In the blood

[SebastienPeek]

Ever since I was about two years old, I've had an amazing love for Volkswagens. My Mum had a Type 3 Squareback, both my Aunty and Uncle owned Beetles, and even my Grandmother owned and raced one! Hell, who didn't love Herbie when they were young?!

So it was destined that I was to own a Volkswagen, and it happened. A few weeks back my Dad bought me my first car, a 1973 L Beetle with a 1600cc (upgraded to Superbug engine) engine and an old Torana body kit on the rear. I call her Zelda.

Since then I've learnt all these new things that I never knew about when it came to Beetles. But a few things are currently troubling me with mine.

Currently the following things are somewhat "dodgy" in Zelda.
- Muffler/Extractors are completely rusted through.
- No interior light due to a very dodgy roof lining restoration attempt.
- Heater doesn't work (it gets bloody cold in the morning here in Adelaide!).
- Second gear is practically non-existent*.
- The steering wheel's horn has a temper, sometimes it just doesn't like to work.

As for these things, any thoughts would be appreciated on the heating and the second gear, the rest I can get replaced and fix myself. I think.
With the muffler/extractors, they seem to be allowing fumes to engulf the interior, and honestly, I get headaches after driving her for too long. This is something that I need to fix as soon as possible.

I'm curious also, as the car has had a third party head unit installed, but it seems to be running off of something other than the ignition. How hard is it to change it?

*An explanation here is needed. I can go from first to second gear and through to third and fourth fine. However, when changing from third to second to go around a roundabout, she just shutters, I then have to put her into third and she's fine. You'd have to witness it to believe it, but it is true.

I'll be happy to post some photos if people want to see her in her beauty!

[Aussie Volks Guy]

Welcome Sebastien!

Sounds like quite a project you have on your hands there.

having owned many, many aircooled VW's, there is a lot of maintenance & fixing up someone else's mess is always difficult too.

A good place to start is http://forums.aussieveedubbers.com/

I'm not sure who the resident aircooled experts are in SA these days.

good thing is most stuff has been reproduced & there are a lot of places.

A few links to get you started:

http://www.vintageveedub.com.au/

http://www.mickmotors.com.au/

Good luck & enjoy.

[SebastienPeek]

Welcome Sebastien!

Sounds like quite a project you have on your hands there.

having owned many, many aircooled VW's, there is a lot of maintenance & fixing up someone else's mess is always difficult too.

A good place to start is http://forums.aussieveedubbers.com/

I'm not sure who the resident aircooled experts are in SA these days.

good thing is most stuff has been reproduced & there are a lot of places.

A few links to get you started:

http://www.vintageveedub.com.au/

http://www.mickmotors.com.au/

Good luck & enjoy.

Do you recommend that I solely use aussieveedubbers or can I post my questions and such on here? But thanks for the links, will definitely come in handy!

Seems aussieveedubbers has a huge amount of people from SA, hadn't realised there were so many until I owned a bug myself!

[Lams]

Do you recommend that I solely use aussieveedubbers or can I post my questions and such on here? But thanks for the links, will definitely come in handy!

Seems aussieveedubbers has a huge amount of people from SA, hadn't realised there were so many until I owned a bug myself!

welcome sebastien

The only guy who knows anything about the aircooled here is Guy!

aussieveedubbers is full of people who do nothing but play with aircooled dubs all day. They would be able to help you and there is a whole bunch of them in adelaide

[jnrdavo]

welcome mate...

Don't get Guy wrong, you are more than welcome to post here, we welcome the questions and feedback on the whole site.. :-)