Belated September 2011 update

After the trip to the 50th celebration in GMH I had a number of tasks to carry out on the car. The first was to replace the oil pressure switch on the oil cooler as it had been leaking in a big way; easily done.

Next was to cure the bake light switch on the master cylinder from being affected by rain water. On the drive around GMH water had got into the electrical connections leading to no brake lights. The early cars don't have a stone shield under the master cylinder and no rubber boot was fitted either to seal the master cylinder brake switch from the elements. I sourced a suitable type 4 one from VW Heritage and again solution achieved in about 2 minutes.

On the way over to GMH the drivers door window fell out of its end guide rail leading to it coming out of the window lifter mechanism and jamming half way down. I took the door apart and discovered that the captive nut on the lower adjuster for the window lifter at the doors trailing edge had sheared off. Some quick grinding and welding had it quickly re-attached.

A source of irritation has been a dent which has appeared in each door close to the door locks, so whilst the door was in pieces I thought I would do something about it and also the other door. I decided to call in a paintless dent removal company to tackle the problem. (I had no idea how these could have happened as the panel work was perfect when it left the body shop and I certainly haven't damaged them). After a couple of hours of trying they had to admit defeat - the centre of each dent appears to be a spot weld which fixes the re-inforcing plate behind each door handle\lock and they just couldn't improve\solve the problem. Again no idea why this problem should occur post completion of the car and it looks like live with it or repaint both doors.

Good news is it looks like I will now be able to keep the car so thanks to all those who expressed an interest in it.

Video of T34 cabriolet

Here is a short video of the silver T34 cabriolet seen again at the old Karmann museum at the 50th celebrations of the Type 34. It is a 1961 body on a 1969 chassis\dash. Wonder how many other 'small' volume producers kept unused non series production bodies and turned them into working vehicles 8 years after their intended production date?

Video of the 1600 TC fastback prototype

Here is a short video of the aborted T34 prototype developed in 1964 and never to enter production. Video taken at the old Karmann museum.
An interesting observation is that with its completion in September 1964 the TC appears to have been a year ahead of the existing coupe in terms of engine size which had a 1500 (1493) cc engine and was not increased to 1600cc until the 1966 model.

Video from old Karmann Museum of the Sartorelli 1959 Ghia prototype

Here is a short walk around the Sartorelli 1959 Ghia protoype seen at the old Karmann museum during the 50th celebration of the T34 in 2011. Interestingly VW have it displayed as 1960 on the car.

The badge on the lip of the rear boot has disappeared I think since I last saw the car. Looking at the dashboard instruments it also looks to have a later 160KPH speedo fitted as well - wonder what the original looked like?

Toolkit

I have made sure that our 62 is as close to original condition and specification as possible. One of the areas I have looked into is the toolkit. All of the early cars predominately had slotted screw heads rather than Phillips or Posidrive screw heads to fixtures and fittings.
This is reflected in the specification for the toolkit in the owners manual; it shows 1 screwdriver 0.85 and 1 screwdriver 0.5, both with black painted wooden handles. Recently I was looking for tools to go with my Mercedes 190SL as the toolkit is missing from it and saw a toolkit advertised as being for a 190SL on e-bay with really low bids. Not surprising as it consisted of half tools for 190SL and half for VW including the correct early screwdrivers for my car. I put a low bid in and secured the toolkit. Here is a photo of my toolkit showing the screwdrivers and also of the toolkit from Johannes Krassenbrink's early 62 as well.
Interesting observation is that my toolkit (middle photo) is made from the early small grain 62 seating material whilst Johannes one is made from the material used to line the boot\trunk areas. This probably backs up the idea that the toolkits were made from off cuts from any material available at the time. Strangely our 65 has a toolkit made from the material seen on door panels from low light T14s.

August update - safely to the celebrations in Georgemarienhuette and back

Theresa and I drove both of our type 34s to the 50 years of the Type 34 celebration in Germany - I don't think there was any other husband and wife partnership doing this or indeed taking 2 cars from the same family. Our daughter joined us to show the depth of our obsession!
Well the 62 made it all the way without any major mechanical failure. I view this as a major achievement; it had only completed 300 miles before setting off on a 1200 mile return journey and had experienced a challenging life in its' attempts to get back fully on the road over the past 2 years. If I wondered why this car struggled to get back on the road I only had to look at the photos of the early stages of its' restoration and the pile of scrap it actually was - no mean feat to get the car to GMH in as original condition and to be the oldest car present as well was fantastic. The restoration was truly a huge task involving major transplants of pieces to bring it together.
To follow the same medical theme it did suffer from what I will call 'organ rejection' during its journey with a number of pieces being determined to drop off or become unglued along the way. All were quickly repositioned without major fuss.
It was great to travel to GMH with John & Lyn Figg and Mike & Astrid Kelly and fantastic to stop at Johannes Krassenbrink's in Altenberge and stay with him and Andrea there overnight before being lead by his outstanding 62 T34 to the showground at GMH via some great countryside. Thanks Johannes, your car was an inspiration to me during my own rebuild and looked outstanding.
I will cover off the event at GMH in some separate postings, absolutely fantastic event, even the rain and a fall whilst at the event, which lead me to crack a number of ribs, didn't deter me from keeping driving and enjoying the event. A huge well done to my wonderful wife Theresa for driving our 65 all the way to GMH and supporting me through the restoration and ensuring I continued with it as a panacea for a chronic ongoing illness.
So at this stage I am wondering whether to keep the blog going or draw it to a close as the car has now achieved my goal of getting to GMH - any views?
Due to a change in circumstances I may also have to consider selling the 62 - this is not definite yet and would be done only as a last resort. I would be looking for it to go to an exceptional home and at an appropriate price to reflect its' condition and early production date and my lack of desire to part with it. No customisers will be considered!

