So, not that the accessories are off, we can work on the heads.  Start by sliding the large wire down the valve cover on each side of the engine.  Go ahead and take off the large wire also.  Now that the rocker arms are exposed, take a socket set and remove the two nuts (and washers) holding those on and put all of this into a bag labeled “right (or left) head”.  Pull the pushrods out of the tubes and make sure you keep them in the same order, so you can put  them into the proper cylinder   There are four pushrods per side, eight in all.

Now find hte eight nuts that hold on the cylinder head to the cylinders   Once loose, remove  the head and put those nuts into the proper bag.

Oil Pump and Screen

Now we can get at the oil pump.  This is located front and center on the engine and is covered by a thick plate.  Under the plate there are gaskets and gears.  Take the nuts off the plate, exposing the inside.  The gasket usually tears, so have another handy.  Take out the gears and then finally the pump itself.   This is pretty straightforward.  Put this all into a bag labeled “oil pump”.

Now looking under the engine, take off the drain plug plate.  There are six nuts holding this on, so remove those and take out that, the gasket, the oil screen, and the other gasket.  If you have holes in your screen, replace it.  Put this all into a bag labeled “oil screen”.

Splitting the Case

There are many nuts and bolts that hold the case halves together.  Still on the engine stand, locate all of these fasteners, including the ones around the oil pump and right in the middle-side of the case. Once located, remove all the hardware and put it into a bag labeled “case”.  Double then triple check to make sure you have them all, else you will damage the case.

Now take a soft blow mallet and lightly tap on the seams of the case.  Hammering it too hard will also damage the cae.  If it will not come apart in a few minutes, check again for unremoved nuts and bolts.  The case will work itself apart, really.  Once completed, flip the engine to the side on the stand and remove one half of the case.  Once completed, remove the crank and cam shafts.

Your on your way!

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In this segment, we are going to remove the sheet metal that keeps the bug cool.  One misnomer on this sheet metal is that is does not radiate heat, it ducts it.  The tin that came with the bug is more than suitable to do this, where if it were chrome trim, the engine would be prone to overheating.  You can feel the air push out the back of a properly running engine.  Each piece is critical to the cooling of the engine, so keep these handy.  These are all fastened by tin screws.  I am not going to run down the entire list of what needs to happen here, it should be fairly self explanatory.  Keep all of your parts in a bag labeled ”Sheet Metal”.

Generator Pedestal

Take off the four nuts that hold the generator stand onto the engine.  Remove it from the engine and the metal gasket from the hole.  That was easy…

Oil Cooler

The oil cooler is the last accessory we will remove here.  There are three 10mm nuts that hold that onto the engine.  Two of them are under the flange between the top and cylinders.  The other one is right on to.  Go ahead and remove the whole assembly.  There are also two gaskets between the cooler and the engine, remove these also and put this all into a bag labeled “oil cooler”.

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To remove the fuel pump, located next to the distributor  removeand plug the two lines that come from the fuel pump.  One goes directly to the gas tank, so have a golf-tee handy to plug that one up.  There are the two nuts that hold that down (13mm) and pull the pump straight off.   Put all of this into a  bag labeled “Fuel Pump”.

There should be a gasket, a rod, and a plastic rod-holder, and another gasket under all of that.  Take the rod out carefully and make sure to keep it clean and bend-free.

If your lucky, the plastic piece will just come out, if not, tap lightly with hammer until freed.  Note, this could break the plastic, which you should replace anyway.

Also not the difference between the two gaskets and keep this in mind for re-installation.  Put all of this into your “Fuel Pump” bag.

Exhaust

This is a three piece exhaust system with a muffler unit and two heat exchangers on either side of the engine.  Before starting, remove the two large paper hoses that attached to the fan housing. Remove the muffler from the heat exchangers by removing the “rings” that attach these together.  Each ring will have a nut and bolt on each side, gaskets, and seats over a flange in the exhaust.   There are four of these, and pending the age of your engine, could be very rusty.  I recommend buying new ones.  There is also a wide band clamp that needs to be removed from the heat exchanger, shown below.  Also, remove the remaining four nuts that hold the muffler onto the head.

