My '63 Ragtop VW Blog

I want to thank Wolfgang International for the awesome EMPI VW roof rack I recently won in their 2012 Wolfgang giveaway!

I couldn't believe it when I found out I had won, I've seriously never won any giveaways! I signed up through their Facebook page and forgot about it, a couple of weeks later I got a message saying I had won! They sent it right away in a well packaged box with a catalog and some very nice Wolfgang window decals.

I've already put it together, with the help of Astra my little Jack Russell Terrier =), and installed it on my 1963 Ragtop Volkswagen Beetle. It sure looks cool! I already had a deck lid rack I had gotten not too long ago to carry stuff for a camping trip. Now I have both the roof rack and deck lid rack. The bug looks awesome with them on.

A few weeks ago the turn signal switch lever on my 1963 VW bug stopped working. When I pushed the lever up or down it would feel like it was stuck so I decided to take it apart to see what was going on. This was my first time attempting to repair a turn signal switch so I didn't know what to expect.

To get to the switch lever assembly I first had to remove the steering wheel. Then, I removed it from the steering column, and assuming that it would have some small parts inside, I set it on a table on a well lit area to take it apart. To disassemble it I just had to remove the large c-clip holding the two assembly body pieces together. While removing the top, some small pieces fell out of it, they had come apart inside and that's why the switch didn't work.

A few weeks ago I cleaned the engine on my 1963 VW Beetle and decided to go ahead and repaint the engine coil back to its original blue color, or at least close to it. The coil was very dirty and worn. First I removed it from the engine, sanded it down to bare metal (including the metal clamp), cleaned the plastic bottom part, and sanded down the parts where the wires connect. Then, I painted it with a glossy blue engine enamel paint resistant to high temperatures just in case. It came out very good, and looks a lot better than how it was before. I spent about 10 dollars in materials and about one and a half hours total. I'm very happy with the results. On to the next job :)

Yesterday I finally got my used dual-port/dual-relieve AS41 VW engine case delivered back from Brothers Machine Shop in California. I dealt with Renato and his brother, they were great. They did a good job and even took the time to answer all my questions over the phone about what to do with the case.