Ooh Barracuda - The End of 'Christine' R.I.P
- Thread starter Barracuda
- 386 comments
- 32,765 views
- 3,770
- Boss-Barracuda
A little update on the Beetle, it's close to being roadworthy. We installed the new master cylinder but it turns out that it was a line that was leaking all along, so he replaced the line and bled the brakes and everything was fine. When we changed the oil it had to have been the blackest oil I've ever seen come out of an engine. We're going to run it for a bit on the new oil then change it again to make sure all the gunk is out of the engine. He also went through all the crappy wiring and had to rewire one of the taillights. Everything except the reverse lights work, as well as one of the blinkers due to a broken module which will be coming in the mail shortly.
Like I said I sanded down and painted the hood. It's still not perfect but it looks a lot better than it did.
Like I said I sanded down and painted the hood. It's still not perfect but it looks a lot better than it did.
- 9,646
- Minus955
The curved windshield and the vents just under the front bumper only come on the Super Beetle. The spare tire also lies flat in the trunk as opposed to at an angle, so it has far more trunk room. It's supposed to handle a little better too, but weigh about 160 pounds more, usually.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Beetle#The_Super_Beetle_and_final_evolution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Beetle#The_Super_Beetle_and_final_evolution
- 3,770
- Boss-Barracuda
Today my friend and I decided to do a little maintenance on my car, and damn did it go a long way. We started by greasing all the fittings we could find in the front suspension. They've all been broken for quite a long time, evident by the fact that the front passengers side ball joint took seven pumps before anything even came out. Going for a test drive it made an enormous difference, especially when backing out of his yard.
Since my car was driving a bit better I decided to take a look into the rear air shocks. In the back behind my bumper the previous owner drilled a hole where the hoses from the shocks come into a valve that is held in the hole by a nut. We tried to put air into the shocks before but the pin inside the valve was too far in to be pushed down by a guage. Since the valve was plastic I decided to shave the end of a bit and what do you know it worked fine, but there was no pressure in the shocks. We started to put some air in the shocks and holy crap what a difference it made. The rear end started lifting with no effort and before we got anywhere close to his compressors limit it was perfect. The 60psi guage I have maxed out so it's now anywhere between 60-100psi. Surprising how much of a height difference it made since the shocks can apparently go up to 200psi
I can't believe that I didn't do this earlier, it's a completely new car. It turns better, the squeak when I back up (which we've figured out is the front U joint on the driveshaft, just needs to be greased) went away, and it barely shakes anymore at 35mph when it used to basically be a jackhammer before.
We also figured out that the Beetle is a hell of a lot louder than my car is at idle. I backed up next to him to take pictures and I literally couldn't hear my exhaust at all. He's getting a muffler in tomorrow so we'll see how it sounds then.
Since my car was driving a bit better I decided to take a look into the rear air shocks. In the back behind my bumper the previous owner drilled a hole where the hoses from the shocks come into a valve that is held in the hole by a nut. We tried to put air into the shocks before but the pin inside the valve was too far in to be pushed down by a guage. Since the valve was plastic I decided to shave the end of a bit and what do you know it worked fine, but there was no pressure in the shocks. We started to put some air in the shocks and holy crap what a difference it made. The rear end started lifting with no effort and before we got anywhere close to his compressors limit it was perfect. The 60psi guage I have maxed out so it's now anywhere between 60-100psi. Surprising how much of a height difference it made since the shocks can apparently go up to 200psi
I can't believe that I didn't do this earlier, it's a completely new car. It turns better, the squeak when I back up (which we've figured out is the front U joint on the driveshaft, just needs to be greased) went away, and it barely shakes anymore at 35mph when it used to basically be a jackhammer before.
We also figured out that the Beetle is a hell of a lot louder than my car is at idle. I backed up next to him to take pictures and I literally couldn't hear my exhaust at all. He's getting a muffler in tomorrow so we'll see how it sounds then.
- 2,568
- we're waiting for the PS4
- fishtailrook1 (?)
you wouldn't be able to try re-greasing a vehicle up here of that vintange...everything would have long turned to globs of rust. and i don't think anything had airshocks back then, even a Mercedes (other people can argue the point if they want)
- 3,770
- Boss-Barracuda
Yeah, that's actually after I cleaned it too, took the clear coat off. It has a vent line but it's clogged up so my tank pressurizes. Definitely need to fix that.
