LEAKOIL Forum

Great update on the spedo. That's bad news on Photobucket. All my historic screw ups are also on Photobucket. Mine don't really matter, but if we lose Bruce's stuff we lose a lot of valuable info.

Last year we updated our account with site ground and have LOTS of space for pictures. If you like them big, I believe you can click on the pic to enlarge it.

Looks great Bruce.
Can you show us how you install the bulbs in the speedo? Did you go with LED or just replace in kind?

Marla wrote: Wed Jul 05, 2017 6:52 am Can you show us how you install the bulbs in the speedo?

Same as your Bug, just pull the bulb holder out. LED would be overkill and would need a driver circuit to allow dimming of the speedo bulbs.

Grind out the welds
Put the mud on. Grind the mud out, put the mud on. Grind the mud out, put the mud on. Grind the mud out, put the mud on. Check it with a straightedge.

OK, just back from 2 weeks out of town, the last work trips this year. Yahoo!

Bus 1 is running great and is pretty much done except for hooking up the heater hoses and cable which I'll do later this year.

Back on Bus 2:

Shoot primer on the mud that's roughed in on the left side. Do a quick sanding and shoot the interior to cover up all of that fresh metal. Drop the parcel tray, test fit the wiper motor. '65s are a one year only, I think.
Of course I was going to use a '66 assy that I have that's in perfect condition but it won't fit, hitting badly on the defroster "Y". The '65 assy is rusty and missing a rod but the motor works nicely and looks good inside.
The pivots I bought for the '66 are different. But we have the technology to fix that. Pop the tiny clip off. Cut the arm shorter, weld the arm back on. Phuck! Did I really weld that on backwards? $hit!

Fixed.......
And '65 rods are not available. Anyone sitting on any bus or bug motors/rods that I could rob? I can buy 2 right side '66 rods and cut them down but that's kind of sacrificial.

I've got early wiper motors and at least one VW linkage (application unknown) and some assorted wiper pieces/parts crap. I'll bring all of it over when I come by next week.

Wow, back on Bus 2 which hasn't had any love for quite some time. I sandblasted the window frames to get rid of the crust there and see how much rot there is. Luckily, very little, only a couple of pinholes, I thought I had good pictures of that but I can't find them. Here's the windshield frame after sandblasting and putting some epoxy paste on to fill the pits, pinholes, and build up the rough inner edge a bit. Here's the rear cargo door, same thing. Here's the epoxy "páte" I used, I didn't taste it but I'm sure it's terrible. It's pretty stiff, like cold peanut butter. You definitely work to mix this stuff together! The front cargo door was a mess. Some moron in a previous life had torn the popout window hinge from the door and glued the whole f'ing window back into the door with some kind of high strength glue or epoxy. It took some real muscle and finesse to pry the window out without breaking the glass or doing massive damage, but in the process the window frame got twisted by the glue. There was no real solution for this as it came apart. The window frame was mucked up and needed pulling out but that's not easy.

I welded a piece of scrap to the spot that needed pulling. Then took a hammer and punch to knock/pull the sunken part out. Leaving me with a mess of torn holes and pieces of old hinge.

No sweat, grind it down, weld the holes up, grind it out, and work it smooth with a body hammer. I'll get a hinge from WW on my next order. And fill in the pits with "páte". This process is going to be repeated repeatedly. After the páte is ground out will be a skim of fiberglass gel, then mud, then primer.

Been a while, I've gotten a lot done, and time for an update. The popout hinge came from WW, time to weld it on. First, prep and eyeball where it goes, there's a 4mm gap between it and the edge of the window frame.



Screw the hinge to a window so it centers itself,
and set the gap with a 4mm piece of wire.
Tack it in place. Burn it. Grind it out.

Mud prep:

Sandblast the entire gutter and rust spots in the roof, luckily there was no rot there. I like to use gel fiberglass resin to waterproof weld and rust pitting, but it's getting harder to find. WalMart used to have it but now I have to buy it online. Rub it on all of the rust pitting to seal it up from water intrusion, this will prevent rust from recurring. Then a skim coat of mud to fill in the lows and pits.