Stuff not going the way you planned is the path to the dark side.

Man, I can't sleep I've been up since 4am and I still don't feel right. I originally went off work on the 3rd February, that's like over 2 months ago. Just when I thought my immunity was back to normal, whatever normal is "Boom!" I get hit with what appeared to be mild cold symptoms, which then led to getting yet another chest infection and being completely floored.

Mind you although this sounds like me having a bit of a whinge I am so grateful and feel very fortunate that I have not contracted something much worse. As we all know this is an unprecedented time and really quite frightening, seeing and hearing all this sad news about the coronavirus and COVID-19 and all the people that are having their lives cut short. So no I am not complaining.

Although I have been out of fettle like I said, when I did feel well enough to venture outside it allowed me to tinker on with Myrtle my classic 65 Bug in our back yard. It's safe out there as we have a large fence surrounding our yard, so I am still socially isolating, and I feel being out in the fresh air is much better than being in a stuffy house all day, plus doing odd jobs on the car has been keeping my mind occupied. I hate it when I am at a loss for anything to do. When I have too much time on my hands this is when I start to overthink things and it can lead to the dark side. I much prefer to be more proactive.

Anyhoo this leads me on to Myrtle and some of the fun and games both my dad and I have had. I would like to say in recent months, however having now owned Myrtle coming up a year, from day one she has been let's say a challenge.
 

Myrtle

Where to start...

A good few months ago upon getting my car back from LVH Engine and Resto where Paul and Rob had carried out some more work that I had requested. I soon discovered that my Air Lift 3P App was not working. This meant I had to use the controller in my car to use my air ride, rather than being able to use the app on my phone. After many failed attempts I thought my Samsung Galaxy S9 was broken, "it must be the Bluetooth on my phone". I did a factory reset and then had to reinstall everything from scratch, losing a good bit of stuff from my phone as I did so. Still no joy so I contacted Samsung and some days later a courier came to collect my phone for a repair. A few days later I got my old phone back and set about reinstalling all my apps. Guess what? still no joy with the Airlift App...gutted. Upon doing a spot of research I discovered that Airlift has been having some issues with their app when using Samsung devices that have been updated to Android 10, and to this point, there is still no fix.

Stoopid Android 10

Also after getting my car back, I decided to book her in to get her alignment done down at BTG Performance. I have had my new shape Beetle GSR down there a few times getting various stuff done and the work has always been first class, so thought getting my old bug set up on a hunter alignment system would sort any issues with tracking or whatnot.
  
 

It soon became apparent when getting Myrtle up on the lift that something just didn't look right mechanically with her alignment. She just wasn't sitting square. The front driver's side shock appeared to be 2 1/2 inches higher and when coming to the rear driver's side bag, it was leaning over at a peculiar angle. Alex one of the mechanics was spot on saying "look I can still carry out the alignment, but I don't think it will help as something just doesn't look right, and I don't really want to take your money". I decided to take Myrtle home and my dad and I had a think over what to do next.

   

Shock relocators welded to extended arms in position 3

Shock relocators welded to extended arms in position 3

The difference in shocker heights

 

Driver's side bag very wonky

 

Myrtle Leaning

The following day we jacked Myrtle up, both front and rear and then started at the front and began to investigate what was going on. My car has had extended trailing arms fitted. I bought the arms from the US, getting them specially made up from Cage66 Fabrications. Paul then welded shock relocators which I got from Limebug, they came in my air ride package. When we first measured between the front drivers and passengers side shock locators there looked to be a 1/4 inch difference in there position. Also, Paul had fitted the shockers in position 3 on the relocators, which was fine, however, I really wanted them in position two as this meant the shockers were sitting more upright, which would help put less load on them when the car was air'd up or down. There was a problem with relocating them in position two that we discovered. When the car was air'd out the very bottom of the shockers were catching the original shock mounts on the trailing arms. It was minimal and with a little light grinding of the original shock mount, they are now sitting good in position two. Another problem we encountered was in that when the steering was turned from lock to lock, one of the tack rods would hit the driver's side shocker. My da fixed this by making a steering stop. Quite ingenious, he used a couple of exhaust clamps and a piece of 1/2 inch angle. The clamps fixing to the front beam and now the steering stops before the track rod hits the shocker.

Only had one pair of axle stands had to improvise

Track Rod end Catching

Whilst working on the car yesterday I noticed with no load on the front suspension the wheels removed, that the driver's side front suspension was sitting a lot higher than the passenger side. Now, this was the original problem we encountered whilst down at BTG Performance. On closer inspection and after removing the shock absorbers it soon became clear that the trailing arms were a lot stiffer on the driver's side than on the passenger side. So we re-greased the front beam and worked the suspension/trailing arms up and down with the shockers still removed. I am hoping that over time and with the added grease that the arms/suspension will become freer and stop the driver's side from sticking. Bonus as we also spotted that when the driver's side and passenger side wheels were pulled down whilst up on stands and the shockers fitted in position two, that there was less of a discrepancy in the shock relocators.

