Watch the video to see Sam's progress on this 1967 VW Beetle.

In this video we get new headlights installed, then head to the back of the car and install the original license plate light and new tail lights. We also start flushing out the original fuel tank to get it ready to be installed, replace the original master cylinder, and replace a leaky brake fluid reservoir. Follow along as we're one day closer to getting this 1967 VW Beetle road worthy for the first time in years!

Video Transcript

What kind of car is it? It's a Volkswagen.

Back at it again. I'm going to get some headlights installed, new headlight buckets, new headlight bulbs, new headlight trim rings. We'll jump to the back of the car. We'll get the tail lights on. We'll get the license light housing in place. I can't do the reverse lights until I get the bumper on in the rear. Obviously, I still need to do the bumper in the front, but once I got all the lights on that will complete all the wiring, short of the battery and the positive cable over to the voltage regulator. Or, at least where the voltage regulator would have been underneath the rear seat.

Once I'm done with that I can get onto the brakes and I can finally make this thing stop. Which means I could throw a battery in it and in the fuel tank, ah never mind I'm getting ahead of myself.

I decided to get smart and just bought a pair of glasses to keep back here in the shop. I haven't said it before we’re really not a big fan of these aftermarket headlight assemblies, but we haven't got many other options. That notch, that notch, and that notch they're not even like properly set up. Like the headlight supposed to key into those, but it doesn't. I'm going to actually cut these slots down and bend that tab so that this actually sits further down.

So a couple of ever so slightly cut in edges opposite of the screws and then a pair of bullnose pliers and linesman's pliers and bend the tabs flat and the headlight actually properly sits and is keyed correctly in the assembly. So now with that task handled, let's see if we can get the trim ring on.

All right, they're not horribly out of place. Looking at our adjustment you can see that we're way down here, way up here. We'll see how well these adjusters adjust. It's not horrible. Now we're flatter all the way around.

I think they bend these things down just to make it flat for shipping, but these springs should be pulling back. That'll prevent, keep a little bit firmer in place. So from here, there we go. So this screw, that screw, and that screw I believe are where we're going to line up. This screw is always the pain to get to so I start with this guy here. Now it’s started I can verify, check and check.

And these are just new self-tapping number eight sheet metal screws. Number eight screws are the correct size, but self-tapping screws are always nice cause they clean out any old rust and debris. They're just good general screws to have around.

I like to start with a screw in place. Get it started. And just like that, our headlight ring snaps into place and that headlight’s ready to go.

So the assemblies, now that I go back and I actually deal with having to make it fit, the assemblies aren't bad other than those three slots not being cut deep enough. A couple of seconds with a cut off disc, cut them down about a quarter inch, bend the tabs back and from there they actually fit all right. Just make sure to bend those retaining springs out on the back sides. After that everything else fit well enough.

That looks a lot better, doesn't it.

Got old assembly, old assembly, original bracket for our license plate, and original license light. I think I'm going to start by putting the license light in place.

Hi.

Perfect. Now I can tuck that up in there, bend those tabs down there.

That's good.

I got a couple holes here, don't I. Well, I got a Volkswagen emblem for those. Might as well put it on, right. It's a socket over the top of the clip, push the emblem on one side, push the clip on the bottom.

All right, now let's do some tail lights. I don't know, should I bang this fender out or not? I mean, I've got a hammer. Let’s see what happens, right.

Better than it was. Hammer Happy Harvey, at your service.

I had to put new lenses on. The other ones were so fogged up that when the lights came on you could barely see them. So for safety sake, I put new lenses on. I'm sorry.

When we're hooking up the wires black is your turn signal. Remember that black white, black green up at the front at the turn signal switch that indicates turn signal. Well black and red, well we got red, that's going to be our brake light. And then we have the white black and the white red wires, well white that's going to be your running light.

Top bulb is our turn signal and the bottom bulb is going to be our running light low filament and our brake light high filament. And before I bolt this to the fender I am going to power this light up. And then I'm probably have to bend these tabs up cause they don't seem like they're lining up.

Running light, brake light, turn signal. If you're looking at the back side left side is going to be your brake. The right side will be your running light. Top is your turn signal.