Moving on, grab the pea shooters (at the end of the exhaust) and pull the muffler off.  You will now direct your attention to the heat exchangers.  Roll the engine over on it’s stand and remove the two arms of the exchanger from the tin.  There will be gaskets between the connections between the muffler to head and exchanger to head.

Once this is done, remove the nuts that hold the exchanger onto the head.  There will be rust, so use plenty of rust penetrator.  Once done, the exchangers should be freed from the engine.

Put all of this into a bag labeled “Exhaust”, minus the muffler and exchangers of course.

Now onto part four…

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OK, let’s take off the distributer.  I have two vacuum hoses on my distributere, go ahead and remove those.

Remove the sparkplug wires from the distributer.  Then remove the other end from the spark plugs.

The Distributer is held down in place by a nut screwed onto a stud, between the engine and the distributer.  Remove that nut and put it into a bag labeled ”Distributer”.  Your distributer might pull out hard, mine was moderate, this just depends on the quality of the seal.

Note the position of the tong on the distributor   It is off-set a little so it only goes into the slot one way.  There is also a spring inside the hole in the case, be sure that it is present.

Put that distributer into the “distributer bag” and move on the the next step.

Intake Manifold

Now let’s take off the intake manifold.  First off, we need to take the carburetor off.  Start by taking off the oil bath cleaner on the top, then remove the two bolts that hold the carb to the intake manifold.  Make sure to disconnect the fuel cutoff and automatic choke wires.  Also remove the vacuum hoses.

The carb is off, we can remove the intake manifold.  This has four connections with two manifolds allatch via rubber gaskets.  There are gaskets between all of these connections.  The four connections have two nuts each, which can easily break off.  I recommend a rust penetrating spray to remove these.

Here are the nuts, as you can see, mine broke off.

Now remove the rubber between the pieces.

With that remove, we can remove the maifolds on each side of the engine.  I do believe that the nuts are 13 mm.

Take all of those nuts and put them into a bag and label it “Intake Manifold”.  Here is mine completely removed.

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The shroud is the large black thing on the back of  the engine with a blue coil mounted to it.  The first thing we need to do is take the generator belt off.  To do this, there is a nut torqued to 43 ft-lb, which will turn the engine when attempting to remove.  You’ll need a large flat-head screwdriver to to insert into one of the two slots on the pully.  Be light with the wrench, or you can easily bend this pully with the screwdriver.

There, the generator pully nut is off.  Note the shims: try to keep them in the same order they came off the car.  Now let’s remove the generator strap from it’s pedestal.  There is a wide band that hold the generator onto the generator pedestal.  It’s pretty easy to remove, just undo the fastener and done.   Mine was a Phillips screw, but yours could be different.  Take the band off and put all of this, including the nuts and shims into a bag and label it “generator”.

Now, with the generator freed, we can locate the tin screws that hold the shroud, or in VeeDub “Dog House”, off the engine.  There is one located on each side of the engine and two in the rear.  Once those screws are out, put them into a bag labeled “Shroud”.  Take the shroud straight up as to not damage the oil cooler.

There we are done with this part.  Next we will take the rest of the “accessories” off the engine…

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Removing The Generator From The Fan Shroud

We will begin by removing the “plate” that the generator inserts into.  This plate is actually three parts, two dishs and one retainer ring.  It is held onto the shroud  by 10mm bolts, four of them.   The fan is next, where that nut is torqued down to 43 ft-lb, the same as the pully nut, so you’ll have a little fun with that.  There are usually more shims between the plate and the fan to give it proper clearance.  Keep these separate from the other shims and record which were where.  These are 10mm also, I believe.  once freed from the plate, the dishes and retainer ring all separate with it.  Once removed, there are two nuts on the inside of that plate that hold the generator in place.  Notice the there is a vent at the bottom of the plate, which is important for re-installation.  Keep and do not loose your Woodruff keys on each shaft. I do not seem to have pictures of this procedure, so we’ll move on.

Installing The Generator Into The Fan Shroud

As Bently would say, “the procedure is the reverse of removal”.  Let’s get into some more detail on how this all goes together.  I have my new generator there, but it is bare.  Go ahead and insert the Woodruff keys on either end of the generator.  You might need to force these to seat properly with a hammer, tapping lightly.

