VW Beetle Type 1

my understanding, as for most repairs on the newer VW is to remove the front bumper and grille of the car. it sounds cumbersome and overwhelming but it's actually not that bad of a procedure. i have a 1996 jetta and it takes me 20 minutes to remove the grille and bumper.

You do it when you're building the engine. You can do it without any visual aids, but it's easiest to do this if you buy a bottle of model paint.

The cam timing system on an aircooled VW engine has a fairly small gear on the crankshaft, and a large one on the camshaft. The gear on the cam has a dot ground into one tooth; the gear on the crank has a dot on two adjacent teeth. You paint the teeth to make it easier to pick them out because those dots aren't very large at all. But whether you do or not, lay a case half on the table with the side the crank goes in facing up and install the crank and cam bearing shells in the case. Set the crank into them, and rotate it until you can see the two teeth on the crank gear. Mesh the cam gear with the crank gear so the dot on the cam gear is between the two dots on the crank gear. Roll the cam down into its bearings. (You DID put some assembly lube on them, right?) Now rotate the crank a few revolutions while watching the gears. If the dotted tooth on the cam gear always winds up right between the dotted teeth on the crank gear, you've done it right.

Under the front of the car, under fuel tank on passenger side. It is mounted to the body in a bracket. You should see the in-line fuel filter in the same area.

The engine is a 1600 cc manufactured between late 1970 and early 1973.

Should be getting good mileage already! One suggestion is to switch to an electronic ignition distributor or conversion kit installed in the distributor. Pertronix makes a good setup, follow their advice. A performance exhaust is easily done and can give better mileage also.

go to radio shack or dealer, rs is alot cheaper

The owner's manual claims 32 MPG. With a well tuned engine, this is actually a low estimate.

the lights on the dash are as such, the left light is for the low oil pressure, the right light is low generator/alternator. The red light on the dash is for the cylinder head temp. if it exceeds a temp limit, it will light. when driving, or coming off the freeway, the oil pressure light might flicker, due to the change in pressure quickly. The generator light may flicker when 1st started or if the vehicle is ideling lower than required.

Around 2 1/2 quarts.

Search for a fuse diagram online. If one is not available, then a service manual can be purchased to find the layout.

A Classic Beetle doesn't have one, believe it or not. There's a screen in the oil sump. It can be cleaned with a little petrol. just make sure you don't break the oil sump gasket when you refit it. You'll see it underneath the car. It's a ring with nuts around it.

The serpentine belt may have broken. Stop driving it and get that fixed. If you continue to drive it that way you can do severe damage to the engine.

It's a multistep procedure and requires a timing light (it looks like a gun), a 30mm wrench, 10mm nutdriver, feeler gauges, a flat-tip screwdriver, a dwell-tach and a paint pen--you can get them at hobby shops. Start by opening the hood and turning the engine over with the wrench until you see the notch on the crank pulley. Paint it white so you can see it easily. (If you have a degree wheel--a crank pulley that looks like a protractor, forget the paint pen. But you probably don't have one.) Then set your valves--they affect the timing too. Plug the coil wire back in, and you're ready to proceed.

Anyway...hook up the dwell tach per instructions and set it to read RPMs on a four-cylinder engine. Hook up your timing light. Put the nutdriver very close to you so you can grab it easily, then go start the car.

Step 1 is to aim the timing light at the crank pulley and pull the trigger. If the white mark is aligned with the crack in the engine case, the engine is properly timed. If it's not aligned, loosen the nut on the distributor clamp and s-l-o-w-l-y turn the distributor while watching the white mark on the pulley. If it's going the wrong way, turn the distributor the other way. Once it's aligned, tighten the clamp and check your work by grabbing the accelerator lever on the carb and pulling it sharply toward you. If the car revs up freely, you're done with step 1. If you pull the handle and the engine dips in speed before it revs up, you need to adjust the timing some.

Step 2: Your dwell tach is in RPM mode. There's a recessed screw on the left side of your carb, if you have a single Solex (it might also say Brosol) carb. If the idle speed is 1500rpm--these engines idle quite a bit faster than you might be used to--you're at the right speed. If you're NOT there, you slow down the engine by screwing it in and speed it up by screwing it out. Turn it a little and wait till the speed stabilizes.

