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Winter
This will come as
no surprise to those of you in SW Ontario - winter has arrived.
This is the poor body of the car under about 16 inches of snow.
(Oh ya, the beetle is metric...that's 40 cm!)
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New Tires
With a bit of hunting
and a bit of patience, I was able to find the proper size tires
for the rims. I have been unable to find someone that can balance
them due to the rim not fitting onto modern type balancing machines.
I'm working on some leads of places that should be able to do
it for me.
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Bearing Puller
The rear wheel bearings
are recessed into the axle housing, so you cannot get a proper
puller onto it. I used the home-made puller that is outlined
in the "How to Keep Your VW Alive" book. The bolts
kept slipping out , so I had to weld them to the bearing which
worked fine.
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Shocks
It's been a lot of
fun putting all the new parts back onto the car. Some things,
like the shocks, really help to make the car look like it's coming
together.
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Rear Brakes
Since I'm waiting
on some parts for the front brakes, I've had to start working
on the rear ones. This plate with all the old components is dripping
wet with brake fluid the leaking wheel cylinder. This actually
a blessing in disguise, as the fluid prevented the metal from
rusting any further.
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Hook Up
I've reconnected the
clutch cable and started to lay out the brake-lines. The grey
piece on the left is part of the upper body. I set it in place
to make sure the bolt holes are going to line up when the time
comes to put the body back on.
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Degreasing
The rear brake plate
has to be cleaned of all the fluid and grease before being blasted
and painted. The cleaning tank has an 8 liter resevoir of varsol
and a lower area for the heavier waste to settle in.
The pump is run off the compressor which eliminates the problem
of electric sparks igniting the cleaner.
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In the Blaster
Once most of the loose
stuff is removed, the part goes into my blasting cabinet. The
compressor shoots the sand out of the gun at 100psi where it
quickly removes the rust. I use glass beads instead of sand.
The sand contains Silica which is really hard on the lungs. The
glass has virtually no dust and can be used a few times before
being discarded. You can see the scoop I use to put the glass
back in the coffee tin hopper. The cabinet has a glass cover
that keeps the glass beads inside, I have removed it for this
photograph.
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Primed & Painted
After being blasted
to raw metal the parts are immediately primed and painted. It's
best to not allow the part to sit too long without painting -
surface rust sets in very quickly.
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