69 Single Cab Find

[dustnrust]

First post here, I've been reading here off and on over the years but only just signed up.

To right to it, I got talked into going to watch the Superbowl at my cousins house. I wasn't going to go but he bribed me with free beer.
Being about half way through rebuilding the transmission in my car, he picked me up around 10am because he also wanted to check out an old jeep for sale near where I'm at here.
When we get to his place, about a 2hr ride, as we turn onto his street, I see his neighbor has a red bay window single cab truck parked next to their garage. I asked if it ever moves and he said the guy just died, but he used it for firewood up until about a year ago.

I get out of the car and go straight to the neighbors house. I knock on the door to see if the truck is for sale. The woman there says "It don't run no more', and she doesn't know what's wrong with it.
I asked her how much she wants for it, she says $500 but you'll need a tow truck and she didn't know if the tags were still good or not, but she had the title stuck to the refrigerator right there in the kitchen.
I told her I needed to take a closer look and went outside to check it out.
After crawling underneath, and all over it, I could tell its not moved in a while, but the floors where solid and there was minimal rust elsewhere. The seat needs new covers, and the tires were ancient bias ply BFG's. The battery was weak, but not dead, enough to light the lights but not crank the motor.

Before I said anything, she saw me poking at a few things, and I remarked that it will need tires, new paint, and I'd likely pull the engine and freshen it up. The odometer reads 77,003. She then tells me that if I made it 'go away' right away, she'd take $400.

I grabbed my wallet and handed her $400 and she handed me a signed title.
I went and got some help and we pushed it three doors down to my cousins driveway. I used his new Hyundai to jump start the van, and it fired right up.
The woman said the registration and insurance is good till March, and she was fine with me driving it home on the current tag. One of the guys there had a portable air compressor, so I topped off all the tires, including the spare, the oil was full, but I there were 8 quarts of old round bottle Texaco Havoline 10W40. The motor looked like a leaky mess but it sounded good. I backed it up next to his garage and let the battery charge for a bit.
After the game, I decided since there'd be less traffic late at night, I'd head home with it.

It made the 110 mile drive home in 2hrs and 37 minutes. It used a bit of oil, most likely leaked out the push rod tubes, and the heater smells like dead mice. I found myself trying to stuff old paper towels into the vents to stop the smell the whole way home. The heat is apparently wide open since the red levers seem to do nothing. One moves but springs back in to the middle, the other one feels like there's nothing attached to it.

The bed sides are super stiff, they move but they stay where you put them. The one right rear hinge is super loose but the left side is nearly seized up.
I soaked them all with some PB blaster for now. There's a rust hole the size of my fist in the back of the wheel well on the drivers side, but its not through to the inside of the cab. Its the part that rolls around to form the bit of metal behind the wheel well.
There's a 1/2" hole in the outer skin just ahead of the left rear wheel and the area under the battery has been cut out and replaced with a piece of an old avocado green refrigerator. They added a boat battery box that's been cut down which is bolted to that new metal. The battery a three year old Walmart deep cycle boat battery.
All the lights work but the left rear corner marker, which has no socket inside, but i found a new one in a box in the glove box. The windshield leaks a bit on the right side, I could see water running down along the rubber as I went through a bit of rain. The driver's side wiper arm is stripped out, it slips and I had to keep putting it back in place ever so often on the ride home. The right side wouldn't come off but all I had was a 4" adjustable wrench with me.
Running wise, other than the oil leak smell it did nothing wrong, it runs perfect. Even the exhaust looks new. It passed PA inspection last March.

At this point, I've got $400 and $17 in gas.
I figure once the weather warms up a bit i'll go digging for whatever died in the heater tubes. I'll likely have more in the title and tune up than i paid for it.

Thinking about it this morning, i think its only the second or third vehicle I've ever bought that ran and drove home.
For now, I stuck the battery out of my pickup in it, and I need to deal with getting the title and tags for it in my name.

I wasn't looking for a single cab but I couldn't walk away. I'll likely feel different about it though when its 99 degrees out and I'm wanting some ac though.

About half way home I thought about the fact that I had seen a spare but hadn't seen the jack, or if it was there would it work if needed, but the tires held up fine, they 'softened up a bit once they got warm. They were a bit noisy and rough for the first 20 or so miles but settled down once on the main roads.

I snapped few pics first thing this morning.