Assemble the plate unit together ensuring that the vent points down.  Screw on the two nuts and the plate should be all together.  Now insert the fan with the sims you pulled out from before. The clearance between the plate and the fan should be 2mm.  Not doing this will cause failure, which we do not want.  Again the fan nut should be torqued to 43 ft-lb.  Insert the pully on the other side, as to not loose the Woodruff key over there.  Put the whole plate back into the fan shroud, tightening the 10mm bolts to about 10 ft-lb.  Go ahead, spin the fan, ensure it spins freely and is not rubbing on anything.

…and the final assembly should look like this:

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These assemblies contain the following lights:

Looking at the connector inside the trunk (passenger side) you can see the following:

The license plate light is a VHD-N17-7182 12V4W bulb with a Grey/Blue and Brown connecting to a double between the hood and upper firewall.

Now, here is where the Mexican parts fail. The assemble I bought was sop cheap, it broke upon installation. I cleaned off my old solid ones from Hella and re-used these with the new lenses. The lenses needed to be modified by taking out the tin plates at the top and bottom, they are way to large for the Hella unit.

Okay, now plug in the battery and give them all a test. Fast flashers are short circuits, either at the bulb or wire. Usually the bulb needs replacing.

MAKE SURE YOU HAVE ISOLATED THE WIRES RUNNING TO THE TEST CONNECTOR. You will drive yourself crazy trying to figure out intermittent problems.

The post Rear Light Assemblies appeared first on Insanely Volkswagen.

Now, cover the entire back side of one door panel piece with glue using the 2 inch paint brush and let it set for 15 minutes. Do the same on the body where this piece will go, 15 minutes.

Come back and have that heat gun / hair dryer ready. Take your driver and insert the heavy plastic over the sharp toothed clamps along the door pillar. When doing this, pull the headliner material away from it’s intended area, you will see how that plastic is inserted. Pull the piece as high as it will go also, so there is no gap at the top of the door pillar.

Okay, not gently tap those clamps shut with your helper holding the glued piece towards the middle of the cabin. Go from the top to the bottom, not moving the piece. Now tightly pull the liner towards to back window, allowing it to adhere to the body.

Fun, right? Now take the heat gun and apply heat to the piece a little at a time to adjust wrinkles. Use the gun to make tight forms and stretch that liner like taffy. Heat, stretch, heat again, stretch; you get my drift? Work small areas and try not to get the headliner material too hot.

When you have come to areas with corners, you will need to cut out many slits to allow for a smooth fit. This is mainly done in the window and side panel areas. Make sure you leave enough room to roll the material up into the window channels. Good times, Good times…

Once satisfied, move on to the other side.

If you are looking at making this a two day project, you may stop here and continue to the next section tomorrow.

5. Install The Main Piece

Now that you have some experience with working with headliner material and heat guns, you can use it to apply the Main Piece. This large piece is perorated (as all will be from here on out), runs from the windshield all the way back to the rear window, with the rear wings cover a vast section in the back.

Flip the main piece over on a clean surface and look for the headliner bow channels. Cut the end off (like 1/2 inch) of each one of these channels with your scissors. As memory serves, the bows go through the channels, the two shorter ones in the front. Put on the bow caps (onto the end of the bows, duh?).

Now paint a liberal coat of glue to the parameter of the Main Piece and let that tack up for a few minutes. Bunch the whole thing up so the headliner bow rods are adjacent to each other and move into the car with the Main Piece. You’ll have to cock the bunch of rods crooked at first into the headliner bow channels on each side of the car. Once in, straighten the whole thing out so the headliner bow rods lie straight across from each other. Don’t worry about rod placement yet, just as long as they are all in there.

This is critical, center the whole piece so it is even on both sides, dead even. Once ensured you are all lined up, pull the front of the Main Piece out of the front of the windshield and press down against the frame. Don’t do the whole front, just tack down enough so the piece does not move around.

Locate the 3rd headliner bow rod. Pull it evenly so it about 3 inches past the door pillar. Pull firmly and feed the sides forward of that 3rd rod into the longer clamps at the top of the door channel. Once both sides are lined up and fed into the channels, tap them shut with a hammer. Work the piece around the Door Pillar pieces you installed previously. Make cuts and folds that look nice.