Step 3: put the dwell tach into DWELL mode. You want to see 50 degrees of dwell. This you will almost certainly have to change. Dwell is determined by point gap--the less point gap, the longer the dwell. Gap is determined by this little plastic thing that rides on the shaft in the distributor, and the little plastic thing wears out. To adjust the gap, turn off the engine, take off the distributor cap and remove the rotor, turn the engine over until the points are all the way open, then stick a .016" feeler gauge, which is the baseline starting gap, in the points, loosen the screw holding them down and retighten the screw. I've actually seen these have to be gapped to .010 to get the dwell right. Understand this now: DWELL IS THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS HERE! If you have to set the dwell to .045" to get that 50 degrees of dwell, put it there. Or you can just do the smart thing, put a Pertronix Ignitor points eliminator in the distributor, and be happy with never having to screw with your dwell again.

Step 4: Once you have set the dwell correctly, the RPM will change. Readjust.

And step 5: if you changed the dwell and the idle speed, the timing will change too. They're all interconnected. This time use the force, Luke--just rev the engine and make sure it's working the way it should.

This is a very long, drawn-out description but this is one of the most time-consuming things on the car. There are so many factors involved here, it's ridiculous.

I have always done a 1500/3000/6000 interval: change oil at 1500 miles (every four weeks if you're driving the car at all), do the valves at 3000 and the timing at 6000. So the first Saturday of EVERY month you change your oil, the first Saturday of every other month you do your valves, and you time the car every other valve adjustment.

You mean the top speed? Depending on conditions and how good the thing runs a stock Beetle could do 80-90 mph. Minor modifications can get higher speeds.

2 1/2 to 3 quarts

The EPA mileage estimate for the 2014 Volkswagen Beetle is 22 mpg in the city, 31 mpg on the highway.

The 2013 Volkswagen Beetle has 41.3 in. of front leg room.

How long did you crank the engine over? It sometimes takes a minute or two for the fuel pump to get the fuel back to the engine. If you have an inline filter check to make sure you are getting fuel flow.

there is a little black switch under the dash on the drivers side youj ust have to feel around a little bit to find it

Drivers side of the transmission case, between the nose cone and axles. The late style (most common) takes a large Allen drive plug 17mm

1500 up and 1000 down is a general rule of thumb... it'll vary by different motors. For example, you're actually better off to shift up with a Mercedes-Benz MBE or Volvo VED motor around 1700 RPMs. All the same, the general rule of thumb applies to a straight truck just as it does a combination vehicle... why wouldn't it, after all?

What may change - and this will be dependent on how the vehicle is geared - will be your recovery gear. I'm assuming in driving school you were taught to add the two numbers of your current speed (in the nearest increment of five) to get your recovery gear from that. Thus, if you missed a gear, and your current speed was 25 miles per hour, you would add 2 + 5 = 7, and 7th gear would be your recovery gear. Many straight trucks - especially those intended for sitework use - are geared much lower, and you may need to add one number to your total to find your recovery gear, so that, at 25 miles per hour, you'd add 2 + 5 for a total of 7 then add one more, and 8th gear would be your recovery gear.

Unless there is an aftermarket hard start relay installed on the car, there shouldn't be one. The starter is attached directly to the ignition switch and the battery.

The spare tire and the windshield washer reservoir, anddue to the age of these vehicles, usually a lot ofthe previous owner's junk.

1972 Super Beetles had 4 drum Brakes. I know, since I own one. Richard

Be patient and take your time its a two or more person jobe so you will need someone else i have the exact same car im sure (75 superbeetle w/ sunroof) the best thing to do is strip the interior (remove the front and rear windows and rear side windows(manditory) and the seats and sunroof that way its easier to wrap the fabric around the frame) iv gotton most of mine done and its not easy what i did was started at the sunroof because it doesnt move obviously and worked my way back after carful maping out every piece to find out were it goes but good luck and remeber two people and very tim consuming of course you could take it to a hot rod shop and they could do it for 3-400 dollars but its not as hard as it seems