Like I said the exhaust came in today so we put it on. Was a bit of a bitch to get the pipes in the back off but other than that it was pretty straight forward. We didn't like the pipes running from the exhaust to the intake so we decided to make two gaskets and put them in between the pipes and the exhaust. The problem with that plan though was that when we went to put the gasket in the left pipe broke off. Since the left pipe was already off we decided to cut off the right pipe as well (which was thickly caked with exhaust crap inside) and just plug them up. Since we still needed to cover the holes in the exhaust we cut the ends off the pipes and did what we originally planned with the gaskets. As for the intake we found two bolts, covered them with RTV, and put them in the holes to seal them off. Unfortunately since we did that we'll have to wait to hear what it sounds like tomorrow, but I'm hoping it'll sound great.
- 3,770
- Boss-Barracuda
Well the good news is that the Beetle has been on the road for the past week or so. The bad news is that it hasn't been running too well. Before we got in on the road we changed the oil, but looking at it today it was just as black as it was before we changed it. It's good that it's cleaning all the crap out of the engine, but not good that it's that dirty in there, so we changed it again and might even have to change it one more time eventually. On top of the oil my friend decided to change the transmission fluid, and god was it terrible. He took the cap off and it was covered in shavings, he actually thought it was supposed to be spherical until it all came off when he went to clean it. The fluid was also as nasty as the original oil we took out of it. He put the new fluid in and it felt better, but he still most of the time has a problem getting it to go into second from first.
As for my car I haven't done anything with it, and that's the big problem. It still shakes and I have no idea why (someone suggested it could be a cracked K member at the steering box mount), it still has a gas tank vent problem, It still has a terrible lifter tick I need to fix, and the body is just getting worse and worse all the time since I don't even have a garage. I suspect the shaking is just a general balance problem among other things, there's no weights on one of the tires and they're just generally crappy tires, I've never liked them. I've moved the tires all around and it doesn't really make too much of a difference so I don't really know. I need to grease my u joints on my driveshaft, but there's no fittings like there should be so that's something I'll need to look into. The vent line for the gas tank is decently accessible, but just the way it's bent I don't know how I'd get it out of there without bending and breaking it.
A lot of the work I should be doing to it requires parts of the interior out, which I wouldn't really mind doing, but when it's going to all be put back together is what I'm worried about. Not only do I not have anywhere to put it, but most likely it would stay out for quite some time. I wouldn't really mind having a decently bare bones interior, if I restore it it'll need to be that way, and it's all just fading away in the Florida sun anyway, but it would be tough finding a place to put it where I know it'll all be safe. Lots of stuff to do, no money to do anything about it, I just had to like the Mopars didn't I
As for my car I haven't done anything with it, and that's the big problem. It still shakes and I have no idea why (someone suggested it could be a cracked K member at the steering box mount), it still has a gas tank vent problem, It still has a terrible lifter tick I need to fix, and the body is just getting worse and worse all the time since I don't even have a garage. I suspect the shaking is just a general balance problem among other things, there's no weights on one of the tires and they're just generally crappy tires, I've never liked them. I've moved the tires all around and it doesn't really make too much of a difference so I don't really know. I need to grease my u joints on my driveshaft, but there's no fittings like there should be so that's something I'll need to look into. The vent line for the gas tank is decently accessible, but just the way it's bent I don't know how I'd get it out of there without bending and breaking it.
A lot of the work I should be doing to it requires parts of the interior out, which I wouldn't really mind doing, but when it's going to all be put back together is what I'm worried about. Not only do I not have anywhere to put it, but most likely it would stay out for quite some time. I wouldn't really mind having a decently bare bones interior, if I restore it it'll need to be that way, and it's all just fading away in the Florida sun anyway, but it would be tough finding a place to put it where I know it'll all be safe. Lots of stuff to do, no money to do anything about it, I just had to like the Mopars didn't I
- 24,331
- Midlantic Area
- GTP_Duke
In the Beetle, use Walmart's cheap Rotella diesel-oil knockoff (I forget what it's called). Oil formulated for diesels has a lot of detergents in it to scrub the excess carbon and crap out of the engine, so it will do a good job cleaning up the inside of an old engine.
