[T3] Bran' new baby!

["Jim Adney" <jadney@vwtype3.org>]

There's a brand new baby at our house. 

She's an L 20 D (Clementine Orange) AT squareback, born in May 
of '71, just a couple of weeks after my 25th birthday. She first 
showed up in our driveway 3 years ago when her previous owner 
brought her down to figure out some FI problems she was having. 
Those problems got fixed, but there was other work she still 
needed and 2 weeks ago she came down again in the hope that I 
could tie up those loose ends.  

Fortune intervened in an entirely unexpected way. My wife took one 
look at her and said, "It's in such good shape, we really ought to 
buy it." It would be an understatement to say that I was 
astonished. When I mentioned this to the owner, he admitted that 
he wanted to sell her but was already in negotiations with a 
Chicago woman who wanted her as a daily driver. It quickly turned 
out that this buyer probably had no idea what she was getting in 
for, and probably didn't even know what a Type 3 was. The owner 
was rather quickly won over when I agreed to match the other offer 
and pointed out that if I bought her she would be well taken care of 
and should live a long healthy life as a loved and appreciated car.  

Frankly she's beautiful. Even at about 66,000 miles, everything on 
her is nearly perfect. The original paint has a number of chips and 
scratches which I will try to touch up and polish out. There is 
exactly ONE dent in the front that is the size of a penny. The 
chrome, window scrapers (in and out), door gaskets, carpet, 
headliner, steering wheel, horn ring, cargo mat, and seat covers are 
OE perfect! The little chrome plug is still in the antenna hole; 
there's never been a radio in it.   

She was originally purchased in Washington state, where she lived 
for about 25 years until her owners died. The license plate frame 
says "Pensula Volkswagen, Bremerton, Wash." Then she came to 
Minnesota where she was kept garaged in the winters. I'll find her a 
good place to spend the winters here.   

This is the nicest type 3 I have seen in about 15 years, and I 
bought that one, too.  

Even in condition this good, there was mechanical work to be 
done. Just as an FYI, here's a list of the things I have done so far 
to make her complete and reliable.  

The ATF was about a quart low. I topped her up. Replaced the O-
ring seal for the AT governor cover. GL-5 level was fine.  

Lubed the front end and changed the engine oil.  

I broke off one bolt in the RF turn signal lens base. Had to remove 
the base, drill out the stump, backfill with Devcon F, and re-tap (M4 
x 0.7).  

The battery was low when I got it, so I put it on slow charge for 
several days, but after 3 days without the charger it was flat again. 
I checked for leakage current and there was only the clock, so that 
battery is history.  

Removed the late style replacement ignition key cylinder and put in 
a correct '71 cylinder which I re-keyed to match the doors. The 
replacement used different keys, but I got ALL FOUR ORIGINAL 
keys with the car. I don't have the glove box key, but I can fix that. 
The glove box itself is perfect.  

There was an odd problem with the rear door latch, which I could 
only fix by replacing the nice "new" but out-of-tolerance latch with a 
scummy old one from one of my previous 71s.  

The shock absorbers had been replaced and I blamed this for the 
extremely harsh ride. Made myself a note to install OE shocks 
sometime, but gave that up when I discovered that the other 3 tires 
were all inflated to 40 psi. Resetting them to 20/30 fixed this nicely. 
 

Rebuilt the master cylinder, both rear wheel cylinders, and the 
brake calipers. Replaced both front brake hoses and the LF hard 
line. Flushed silicone brake fluid thru the system and topped it up. 
The brakes are really nice now.  

Replaced a fuse which had blown when the AT selector lighting had 
been removed and left loose so it could short out. (I need 2 
replacement bolts for the selector bezel, as well as the pair of 
brushes that the lever slides thru. Does anyone have a set of these 
for sale?)  

I had to remove and re-install the outer handle and inner panel on 
the driver's door. Both had been installed improperly.  

I then decided to drive it 400 miles to my parents house. Got 300 
miles into the trip when one of the rear tires started breaking cords 
and developed a bulge. I slowed down to 50-55, deflated to 26 psi (I 
was lightly loaded) and limped on, making it safely to my 
destination. I bought a new pair of tires here today from that 
famous name: LeMans, all I could get in the time alloted. I'm 
kicking myself, because the "spare" was a studded snow tire, 
which is illegal and I had intended to swap in a good spare before I 
started the trip. I also have several good Michelin XZXs at home, 
but that didn't do me much good here.  

One thing I noticed about the car when I was first working on it was 
that the clock was still working, but it was unusual because it was 
the LOUDEST late style clock I had ever heard. Once I was on my 
trip I tried setting the clock and discovered that it's ticking, but the 
works don't move the hands. That will have to be a project for a 
rainy day.  

Other that paint chips and the clock, I have just one problem left 
that I haven't been able to solve: I can't get the driver's seat to 
adjust. The lock WILL release, and it's NOT frozen. I can move the 
seat back and forth about 1/8", but that's it. It hits a HARD stop in 
each direction and it's NOT at the end of its travel. I've pulled a 
penny, a nickel, and an unidentified (non-VW) plastic bit out of 
there, but it's still stuck. Tomorrow I'll pull out the passenger seat 
just to refresh my memory of how that is all put together. Hopefully 
I'll get a clue as to where I should look next. I'll be happy to hear 
suggestions from those who might have worked on this part more 
recently than I have.  

The engine, transmission, and suspension appear to be perfect. I 
got over 25 mi/USgal on the first leg of this trip, and I haven't filled 
up a second time yet.  

-
Jim Adney
Madison, WI USA

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
List info at http://www.vwtype3.org/list | mailto:gregm@vwtype3.org