[Cusser]

Great !!!
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1970 VW (owned since 1972) and 1971 VW Convertible (owned since 1976), second owner of each. The '71 now has the 1835 engine, swapped from the '70. Second owner of each. 1988 Mazda B2200 truck, 1998 Frontier, 2014 Yukon, 2004 Frontier King Cab. All manual transmission except for the Yukon. http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/album_page.php?pic_id=335294 http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/album_page.php?pic_id=335297

[EverettB]

Wow, awesome find and a great price!
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[dustnrust]

Its really the first air cooled anything I've seen in years that was complete and not totally rotted away, let alone in good enough shape to drive over 100 miles home the day I found it.

I was really only sort of half ass looking for a panel version but I had one of these years ago and loved the bed layout, plus the huge storage area underneath. (Which I didn't even look in till a little while ago).
There's two more spare tires, a full case of oil, a spare Bosch 009 distributor, two sets of plugs, a small metal tool box with tools, five Tabco patch panels for the rust, front and rear window rubber new in the bags.
In the tool box there's a set of SK wrenches, a 3/8 ratchet, two extensions, a set of deep and shallow SK sockets, a feeler gauge, a bag of rocker adjuster screws, a bag of pushrod tube seals and two new tailight lenses, plus a Snap On ratcheting screwdriver.

What gets me is how it sat there for so long with no one asking about it.
The woman was tickled pink to get rid of it when i asked. I was more expecting her to open the door pissed off because she was tired of being bothered about it.
Right time, right place I suppose.

[oprn]

Wow! You deserve to be behind bars for theft! I am totally jealous! Why do these deals always fall in someone else's lap and not mine?!
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We had the stone age, the bronze age, the industrial age and now we are in the age of mass deception and mind control for corporate profit. (The mass media age)

[Shonandb]

Nice find! As others have said, I think VWs find us.

I've come across a nice yellow Bay Window Panel that hasn't moved in years that is calling my name. However, I may have a 69 Riviera Camper coming my way this Spring so waiting to see how that plays out first before stopping by and asking about it.
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*******************************
76 Westy with a 2.5L Subaru SOHC + Vanagon (010) Automatic Transaxle
Build & Trip Thread: https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=758760
Previous 1973 Panel Bus:
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[Abscate]

I’ll give you $400 for that piece of avocado metal , to fix my fridge
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[Dave]

Put it on a car hauler to the left coast, and I'll give you $4k for it. You can keep the tools..
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[dustnrust]

After a day of thinking about this thing a bit, I think my first course of action has to be fixing the oil leaks. Its leaving 8" round oil spots in my yard and I can't park it on the pavement.
Most of the leaks are pushrod tubes, and they look original. The whole engine is likely original if the 77k is actual mileage. Its also a single port motor, so I think the ideal things to do is build this a fresh dual port motor.
I did some looking around parts wise and didn't find much in the way of parts that I recognized from days gone by.
The big items will be a new crank, cam, liner kit, and a pair of heads. I have a new old stock German made AE case with the bus rear mount provisions here to build on, (I actually have two, one which I planned to build for my late 55 bus but have pretty much decided to just freshen up its original 36hp if I ever get around to it. (I've had the 55 since high school but haven't driven it daily since the early 80's when I discovered vans that had heat and air conditioning, and V8 engines). The 55 isn't in near the condition that this 69 is in and is even still 6v. I'm even debating whether or not I should even convert it to 12v now, but its been on the back burner for about 30 years now).
I have a Berg welded counterbalance crank which I bought for the '55 back in 1982 or so, and set of stock type 3 dual port head that have been ported probably a bit too far and a set of dual Weber 40mm Weber carbs along with an early Engle 110 cam. The heads have Manly valves, which means lash caps plus the aftermarket 1.25 rockers have swivel adjusters. The pushrods are custom length Chromoly one piece rods. All of the tin has been stripped down and powder coated fresh satin black.
I've got two several sets of pistons here, I've got an early set of Cofap slip-in 88mm jugs, a set of 92mm for stock stroke, by Mahle, and a set of 94mm 'mill to fit' pistons, which came with a raised piston top that allowed you to mill the piston to the application. These were more of less a racing only item though, and we used them with the largest heads and valves.
I don't see any of these as a viable option in a daily driven truck. I need absolute reliability not speed, other wise this thing does me no good.
I also have a receiver hitch for it, so it will do some towing, but nothing more than an aluminum boat or my riding mower on a 4x8 trailer.
I'm willing to use the crank in the '69, but I think a stock cam will be fine, and I'm pretty sure I have a new deep gear cam here somewhere, plus a full flow type oil filter cover and matching iron oil pump.

