Haven't been near it for a while. Still exploring and discovering stuff. Next major job is to get the motor running.
Happily, it turns over freely, smoothly and whith good compression, so other than fresh fuel and a check of the ignition system - hopfully I can get it to fire and run. Then it;s a case of getting it up to MOT standard and then registered.

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Reading through your thread thought you may be interested in a product i found, i have a car in very similar condition. I wanted to preserve the paint but also to know there would be no further deterioration.

https://www.vortz-racingcars.co.uk/#vapourlube , is a two stage process, use it like a poultice on open paint / rust, it soaks in and stabilises / inhibits.

No affiliation to the company, but the guy who developed this is a whizz (racing from the 60s, building concept cars for Audi etc), and his car, again un-restored and treated with this stuff has the most marvellous OG look.

Interesting stuff,looks like the perfect solution.

I think I'll keep to preserving my '49s original exterior with a regular Waxoyl buff over :wink:

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Continued with the clean up process today and concentrated on the interior. The intention isn't to get it perfect, certainly not at this stage, but to at least get all the dust and grime out to reveal what I've got to work with.

Polished the glass inside and out first. Comes up lovely and makes such a difference.






I then vac'd the inside as best I could and gave the seats and interior panels a good wipe over with a soapy cloth and a soft nail brush. I was amazed at how well they came out. The interior of this car really is one of it's best features. I love it.







I won't lie to you - I'm lovin' this original Oval lark...









Nice to see all four of the original VW floor mats still in place and pretty much like new.





Even better when you peel them back and find this sort of stuff!





Whilst poking around, I found some nice historic touches.
In the driver’s door pocket, there were some maps and other Portuguese documents







In the glove box was a plaque from the local district and a couple of coins





Nice tax disc in the screen - last used 1981 which means it was locked away for 12 years before it even came to the UK!





And one last shot showing the rather nice sun visor. I’d not noticed this before. A new one and a spare one came with the car too!





A day full of WIN me thinks.

As a side line - if I can't revive the battery, where is the best place to get the correct type. size and capacity 6V battery so I can still use the factory cover plate etc?

:D

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I have used this company before although i now run an optima red top battery as i use the car quite a bit and found the old style batteries were only lasting 18 months or so and i was always having to keep it charged .I left the optima for over a month and it started as lively as a 12v car.tayna do all the rubber case batteries here:

https://www.tayna.co.uk/catalog/302/0/Classic-Hard-Rubber-Batteries-6V-Classic-Car-Batteries-page1.html 

What a great little car :shock: The interior is amazing.

Love all those extra little touches you've found around the car from it's life in Portugal 😎

Decided to see if I could get the motor running the other day.

I installed a brand new old style rubber cased type 404 battery to give me good cranking ability, but before I started, I realised that the fuel had been in the tank since 1981 and was 29 years old so used a pump and some tubing suck all the old fuel out - about 8 litres or so, leaving the tank empty and dry.

Here is some of the fuel I sucked out - It looked and smelt just like Ronseal varnish! Grim.... Still burns pretty well though... ;)



I quick look inside the tank with a torch confirmed that one of the jobs for the near future will be to remove the tank and flush it out as there was a fair bit of bebris in there at the bottom, but I guess that's normal.

Anyway, got the trusty gerry can out and put about 10 litres of fresh fuel with additive in there so I know I had fresh fuel.

Fuel wasn't getting through to the fuel pump so I've either got a blockage in the line or there is a problem with the fuel reserve tap etc, etc. I'll investigate this at a later date once I know the motor is back to health.

I disconnected the fuel unions in the engine bay and tried to blow through to the tank without luck, so tried to pump a little fuel back through the system which highlighted a fuel leak in the flexi pipe above the gearbox, so on the basis that this will be old, perrished and in need of replacement, I cut it off where it exits the engine bay and connected it directly to the gerry can, plugging the tank end before hand. ;)

After a load of priming, fiddling and checking I knew I was getting fuel.

With my new 6V battery, the motor cranked very well indeed, but I wasn't getting a spark.

