Aircooled VW South Africa

Man your bug looks schweet !!! I love them "SMOOTHY" hubcaps !!!

Sweet ride dudu

thanks guys

Seeing as you cooked your drums YOU MUST SKIM IT!!!
Beetle drums are made of very HARD Metal and what happens is the drum overheats the surface & causes the metal to make "high-spots" on the drum. When you skimm the drum these high-spot cause the skimming tool to bounce over it and you then have to grind these spots off before you can get a good surface with the skimming. Excesive heat also causes the drum to go oval and if its too bad you will have to replace the drum. So just putting on new shoes aint gonna help much.

So here is what you need to do.
Take the drums and shoes to a skimming shop have the drums skimmed and the shoes (radiied, radiussed) for the drums, then follow the advice i gave you on the previous page..

Thanks again for all the advice and help, you guys rock

news from the past weekend, positice battery terminal worked its way loose so come thursday she wouldnt start. blame comes down to some el-cheapo looking post clamps. anyways, battery wasnt terribly flat so i jumped it and went for a long drive. when i get chance i will take the battery out and give it a proper charge.

also, i finally got a chance to put some real speakers in. car came with a basic pioneer CD f/loader and some 160w (i think) 6x9's. still had all my Golfs sound gathering dust, so in went a set of 480w 4 way Pioneer 6x9's, a 12 inch Pioneer sub, and a US audio amp (not sure on the power cos its an old handmedown and the numberings a bit faded), and a Pioneer deck with all sorts of settings on it so no real need for a cross-over just yet.

car sounds fairly decent, just needs some fine tuning til i'm totally happy only thing left to do is sort out the decks power wire, as at the moment both the memory wire and the 12v are connected to the same ignition 12v wire. so i need to add a wire to permanent 12v so the radio remembers its settings, and i prefer to have the radio's power connected to permanent 12v too, so i dont have to have the ignition on to listen.

tiny bit of bad news is i'm starting to see more and more how the PO who rebuilt it cut corners here there and everywhere the wiring is a mess (in the process of tidying), i need a new battery clamp, he used cheap-ass mdf for the rear shelf-box-thing that holds the 6x9's and theres water getting in around the rear window somewhere which is soaking into the box (will make a full proper setup when i have time), crappy glue to hold down the carpets, over-spray on almost all the rubbers/grommets/etc the cubby is in a terrible state, paint peeling in lots of hidden spots around the frunk and engine (revealing the quite pleasant original turquoise)

all in all i'm a happy chappy, nice to get to work hassle free and have some good (and loud) tunes to keep me smilng.

immediate to do list goes as follows
1. move RCA's further from the amps power cords to get rid of some whine
2. add in the decks extra wires
3. have a slow puncture looked at
4. wash and polish
5. get out to some shows and park-offs

and yet more questions, anyone bought and fitted one of these?

http://www.autostyle.co.za/car-audio-1/ ... plate.html

is it for our old beetles or the millenium kak, and does it work and fit nice?

kthnxbye

That faceplate is for the New Beetle, just had a look at the one in my wive's car (2008 Beetle Cabriolet) to confirm.

oh well, DIY it is then

MarshallGTi wrote:oh well, DIY it is then

Then it looks like one of these was used to open the hole

sadly it already does. at the moment the hole in the dash has a "carbon fibre" cover and the radio is in the cubby. but its right at the back of the cubby with most of it sticking into the frunk, and the cubby box itself has seen better days. i have a long term plan to fill the dash hole with a couple gauges, and trying to make my own cubby moulded in fibreglass from the old one.

right so 1st up, with my bug not having much weather protection except for a carport, this has happened...



and seeing as the dogs had gotten hold of my sheepswool wash pad thing and everyone is talking about microfibre, i picked up one of these...


gave the old girl a good scrubbing and she's all shiny again






and some attempts at being artsy fartsy




especially like this one

Looking good man!

now for the bad news. seems as though when the PO "rebuilt" the car 3-4 years ago, he didnt have much knowledge of how to paint. my best guess would be that little to no prep work was done, body putty seems abundant, and i think that theres no clear coat over everything. maybe i'm wrong, but have a look and see.

paint peeling, filler lifting, rust coming thru...







chrome side trim rattle-canned black and mounted kak



under rain channel



Peeling by the frunk vents



dodgy spray on the wheels



overspray on the INSIDE grab handle



evidence of no prep work or primer, original colour coming thru in certain spots...




orange peel and evidence of holding the spray gun too close


and the scariest of all, i tried to see what effect some polish would have, the old man had some rallye liquid polish lying around so i tried a patch of wax on wax off about 10cm x 10cm, and this happened



opinions please?

Remember polish is abrasive and takes some of the paint off.. If you have a look at some peoples cars that wash&polish thier cars alot you will see the clear coat comming off, this aint a bad paint job its cause from the friction and abrasiveness of the polish.. Its nice to have a shinny car untill it starts looking like a rats ass....

There is something to be said about a dirty car, asswipes aint gonna lean against as they dont want to get all dirty...

Well it worked for me untill f*@kers started thinking it was abandoned and others started reversing into it...

A bit of a catch22 situation....
Sometimes your the pigeon sometimes the statue...