I'll save the ported heads for something else, but need to find a stock set of heads or something new that's reliable. (Preferably not Chinese, as everything seems to be. I have main bearings, I bought them when I got the blocks, (Local VW dealer closed up back then and I bought just about everything they had on the shelf back in 1982, luckily I'm a pack rat and never sold any of it). I have a few oem diaphragm 200mm clutch sets stowed away but I'm pretty sure I used the throw-out bearings over the years.
New heads may be the right answer anyhow with the unleaded only fuel these days.
If it tells you anything, I've not driven an air cooled VW daily since they did away with leaded gas. After the 75 beetle I was driving at the time lunched its valve seats and exhaust valves at 42k, and dealing with softer stainless steel valves and lash caps got to be too much hassle, I parked the air cooled cars and started driving a 75 Rabbit for a bit, and eventually a diesel Rabbit pickup, which I wish I still had too. (I sold it at 820k after the reality set in that there just wasn't much left of the body and bed on that thing).

Any suggestions on heads for a fresh 1600 dual port motor these days?

How about piston kits?

[Abscate]

[oprn]

If it were mine I would do a compression/leak down test and base my actions on that. Pretty good chance all you need is a gasket set to seal up the leaks. Check the valve guides while you have the heads off to put the pushrod seals on. Maybe consider a good valve job on those heads. Why go looking for a bunch of parts you don't even know if you need?

As for a 1600 DP conversion, I would not in that truck. The 3 HP you would gain is really not worth the bother because you would loose at least that on the lower end where it really counts on a heavy truck. That was my experience driving a '69 Bay window for 10 years or more.
_________________
We had the stone age, the bronze age, the industrial age and now we are in the age of mass deception and mind control for corporate profit. (The mass media age)

[Q-Dog]

I think I'd go back and give the woman another $1000 just for good karma. Then build a 1776 with a cheater cam.
_________________
Brian

'69 Dune Buggy
'69 Beetle Convertible
'70 Beetle

[Xevin]

[dustnrust]

Why on earth would I give someone an extra $1,000 for something I already own? Especially since she set the price, not me.
I don't think I'd have bought it if she told me $1,400, I had $800 in my pocket, and I really hadn't planned to spend that. When your on a fixed income, you don't spend money where it doesn't need to be spent.
Since I brought it home, I've had a dozen people knock on my door or leave notes making offers, but its not for sale. The highest offer so far has been $500, so the demand isn't that great around here for these. When they turn up, unless their dirt cheap or look brand new, they don't sell very fast here.
Only air cooled guys want them, and that crowd seems to have dwindled over the years to only a few. On the flip side, I get 30k offers all the time on my 20 year old diesel Ford. Those have a strong following. My goal here is to downs size my truck, I don't need a 3/4 ton diesel these days, and the '69 will do anything I need, but I'll miss the leather interior and ac, but I think I put 185 miles the Ford last year and I've only put 15k on it since day one in 2003.

My thought on the motor isn't that it needs an overhaul its that no matter what I do, it'll have to come out. If I pull the motor, with 77k on it, its getting a fresh clutch, pressure plate, and throwout bearing, and I'm doing a new trans seal, and rear main seal.

What I do noticed is that the motor has more endplay that I feel it should have.
I can move the front pulley about 1mm in and out. That's far more than the .010" spec
The oil leaks are pretty bad, and the heads have to come off to do pushrod tubes and seals, and at that point I may as well freshen up the heads.

My thinking is that if I build a motor first, a complete separate engine, when spring comes, I'll pull the original motor, install the fresh motor and clutch, and be on the road again the same day. Then I can go through the original motor and keep it as a spare.

The Berg crank is stock, a brand new oem German crank that they welded on counter weights for a perfect balance. It was boxed with the rods and pistons and shipped from Berg 4/1982 with 88mm pistons. I used them a lot back in the day, they make the engine so much smoother. The cam change is optional, but I do want to make the heads more tolerant of today's fuel. If I can't use this daily if needed, its not worth me keeping it. As it is, without air, it's not going to see much use in the summer, I'll drive my car with ac.
I can live without heat, and a cab that small will warm up pretty fast.

I have a dual port intake, brand new from back in the day, but I don't have any stock heads, just the 92mm Bugpack heads I bought for another motor and never used, again, in or around 1982 or so. They will stay with the parts for the other motor.
The only single port heads I have are from a 1200, with smaller valves,

Most used heads I've looked at have been through the mill too many times, unless I find a minty set of used heads, I'm going to likely need something new, if they still exist.