- 3,770
- Boss-Barracuda
To start off the good news is that yesterday I finally fixed my thermostat problem. What's been happening (for those of you who don't know) is my engine gets hot but my thermostat doesn't open, causing the coolant to boil over and come out of my radiator. The fun part of all this is that the run off tube is placed where it hits a flat piece of metal, sprays off of that, then hits my fan causing it to go all over my engine bay, fun. It also caused one of my hoses to grow a little bit, but that was an easy fix:
We filled it up with coolant and after a test drive it was down so now I know it's working and I shouldn't have anymore overheating problems.
As for the bad news, it turns out that you can't turn a super beetle into an off-road bug because of the way the front suspension is. You'd think not having a torsion bar front end would make it a ton easier, but due to some issues (I can't remember what my friend told me) you can't even raise the front at all. The only way to make it work would be to cut the frame before the trunk and create a full tube frame from then on with a whole different suspension setup, basically way too much work and money. Considering that was the entire point of the Beetle I don't know what my friend wants to do with it. Personally, and I even told him this, I wouldn't care at all if he sold it. It's been fun working on it, but in the end it's not mine, and I have no attachment to it. I don't know how he feels, and the final decision about where to go from here is his, so I'll keep you updated on what he decides to do.
We filled it up with coolant and after a test drive it was down so now I know it's working and I shouldn't have anymore overheating problems.
As for the bad news, it turns out that you can't turn a super beetle into an off-road bug because of the way the front suspension is. You'd think not having a torsion bar front end would make it a ton easier, but due to some issues (I can't remember what my friend told me) you can't even raise the front at all. The only way to make it work would be to cut the frame before the trunk and create a full tube frame from then on with a whole different suspension setup, basically way too much work and money. Considering that was the entire point of the Beetle I don't know what my friend wants to do with it. Personally, and I even told him this, I wouldn't care at all if he sold it. It's been fun working on it, but in the end it's not mine, and I have no attachment to it. I don't know how he feels, and the final decision about where to go from here is his, so I'll keep you updated on what he decides to do.
- 3,770
- Boss-Barracuda
I thought my radiator problems were solved, guess what decided to spray all over my engine bay again. The worst part about it is that this time it decided to take some of the paint off the inside of my engine bay. I opened up my hood to change my air filter (which by the way was the wrong size, what a great day) and parts of the paint on the hood and the inner fender were bubbled up and just about to come off. Since I already had to clean those parts I decided to just go all the way and use this engine and engine bay cleaner my friend had to clean everything.
It cleaned it up pretty well, now it's halfway decent to open up my hood at the shows. I made out pretty lucky with the hood because all that came off was the crappy paint the previous owner had put on it, with the original paint underneath.
I didn't get so lucky with the inner fender though. I don't know what the previous owner did, but by the looks of it he just sprayed the whole engine bay with crappy white paint without even wiping it down. When I wiped the inner fender there was something underneath that kept streaking. I'm glad no more paint came off, but the paint around it is in about the same condition.
I've been wanting to paint something on my car, but I didn't want it to be like this. I sprayed over the open metal with primer just to keep it from rusting. I don't know how well the paint will do though because on the way home it decided to spray again, this is driving me nuts.
It cleaned it up pretty well, now it's halfway decent to open up my hood at the shows. I made out pretty lucky with the hood because all that came off was the crappy paint the previous owner had put on it, with the original paint underneath.
I didn't get so lucky with the inner fender though. I don't know what the previous owner did, but by the looks of it he just sprayed the whole engine bay with crappy white paint without even wiping it down. When I wiped the inner fender there was something underneath that kept streaking. I'm glad no more paint came off, but the paint around it is in about the same condition.
I've been wanting to paint something on my car, but I didn't want it to be like this. I sprayed over the open metal with primer just to keep it from rusting. I don't know how well the paint will do though because on the way home it decided to spray again, this is driving me nuts.
- 8,378
- Auckland
- Lazer0pz
Lol that is FUNNY!! I'm only 13 though. My dad has told me about it, when his beloved XR6 Falcon (Oceanian Car - only sold in NZ, Aussie etc.) went on the frits. He went into the Deealer and said "help, my car's turned into Christine!"