Now stretch the headliner towards the front door pillars, tacking it down in the corners where the sun visors attach. Centered still? If not, rework.

Moving to the rear of the car, stretch and attach the rear wings onto the contour of the edge of the rear window. Tack down also to the rear wheel well crease, pulling tightly. You don’t want to glue down the middle here, like mine, it looks bad. Heat, stretch, heat, stretch, again, again until you get it right. Take your time.

You’re going to have to cut the slits again, like mad, in this piece to get it around the window sills. Remember, cut these really long so you have a good bond between the body and the headliner. Move to the front of the car and work the windshield as you did the rear window.

Once satisfied, move on.

6. Install The Side Window Sills

The rest is a breeze. Apply a liberal coat of glue to the back on one of the Side Window Sill pieces and allow to tack for a few minutes. Glue them to the bottom of the side windows, about 2 inches away from the end of the door pillar. Center them up and apply heat to stretch and smooth them out. Leave plenty of material top and bottom. Cut the slits again into the window and side panel areas, leaving them long.

7. Install The Rear Piece

Okay, almost done. Take the Rear Piece and apply a liberal amount of glue, allowing it to tack. Install the piece high enough where the corner (round the half moon) overlaps both Main Piece wings already glued into the rear window pane in step #5. Press all that down, smooth it and heat it with the heat gun. Form and mold it in good and tight, especially around the bottom of the rear window sill. Cut the infamous slits into the top of the piece (leaving them long) and form around the rear window area. Tuck the bottom into the channel between the half moon and the rear firewall with your driver. Yes, carpet does go here later, but this is still a necessary piece to make it look proper.

8. Go Back Over The Job

Do you see areas you could have done better? Perhaps you need another headliner kit because you miffed the first one so bad, like me. They are about $75, so this is not a cheap mistake.

Go over the “rough” areas again with the heat gun. Try to smooth it out, take your time, and apply plenty of heat, that crease will work itself out eventually.

Now trim off you excess material and you’re done.

So we all had a jolly good time putting that in, right? Well, kick back, for better or worse, the headliner is installed…

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Okay, the time has come. The interior is shot and down-right manky. Holes everywhere, pieces of headliner crumbling off due to age, parts missing even?

Yup, that’s two “before” shots of my back seat area. Just terrible, and I have to look at that through my rear view mirror.

This is the (my) most dreaded task on the car, it requires patience and acute attention to detail. Your hands are going to get sticky (and therefore dirty), your back will ache and your family might learn some new, unwelcome vocabulary. And this is the “easy install kit” even. Ready?

1. Preparing Yourself and The Car

Okay, right off the bat, this is going to take 4-8 hours pending your experience. It took me 6 1/2 hours and two headliner kits to get it, well, better then the pictures above. Let’s get our stuff together:

• Upholstery Glue – I used a can from JBugs (VW Headliner Glue, Code: Quart-Can, about $10) that came with my kit.
• Headliner Kit – This arrives in a long box.
• Sharp Scissors
• The 6 Headliner Bows – Pull these out of the old headliner.
• New Headliner Caps
• Utility Knife
• Heat Gun – Hair dryer will also work, it has to blow hot.
• 2″ Paint Brush
• A Helper
• A clean space – Large enough to lay out the main piece.
• Small Screwdriver

Now, lets prepare the car. This procedure is better done after the body has been painted, and the seats, carpet, side panels and windows (all windows but the door) are still out of the car. Yes, the Seats, Side Panels, Carpet and Windows (even the windshield) have to be removed before proceeding. You will also need to remove EVERYTHING that attaches through the headliner to the body. These include Seat Belts, Rear View Mirror, The Sun Visors, The Dome Light, The Rear Vent Plastic, The Rear Defog wires, and those white rubber seat back stops above the rear wheel wells. Whew…

Done? Good, go ahead and clean all that up. See my other How To’s for the restoration of those items. Now tear out that old headliner. Easy “Big Cougar”, don’t go nuts; try to remove it in one piece. The Door Pillar sides are held in by many short clamps with very sharp teeth. You’ll have to peel back the Door Pillar piece and take your screw driver and pry these open; try not to break any off in the process. Where the Main Piece meets the doors are also longer clamps without sharp edges that require “widening” with your driver.

