Red Beetle Rehab

Hey all,

I have a 2001 vw beetle tdi that has been sitting for 5 yrs. 140k on the clock. This spring I am going to be going through everything cleaning (very dirty as the window carrier fell) and getting it ready to start. Will do tb change among other things. I was thinking of making a thread. Is this something the tdi community is interested in? the original owner is a tdi club member, and i told him the least i'd do is send him a video of it running again as he loved the car, but i figured if there was enough interest id do a thread. I was thinking i would do pictures for some stuff and maybe videos here and there on youtube with a link. Is there enough interest in this?
Thanks,
GlowBugTDI

I always enjoy a good build thread! I always thought about doing a thread on my 98 beetle project car but I work to slow to slow to keep people interested.

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Yes! I have 2 2000's I'm interested in your project.

I enjoy watching you tube video barn finds getting resurrected. So, yes, please share your experiences; and TIA.

ok, sounds like a good start. i've kinda wanted to do a thread on this so i think i might. This way i can maybe teach a little, and when i have questions on things y'all can chime in and tell me what i should do!

JB05 said:

I enjoy watching you tube video barn finds getting resurrected. So, yes, please share your experiences; and TIA.

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This car was found in the twin city's, and was in a half finished shed. So i guess you could call it a city's barn/shed find lol
I will probably do most as videos, but we will see.

Here is the begining of my restoreish thread.
Car details:
2001 GLS ALH
141K ON THE CAR
Been sitting for 5ish years hasnt run in about 4 years.
Plans: get her back on the road and completely functional.

Feel free to comment, ask questions, give advice, but most of all enjoy!



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Problems with the car that are known:
Needs TB. Broken sun roof. Window regulator is cooked. The window fell so it had a tarp over the window to block most of the water. (more on that later). Interior I just cleaned pics coming soon (was pretty bad). All drive system components are going to be checked out, and made sure they are operating properly.

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Engine bay needs a little cleaning as you can imagine from sitting for 4+ years.




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the pictures also aren't all that clear. Im going to try medium sized pics to see if that's better

Yea looks like she could use some love! Rodent issues??

Nope, i thought there would be rodent damage but they hadn't touched a thing. Which is nice

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Started raining, but i got some stuff done. Pulled diesel up through the filter and into the pump about a week ago. Diesel looks good, but im going to have to change the fuel filter before long. Pulled the door card yesterday and found that the window regulator cable failed and got pulled around the regulator gear knob thing and made an ugly mess. Soon as i can get parts im going to, but i have to wait for a lil while with this crovid-19 thing going on.
2nd to last pic is the regulator. Last pic is my temporary window holderupper.

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Interior was very dirty, but a few hours of cleaning and a good pressure wash (inside and out) and it was looking a lot better. Im going to pressure wash the outside of the car another time or two before all the dirt, and leaf gunk is gone. 2nd pic its kinda hard to tell how much sand and pebble is really on the floor. I vacuumed a lot, and thats what took the majority of the time to clean. I also had to pressure wash the carpet and some of the plastic to clean them well. So id wash, vacuum, wash, vacuum about 3-4 times by then it was really looking great! yes, i pressure washed the inside of my car lol. No it didn't hurt it any, and it sat with the doors open and in the sun all day to dry. Carpet now looks new, and the rubber floor mats aren't all oily like before.



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GlowBugTDI said:

Nope, i thought there would be rodent damage but they hadn't touched a thing. Which is nice.

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One of my lawnmowers served as a decoy -- they chewed a hole in its gas tank.

It's good to see it getting fixed up & back on the road!

A simple small plastic wedge or two will keep the window in place.

Keep up the good work.

Oh no! Lol.

Well I'm happy to say The Beatle started. I'm not going to start or run it much sense the timing belt has been in there about seven years, but just to get a first start to see if it was going to run. It runs good. After the timing belt we will see if anything else needs to be changed. There is absolutely no boost, it wouldnt rev above 2200 RPMs but I think the actuator was a little froze up I had used my mityvac to pump it a few times to make sure it was loose a week ago though. After it had started I let it warm up for about 2 minutes I kind of grumbled around the driveway with it for a minute. took it down the road (less the 20mph) about a quarter-mile and found out there was no boost so when I got back I gave it a few good rev's between 2 and 3000 RPMs and then it suddenly broke loose and revved up fine. so I'm thinking I now have Boost. Yay!!
Tappets are making a bit of noise but it's slowly starting to go away as oil is getting worked in there. TDI Forum isn't letting me upload a video so maybe I will put it on YouTube.

P.s. Mike if you were to PM me your email I can email the video of it starting and running for the first time.

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Tdijarhead said:

A simple small plastic wedge or two will keep the window in place.

Keep up the good work.

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Thanks! I might put a plastic shim in there for now as the door is all torn apart. Soon as they start shipping things I'm going to get a new window regulator, or I may go to one of the local salvage yards once they open up and look for one. So far it hasn't been too complicated nothing to Crazy except for that timing belt. No major fixes yet just a lot of smaller things that have taken up a few weeks. I had only used the tape because I was thinking I would be able to fix the regulator but is in too rough of shape.