After some tinkering and testing I found that one of the insulating washers where the LT wire, condenser and dizzy body join had perrised and was causing a short.

I rebuilt and cleaned this area and managed to get a healthy spark at the plugs which was a releif.

We'd measured the resistance across the coil outputs etc and were happy that the coil was ok.

With a fresh dab of fuel and some crossed fingers, I gave it a go and managed a couple of coughs, spits and pops from the carb and exhaust, but nothing that threatened to catch on or run.

Next I checked the timing and found it was very advanced but discovered the dizzy was stuck solid. I used as much force as I dared and it wouldn't budge. Gave it some WD-40 and came back to it a while later but no joy.

At this point I was satisfied I'd got clean fuel, decent spark and good cranking - none of which I had that morning, so that's a plus, but I needed to find a way of freeing off the dizzy so I can set the timing.

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Bit of progress and an awkward problem overcome today so even though it's not much, it's still another step towards getting it running.

I'd been using penetrating oil on the dizzy body for almost a week and it wouldn't budge, so decided a bit of heat and extra force might be required.

Got the case nice and hot with a little bit of heat gun action, being careful not to go OTT.



I then removed the vacuum and fuel pipes along with the fan belt to give me more rome to work in then using some very strong nylon rope and a screw driver with a hole in the handle, rigged up a homemade strap spanner type of thing.



With what seemed like an impossible amount of force, it finally gave way and slowly rotated a bit. . . Result! . . . However, it was still very, very tight and needed another few goes with the strap spanner to turn it back and forth a few times, getting a little more free each time, but still needing lots of torque - way more than I could do by hand.

At this point I decided that now I'd 'broken the seal' I'd get a load more penetrating oil down there and leave it for a while.

*****Quick drive about in Dad's '61 Merc 'cause it's rude not to, followed by a stack of bacon butties round at Mum and Dad's and I came back with another homemade tool*****

Dad took a sacrificial Allen key and ground down the end to look like this.



This was so it would fit into the small hole in the dizzy body as an anchor point whilst the rest of it was used as a lever through the hole that the vacuum advance slides through. I put some rubber hose round the allen key where it passed through the dizzy body to stop it damaging the casting.





This gave me a decent amount of leverage to wiggle the dizzy back and forth as I added more and more penetrating oil. I must of been there for over an hour - jeez it was hard and slow progress with every dozen or so very tight wiggles yielding about half a mm of vertical travel, but it was coming out, if very slowly.

Eventually out it came, and I must say I was very happy as I sat there, panting away like a woman after childbirth, cradling my distributor in my arms, tears of joy rolling down my cheeks....

Anyway - basically, it was the seal that had turned into a mushy glue that was holding it firm.









Took this opportunity to clean up all the penetrating oil and other gunk and crap that I had access to with the dizzy off.



Rest of the motor should come up nice with some elbow grease.
Lovely and original. Love it.

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With the dizzy off the car, I thought it would be a good time to strip it down and clean it all up.
You don’t want to see a load of pictures of springs and clips etc, but here are a couple just in case.

This is the vacuum advance plate that rotates within, all cleaned up and ready for a little grease.



Cleaned all the silly stuff like the nuts, bolts, washers etc then carefully assembled it all again and without the seal, popped it back in, more to keep it safe out the way until a new seal arrives.



Whilst I was cleaning stuff, I cleaned up the air filter and under all the grime found this little reminder of it’s Portuguese origin.



That’s it for now – not much, but it was a pain and needed doing, so I can at least cross that off and know that the distributor is back in business.

Next I’ll have a look at rebuilding the fuel pump, carb and replace the fuel flexi hoses and blow out the fuel lines etc.

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Put a big order into Karmann Konnection for a load of silly, obscure and fiddly bits to use during the recommissioning process including a rebuild kit for the carb, new seals and gaskets for the tank, a genuine VW fuel reserve tap as it made more sense than to rebuild the old one with loads of separate parts, and the usual plugs, points, condenser etc plus a few other bits and bobs.