Lol. For a name, how bout 'Kuda' or something that sounds similar...
- 3,770
- Boss-Barracuda
Today started out like most days where I have an update, frustration and a number of problems that on top of all the huge problems make me doubt my car. What's different about today though is that I actually solved all the problems and finished the work in a good mood.
I came home from church and parked in the spot next to where I usually park because I noticed a large dark spot where my gas tank would be in my normal spot. After a bit I came down to go to Autozone and I heard a loud hissing noise. Sure enough there was another puddle under my gas tank, but as I looked there was a pinhole leak in my tank spraying gasoline all over the ground at about the same force as a spray paint can. I opened up my gas cap to release the pressure and it stopped, but it was still seeping out of the tank. I decided I had to finally do something about the vent problem because this is ridiculous, so I took off the rubber hose joining the vent to the metal vent line, and brought it to autozone. There I bought some special stuff to seal the hole in my tank and five feet of the same size rubber fuel line.
Luckily for me there was already a hole just the size of the hose where my spare tire goes. I'm glad I didn't go any shorter because there was just enough hose to loop it up, zip tie it to the original metal line, then lead it into the hole with the ability to put my milk crate full off stuff right on top off it.
Since school is starting tomorrow, and I'm tired of having my engine bay covered with coolant, my dad and I looked into what the problem actually is. We checked the bigger hoses but they were fine, so all that was left was the water pump, radiator, or the engine itself, really specific huh. Stumped I turned the car on without the radiator cap on to try and determine which of the big three was the culprit. As we watched it got hot and the coolant was moving, but there was no problem. We give it a bit of gas to see if it will do anything and the problem finally shows itself. It turns out the water pump seal is bad, so when we revved it you could see coolant droplets shooting up from where the seal was bad. With that we headed down to Autozone again and ordered a seal and exchanged the air filter for one that actually fit (well sort of, it's a hell of a lot taller and not as wide, but I like it). For some reason the previous owner had a thing for liquid rubber seals, because most to all of the engine is sealed with it, oh boy, cant wait for everything else to go bad.
While we were there we also finally cut the heater lines short, and what do you know, it made the engine bay look a ton better, save for getting coolant all over my newly cleaned engine. In the end I cleaned it up the best I could and I think it looks like a million bucks (relatively).
It shouldn't be too hard to replace the seal, but it isn't going to be fun. Now I have the dilemma of either driving to school tomorrow with my water pump spitting coolant all over my engine bay, or driving my dad's truck that has no reverse gear. I don't like driving newer vehicles, I look like I just got my license yesterday, but I don't want to damage anything else in my engine bay (This coolant problem is what killed my other alternator, it all makes sense now)
All the pictures I have are clickable for a 1600X1200 version just in case you didn't know that.
I came home from church and parked in the spot next to where I usually park because I noticed a large dark spot where my gas tank would be in my normal spot. After a bit I came down to go to Autozone and I heard a loud hissing noise. Sure enough there was another puddle under my gas tank, but as I looked there was a pinhole leak in my tank spraying gasoline all over the ground at about the same force as a spray paint can. I opened up my gas cap to release the pressure and it stopped, but it was still seeping out of the tank. I decided I had to finally do something about the vent problem because this is ridiculous, so I took off the rubber hose joining the vent to the metal vent line, and brought it to autozone. There I bought some special stuff to seal the hole in my tank and five feet of the same size rubber fuel line.
Luckily for me there was already a hole just the size of the hose where my spare tire goes. I'm glad I didn't go any shorter because there was just enough hose to loop it up, zip tie it to the original metal line, then lead it into the hole with the ability to put my milk crate full off stuff right on top off it.
Since school is starting tomorrow, and I'm tired of having my engine bay covered with coolant, my dad and I looked into what the problem actually is. We checked the bigger hoses but they were fine, so all that was left was the water pump, radiator, or the engine itself, really specific huh. Stumped I turned the car on without the radiator cap on to try and determine which of the big three was the culprit. As we watched it got hot and the coolant was moving, but there was no problem. We give it a bit of gas to see if it will do anything and the problem finally shows itself. It turns out the water pump seal is bad, so when we revved it you could see coolant droplets shooting up from where the seal was bad. With that we headed down to Autozone again and ordered a seal and exchanged the air filter for one that actually fit (well sort of, it's a hell of a lot taller and not as wide, but I like it). For some reason the previous owner had a thing for liquid rubber seals, because most to all of the engine is sealed with it, oh boy, cant wait for everything else to go bad.
