Rebuilding the 1972 Super Autostick for my Wife

[ajdenette]

It is time to actually start the Thread on this car after oh too many years. This Bug is being rebuilt as a graduation present for my wife from my father and I for Completing her PHD in Mathmatics. Here is the bug a few years ago some of the fist pictures I have of the bug:



The story of this Bug actually starts before I was born, not when it was built, but when my father bought it back in the mid eighties. My father would regularly buy a cheap VW bug fix it and drive it until something major happened then get another, he put some seat covers in and the autostick engine he had around into the car and started driving it. He drove the car for a few years while building the house I grew up in and helped work on over the years, some time around when the house was finished my aunt needed a car and my father had another car lined up so the blue 72 autostick became her daily driver and she drove it until she bought herself a new 1987 Fox. In 1987 I was born and at the same time many of my fathers family were getting new VW’s so the low valued not needed bug went into my grandparents barn with a number of other VW’s mostly buses for a long nap. Growing up playing in the bar I new the bug the horses that used the lower part of the barn with access from the pasture new it as well and the manure and general dampness in the area were not nice to the bug. In 1998 while my aunt was pregnant with my cousin she was interested in a video camera and I wanted the bug my father got the video camera and the bug was called mine. The bug sat in the barn buried behind 3 busses and the 85 Westy after it blew the head gasket as time went on my uncle wanted one of the buses out to fix for his daughter and things got moved around and the bug got closer to being free then in 2003 while working on the roof of the barn the cars were moved around the Vanagon got put up top for me to work on over the summer and the bug was pulled out to head north to my parents house. After the 16 years parked in the barn all the brakes were seized it got dragged out to the yard where I then had to free up the wheels to be able to get it onto a trailer. At that time one of the drums and spindle nuts got broken but I got some help and a trailer and the bug moved from Granby to my parents house in Winchendon. After getting to Winchendon trying to move it around the failed drum fell apart so I worked on finding a spindle nut and got things back together but not before loosing all the break fluid. My parents wanted the garage back and the bug wasn’t going anywhere I did manage to clean off the rotten running boards and clean up much of the rotten metal along the running boards and heater channels. About 4 years ago I decided I had some skill and time it was time to get the bug going I tried to get it moving here is how it looked at the time:





My fist issue after trying to start the bug was a bent pushrod, fortunately there were a few spare engines and parts in the barn still so a used pushrod and some expandable pushrods:



After the expandable pushrod tubes and a spare pushrod were installed as well as a rebuilt carb we had picked up along the way I had the engine running but was unable to get the clutch to disengage to be able to get the car in gear to try and drive it with the body in the condition it was in and the fact major work needed to be done to get things to the next step the bug got pushed aside and I went onto working on the Vanagon Syncro.

[ajdenette]

Fast forward to this summer my wife has been getting better at driving Stick and has begun Coveting my fathers 74 Sunbug and started wondering when I was going to start on her Beetle… Ok we are married my bug is now her bug. So first things first we pulled the bug from the back yard where it had been under cover of a car port keeping the weather off the rain out.



After letting it air out a bit and trying to get any animal nests out of the car it was into the garage and as my father had messed up the sunroof on the 74 I got the photo op of both bugs in the garage before the 72’s full tear down.



The tear down started at the front with pulling the lights tank and bumper to get to the fenders. The scooter tire was an attempt of mine to provide pressure for the windshield washer without flattening the spare did not work quite as planned.


Keeping track of the taillight wiring



Front fenders pulled off and tank out


Only broke on bolt on the front fenders getting them off not bad for a car that has been sitting all my life.

[Marc]

Wired like that, the top bulb would be the brake lamp and the middle 1157 would be serving as tail and turn signal...unless, of course, the "pigtail" was also misconnected behind the tarboard in the engine compartment.


