Dirkmonster

'74 VW Super Beetle back out on the road

I got the 1974 Super Beetle convertible out of the garage today, blessed with the first sorta sunny warm day.

It makes me think of my father-in-law, Eddie Veazey, who helped me pick it out 3 years ago and then got it running again at his shop in Cottage Grove, TN.  Eddie is now in hospice care at home suffering from cancer. 

I will always be grateful for the kindness and incredible patience he demonstrated time and time again despite my mechanical ignorance.  I was just amazed at the knowledge he held in his head about every system in that car.  I'm so glad he was willing to spend that time with me.  We got closer over this little car and it will always remind me of how much I love him.

Eddie and I went over the car in this video from 2007.

Bug's brakes look good

Today Eddie and I took apart the wheel assemblies and checked the brakes.  The 74 superbeetle convertible brake pads and drums were in excellent shape leading us to believe they had been recently replaced.

We have a problem with the rear end of the bug. I learned a new term from Eddie - he says the rear wheels have a negative camber.  To me, that means that the rear wheels point outward noticeably.  In addition, the rear end of the bug is too low.  Eddie says adjusting the torsion bar should raise the back end, but will that have an effect on the negative camber?  I guess we won't know until we do a lot of disassembly next time I'm out there.  And he tells me adjusting the rear end will be a lot of work.

Another area we'll focus on soon is some electrical issues.  No brake lights, one headlight and front blinker out, one rear tail light and the license plate light is also out.  Clearly there are some burned out bulbs and those are on my shopping list.  But an initial test of the fuses seems to show some are out.  Another thing - the gas gauge is not working and we can't figure out why the tester's light bulb flashes instead of indicating no power to the terminal on the tank or good power to the tank.  To make things more strange, when the tester touches the gauge's terminal on the tank, the gas gauge on the dash begins to work. I found a web page that suggests some different tests.

I had fun getting greasy and learning more about how my bug is put together.