Current Pics of Marc Buehler's Split Window

[S Brown]

Boy I'm glad I found this thread! I've known Marc my whole life and am one of the "boys with bikes" he mentioned in his original post. Glad you still have the car, Marc and it's looking great!

[marc1951]

Boy I'm glad I found this thread! I've known Marc my whole life and am one of the "boys with bikes" he mentioned in his original post. Glad you still have the car, Marc and it's looking great!
[/quote

Hey Scott, welcome to the lounge........I had dinner with your dad a week or two ago and showed him this forum. I believe he's now thinking of building another bug. Everyone on the lounge is so into the Cal-Look and so extremely supportive, it's hard not to get involved.

and back to this thread's subject.......................

I was setting the end play on my motor this weekend and was having problems I've never experianced before.

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I had to file both the inside and outside edges flat. That worked until I installed the o-ring in the flywheel.


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The outside edge was too sharp and was not allowing the o-ring to roll on, but instead was allowing it to be pinched between the flywheel and the crank increasing the end play by as much as .030. Here you can see the flattened out o-ring.
It took some time to "soften" the edge before the o-ring slid on properly.

Even with everything seated properly, I had to use .050 of shims to get the proper end play. My friend Bob also used a Chinese crank but it would only take 1 shim and he had to machine the flywheel to be able to use 3 shims.
I went to the trouble of checking my crank's indexing, radii, journal width and size but never thought to check this before now.

I'm thinking I will build another motor for the car using my old EMS crank.

Marc

[deano]

That is one, ugly-looking shim!

[marc1951]

That is one, ugly-looking shim!
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ah, that's not a shim, it's the bearing.......................<grin>

naw....

wow, the light makes the shim look like it's all bent up, doesn't it.

[marc1951]

I was reminded that I haven't posted pictures in quite a while. It's not that I'm not working on the car (I spend about 20 hours a week on it), but I'm at a point where every little thing seems to take so much time and I don't feel like I have anything worth showing or I forget to take pictures.....

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Here is the OBerg oil filter with thermostat on top

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Then when trying to mount the Mesa cooler, the Berg mount kept being in the way

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so I whacked it

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I mounted it in the only place I had that was low......and was not happy with it.

[marc1951]

and spending an afternoon mounting the oil cooler only to decide to go another way has been the norm lately. I'm not even going to show the 4 different carb linkages I made and threw away. It took a couple of weeks to come up with the 5th version and I'm not 100% sure if I'm going with that one......but I did get it chromed so...........

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So I bought a Setrab cooler which is narrower and deeper

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I was able to mount it at an angle so it will catch some air.....I like it!


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I have 2 Deano shifters that had seen better days, but some work, re-chroming and..........

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now I have a better than "new" Deano shifter

[marc1951]

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the threads in the Race Trim manifolds were pretty bad so I installed inserts

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now they are perfect

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I love the braided shielded ignition wires but you wouldn't believe what I went through to get them to work with the chrome conduit and fit around the manifolds.

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Meanwhile Bob had some other business to take care of and has not had time to work on the body for the last month, but will get it ready for paint soon.

[marc1951]

The original dash panels were aluminum and when I rebuilt the car 30 years ago I made new ones, adding more gauges and had the new aluminum chromed. The years have not been kind to them and when I showed the chrome guy them, he told me I needed to make new ones out of steel.

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Here's the aluminum panel sitting on a piece of steel so I could trace it.

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cutting the steel panel

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the steel panels ready for plating with the old ones above them

[marc1951]

The gauges have also seen better days and although I have a collection of NOS VDO gauges, I didn't want to have
to mix a plastic body with metal ones and have 3 different style of bulbs.


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you can see the rust I had to carefully remove. I don't even know if the gauges still work, but we will see

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I had to repaint the bezels as they were chipped

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and the finished panels ready to put in the car

[Stan Davis]

Lordy! What memories these bring back1 Hi everybody! It's just Stan Davis from abo0ut a million years ago! I used to be in DKP in the early 70's. Knew Marc Buehler well. I'm now 62 and feel ancient so excuse me if i don't post correctly...trying to get the hang of this. Ran across this searching for Auto Haus stuff. I used to be the manager of the Orange store. So long ago....seems like light years.

