The "Bring it Back" 71 Super Vert Thread

[mountainkowboy]

To start out I got it home yesterday...........on a trailer.........big surprise.

I was told by the seller that "it runs and drives like a top". On the test drive it made it about a mile and it died. Let it sit and it would go about 100 feet......fuel problem. Took 15 minutes to get back to his house......dickered on price and went back home to get the truck and a trailer and go get it the next day.........that was yesterday.

Spent last night removing the fuel filter and replacing the crusty fuel line in the engine bay.....test drive went well. Turned to on the top, broken bow, rotted wood, and the worst hinge mount repair that I've ever seen. So the tops now off and sitting on the patio, I need to get some parts and repair the hinge mounts. The clothe seems to be ok, need to sew a few places back up but there is no tears, just threads that have come loose.

Pics to follow

[mountainkowboy]

So I've been looking for another air-cooled for awhile. Was kinda leanin towards another Ghia but found this vert. Its a super, but its early so it still has a flat windshield and dash, not rotted to pieces, and it runs and drives good....its having a fuel delivery issue, but that's easy. Needs floor pans re-done since the first repair looks like it was done by an 8 year old, no big, and no rot anywhere else that I can find so far. I figured it was a decent deal for $2000.00



So here's the issue....I knew the top had issues when I got it. So I took the top off yesterday and found this (see pics)




I don't have a problem fixing it......I would like some opinions on how to go about it.

I'm thinkin 12 gauge plate to replace the whole piece, drill the spots and do rosette welds in the drilled spots, stitch the sides, and weld some nuts to the back of the plate? Will 12ga be ok? ANY HELP in this would be good.

[mountainkowboy]

Sorry double post.

[mountainkowboy]

No takers?

[Piledriver]

Watching intently, have never needed to fix that.
The 12 ga sounds like a plan, but I need a picture from about another foot or so back so I'm sure that's the B pillar area... The only 'vert top setup I've ever worked on much is an 86 (Mk1//Rabbit chassis) not much translates.

[SCOTTRODS]

Helowrench has a similar issue on his wife's convertible as well.... Your suggestion is similar to his concept. Back plate to over-reinforce the area.... Maybe some sort of captured floating nut to allow some adjustability (Similar to the front door hinge plates).... Seems pretty common, so others should be chiming in as well.

[mountainkowboy]

Thanks for the info..........found Chucks Convertibles, evidently this is a common problem with these years when not properly maintained. They sell replacement hinge mount panels......cut the old out and burn the replacements in.........doesn't get much simpler.

Would be cheaper to make my own, but they took all the guess-work out of it. Its a complete panel......bend to bend and side to side and has the correct factory bends in the replacement. Pretty much self aligning......$70 for both pieces.

[mountainkowboy]

The vert is in the air with the fuel tank out, rodding out the factory fuel line, changing all the hoses and vent lines. Also got a new fuel pump.

While its in the air I got under and got a real GOOD look under her. I found more rust repair work that's needed, the bottom corners of the package area behind the rear seat needs attention.........that was all I found, but I'm sure there will be more.........LOL............... its a VW!

Should get everything replaced today and back together.......the one thing I did notice is that someone must have taken this field running.......there is mud EVERYWHERE! So I guess I will have to get it to the quarter car wash for some serious washing.

[mountainkowboy]

Ok........got it back together today. Ended up being able to use compressed air to clear the factory fuel line and replaced ALL the rubber in the fuel system. Added a fuel filter under the tank and made a new steel line to the fuel pump input, along with a new gas cap and vent lines. Put 3 gallons of gas in and WA-LA she fired right up.....that was after I repaired all the vacuum leaks in the engine bay. She idled a bit high, so I let her warm up and started to tune the carb. Set the fast idle screw to 1/4 turn past seated and then started on the idle screw, got it to idle down and went on to adjust the air mix screw................it was out like 15 turns.......got it to falter a bit and back up to a smooth idle. Little more fiddling and she's running like a champ.

Took her out and buzzed down to the gas station and put some gas in her. Ran around for about a half hour..............drives MUCH better now!