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I'd rather watch the video on YouTube, then everyone else can see it, too.

The timing belt was a 100K mile kit (included water pump) installed by DeafBug at 65K miles, end of April, 2010.

MikeMpls said:

I'd rather watch the video on YouTube, then everyone else can see it, too.



The timing belt was a 100K mile kit (included water pump) installed by DeafBug at 65K miles, end of April, 2010.

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Okay I'll see if I can't upload it and then link it on here.

Ok, thanks! I know you had told me it had the 100k mile kit and at first I was going to leave it but from what I have read (and messeged with some others) on the TDI Forum it's 100K or 7 years whichever comes first. I looked at the belt and it looked good so that's why I didn't think it'd be a big deal to start it and putz around a little bit but I would just feel a whole lot better about it if I were to replace the timing belt before I really get on the gas and go places. I'd rather spend the money and have it replaced, then not doing it and having it unfortunately send a valve through the piston. I just don't really want to risk it.

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https://youtu.be/wti5byf8vwg

Here she is. A Few hours of motor work, and 15 sec. of crank time. I also changed the oil and filter, and put new (to this car) glow plugs in that were donated from the glowbug (glowbugs old set). Little bit of motor work left(still some bugs) Still some interior work to be done, and everything has to be put back together. I also am planning on buying a sandblaster and Sandblasting the calipers and rotors and then coating them. Other than that it's well on its way to seeing Highway!!

I have a video of her first street run. Ill have to post tomorrow as it's taking awhile to upload onto YouTube.
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I love the sound of these little diesels. My wife thinks I’m weird. Two of my daughters both drive one, an 01 Beetle and an 03 Jetta and they love the miles per gallon.

Tdijarhead said:

I love the sound of these little diesels. My wife thinks I’m weird. Two of my daughters both drive one, an 01 Beetle and an 03 Jetta and they love the miles per gallon.

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I know right! I should do a sound comparison between this one and the Glowbug. The Glowbug has more of a growl and is more noisy, and this one purrs with a lil clunking/knoking noise. This engine sounds a little smoother, but i also have done a few things to mine for a more diesel tone sound.

Thats great! Some of my friends think im crazy because I live in the country and drive a beetle, and I practically use it like a truck. Especially with that rack the only thing I haven't been able to do is pull a stock trailer. So they tell me just to get a truck, but I'm like why? if I can get 45 miles to the gallon, and Haul everything I need to with it. I also know I'm going to have put another hundred thousand miles on it by the time I'm done with college, as I've done some rough calculations.

Hey, anyone know whats faster? An 2001 1.9 alh beetle, or a 2000 3.6 v6 mustang?
Both cars are stock.

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The Mustang will get to the gas station faster.

wonneber said:

The Mustang will get to the gas station faster.

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Haha, yes that i am sure of! I already verified that with the mustang owner. Soon as this red beetle is running good we're going to take a run for it and see which is faster. Since I have the Mustang till 4th gear In the Glowbug i should be able to hold out to 60 in the red one i hope before i get left behind.

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Well i haven't been able to do any work to the beetle since all the places that have everything i need are closed for the time being. Since classes have moved online i have decided to do some well needed work to the glowbug, and decided to do all the rust repair/prevention needed for MN. Today i fixed all the rocker rust under the rear fenders, and added the first layer of bondo to help keep salt off the metal. I will truck bed line/undercoat the rest of the rocker after the bondo is done. I am also going to sand blast all the bare metal under both cars, and line all of it for MN winters. Its hard to have a nice car in the midwest!! Lol

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Happy Easter ya'll!

The beetle went in for its TB change today. Should be back late next week. I would do it myself to save a few extra bucks, but i dont really have the time and the guy does a great job.

Anyone ever see or hear of someone pulling a beetle with a beetle? Lol
Wish i could always do 50mph at 0rpm! (Last pic)
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Paramedick is in your immediate area; he is considered a TDI guru on the forum.

“ Anyone ever see or hear of someone pulling a beetle with a beetle? Lol”

Lol look up dweisel member........he has towed a beetle with a beetle......I believe the furthest was from Texas to West Virginia.......

Also get some internal frame rust converter /sealer and spray inside the rocker panels through the plugs on the bottom to help kill or slow down the rust from the inside that you cannot reach.

Keep with it!

This is interesting to me as we here in New England suffer from the same rust issues you have there. Anything you find that will show how to forestall and treat rusting will be of great interest.

Great project!

Cheers,

PH

JB05 said:

Paramedick is in your immediate area; he is considered a TDI guru on the forum.

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Good to know. I didn't know that. I use a guy in the area (precision imports) he's really good with tdi's and I recommend him to anyone. I try to do all the work myself, but some of the deap engine stuff i just don't have the time, or special tools to be able to do the work.

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