I tried the reman route in the past and all they sent me was mismatched, welded up junk. I'm not putting something in there that's in worse shape than what's there now.

There's a guy on CL who's been listing a ton of parts, He's got complete clutches $100, and a ton of other parts, all German stuff from days gone by.
I figure if I can put a new motor together for the cost of a liner kit and some heads, a clutch, and all the incidentals, I can keep the whole deal under $1k.
Any more and its gotta wait till next year.

[RUNKLE]

.

[dustnrust]

Its more likely that all the folks around here are on Medicare and Soc. Sec.

...or they don't speak English or have a job.

There's a guy on CL who runs regular ads saying they buy air cooled VW's, for kicks I sent an email to see what they'd offer and he offered $500 for the '69, and $300 for the '55. Probably not much more than they'd bring in scrap.

I did sell me 1980 F150 a few years ago, it was complete, had 101k on it and had a lot of rust. A guy knocked on the door wanting to buy it, i had just replaced it with a cleaner one, which was not here at the time. He offered me $7,500, when I said I didn't think about selling it, he upped the offer to $8k, and I took it. It was double what I paid for the rust free 1986 I replaced it with with half the miles.
He later had it listed on CL for $8k with no title.
It had a title when he bought it.

About half the vehicles on CL and FB lately are listed 'without title'.
Even some pretty clean older models and quite a few late models as well.


I didn't do anything wrong in buying the '69, when I go to the store and something rings up at $10, I certainly won't say its too cheap and pay more.
I never offered any amount for the truck, she set the price and beat her own price down as I was looking it over.

Like I said, it it were much more, I would not have bought it. It would have likely sat there and rusted away or gotten grabbed by some one else for cheap, if not scrap. As it is, I'm using money I probably shouldn't spend on this in hopes that it'll let me sell my diesel truck which should bring far more than this VW, and be cheaper to run and own as well. The only thing I'll miss is having a cap on the bed. In reality, a bus would have been the better option but I like the lockable out of sight storage below the deck on these. Something my diesel Ford doesn't have. All my tools and tie downs have to ride in the bed or in the cab on the back seat. In a way I'm trading a back seat for a storage box and gaining 3ft or more of bed space and doubling my MPG.
Its the losing AC that's gonna hurt. But it'll also save me a grand a year in insurance costs. The truck costs me $2k in full coverage, the '69 VW will only be $400.

The property is in a dirt road development built in the 50's, it was on the last road in the back of the place. (The area is more like a seasonal trailer park that let people build cabins that eventually became full time residences as time went on. The average size of a house there is 20x24ft, some have one car garages attached or car ports. About half the residents are still seasonal even thought the lake is no longer there. It got drained when they removed what was considered an illegal dam back in the 80's.
its mostly senior citizens now, many don't drive or have moved there to save expenses. The same reason I moved to where I'm at now. Taxes are driving people out of their homes. when you get $1100/mo in SS, and they jack up your taxes from $900 to $9900 in four years, it don't leave much to live on or exist.

This weekend I'm going to take a drive to see the guy who's got the parts on CL in NJ, he said he's got the clutch, some heads, and all the parts I need for cheap. He said I should be able to build a fresh engine for around $500, maybe less since I have the crank already. He's got a bunch of universal blocks there, all new from the 70's, with bearings, so that'll be my start.

[TDCTDI]

I’ll trade you a perfect running, daily driven Beetle for it.

_________________
Everybody born before 1975 has a story, good, bad, or indifferent, about a VW.


GOFUNDYOURSELF, quit asking everyone to do it for you!


An air cooled VW will make you a hoarder.


Do something, anything, to your project every day, and you will eventually complete it.

[EverettB]

[oprn]

I suppose that even though she, through her ignorance did not get anywhere close to what the truck was worth the most important thing is that it was not a scrap metal dealer that ended up knocking on the door. Could have gone to a crusher just as easily as you!
_________________
We had the stone age, the bronze age, the industrial age and now we are in the age of mass deception and mind control for corporate profit. (The mass media age)

[gt1953]

Quite a thief you are. Lucky!!
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Volkswagen: We tune what we drive.
Numbers Matching VW's are getting harder to find. Source out the most Stock vehicle and keep that way. You will be glad you did.

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72 Squareback
({59 Euro bug, 62, 63, 67, 68, 69, 73 type ones 68 & 69 type two, 68 Ghia all sold})