1961 Gulf Blue Ragtop

I did some trading with Joel and picked this car up.  I have always liked it even before it had the rag grafted in.  Anyway I have already started making a few changes.  First the adjustable plates came off and a set of 4" drop plates went on.  Then on to the front which I am still working on.  I am painting and building a set of drop spindles for the car so I can gain some suspension back.  Hope to have them on this weekend.  I also wanted to run some kind of black and polished/silver wheels.  I was going to go with steel sprint stars but ended up changing my mind last minute.  Next will be an interior overhaul and then some body work and fresh gulf blue paint

Basically how I got it from Joel....









My boy, Colby!



New wheels!

Attorney Isaiah Loophole wrote:
My boy, Colby!

nice man!!

zabo wrote:nice man!!

Thanks!

New all metal parcel tray from Shorty's Customs!

Found some old pictures of Old Blue before the ragtop graft and then a couple after it was installed.  All the pictures are from 2008.

Man that a great looking car. Congrats on the new Baby!

Dake wrote:Man that a great looking car. Congrats on the new Baby!

Thanks!

Congratulations on the new baby and his first VW.

pwmcguire wrote:Congratulations on the new baby and his first VW.

Thanks Pat!

Today I got the carriers cleaned, blasted, and painted along with the drop spindles. Installed new king pins and link pins and got them on the car. I need to do a little work on the bottom adjuster as it is bent pretty good so the car won't raise back up to where it was before I installed the spindles. I think its sitting about an inch lower now with no one in the car. I may have to pull the beam and put in a new adjuster.....

Looks good buddy... you're making good progress... does make me a little sad... but I know that he has a good home... and I got an awesome car and a great bus outta the deal!

Since the car is a 61 it doesn't have a gas gauge and should have a reserve lever.  It came with a fuel lever extension but no lever and after looking under the 62 and later tank I saw that it had no reserve petcock.  So today I pulled the gas tank and removed the 62 and later fuel outlet and installed a reserve petcock and lever.  I also removed the fuel gauge block off and installed a 68 and later electric sending unit for when I put in the 68 speedometer.  The car came with a fuel lever extension so I put it on as well.  Then I started pulling the front seats and the rubber mats and did some vacuuming.  Then I installed new front and rear black rubbers mats.  

Looking good buddy!

drvr8 wrote:Looking good buddy!

Thanks dude!

Decided to go ahead and clean up the 68 speedometer I had in the garage.  I had to pull apart a second speedometer to get a good clean glass.  While apart I cleaned the glass, outer chrome, inner ring and housing  I also cleaned off the old grease and lubed all the gears.  Before putting it back together I zeroed out the odometer.  I didn't have anything to use for gel material so I just left them blank.   I did replace the old metal fuel gauge vibrator with a plastic encased one.  I should have taken a before picture but I didn't.

After cleanup



Installed and gas gauge working!

Looks great Bryce.

Colored file folder tabs sanded with 1000 grit sandpaper works great, put the shiny side out.

Attorney Isaiah Loophole wrote:Decided to go ahead and clean up the 68 speedometer I had in the garage.  I had to pull apart a second speedometer to get a good clean glass.  While apart I cleaned the glass, outer chrome, inner ring and housing  I also cleaned off the old grease and lubed all the gears.  Before putting it back together I zeroed out the odometer.  I didn't have anything to use for gel material so I just left them blank.   I did replace the old metal fuel gauge vibrator with a plastic encased one.  I should have taken a before picture but I didn't.

After cleanup



Installed and gas gauge working!

pwmcguire wrote:Colored file folder tabs sanded with 1000 grit sandpaper works great, put the shiny side out.

Yeah I had read that on the samba but I couldn't find any here at the house. Did you double yours up too?

Very nice. Awesome pic of the newbie.

I double them up when using the file tabs. Looks great man, you must be a wizard to get that fuel gauge working. That dang thing gave me so many problems when I tried that set-up, lol.

Attorney Isaiah Loophole wrote:

pwmcguire wrote:Colored file folder tabs sanded with 1000 grit sandpaper works great, put the shiny side out.

Yeah I had read that on the samba but I couldn't find any here at the house.  Did you double yours up too?

No, single layer, green and red work great. Blue sucks, If you need blue for the high beam on a 70's speedometer

fluxcap wrote: Looks great man, you must be a wizard to get that fuel gauge working. That dang thing gave me so many problems when I tried that set-up, lol.

We will see how long it works. Good used gauge, new vibrator and new sending unit....

pwmcguire wrote:No, single layer, green and red work great. Blue sucks, If you need blue for the high beam on a 70's speedometer

Sounds good! My blue is actually in pretty good shape.

Downtown Griffin

Im pretty partial to those wheels. Looks good.

vw57drvr wrote:Im pretty partial to those wheels. Looks good.

Yeah I have always liked them even before they repopped them. I had narrowed my wheels choices down to either steel sprint stars or cosmics. I loved how they look on your car but I was still leaning towards the sprints but they were out of stock. I couldn't get an answer to how long they were going to be out of stock so the decision was easy!

The offset if really good on these. Keeps the wheels tucked further than a BRM for example.