Engine Out

Rather than continuing the saga of the seized brake drum I decided to do something more useful, namely remove the engine.

I'd read up on the removal procedure many times, so it didn't take long to do all the preparation:

• Remove the boot (or is it bonnet) and the hinge supports.
• Disconnect engine wiring.
• Remove the tinware from the rear of the engine.
• Remove the air cleaner.
• Detach the throttle cable from the carb.
• Detach the heater pipes running to the cabin.
• No need to detach the heater cables as those had rusted away to nothing.
• Cut and bung the fuel line.

Here is a picture of the engine bay, post preparation:

So all that remained to do was remove the four nuts holding the engine in place and pull it out. And amazingly it was that simple - although there was a slight delay as I didn't have a suitable bit of wood to support the engine during jacking.

A little bit of jiggling and the engine was sitting on the floor. Then I had to embark upon a bit of jacking to lift the car high enough to slide the engine out. The first lift brought the car up high enough to rest on elevated axle stands. Then the jack itself was raised on to wood and bricks so it could get the car high enough. As you can see it needs to be pretty high!

After sliding the engine out, I lowered the car and, with the help of my brother in law, lifted the engine onto a dolly. Now, when the seized drum has defeated me, I have a long list of other jobs I can get on with. It's going to be a busy year...

The Wonders of Soap!

The combination of heat and my new slide hammer failed to yield results on the seized drum. So I applied another load of WD-40 to the offending article and then needed to find something else to do while it soaked in. I decided a bit of cleaning would be just the thing.

Spending 27 years sitting in a unheated brick garage in Scotland had taken its toll on the car's interior (though I'm pretty sure the previous 16 years sitting out in the rain didn't help either). Although mainly complete and intact (only one small hole found so far) the build up of dirt and mildew was quite impressive. However as the door cards, seats and sun visors are covered with vinyl I was quite optimistic they'd scrub up well.

So I set about the least dirty door card with a big bar of Imperial Leather in one hand and a small brush in the other. Several hours later I'd cleaned both door cards plus the sides and backs of the front seats. According to the owners manual the bit you sit on isn't suitable for cleaning with water - a foam cleaner is needed. Here's the before shot of the drivers door card. Yes I agree it should have had a bio-hazard sticker (it tasted terrible).

You should probably put your shades on for the after shot.

I've said it once, but I'm going to say it again, "The Wonders of Soap!".

Slightly Cleaner

My daughter and I gave the car a quick wipe to remove the all the dust from the bodywork. After that I set about removing the seized brake drum (again!). Despite tightening up the puller as far as I could it still didn't move. So I've left the puller on and every day I'm dousing liberally with WD40. Still no progress...

I used this waiting time to run a vacuum cleaner through the interior. There were an astonishing number of cadbury's dairy milk wrappers in there (from the days when they only cost 35p) and the odd cream egg foil. So the previous owner had a sweet tooth.

I then set about the windows with a razor blade removing all the old sellotape. Normally this wouldn't take long, but for some reason this car had had several rolls worth applied over its lifetime - mainly on the front and rear windscreens. As you can see it looks much better.

Of course, cleaning is just busy work. I'll be happier when the drum is off and I can get down to some proper work.

"Dog" Mobile

Thanks to my wife, daughter, sister, brother in law and my parents the beetle has made the short trip from its long term resting place to my garage. This should mean I can nip out to work on her whenever I please - though that is no guarantee of rapid progress.

The plan for moving the car was simple:

1. Remove the boat from above the car - to allow headroom for jacking.
2. Jack the car and insert the dolly under the seized rear wheel.
3. Push/drag the car backwards to allow access to the front of the car.
4. Either keep pushing or jack and insert more dollies - depending on whether the front wheels turn or not.

Amazingly everything went pretty much to plan. The heavy rain didn't help - but at least the car didn't dissolve before our eyes. Cleaning the windows before setting off probably would have helped my sister see where she was going (as she was the driver). The small dolly wheels struggled with any obstacle higher than 1cm, so hardboard was used to smooth the way. But other than that everything went very smoothly! And here she is in her new home:

Wheel Spin

I finally managed to find a couple of hours to work on the beetle. The plan was to put the rear of the car onto the dollies to make it mobile-ish.

The first step was to put the wheels back on. So I popped on the driver's side drum and wheel. It was very nice to see the wheel spinning free for the first time in 27 years! I then put the wheel back onto the, still seized, passenger side drum.

All that remainded was to jack the car a little higher and slide the dollies in. It was at this point I discovered that my aged trolley jack didn't go high enough. So I spent the next thirty minutes putting together a 3" platform for the jack to sit on. However I didn't get a chance to test it out because rain stopped proceedings.

Hello Dolly!

It's a great film (despite Michael Crawford's terrible accent and singing) but it's also a great way of moving an immobile car around. Pictured below is half of my dolly collection:

The Beetle is currently languishing in a garage where there is barely a foot of working space on either side and that just simply isn't enough for the scale of work required. Therefore with the help of the aforementioned dollies I should be able to man handle her into my more spacious garage.

For the record, I'm choosing to ignore the "not for use on sloped surfaces (such as driveways)" warning that is prominent on the instructions. I think the slopes involved are minor enough to ignore. I mean what possible risk can a 840kg shopping trolley pose...

Not Hot Enough

It's been a while since my last update. This is partly down to my laziness but mainly down to my lack of progress. Since I last posted I have spent only three hours or so on the Beetle. In those three hours I decided to use some heat to free the problematic hub. I pulled on my leather gauntlets grabbed the fire extinguisher and gas blow torch and headed to the garage. I heated the drum to the point where everything was smoking in quite an impressive way and then cranked up the pressure on the puller. Amazingly there was still no movement! I think the problem is that the Beetle drum is a bit too industrial for my blow torch and it's managing to dissipate the heat faster than I can apply it. I'm going to try again with two blow torches. If that doesn't work then it's time to dig out the grinder...