While we were there we also finally cut the heater lines short, and what do you know, it made the engine bay look a ton better, save for getting coolant all over my newly cleaned engine. In the end I cleaned it up the best I could and I think it looks like a million bucks (relatively).
It shouldn't be too hard to replace the seal, but it isn't going to be fun. Now I have the dilemma of either driving to school tomorrow with my water pump spitting coolant all over my engine bay, or driving my dad's truck that has no reverse gear. I don't like driving newer vehicles, I look like I just got my license yesterday, but I don't want to damage anything else in my engine bay (This coolant problem is what killed my other alternator, it all makes sense now)
All the pictures I have are clickable for a 1600X1200 version just in case you didn't know that.
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- 434
- BroncoJunky
- REDRINGOFDEATHarrgh
Good to see the Barracuda coming along, hopefully after you get the new water pump gasket on, your coolant issues will be solved.
Man I loved the sound of the Beetle with no exhaust, it reminded me of old WW2 fighter planes at an idle.
Man I loved the sound of the Beetle with no exhaust, it reminded me of old WW2 fighter planes at an idle.
- 3,770
- Boss-Barracuda
It turns out that I was right all along, the shaking problem my car was having was the U joints. I always thought that was the problem but my friend was skeptical so I didn't think much of it, that is until the shaking came back this week, and boy did it come back. I could feel it shake at all speeds, but once I let off the gas you could practically feel every rotation. Luckily for me my birthday was on the 26th so I had already gotten $40, so I went down to Autozone and bought two U joints and valve pan gaskets.
I didn't feel like going one more day with the bad shaking so I went over my friend's house and we got to work. What we found was shocking, but somewhat pleasing to me, I like being right, lol.
Both U joints were like that, with only two sides of one of the U joints having any grease at all in them. The inside of a few of them were even grooved due to all the grinding. They must have been very close to failing, I'm glad I took care of them when I did. The new ones also have grease fittings so I'm sure that they're going to last me for quite some time.
EDIT: I also changed the water pump gasket a few days ago, but I didn't take any pictures so I didn't update. The fan bolts were too long so I had to take out the water pump with the fan still on it. It was either that or take out the radiator, the less fluids to mess with the better. I was surprised to find that it wasn't like most of the water pumps I've seen with an inlet and outlet, which made me pretty nervous that I could have slightly messed up the new gasket and would have a problem. I even had a dream that night that I started my car up and it started spraying everywhere. But in the end the Indian head did it's job and held perfectly fine.
I didn't feel like going one more day with the bad shaking so I went over my friend's house and we got to work. What we found was shocking, but somewhat pleasing to me, I like being right, lol.
Both U joints were like that, with only two sides of one of the U joints having any grease at all in them. The inside of a few of them were even grooved due to all the grinding. They must have been very close to failing, I'm glad I took care of them when I did. The new ones also have grease fittings so I'm sure that they're going to last me for quite some time.
EDIT: I also changed the water pump gasket a few days ago, but I didn't take any pictures so I didn't update. The fan bolts were too long so I had to take out the water pump with the fan still on it. It was either that or take out the radiator, the less fluids to mess with the better. I was surprised to find that it wasn't like most of the water pumps I've seen with an inlet and outlet, which made me pretty nervous that I could have slightly messed up the new gasket and would have a problem. I even had a dream that night that I started my car up and it started spraying everywhere. But in the end the Indian head did it's job and held perfectly fine.
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- 3,770
- Boss-Barracuda
Is your next project putting an obscene number of 10" subs in your trunk?
We found those on the side of the road one day, figured we could use the MDF for something. Speaking of putting speakers in my car though I do plan on making a system of sorts. My friend has all the parts and he's going to let me borrow them. It's going to be one 12" sub with two regular car speakers hooked up to an extra radio and amp that he has. I'm going to design the box so that it can be seat belted into my back seat like I have a DeWalt radio right now, then I'm going to make a small box to fit the radio which will go on the hump where a center console would be.
