Hello from San Jose

Greetings! My name is Dave and I'm the new guy now. Found out about this place through a sticker on my friend's car.

I've been a VW nut since birth, and have had a few personally. My first car, in fact, was a 74 Type 2 that was "rescued" from a field. I took it with the best intentions of fixing it and driving it, but years later she met her demise anyway as I had no resources or developed skills to take on the task alone.

Even though air-cooled VWs were my true love, I ended up sparking an interest in water-cooled models inside my mom, dad, sister, and a few close friends and before I knew it, was surrounded by modern Dubs. When a friend of mine stepped up from a Golf to a Phaeton, I had to bite the bullet and bring home my own Dub. Cue my dearly beloved 2001.5 Passat GLX.





This car was beautiful; sporting luxury parts from a W8, overseas VW models, and even parts from a Phaeton as well as various programming changes to the car's modules to make the Passat that VW should have sold here, but sold everywhere else in the world instead. Want one-touch rear windows? My Passat was quite possibly the only Passat in the states to have it. The only thing I was missing to complete her was the VW MFD navi system that would also work with the upgraded cluster I installed to display navigation info on the LCD between the gauges.

Alas, I lost this car to the economy almost a year ago, and words can't describe how much I miss it.

But over the last year, I spread the Dub Bug to my girlfriend and it wasn't long before we found our 71 Super, Herbert; half Herbie, half orange sherbert.





We rescued this car from CL. The pan is immaculate, but the front body needs love. Both fenders, front apron, and bumper need replacement, as well as some sheet metal work on the body. Front structure is sound, though.



Front suspension is not, and needs a total overhaul. Ball joints seem okay, but all bushings are shot and struts are totally blown. There's also wicked play in the steering box so a new one is in order. The car also came with a completely wasted engine. The clutch was burnt to oblivion, and the smell it made when we split the engine away from the transaxle almost put me unconscious. The engine was also locked up SOLID. A teardown revealed number four conrod is FUSED to the crankshaft. I mean, WILL NOT BUDGE. They are now one. There's also about 3/8" play in the back of the crank.

Notice number four happly hovering in the air...


And there were lots of treats inside this motor, such as this:


We had hopes of rebuilding this engine with a big bore kit, but sadly it doesn't seem possible. To give me the time I need to find out if the case is even salvageable, we hit up CL again and found a 1600DP runner in Napa.



Brought it home and got it in, and our 71 Super rumbled back to life.

It hasn't been painless, however. I've been working with electrical gremlins and poor running that I hope to get help with. I've wrenched on a few air-cooled's in my time, but I'm hardly seasoned. With my experience predominantly with fuel injection, there's still a bit to learn on this old carbed rig.

So with that, I'll wrap up my long-winded introduction. Glad to have found this awesome resource for NorCal Veedubers.

Welcome!!

My grandma had a 74 in that exact same color!!

I love this car!!!! Welcome. I am in the process of lowering my front end. I am not sure if my old strut inserts are of any use to you. But if interested pm me. I am replacing the struts/inserts/springs so there are some spares around if you need....supers rock....and orange to boot!! Meet Pete my orange 73 Super

Welcome to the group! I'm glad Breck finally has a friend!

Thanks Lita and Greg!

Breck, I may be interested in your strut inserts. Our SB is hardly drivable and downright scary between 34-42 MPH due to SB Shimmy.

I want to get an inexpensive pair of lowering struts and springs that I found on the internet. Comes with a poly bushing kit, too. I'm hoping that'll iron out the shimmy, but would love to alleviate it in the meantime.

I'll post about the suspension in the tech section and get some thoughts.

Welcome to the Group....Kyle

welcome. we now have friends in the south bay

Welcome to the group.

Dave all the research that I have done leads to struts and/or steering damper that causes the shimmy. I replaced my damper and still have a mild shimmy. So I am replacing it all. I am sorry to say that I had forgot that I buggered the allan keyhole at the top of one of the struts. It looks like I may have to cut it off to disassemble it. I will know at the tech day on the 12th.

Glad to see you here!

Welcome...

Thanks everyone! And Breck, no worries about the struts. We'll be buying a new set soon enough.

Wow, pretty nice car. A rescue is, BAR NONE, my favorite. I think that's true for many of us.

San Jose? You know, there's a VW club much closer to you in Santa Clara called BLTN (Better Late Than Never) that celebrates ownership of later aircooled cars from the 1968 on.
You may want to look them up just because of proximity.

You certainly wouldn't be the only long distance member here, though. I'm in San Francisco.
This group and the message board are a LOT of fun. I get up there periodically.

You may have also stumbled into a patch of resistance about claiming Herbie lineage...
Dann (60Herbie53) and I know a thing or two about Herbie...

ElDorado Herbie and Hometown Herbie as they neared completion.


...and let's not forget Pacific Coast Herbie, the third to roll out of the magic garage. VWs roll in, Herbies roll out.

Welcome and have fun... Dion

Does this mean we're moving our meeting place? Fairfield?

Dave: Check out the Golden Gate VW Vintage club in the South Bay. They put on the Kelley Park show every other year and have a great Solvang cruise in the off years. Their membership includes several people with a substantial stash of used parts. When I was living in Sunnyvale, they had monthly meetings at a pizza parlor on the North end of Lawrence Expressway. Bugformance on Capitol Avenue in San Jose also has a good inventory of parts, but you will pay full price. The Sunnyvale Bugformance closed its' doors several years ago when Bill Brister retired. There is a shop in Southern California that offers a kit for rebuilding the front ends of the strut-based Bugs. I can't remember their name, but I think they advertise in the Hot VWs magazine. Good luck with your project.

You can get the Super front end bushing kit several places.

CIP1 has them Clicky here.

JBugs has them in a few different varieties. You clicka here for dems.

Jim, beautiful cars. B-) Our 71 Super is a loooong way from Herbie for sure but as far as the lady is concerned, he's guilty by association. lol

Steven, once I get the front suspension under control and the car closer to the ground, we'll be driving it long distance no worries. There's several meets in the Sac area that we hope to drive Herbert out to.

Noel, thank you for the valuable information. I was just at Kelley Park a few weeks ago, there were some beautiful cars there. I need to get around to uploading my pics...

Jim Douglas Jr wrote:

You can get the Super front end bushing kit several places.[/url]

thx!`