Failure of the wipers & test fitting seats

Spent some time assembling the windscreen wiper system this weekend. It’s a bugger.

Above is a pre 1957, right-side Bug wiper arm, which I am trying to fit on a 1966-68 wiper shaft, which is attached to a later wiper frame and a mid-late years (1970-72? who even knows?) motor.

As you can see, the arm hits the body. The shaft is too short.

Instructions say use a larger shaft from a later Beetle but that means using the later Beetle wiper arms and they are thick and chunky and have to be mangled in order to lay down near the bottom of the screen and I fucking hate ’em.

This whole process has taken several days so far and several hundred dollars. I finally just said fuck it.

I made a couple of plugs out of kitty hair and aluminum for the wiper shaft wells . . .

These I’ll paint body color and they’ll lay flush.

Also ordered the perspex windscreen from FiberSteel, along with the rear view mirror that goes with it. That’ll bring the car that much closer to 0051 and obviate the need for me to fabricate a top for it.

I’ll sell the glass screen with the car, along with the wiper stuff. Thinking things through overnight I’ve come up with a plan to get proper spindly-looking old school wipers that work: basically just re-use Bridget’s old wipers like I originally planned. Trico still sells universal wiper kits that are very much like them.

When the 356 Pre-A wiper blades get here I’ll work out how to fix them on the old arms…

Meanwhile I had to test the seats, so I installed the gauges, the blinker arm, most of the switch gear and the shifter and e-brake…

Then popped in the seats…

Then put the car up and put the floor in…

And finally climbed aboard.

It’s frankly tight. The steering wheel feels low (meaning the seats are too high?) and the pedals seems too close. I think I can adjust them toward the front bulkhead an inch or two and that should get things a bit more relaxed. The e-brake also will need to lay down a bit to be right. I think I can cut it, but I have to test it first to make sure the upper hole in the pull mechanism will give enough “throw” to work the brakes properly. If it will, it’s a piece of cake. If it won’t…well, we’ll see.

Shifter handle has to get three or four inches longer as well.

Still: the interior’s looking pretty good these days, even if I do say so meself.

 

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