Walter's 1969 Beetle
July 29, 2009 The plan was to begin getting the Beetle ready for the paint shop. A parts order sufficient to install a new interior has been placed so the interior can go in the car as soon as it is painted. However...a forty-year-old car actually dictates the work sequencing and it is certainly capable of altering my plans. While starting to mask the car, I noticed some ugly jacketing on the large wire harness that runs from the front of the car to the engine compartment and taillights. I had already repaired some burned up wiring in the rear of the car, but my worst fears were confirmed when I opened up the big harness.
So.....looks like a large portion of the car is going to get rewired. The large harness running through the car will have to be rebuilt and I have pulled it out of the car for complete access.
As is often the case, one thing leads to another. It was evident that quite a bit of work had been done on the harness going to the steering column when an ignition switch was replaced. I didn't like the look of the large bundle of black electrical tape (a large bundle of electrical tape is usually a baaad sign...) so since the main harness was out of the car I decided to open up the switch harness as well. This was a fortuitous move. This photo shows the wires merely twisted together with no soldered or crimped splices! This wiring is the backbone of the car's ignition architecture and if those connections corroded they could bring the Beetle to its knees (probably on a very, very dark night....). These discoveries, while messing up my carefully laid out work flow (!?!) will assure the Beetle of having a healthy electrical system. It will require time and some serious pondering of a wiring schematic to sort through all the circuits but the Bug will be much more robust as a result.
I try to keep parallel tasks underway and the dash pad is one of them. It is in good condition with only a couple of small cracks and I think it will look fine after some repair and a fresh coat of vinyl paint. The original pads fit so much better than aftermarket it is worth the effort to save the piece that left the factory.
|
At
some point the Beetle has endured a major electrical meltdown. It was sufficient to
destroy one of the taillight wires all the way from the fuse block to the back of the car.
Fuses are supposed to prevent such a catastrophic failure, but it is almost certain a
"repair" at some point resulted in wiring being mis-connected (or too large a
fuse installed?) so the lighting circuit was no longer protected. Losing a taillight isn't
so bad, but when the lighting wire caught fire (yes, it was so severe the wire was burned
in two) it melted several other wires as well. Earlier while poking around near the fuse
block I noticed where wiring had been damaged, so I made some minor repairs and moved on
without realizing the scope of the damage. This photo shows the melted mass of wires near
the driver's seat with the burned taillight wire sticking out.