[mountainkowboy]

New tires are on now..........the ones on it were 17 years old (Michelin 165/SR-15's). I went with Falken 185/65-15's, I couldn't find a decent price on 165/80's and these were $46 a tire. It drives better, but I'm afraid that I have the dreaded SB shimmy! So I guess I will rebuild the suspension......front and rear, the speedo shows 95K and I'm thinkin that its 195K. I have a "donor" 71 SB sedan for the parts that I need, fenders, hood, deck lid, drivetrain, etc. I will strip the parts that I will use and probably recycle the rest.....I want as many German parts and rust repair sheet metal as I can get for the convertible.

DISCLAIMER......SORRY PURISTS...........THIS WILL BE MY DAILY DRIVER AND IT WILL BE UPDATED AND MODIFIED TO DO SO.......I WILL KEEP THE ORIANAL PARTS SO IT CAN BE REVERSED AT ANYTIME.

I want this to be a decent street car that handles fairly well. Will go with a 1600 to 1776 DP motor for reliability and MPG with dual carbs and a little hotter cam. For the trans.....I'm thinkin freeway flyer? any input? I would like to upgrade to disc's brakes and lower it a little with the "Cal-Look" rake, Looking at Topline front suspension and urethane replacement bushings. Would like to stiffen-up the vert though........maybe a 6 point sport cage?

[Piledriver]

There are no stock nazis on the STF to my knowledge, no worries.

2 common causes of the SB shimmy:
1)Worn out suspension (easy to fix)
2)Out of round tires.(more common than you would think)

An early super is a bit more susceptible to it, but can still work great.
R&P steering would be a big upgrade if you are into it.

A simple spring perch relocation works as expected, a HD roll bar and urethane bushings also works wonders. Avoid KYB Gas-a-just inserts if you have any fillings.

[Marc]

Unfortunate tire choice, particularly so if it has the original 4" rims (165 is actually a bit wide on 4", which is why they went to 4½" in mid`72). 185/65 belongs on a 5 to 6½" rim. Even with skinny wheels, the early "1302" Super suspension has "positive scrub radius". An imaginary line extended through the steering axis intersects the pavement outboard of the center of the tire contact patch; this exacerbates the shimmies and is why they redesigned the front end, the "1303" setup has a negative scrub radius.
You really can't just put wider rims on a 1302 without expecting some issues - anything but the stock 4" ET40 rim only makes the scrub radius situation worse, and there's very little room between inner tire sidewall and coil spring to begin with (you probably have next to none with 185s) so a rim that's offset more won't fit either.
The good news is that you're far from the first one to come up against this problem so there's an aftermarket $olution readily available. Get the MaXX struts (not the Xtreme) from Topline. They don't change the geometry, but they do use smaller-diameter coils so that you can fit wider rims with more offset, which'll both improve your scrub radius and be a better fit to those tires. However, it's hard to find, say, an ET55 6x15" rim in the 4x130 bolt pattern since most wider aftermarket wheels have less offset (smaller ET number) than stock, not more. They exist, but they're rare. Now, if you go with an alternate bolt pattern by restudding the drums or putting on a disk-brake conversion kit, the rim choices open up dramatically. Lots of Porsche rims (5x130) have big offset; FWD cars as a rule have ample offset as well, they're typically 4x100, 5x100, or 4/5x114.3 (4½"). The "tuner" rims popular with the riceburners usually have a dual pattern, which can help if the car has different patterns front & rear.

VW did make some 5½" "sports" rims for limited-edition cars in the early `70s, but they only came in ET26 (for the 1302 - bad bad bad for scrub radius, but all that would fit due to the spring clearance issue) and ET34 for the 1303, so neither of those would be a good choice for the front of your car even with the MaXX struts. But either would be fine on the rear, and there were 914 Porsche rims that looked nearly identical that were ET40. The latter wouldn't improve the scrub radius problem, but they'd be no worse than stock. If you like the look, those (and the MaXX struts) would be the least-expensive way out.