Excellent service from KK, I must admit.

I also decided that I wanted original cloth braided fuel hose, but after hearing horror stories about original rubber hose rotting out very quickly, set about trying to find modern DIN spec hose of the correct 5.5mm ID that also had black cloth braiding.

Following a recommendation, I found a supplier of pukka nitrile DIN spec cloth braided hose which sadly was only available on a large reel and not small lengths despite me phoning round for ages. Not cheap, but very correct and up to the latest current specs.

So, bought a huge reel!

The idea being that I'll sell the rest to fellow enthusiasts as and when required for those that want the original look but only want a metre or two etc.

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Great news today - after 6 weeks my birth certificate turned up confirming all the good stuff I'd hoped for.....

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That car is a great find,congratulations.
Keep us posted with your progress and take some pictures for us,first time you go for a spin.

And today's update . . . .

Completed the rebuild of the dizzy with a new set of points and a new condenser.






Apparently, working on old VW's is a spectator sport? This was for my Dad who kept me company for a while this afternoon. He's not feeling to well at the moment. :hug:




Time for some new plugs. The old three were certainly due for a change. Yes, three - one was missing! :lol: But fortunately the plug lead had been left still in the hole and the threads seemed ok, so in went the new ones, gapped correctly of course. Also cleaned up the original dizzy cap, making sure all the contacts were ok and 'bright'.




Plusgas finally arrived . . . :lol:





Decided the next job would be a carb rebuild. So, here's a before shot.









Rebuild kit on standby....





Ready for it's first bath.





At this stage, all I wanted to do was give it a quick sprinkle to get the worst of the crud off, so I've got a reasonably clean base to start from. Once I've got it in bits, I'll clean it properly. Came up nice though.







Looking forward to actually rebuilding it - love jobs like this.

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Nice work!that engine will look great cleaned up 😎

Should just chip in here again I think, as this thing seems to get better with every photo. The interior looks fantastic.

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x2

You're doing a great job LT. I love all the detail photos, keep them coming. Looks like you'll have the engine running pretty soon.

As to the tank, I'd have that out and clean the inside and rebuild the reserve tap before you try starting the engine with fuel from the tank.

Great find!
Hope you get it soon on the road. :beer:

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Next job was to strip, clean and rebuild the carb.

Never done this before so it was a journey into the unknown so with a hot cup of tea and prepared work area, I set about the strip down.

The inside of the throtle body and venturi were caked in carbon deposits.



I then liften the top of the carb and was greeted with this in the float chamber . .



Urrrgghhh!

So glad I decided to rebuild the car before trying to fire it up for the first time. Wouldn't have wanted any of that getting into the motor!

Now . . . about carb cleaning . . .

I first soaked all the components in carb cleaner for a while which certainly did a half decent job of cleaning everything - the emphasis on half decent. I just felt that things could have been cleaner, despite me stabbing everything franticly with a stiff brush.

Next up I tried brake cleaner which was a litle bit better and got a bit more of the really stubborn grime off to the point that I felt fairly happy about the cleanliness of everything, but not 100% convinced.

So, just out of curiosity, I dipped everything in a bowl of cellulose thinners for a stir and couldn't believe how much more effective it was. Bearing in mind all the components had been previously bathed in carb cleaner, then brake cleaner for a long time on each occasion, you;d think they were clean? No chance. The amount of extra crud the celly got off was amazing!!

I poured the celly thinners back into a bottle to show how much junk had come off 3rd time round!



Amyway - moving on, I was now left with this daunting picture!



Here are the fully cleaned components up close.







It was at this point I was starting to dread putting it all back together, but got the rebuild kit ready...



.... and set to it. Mrs LT was curious as to why i wasn't sitting on the sofa with the lap top on my knee, walking into the kitchen to discover this...

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Determined not to go to bed until it was back together, I toiled away until I was left with this...







Bit better than this, that's for sure!



Really satisfied with that, considering I'd never done one before.

Next up, I'll rebuild the fuel pump.

Ordered and new coil, plug leads and fan belt today too....

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