In the main harness, gray wires are for tail/parking lamps (gray=LR, gray/red-stripe=RR, gray/blue-stripe=license lamp); black wires are for turnsignals (black/white-stripe=LR, black/green-stripe=RR) or brakelamps (black/red-stripe to both sides).

In the pigtails (same on both sides) taillights are solid gray, brakelights are solid red, signals are solid black.

Backup lights aren't part of the main harness and all of their wires are solid black until they reach the pigtails, where they connect to solid blue.

Brown is always ground...taillight grounds from the pigtails connect to spade lugs on the body behind the tarboards.

http://www.vintagebus.com/wiring/1300_a ... 1971-2.jpg

[ajdenette]

Well time has not put the metal it or I have removed from the heater channels they are going to need full replacement




Petal Cluster and Firewall the fire wall will need replacement as well



Starting to get the rear end pulled apart trying to make sure we can put the vacuum system back together for the auto stick



Not as clear a picture as I had hoped but you can see out though the heater channel on the drivers side and you can see the door bars are installed to keep the body square



Back does not look too bad



Passenger side looks good from the inside but you can see some rust at the bottom of the A pilar.


The corners are pretty rusty and will need some patching



Body mostly disassembled getting ready to separate it from the pan so nice to have a heated garage to be able to do this work in the winter.

[ajdenette]

Starting to separate the body from the pan



Getting some separation



Body and pan separated body blocked to get the pan out of the way


Pan on the way out the door



My father as we are moving the pan outside to be able to drop the body down from its lofty position



Pan waiting outside



The body safely on some dollies tucked into the corner and the disassembly of the pan started

[Buggin_74]

Why not just put one of those EJs you've got in it?

Did that pushrod bend when you tried to start it?
Pretty common, the valve stick shut after all those years sitting.

[ajdenette]

Marc thanks for the info about the wiring for the tail lights when I get to the body I will have to check the wiring there. Buggin_74 the pushrod bent when I tried to start it up and it blew out the tube and leaked the oil ya pretty common and I have since had similar issues with the Syncro, after building an air cooled for this I hope to not have that issue. those suby engines will end up in cars but likely Subaru's I have 10 or so that we drive that I work on and we drive a LOT of miles like over 100,000 miles a year combined on the Subaru's alone and some drink oil so rebuilding some Subaru engines to go into Subaru's is the plan though I am gethering the parts and have a wiring harness made to put a 2.2 into a 1985 Westfalia.

[ajdenette]

Pan head is solid but the ends of the napoleon hat is pretty rusty





Starting to tare down the pan and the engine the and clean up the years of rust



We have a large 8” grinder with a wire wheel we use to wire bush parts clean parts and prep them for paint



Engine and transmission pulled from the pan to get broken down



Working on the Tins fortunately my father has collected a few engines worth of tins in the barn and I have brought them to the house so we have options to choose from for OE tins.



Tearing down the engine to get the tins for cleanup:



Yes there are a total of 10 engines in my parent’s garage not installed in a chassis and only 2 other cars in the yard without engines installed.

We have many tools for cleaning things up and prepping them for some fresh paint



Making progress on cleaning the engine up



We spend a lot of time cleaning up the garage after spending time on projects we work on the bug between keeping all the daily drivers going.

[ajdenette]

Now that there is no front end and no engine in the pan we can stand it on its side and work on cleaning it and stripping it down to fix it up and get a solid base for the rest of the build



Using a heat gun to soften the undercoating and loosen up the tar boards to get the pan down to steel and the original paint I’m working on the tar boards with a putty knife and my father is running the heat gun.



We used a Kayak Cam strap to steady the pan to the body to make sure it didn’t fall down we also used some to secure it to the garage door tracks to allow better access around the pan.



All the tar boards off the inside so we can clean up the surface rust but they are pretty solid



Using the heat gun to clean up the bottom of the pan and melt off the undercoating you can also see the working on the rear suspension using deep creep to get everything moving for easy disassembly.

