If You Painted Your Rims

I have read too many times where vehicles, with fresh restorations, had wheels fall off. The reason... the fresh paint on the rims prevents the lug nuts from binding.

Andy Holmes, in a recent email, felt this may have been the issue in his recent accident (Luckily he was OK) :

http://rebuildmyghia34.blogspot.com/2009/09/happenings-since-may.html

Much of my free time today was scraping off the paint from the lug nut contact points on the rims. I even wire brushed the nuts to make ensure there would be clean metal to metal contact. The rounded knife, used in the process, worked well.

Don't forget to do your spare tire too.

Painted The Hub Caps Today

At the '09 VW Classic this year I mentioned to Everett Barnes that I was having trouble painting the emblems on my early T3 hub caps. I didn't want to use the decals that are available and painting them by hand with masking tape wasn't working out.

The solution he gave was so simple. The final product looked the same as my NOS hub caps.

All one has to do is mask them as in the below photo:
Next, spray paint the exposed section with a satin black paint (this appears to be what VW used on the NOS caps I have). Remove the newspaper and tape immediately.
The piece of wood in the above photo has a sturdy paper shop towel stapled tightly to a piece of wood. The towel is saturated, but not dripping, with acetone.

Note: Wear rubber gloves and keep that garage door wide open to avoid strong fumes!

Rub the wood many times, in different directions, over the cap making sure that every pass come in contact with a clean piece of towel. Below is a photo of my practice cap after one coat. I had to do two to complete the project.

Fired Up! Yeah!

Installed the wiring harness. Everything but the turn signals and horn are working. Will take a couple of days to figure that out.

Took a risk and poured in 5 gallons of premium gas into the tank and turned the ignition key.

After 25 years the engine started right up! The sound of the 1500 engine was very soothing. I sure missed that sound.

The yellow bulbs in the Marchal headlights and fog lights made the garage glow.

NOS Heater Pipe Adapter Rings

I was having major problems trying to get my heater hoses attached from my car to my heater boxes. Nothing was working. I made sure I found NOS heater boxes, bought both kinds of NOS hoses, and nothing would hook up appropriately.



When I found my car, chassis 152 252, it had no heater pipes to speak of. The engine was a genuine VW rebuilt engine from the 70's with apparently a later style heater box. I could not get things to hook up whatsoever.

Andy Holmes bailed me out on this one. He found these genuine VW Type 3 adapter rings on the Samba, part number 311 255 113.

It turns out they worked perfectly for my situation and I can now heat the interior of my car. I slid them into the flexible pipes and they now attach with no worries.


Thanks Andy!

Did the Right Thing and Had the Mechanics Checked Out

Delivered the car to to a VW shop to check out the suspension, brakes and transmission. They found many issues that had to be corrected. One big item... my brake drums were out of round and therefore had to be replaced.

The transmission, a rebuilt one, was leaking with the old seals. To be sure to make it would behave properly they removed it from the car, torqued down the case, and replaced the seals.

Because of the above the engine was out. I took it to yet another vintage VW shop to have it tested on a bench . The mechanics gave it a 100% good-to-go rating. The loved the unfamiliar side draft carb and how it started up right away with few issues. They let it warm up and then let it come back to idle. All of them commented on how well it sounded.

This was the first time I have rebuilt an engine and had things work right off the bat. Yesss!

Home after two years

Been looking for this for several years

On many 1963 VW vehicles, not just T34s, these under-the-rear seat-passenger heater vents had manual levers. I am trying to find one of these gray rubber knobs that goes on the lever. There is even a VW logo on them.

At the last VW Classic event I went to, I examined '63 Bugs, T14 Ghias, and T3s. They had this type of rear heater vent. Just some of them had the rubber knobs in place. Let me know if you know of one! Thanks, Paul.

Thanks to Lee Hedges for the picture and giving me one of these rare parts.

It Happened!

After 19 months my NOS T34 front mask finally arrived from France. Hopefully this item will never used as a replacement panel on a vehicle. Ideally it should be used as a model for reproduction.