[Rennsurfer]

Welcome to The Lounge, Stan. Great to have you here.

Marc, all very worthy pictures... for sure. But THIS is just too cool!


Classic shot, man. Not too many of the red lettered month stickers (license plate) left on the road, in So Cal. Sorry... I've been a license plate nerd since I was ten.

[Jason Foster]

  Don't forget the main subject in the shot's coolness as well as the Heart housing laying in wait there on the pan...

  Great Shots Marc thanks for the updates, looking forward to seeing more.

[edcraig]

Holy Crap!!!!....Stan Davis!  Now the party is really starting.  Fasten your seat belts!!!

[kingsburgphil]

Don't pull the cork's just yet....I'm hiding the skeletons in the gun safe 

[speedwell]

awesome work marc , and those dash panel are really nice ,love them 
remember this picture yes it was 35 years old now ........

rgd
fabs

[Nico86]

Nice dash yep !

[marc1951]

Lordy! What memories these bring back1 Hi everybody! It's just Stan Davis from abo0ut a million years ago! I used to be in DKP in the early 70's. Knew Marc Buehler well. I'm now 62 and feel ancient so excuse me if i don't post correctly...trying to get the hang of this. Ran across this searching for Auto Haus stuff. I used to be the manager of the Orange store. So long ago....seems like light years.

Yipes!!!!  What a week....first Doug Gordon and now Stan Davis!!!!!!!!
I want to thank you, Stan, for all the great story telling material you gave me over the years.  You are by far one of, if not the most, "interesting" person I've ever known.
Wow!

I always wondered what happened to you and wouldn't have been surprised to hear someone had shot you........LOL

Marc

[Lee.C]

Cool progress Marc - don't surpose you wanna sell those old dash panels do ya 

(how cool would it be to own a REAL piece of Cal Look history!)

[marc1951]

Cool progress Marc - don't surpose you wanna sell those old dash panels do ya 

(how cool would it be to own a REAL piece of Cal Look history!)

The panels shown in the '75 magazine article had only 2 small gauges (made by Billy Arroyo). Right after that I made new ones with 4 gauges, changed the lights and switches and had them chromed. It's these that I just recreated in steel. I may still have the original ones. which ones are worth the most to you?

Marc

[Lee.C]

Cool progress Marc - don't surpose you wanna sell those old dash panels do ya 

(how cool would it be to own a REAL piece of Cal Look history!)

The panels shown in the '75 magazine article had only 2 small gauges (made by Billy Arroyo). Right after that I made new ones with 4 gauges, changed the lights and switches and had them chromed. It's these that I just recreated in steel. I may still have the original ones. which ones are worth the most to you?

Marc

Dude to be honest I would love ANY of your original parts  It would just be sooooooooooo cool to have them hanging in my garage and you neevr know I might even get myself a split one day and I might even use them 

Drop me a PM or an email at: monki772003@yahoo.co.uk

[Steve DKK]

Marc,
I don't know if you remember me but I sure remember you.  My name is Steve and had a beige Ghia (bad habit).  I hung out at the LaHabra Auto Haus.  The things that still think about is the time you spent time, and explained the difference between mark up and margin. And I was so impressed when you installed power brakes in your bus. 
Remember the time Auto Haus got broken into...  That night I insatlled some rear shocks with snubbers to limit the squat,  I went down to see how they worked and was doing some burnouts behind the store...  Anyway the cops came and assumed I robbed the store...  Held me in my car for about an hour without telling why.   Luckily the jack ass who actually broke in left his wallet...

Anyway, Im now in Vancouver WA (20 years)

You going to bug in this year?  I'm driving my 59 vert down.  leaving tomorrow...

[marc1951]

Marc,
I don't know if you remember me but I sure remember you.  My name is Steve and had a beige Ghia (bad habit).  I hung out at the LaHabra Auto Haus.  The things that still think about is the time you spent time, and explained the difference between mark up and margin. And I was so impressed when you installed power brakes in your bus. 
Remember the time Auto Haus got broken into...  That night I insatlled some rear shocks with snubbers to limit the squat,  I went down to see how they worked and was doing some burnouts behind the store...  Anyway the cops came and assumed I robbed the store...  Held me in my car for about an hour without telling why.   Luckily the jack ass who actually broke in left his wallet...