The MaXX struts allow lowering from 2 to 5". Stick with 2" and you should avoid problems with steering geometry, tierod clearance, and swaybar length. Note that as you lower the front of a Super the caster changes; to fix it you can get offset swaybar bushings, but they only work for a mild drop.

Too bad you didn't mention that you intended to lower the front end and fit wider tires a couple days sooner, someone just sold a set of MaXX struts here at STF for $300 including extras. Sometimes they come up in the classifieds over at theSamba...

All of the ready-built cages I've seen for 'verts look rather "boxy", not very attractive when the top is down but necessary if you ever expect to carry any rear-seat passengers. They also will limit the travel of the front seats, so if you're over about 5'8" you won't have comfy legroom. Personally I'd have to go with a custom cage to be happy; if you were serious about having it stiffen up the car you could design in swinging door bars. Take a good look at the stock 'vert stiffener channels under the rockers - replacements are available. They do make a big difference, I had a `68 'vert when I was in the service in CT and its were cancered away from road salt. If I parked on unlevel ground I couldn't even open the doors!

There are no stock nazis on the STF to my knowledge, no worries...

I may be the closest to a "stock Nazi" AKA purist, based upon decades of experience watching people utterly destroy the value of their VWs by "customizing" them. Especially nauseating to see a nice `Ghia hacked up, because there are so few of them left. When it comes to Super Beetles I really don't care much because I've never considered them to be "true" Beetles anyway - but since `70 they're the only choice for a convertible, and convertibles will always be worth more in concours condition than customized. So long as you don't make any irreversible changes and hang onto the original parts you can have your cake and eat it too to some extent. My own daily driver is a "resto-mod" `69 Sedan and most of the irreversible changes are trivial (example, the padded dash has been removed and the holes for it filled - they could always be drilled out again). This particular car was built from sections of two, and started life as an AutoStick, so it could never be immaculately restored (and it wouldn't be in demand if it was) so my conscience is clear

[mountainkowboy]

Thanks for the info.....my suspension is wore out, have lots of negative camber in the rear and front. Might be able to get away with torsion bar index in the rear to get back to stock, but will probably replace them with some stiffer replacements. I was planning on disc brakes..........maybe I will go to the Porsche pattern and different wheels eventually, but for now, I'll just get the suspension fixed and deal with the handling ills.

[Marc]

In Europe Supers got front disk brakes, and the deluxe way to go is to find the stock stuff from one of those cars - but the pragmatic way is to use some aftermarket brackets to mount calipers to your drum-brake spindles. Stock `66-`71 Type III calipers are the usual choice, but not the only one - some graft on 944 Porsche calipers, for example. If you stay with 4x130 rims for now, stock Karmann-Ghia rotors will fit just fine on the drum-brake spindles, and there are versions of those available with other patterns (or even blank, undrilled) that you could use if/when you go to Porsche or other rims.
In the rear, 924T or 944 disk brakes are nearly a bolt-on (a little futzing with e-brake cables and brake pipes is needed). They widen the rear track considerably, but again if you use rims with enough offset the tires will still tuck under stock fenders.

There are aftermarket disk brake kits which don't add much to the track, or you could leave the rears drum. Simply putting `65-up Standard Beetle front wheel cylinders on `68-up rear drum brakes will increase their stopping power by ~30%, or you can use Type III rear brakes which are totally bolt-on. Any of these options would let you start with 4x130 and migrate to a different pattern later by redrilling/studding the rotors/drums/hubs.

On my Beetle I'm running 944 brakes with wider rims and tires and using 1½" wider-than-stock fiberglass fenders from Creative Car Craft, but you can get up to about 7" rims under stock fenders if the offset and tire choice is right. With my wide rear tires I find the brake balance to be about perfect with Type III calipers up front, but if the front & rear tires are the same size you might find that you need more front brake. There'll always be a market for the Type III calipers and `Ghia rotors if you need to upgrade, they're the most popular setup used on disk conversions for Supers or Standards.

[mountainkowboy]

I will start my parts gathering now, and see if I can find some Ghia stuff and do the front slaves on the rear for better stopping power for now