of its own concerns. A couple of things to note are as follows.

After removing all the brake parts, you need to remove the four bold holding the bearing seal cover.

This cover holds the bearing seal and gaskets. You may need to have a pan underneath because some of the oil will leak out.

Notice that the cover is shaped a specific way. Make sure you re-install it in the same direction.

Next you have the bearing shim that in under the seal.

and the bearing cover seal that fits around the bearing.

It may take a while, but you can eventually get the bearing out. Behind the bearing is a spacer. If you remove this, be sure to note that it has a bevel that needs to be installed towards the inside of the shaft.

Engine out

After working on the front - I jacked up the back and started working on the back brakes. It was a good thing that I did, because on the passenger side, the brakes were installed incorrectly and on the drivers side, the emergency brake cable was acually lose and bent.

After looking at everything, I decided that I would go farther and remove the engine and transmission. This way I could install new rubber transmission mounts, replace the rear bearings, and go through the engine.

There are a lot of good instructions for removing VW engines out there. The thing to remember is that you need to be sure to disconnect all the cables (accelerator and heater). In my case, I had to remove the heater assemblies as well. With some assistance from my girlfriend, I finally got the engine out.

For those with good eyes, you can see that over time, the lower duct work was removed and is missing.

Looking on the back side, you can see that it still has the older clutch pressure plate. I may upgrade this to a newer version.

Although the serial number on the engine indicates that this is a 1600 out of a Superbeetle, I question that since it still has the older oil cooler. A sticker on the fan housing says that it's a 1500 from 1967.

I'll post additional picture of the engine after I tear into it.

The front end and advice

When rebuilding a vehicle the best "tool" that I have found is a digital camera. They say a picture is worth a thousand words and when you are working on vehicles, taking lots of pictures of how things are put together really helps in the long run. You might get excited and take something apart and then when it's a month later and you need to assemble it, you can't remember how it was to go back together. That is where lots of photos come in handy. Not to mention that it's cool to see how things change in time. One of the other things that you shouldn't do is to throw away the old parts until you know you don't need them any more. The following is a good example why you may need to re-use the old parts.

This photo shows the difference between the "new" parts and the old parts. As you can see there is a lot of difference, especially in the length of the spring. I had ordered the correct item, it's just that sometimes the parts aren't exactly what you need. In this case I had to re-use the old springs and retainers.

Here is a photo of the brakes after I have rebuilt them.

As you see - I had not cleaned up everything on the axel. This is going to be a daily driver and not a show car so I am not getting to that level. Maybe someday I'll rebuild it from the ground up but for now I just want to get it back on the road. I replaced everything within the drum, new bearings and seals, the shocks, and the rubber snubbers. I am still going to replace the rubber for the sway arm when they arrive.

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!

The start

This is the story of the revival of a little VW Beetle that came into my life in the spring of 2011. My history with bugs goes back to the early 70's. My very first beetle was a 1959 and the engine leaked oil on to the clutch so much that if you "popped the clutch" the bug would just slowly drive off like it had an automatic transmission. My second experience was with a 1964/65/66. I picked up a '64 but found it was in a flood and the pan and engine were shot. A buddy had pan that he was going to make a dune buggy (but never did) and the engine was from another friend. Between all the parts, I managed to make my wonderful bug that got me just about everywhere. Alas, over time for various reasons I had to let my four wheeled friends go. Flash forward to 2011. I had been looking for a car that I could use as a daily driver and that would get better gas mileage than my '94 Chevy Corsica (with 220k). I looked all over but I couldn't find anything that "fit" and wasn't too expensive either. Then an ad appeared in Craigslist about a 1960 VW Beetle. Oh, I thought that was perfect! I knew these cars! I jumped on the phone and called the owner. Yes, he still had it and yes, I could come and take a look. She looked sad. She was sitting with one flat tire, and all colors of paint. However under that dirt and grime I could see that she just needed some TLC to be happy again. (and lots of spinning of the wrenches). With nary a second thought, I told the guy I would take her. A week later I went to get her and the tire had been aired up and she was looking better already. It took some time to breath live back into her little engine. After much coughing and sputtering, she finally started to run and settled down to that sound that we all know and love. I drove her home but she was limping badly and her front tire had rubbed on the fender and about shredded itself by the time I got home.

The rear bumper is trashed A piece of wood for the drivers side Oh look - spare parts! And of course no headliner