I don't know when this is going to happen though, we're pretty busy since things keep going wrong with my car, the Beetle, and the Blazer. It couldn't have happened during the summer when we had all the time in the world.
- 2,568
- we're waiting for the PS4
- fishtailrook1 (?)
silly Kiwi! the States had Falcon's first! when we gave up the name, you guys took it and ran with it. ditto with Galaxies.
Diablo: uh oh...all goop gaskets? mabey the guy had a Camry at one point, cause the engine in the one I had was the exact same. held together with goop brand and a prayer.
- 3,770
- Boss-Barracuda
Yeah it's pretty ridiculous, lets hope the rest of them decide to last until I can afford a 340.
Well I though it was fixed, but it's vibrating again. Definitely not as bad as it was, but it's still pissing me off that there's a vibration. I must need to get it all balanced, we just put the new U joints in with some wood and a hammer. Not the best way to do it, and I think it's showing.
Definitely not my day today, one of my 500gb externals also decided to go kaput. It's not a big deal, I have another two with the information backed up, but now I have to delete my itunes library and upload it from another hd then sort it all out, not fun.
I should be getting a few bucks for my birthday party tomorrow (Just church people and family friends, nothing special) so that will be nice. Depending on how much I get I'll probably change my oil (Royal Purple), get some Z Max, and change my axle housing gasket. I'd like to fix my lifter tick as soon as possible but I'd rather do something like that with my dad since he knows what he's doing, but he's busy so I don't know when that will happen.
Well I though it was fixed, but it's vibrating again. Definitely not as bad as it was, but it's still pissing me off that there's a vibration. I must need to get it all balanced, we just put the new U joints in with some wood and a hammer. Not the best way to do it, and I think it's showing.
Definitely not my day today, one of my 500gb externals also decided to go kaput. It's not a big deal, I have another two with the information backed up, but now I have to delete my itunes library and upload it from another hd then sort it all out, not fun.
I should be getting a few bucks for my birthday party tomorrow (Just church people and family friends, nothing special) so that will be nice. Depending on how much I get I'll probably change my oil (Royal Purple
), get some Z Max, and change my axle housing gasket. I'd like to fix my lifter tick as soon as possible but I'd rather do something like that with my dad since he knows what he's doing, but he's busy so I don't know when that will happen.
- 3,770
- Boss-Barracuda
Yesterday I spent a good few hours in the hot Florida sun adjusting the lifters on the right side of my engine (where the tick is coming from), then changing the oil. Only a few of the lifters needed a small adjustment, but after doing that it didn't help with the noise. It could be a number of things now, a worn end, one of them is clogged, or even sidewards chatter (You could wiggle each lifter assembly back and forth). It wasn't all for nothing though, I noticed a small bit more pep while going for a test drive afterward.
My friend finally got a hold of a timing light so I should be checking my timing sometime soon. I'm not sure that it's off, but the previous owner put a white paint line at 4 degrees BTC, and my manual says t needs to be 10 degrees BTC.
I've also been trying to fully diagnose the shaking problem as my driveshaft but lately it hasn't been acting up. Although that's a good thing, I'm trying to see if it will stop when I put it in neutral. I don't want to waste $50 getting it balanced then have it turn out to not be the problem (although I'm almost %100 sure it is).
My friend finally got a hold of a timing light so I should be checking my timing sometime soon. I'm not sure that it's off, but the previous owner put a white paint line at 4 degrees BTC, and my manual says t needs to be 10 degrees BTC.
I've also been trying to fully diagnose the shaking problem as my driveshaft but lately it hasn't been acting up. Although that's a good thing, I'm trying to see if it will stop when I put it in neutral. I don't want to waste $50 getting it balanced then have it turn out to not be the problem (although I'm almost %100 sure it is).
- 3,770
- Boss-Barracuda
Got my hands on a tach the other day. Would have been $34 but my mom found me a $10 off coupon so I picked it up for $24. It was surprisingly easy to wire in and I had plenty of wire left, I'd recommend it to anyone who doesn't have a tach. As for its usefulness I have an automatic so it doesn't really do much, but it's nice to be able to see it anyway. Found out I idle at 500rpm.
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