[ajdenette]

Here is the last catchup post as this is where we are at now not bad progress but now we are getting into the building which takes longer than it does to disassemble.

Fortunately from all those bugs my father disassembled the eighties there are a plethora of parts such as this section of floor pan that thankfully has a nice piece of the bolt channel left that is needed to repair the jack point section on the passenger side of the pan.



Pan patched up using sections of the old pan piece and also filling in the battery tray we do have a replacement should we need



Jack point cleaned up it could be welded back in but now we are thinking about sand blasting it but we don’t have a sand blaster.



Drivers side cleaned up and some holes attempting to be filled with the mig.



Some final pictures of where the pan is at

[ajdenette]

So I know the thread is titled rebuilding the 1972 Super Autostick and up until recently the plan was for it to go back together with the Autostick transmission my father and I were talking about the direction for the transmission and I was talking to my wife and she asked me if I was switching the bug to a full manual transmission for better gas mileage. Though I don't believe her real reasoning is the better gas mileage as she was driving my car which is stick as I was loosing a battle with her ball joint and I think she realized part of what makes my fathers bug fun to drive is running through the gears not just the shape and size. So fortunately I have a manual transmission in the barn to go into the bug so that wont be a stumbling block but I do need a manual shift rod and a manual pedal cluster I am also open to any advise on other parts I need, Fortunately being a 1972 the clutch tube is already there and in good shape so that will not need to be added and it means some more body work to close up the holes for the auto fluid lines. one other benefit to the switch to full manual will be the chance to build a warmed up engine to help with some of the hill climbing as here in New England we do have quite a few rolling hills and a little more go power would be very much appreciated. The auto stick parts will be held on to and cleaned up for now as my older brother was hit by a truck in his teens and as such has some physical limitations that prevent him from being able to drive a manual transmission and there is always a possibility we will end up building his 75 convertible with the Auto Stick, a type 3 full auto or possibly a full electric conversion but that car is further down on the project list.

[ajdenette]

Well we promised to have the car done for my wife when she finished her doctorate, she is working on writing her dissertation to defend this spring so the pressure is on time to get our Buts in gear and get the car put back together spent last weekend and am spending this weekend getting the pan finished up. John form John's Air-Cooled Auto has built up an fresh engine and is waiting on tins, we picked up a nice selection this fall at Transporter fest in Brookline, MA so working on getting those cleaned up as well.

Last Year I managed to buy an old Sandblast cabinet from work making it easier to sandblast large parts

[ajdenette]

I found a junk yard with some beetles in it and was able to get a manual shift rod


I also picked up a pedal cluster, had a pedal cluster from my grandparents barn and the auto stick cluster and was unable to get enough parts to make a good manual cluster but learned a lot about pedal clusters in the process.






so the ends of the Napoleon hat and the bottom plate were rotted so they got cut out




Finally started putting the pan back together last weekend got the Napoleon hat welded back on




And the frame head all repaired


And the View from the bottom of things all welded back together


Well the updates should be comming a lot more frequently as we try to get this whole thing done in the next few months.

[ajdenette]

So, I am looking into what to use for bushings on the front end all of them are dry rotted and some are failing or destroyed trying to break things down to repaint. I am interested in Poly Bushings knowing they are stiffer and hearing that Super Beetles supposedly don't have great front ends, but I want to know if the rubber bushings are going to be better than the Poly for longer life and quieter operation, I am looking for any one with experience with either or both replacement bushing options and any positives or negatives you have found.

[ajdenette]

so far after searching this site I have found 2 good threads about rebuilding a Super Beetle Front Suspension

73 super beetle needs new suspension
http://www.shoptalkforums.com/viewtopic ... e+bushings

which points to:
VW 411 and 412 Audi Strut Rod document (test)
http://www.shoptalkforums.com/viewtopic ... 2&t=146609

I still need to read through RayGreenwoods documentation 120 pages long but here is a start we shall see where I go.