Whenever you start into a car restoration project there are
always two specters in dark robes hanging around in the shadows waiting to
strike. Their names are “While You’re In There” and “That Don’t Fit”. Your day
gets much more expensive and difficult when they decide to show up.
With Clementine, my vision has always been to make her into
a fast daily driver that can do some drag strip work but still be civilized
enough to take on cruises or errands around town. The idea of a complete
nut-and-bolt restoration seemed a bit much to me as I did not want to worry
with creating a 100-point show car. However, as I started taking parts off for
restoration or replacement, ol’ “While You’re In There” started running the
bill up to darn near the cost and complexity of a full show car build and “That
Don’t Fit” began to ruthlessly bloody my knuckles and furrow my brow.
Regardless, I have refused to go too nuts or give up but damned if I am not learning
how to take apart Beetles in a hurry and my first aid skills have definitely
improved. My shed is now full of old Beetle parts and the trash can in the shop
is home to a pile of bloody Band-Aids and empty Neosporin tubes.
The first priority was to get the car to where it could run
and drive safely and reliably so I decided to tackle the chassis first and
leave the drivetrain and body work for later on. Clementine’s suspension
consists of a torsion beam front suspension (the “beam”) and an independent rear
suspension (IRS) that connects up to her transaxle. As I got the car up on jack
stands and began to poke around, it became very clear that not much had been
done to the suspension in a very long time and that the brakes also were pretty
tired. The shocks were Sears brand dampers that probably were new somewhere
during the Carter administration and many of the lines, bushings, and hard
parts were clearly original to the car. The previous owner had attempted some
freshening in recent times but pretty much everything else had reached the end
of its useful life.
So, I called up good buddy Jeff Lain at the Kaddie Shack and
we started putting together a pretty impressive shopping list of gear to get
the old girl back up to speed. Jeff and his crew put together a new height
adjustable front beam for me with drop spindles, polyurethane bushings, KYB
GR-series shocks, a bigger sway bar, and Karmann Ghia style disc brakes. He
addressed the rear suspension with height adjustable spring plates, the same
KYB’s as used on the front, new bushings, and an add-on rear sway bar to really
tie down the handling of the car. I also sourced parts to redo all the brake
hard and soft lines, change out the master cylinder and brake fluid reservoir, freshen
the rear drum brakes, and refurbish the rear control arms and axle bearings.
Unfortunately, “That Don’t Fit” was in the house and the rear control arms
refused to get along with the trick spring plates so I had to go old school and
just dial in the ’71 vintage stockers with an angle finder and plenty of
swearing despite Jeff’s best efforts at remote tech support. “That Don’t Fit”
also sprinkled magic dust on the new brake hard lines with leaks galore and a
janky fluid reservoir which refused to fill correctly that took up two days of
fiddling, two rolls of paper towels, and two of the economy size bottles of
O’Reilly’s finest DOT4 fluid before I finally got a hard pedal with no
dribbles.
Of course, ol’ “While You’re In There” came calling too which
added in a new fuel tank and lines since I had to remove the old crusty stuff
to get to the beam, rebuilt drive axles, a new hood release cable, a rebuild of
the pedal cluster when it came out to fit the new brake master cylinder, and
some paint work to repair some damage caused under the hood by leaky brake
lines. I also couldn’t help myself when my OCD kicked in so I ended up getting
$100 or more of new bolts to replace the old nasty ones that were holding
together some key components. The guys in the loose hardware department at the Davis
Ace know me by name now and I have nearly earned enough in rewards points to
buy that smoker in the leisure department that I have had my eye on.
Next up will be an upgrade to Clementine’s rolling stock
with some wheels from a Porsche cousin along with dialing in the alignment and
height settings to get her just low enough to look cool but not so low that I
end up stranded on every speed bump in town. Get ready, greater Willowbank, 45
horsepower of sheer Teutonic fury is about the hit the streets…
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