Remove the carcass from the cabin and locate the 5 or 6 (pending your year, I had 6) headliner bows. These are simply large gauge wire in two sizes; the smaller ones go to the front and the four longer ones go to the rear. Note the order you pulled them, for my memory might not serve me as well as I thought. Label them even, I did.

Take a digital camera and record where stuff went into the top bow, dome light area, rear vent, defog wires, and rear set rests. This will come in handy later.

2. Prepare The Headliner

Take the headliner out of it’s box and unfurl it on a clean flat surface. You might want to leave it out like this overnight until all of the pieces have flatted. The Door Pillar pieces are particularly difficult because of the way they were packaged – the hard rubber part never straightens out. We will take care of that in the channel with the sharp teeth later.

Once flat, fit the pieces into the cabin where they will go. Familiarize yourself with particular interest to the rear headliner wings that come down between the side and rear windows. Take note of how the Door Pillar pieces will fit at the bottom between the side panels and door pillar. Got it? Good, moving on…

3. Install The Headliner Padding

I splurged for the headliner padding kit from JBugs, and was disappointed in it’s quality. On future installs, I will make my own from carpet padding bought at a local hardware store.

You will need thinner material for the rear wings and window, using thicker material for the ceiling and the half moon under the rear window.

I used 3M 80 Spray Glue to glue in the padding pieces. I also remember holding the ceiling piece in for a while until it set.

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Okay, I lied, there are more then the “main three” harnesses. These “minor harnesses” include the Starter Harness, Backup Light Harness, Test Connector Harness (we’ll cover this in it’s own section), Battery Harness, Fuel Gauge Harness, Fan Motor Harness and Wiper Harness.

Starter Harness

The Starter Harness runs from under the rear seat, routes out right above fuel line and into the Engine Compartment. It consists of two wires, which break out like this:

Backup Light Harness

The Backup Light Harness runs from the transmission, routes through an hole on the Passenger’s side of the Engine Compartment, then attaches to the three-way connector also in the Passenger’s Side Engine Compartment. Sometimes, this is routed behind the tar board back there. It consists of one wire, again, which breaks out like this:

Battery Harness

The Battery Harness consists of two wires and runs from the Battery Positive Terminal in two directions. One direction leads out the rear pan area on the Passenger’s Side, then to the Starter. The other direction routes under the back seat, over the hump and onto the Voltage Regulator (B+). The rear seat hold-down bar that straddles the car has a channel to route this properly.

Fuel Gauge Harness

The Fuel Gauge Harness is hidden behind the dash. It routes from the cabin, through the firewall under the fresh air box, and onto the Fuel Tank where the Fuel Level Sender lives. The harness also has two wires, which break out like this:

Fan Motor Harness

The Fan Motor Harness is also buried behind the dash. It consists of three wires which run from the Fan Switch mounted on the lower part of the dash, route out the firewall into the fresh air box, attaching to the fan motor itself. Here is how that breaks out:

Wiper Harness

The Wiper Harness again is buried behind the dash and consists of five wires. It runs from the Wiper Switch mounted on the steering column, routes out the firewall into the fresh air box, attaching to the Wiper Motor itself. Here is how that breaks out:

The Test Connector

The test connector was used by the VW Dealer to help diagnose your Beetle. I highly doubt there is a VW Dealer these days that still has the equipment to utilize the test connector jack, but I might stand corrected. The test connector has one large Red / White wire and a normal Brown, then a bunch of mini connectors that lock into a plastic receptor. This receptor is then mounted on the upper rear firewall on the driver’s side. Here is how that breaks out:

Grounds

Now let’s look at the Brown Ground wires. There are two areas in the front trunk area where screws hold down both the headlight and turn signal ground wires, on either side.

In the Cabin, there are two more areas to ground wires to, the firewall behind the dash (near the drivers right knee) and the Speedometer. Here is how that breaks out:

Back in the Engine Compartment, there are a few more grounding tabs located on either side of the compartment on the flat area that the engine seal attaches to.

Well, I hope you are far less confused. For full wiring diagrams, which are not my property, see The Samba Type 1 Wiring Diagrams. These are the best diagrams I have found on the Internet so far.

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