July Update

The front torsion bars have now been successfully reset and the camber of the front wheels done at the same time. Handling and ride are much better.
Next up has been an unwilling heater control, it didn't want to turn the heat off and with a long trip to Germany approaching fast I thought I had better tackle it. It turned out that I hadn't positioned the plastic collar that the heater cable attaches to properly within the tube. Within the tube there is a locating pin and the split in the tube passes over it to keep it in the right place and allow it to move up and down; get it wrong and no adjustment is possible. What had happened was that the split at the bottom of the plastic collar had closed up stopping the locating pin being correctly positioned. I took a file to the split, opened it up and this allowed correct positioning and easy heater adjustment.
Finally on this batch of never ending adjustments I tackled the passenger door where the window would not go all the way down and the door lock mechanism wasn't working correctly. With the door panel stripped off it was easy to see the problem. The sound deadening material I had fitted to the inside of the door panel had dropped part way off and was blocking everything. With it stripped off all now functions OK.

Activity on the mechanics of the car

The hand brake (emergency brake)was taking a few clicks more than normal to activate and I decided rather than just adjust the rear brake shoes that I would take off the drums and check inside. No major problems, the shoes were a little glazed in places which I carefully filed off whilst wearing a face mask so as not to breath in the dust as they are NOS with asbestos in them.
The rear hub seal on the drivers side had been weeping a little but this was being taken care of satisfactorily by the internal oil thrower; I will keep my eye on it.
I had been experiencing a clonking noise from the back of the car when cornering and when I jacked up the car to do the rear brakes I found a simple solution, it was the fire extinguisher kept under the back seat that was simply moving around - I like easy solutions.
I also took the car to have the wheel weights moved to the inside of the wheels and have the steering alignment and rear wheel alignment checked out and laser aligned. My trusty contact at GM Tyres in Buckingham soon has it sorted and said how much he enjoyed working on something different and something that was clean and not rusted up.
Of a more major nature was the ride height of the front end; during the rebuild the front axle was taken to pieces, both to clean and check for wear and also to correct the lopsided set up I had inherited it with; easy to do as there are more splines on of the torsion rods than the other rod.
With some miles on the car the front end now seems to have settled by about 1" or 2.5cm and gave the appearance of slight customisation - actually looked quite good! However I decided I better get it back to stock ride height. So I have now removed the shock absorbers, tie rods and brake drums\steering knuckles ready to adjust the torsion bar arms on Saturday morning.
To do this I have borrowed the correct VW tool number 261 from Mike Dempster and will set the arms back to the correct factory settings. I will also set the castor and camber angles back to proper settings using the same tool - I had got these right at the rebuild by just looking at the arrows on the bottom of the ball joints of my 65 and copying to the 62 - the laser alignments showed I had them set up within tolerance.
Whilst working on dismantling the front end I noticed that one of the retaining rings around the ball joint boot had disappeared - I have replaced with a plastic cable tie and will trim back and cover in grease so you can't see it.
Finally a poor starting issue was traced to the replacement terminal I had fixed to the main positive cable going to the battery. This was made of brass and was reacting badly with the battery terminal producing clumps of corrosion within days of fitting. I found a non brass one and fitted it and now no further problems.

Work on my 65 T344

On the last couple of trips out both myself and Theresa noticed that the steering seemed rather vague. I stripped out the petrol tank and spare wheel well so that I could adjust the steering box. First I checked the oil level in the box - nearly empty! I topped it up with the correct EP90 oil and then adjusted both dimensions on the steering box. It is now back to the correct feeling\level of play.
The body work was restored in 1992 and unfortunately I now have a number of issues appearing. There is bubbling around each torsion bar hole, some small areas under the right hand rear bumper corner, bottom of the right hand door and bottom of the right hand front inner wing where it meets the front panel. All of this will have to wait until after the 50th celebration, not what I would have wanted but I would rather do it properly when time and cash permits than rush it.

UK celebration of 50 years of the Type 34

Here is a link to some photos from our celebration last weekend of 50 years since the launch of the Type 34 (looks like you need to copy and paste) - we had a great time and some fantastic T34s came out to play.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/16163315@N07/sets/72157626690969234/

Double celebration

The 1962 managed to complete a 200Km return trip to the Stanford Hall meeting last meeting without any problems and on top of that to win the Type 1 & 3 Karmann Ghia class, so a double celebration.
We took the 1965 and it formed a small part of the 50 years of the type 3 celebration alongside the cars of Dee & Mike Shaw, Janet & Clive Richardson and Mark Poulton. We have a larger meeting coming up next weekend at Stratford\Gaydon - numbers won't be large, probably about 8 cars over the 2 days. More pictures after next weekend.