Anyway, Im now in Vancouver WA (20 years)

You going to bug in this year?  I'm driving my 59 vert down.  leaving tomorrow...

Thanks for the kind words, Steve.
 I don't remember you by name but if I saw your face, I probably would.
Installing power brakes on my '68 bus was a real challenge, for sure. I don't remember where I got the unit but I installed it under the floor with copper tubing back to the engine for the vacuum. I remember I had a hell of a time bleeding the master cyl.
So you were at the wrong place at the wrong time........bummer. Unfortunately the store was broken into several times over the years.
There was a sunday I was working on a project and needed some parts so I went to the store but when I entered the code for the alarm, I must have fat fingered one of the buttons. Here I was in my "work on cars' clothes piling up parts on the counter when I noticed several cop cars out front with the police kneeling down with guns drawn. I thought the place next door was being robbed and there was about to be a shoot out so I quickly ducked down behind the counter.......re.......big mistake! It didn't take me long after that move to realize that I was the object of their attention. To make things worse, I didn't have any ID with me so I was "detained" for quite a while during which they called my house to tell me that they caught a burglar in the store and to come down and secure the store? Guess what......I wasn't home! Luckily a cop who was a regular customer stopped in to see what was happening and he identified me.

Steve, I moved to the Seattle area 24 years ago......and I will be flying down Saturday night for the bug-In. Maybe I'll see you there.

Have a safe trip......

Marc
DRA

[marc1951]

At the Classic, I had quite a few people asking about my car so I thought I'd better post an update.

I've spent an embarrassing amount of time on my fan housing. I want to use the 25hp one with the seam running across the top, but the one I have was in bad shape and I keep trying to make it work. I won't even show a picture of it until I can make it look good.

With the body almost ready to go to paint, I decided to work on the BRMs.

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This is what I'm starting with, but you can't really see all the pits in the picture


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I first media blasted the wheel to remove the corrosion. Here is a wheel half way through that process.

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I started by using a file to take out nicks, then 80 grit sand paper, 120 grit, scotch brite, 220 grit, and then various polishing compounds.

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And the finished wheel on the right. Wheel on left has just been started. I sprayed a rubberized coating on tire mounting area

[marc1951]

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 I had cut a hole in the gas tank for a gas gauge back in the 70s so went ahead and installed the sending unit.

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To calibrate the gauge, I set it up on saw horses and poured measured water in the tank so I know that 1/2 tank is actually 5 gal.

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I love this wood steering wheel but it was water damaged, cracked and chipped from sitting outside for a year.

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After a couple of days work, it turned out quite well

[marc1951]

Bob and his wife, Linda, are helping with the upholstery. We are starting with the front seats which are in bad shape. The vinyl is old and stiff, the springs are weak and as it turns out, a chunk of foam was stuck in on the original seat and just covered with vinyl.


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Taking off the old vinyl, reveals some pieces of foam stuck in places to make up for weak springs

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Here you can see the original covering. Factory tags reveal these seats actually came from a later year VW.

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Now stripped, the rusted and weak springs are shown.

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[marc1951]

Because the car will not have a heater and I live in the NorthWest, I'm heating the seats to help take the edge off in the mornings. It may not make a difference but it's worth a try.
I haven't taken any pictures of the finished seats yet but will post when i do.

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After taking care of the rust, we weave nylon straps to tie the springs together. The bracket with the hole welded on the front is for the heat warming switch.

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the green straps are used to pull the whole thing together so the vinyl can be pulled on

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 special high density foam is then used. This stuff is expensive but I used it on my '57 Chevy and it made a nice firm seat.

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The back of the seat.

[deano]

Ron Fleming and Marc at Nicks' this past Friday night.....

[empicolector]

marc you did a impresive job on the wheels

[S Brown]

Ron Fleming and Marc at Nicks' this past Friday night.....

Who's that weirdo in the background?

[Nico86]

marc you did a impresive job on the wheels

Yes !



But why wasting so much time restoring old wheels when you can buy new ones and give me the old BRM...



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