Now to the rear...

Investigation of the rear of Myrtle and carrying out some measuring and using a straight edge, it soon became clear that the drivers side lower bag mount was either bent or twisted. I got in touch with Leanne over at Limebug and she immediately suggested returning both mounts and that they would sort them out if indeed this was the problem. I would have had the bag mounts back within a week, however, DPD kindly lost my package. Upon contacting Limebug they kindly sent out a new pair and we have since fitted them, being careful to put in the 4 washers required between the lower shocker eye and lower mounts and not to over tighten the nuts and bolts. The driver's side rear bag now sits far better.

As this is my first car ever using Air Ride I have been slightly perplexed as to it's set up. Again Leanne sent me a link to a video that Craig from Limebug had done to explain how to set up your air ride in a Bug. This has been most useful and when applied I am hoping with the additional fixes my car will not lean to one side as much as it did.

I am not finished yet of course. This little car is a bit of a tinker. We just seem to be getting somewhere with one job which then leads into something that has a bigger issue. Whilst investigating all the other bits and pieces concerning the suspension I noticed that Myrtle wasn't sitting on any body rubbers on the rear shock towers. Chris the guy I had bought the car off had provided me with a CD- Rom of Myrtle, going from pre-resto to restoration, including body off. I went inside and popped the CD on and checked the images to see if any body pads had been put in place when she was restored. It appeared as if none had been put on to her. Now, this could create some problems as I was to learn.

  
So when a Bug body is removed and replaced upon a chassis, the body can move and as such the doors can go way out of alignment, making it very difficult to get them to line up and shut correctly. This is our next task and one I am dreading. I am awaiting a full set of body pads, both front and rear, along with bushes. Hopefully, fingers crossed the job will go smoothly and she will sit square on her new pads, plus the doors will fit. I have already had issues with her doors when going to fit new door seals so it's a job I am not looking forward to at all. At the moment the driver's door is quite good and that is with the body released somewhat on the pan and on the front and rear shock mounts and beam. However, the passenger door has always been a bit out of whack. Time will tell.

Oh and yesterday as I was coming around the back of my car, as I say she is up quite high on axle stands and her rear valance has been removed, it allowed me to glance at her rear wheels. This is when my OCD kicked in... The rear wheels appeared different, by this I mean as in their camber angles. We removed the wheels, my dad had not long ago purchased a magnetic protractor and he attached this firstly to the passenger side wheel drum and we took a measurement. Then we went to the driver's side. The passenger side with no weight on the axle measure 3 degrees of positive camber, whilst the driver's side was bang on 0 degrees. This now has me a little stressed. As far as I am aware there is no way to adjust camber between axles on a swing axle car. So does this mean my car is bent? More problems...and the return of the Dark Side.

Drivers side

Passenger side

 Whilst carrying out all this work, we had to remove the petrol tank, this allowed me to give it a bit of a freshen up and touch in some areas. My dad bought a neat trim for the edge of the tank and this will also help elevate the tank a little so as the track rod and new steering damper don't foul the underside of the tank when going up or down on the air ride. Whilst we were under the bonnet we also decided to remove the air tank, manifold and compressors, which is a very easy job as they are all attached to an alloy mount, so come out as one piece. My dad wanted to have a look at the wiring, as there appears to be a lot of extra wires and a lot of these are not specifically colour coded, they are just black. After some discussion between us, we have decided to order up a new wiring harness and tidy up her wiring. This will also benefit the guys at Bewick Mobility when I eventually go to get her semi-auto clutch fitted.

Air Ride set up on mount

It's funny how things come about as when we were talking about the wiring and looking on the CD-Rom and work carried out by one of Myrtle's previous owners I received a rather unexpected email. It started

"Hi Glenn

Darryl in Macclesfield, Cheshire here, I decided to search for mol old 65 Beetle again after selling it to a chap from Scotland, around 2102 and low and behold your Myrtle appeared!".

It was great to hear from Darryl who went on to tell me Myrtle was actually called "Duchess" when he owned her. Darryl went on to give me a little history about the car, which was absolutely fantastic. A lot can happen in 55 years and it's magical hearing about other peoples memories involving their cars, where it took them, adventures they were involved in.

Darryl let me know he actually did the wiring on Myrtle, so I hope he isn't too offended that we have decided to give the old girl a revamp.

There are a lot more jobs to be done, Myrtle is definitely a work in progress and a real labour of love. It has to be love because as an investment I have way past that point. My dad and I spent a whole afternoon the other week documenting how much I or I should say We have spent on Myrtle, as to be fair my dad has been buying bits and bobs to help with jobs. Not including the price of her I am at the £15K mark.

A huge thank you to everyone who has helped so far.