I should really get some uh fender bolts on these fenders. What do you guys think, fender beading or no fender beading? I can't decide. Got one piece of fender beading on this car, but the rest of the fender beading is all missing. And I'm going to have to put new window seals in it so we are going to have some new seals.

I'm using original seals here. I'm using original seal here. We've got the original turn signal seals up front. I don't know. I can't decide. You guys let me know in the comments below. Fender beading or no fender beading? I'm not even going to do a poll on this one, at least a public poll. It's just going to be on the comments, whatever I get the most votes for, fender beading or no fender beading, is what we'll do.

That tail light it's working, or it's working and it's installed. Let me do that one.

Yeah see over here, we've got a nice piece of original fender beating. I don't have the rest of them though. I wish we had the rest of them, but I don't. So now truly, no I'm not cause technically I still have that stuff underneath the rear seat to do. Let me see what I can do on that.

All right, trying to get you guys in here as close as I can, but still be able to actually work in here. Remember I said Volkswagen doesn't run a main fuse or a master fuse on anything. Well I like to and this is something that I like using. This has a battery input on your output on a 50 amp circuit breaker. If there's ever a draw more than 50 amps, that's going to snap.

So conveniently enough, we can actually go through and bolt that right in place there. Whether it be, our auxiliary is probably going to be better off over here the way that these are routed and then our battery is going to come in across the top of our seat bar and we'll come in over here. So that's probably how I'll end up mounting that.

Fortunately, this screw lines up right there so that's going to make that easy. Now because I did swap over to an alternator, this blue wire and this green wire, these are going to be spliced together. And I like using these guys. They are crimp and seal. So you crimp them and then you use a heat gun and they shrink and they actually glue onto the wire. And now we've got a nice sealed connection between those two wires.

Yeah, I'm flushing out the gas tank right now. Let me take a look at that, make sure it's good. Yeah, looks good.

This is going to be our output from our alternator. I did have to drill it out to fit over that post and then this wire here. Make sure your ring terminal fits. Crimp, check the connection.

We've got a master shut off and a main fuse, or in this case a main circuit breaker, for all the power in our car after the battery. Again, something Volkswagen never did, but once we get our battery cable hooked up we can run a new wire over to here for that and that'll get us power to the rest of our car. Wiring, almost complete/wiring is complete short of a battery and a positive cable and the reverse lights. Not bad.

I think I'm going to work on flushing out the gas tank. Nope, nope, nope, nope. Can't do that. Can’t do that. I need the gas tank out to get to work on the brakes. So I'll start by installing a new master cylinder, I guess. Let's do that.

Sorry for the quick intermission, but just so you see that. I wasn't just making things up for that fuel tank filled with varnish and fuel line filled with varnish. That's literally, after I've been flushing this thing for about 5 minutes, that is what's coming out of this fuel tank. That old, literally varnish. It is just like tar. And all this was stuck in the old fuel line. That was a pain.

And there's some more as we're continuing to flush this. Icky, icky, sticky.

All right well, my microphone adapter to my phone has broken again so my apologies on the audio. I'm going to get a better one on order. But for now, hopefully you guys can see what I'm doing. And hopefully I can do what I'm doing without breaking any of these old lines.

But anyway, that's all for this. I'm going to run inside and loosen up these two bolts from the inside and then this master cylinder will be able to come out.

Out with the old, in with a new. Once I grab two new brake light switches. I forgot about those. Give me a moment.

All right one new master cylinder. Make sure that our spacers are in place there. Good, good. Grease the rod. And note that I am not bench bleeding this master cylinder. I have never ever found a need. However at this point, I might need a hand or a socket or something to come in and hold this up so I can get the bolt started from the inside. Let me see what I can come up with real quick, hold on.

That might do. I'm not holding my breath, but we'll try.

Yeah we got that one. Let's give that a little bit of a rest. See if I can get that back one. I'd say that's affirmative.

All right, that's in. Gland nut socket comes in handy again. I got that there. Guess we'll get our brake lines in.

So we've now got all our lines cleaned up, our reservoir cleaned out inside and out for the most part. Foam surprisingly still kind of in squishy shape. Now we've got some brake hose. Used to be blue, now it's black. It's a little bit looser than the 1967 kind of technically only hose. That line's a little bit smaller than that one, but either way even on our original lines it is slightly loose. So I'm going to have to run some hose clamps at least here and then, honestly, I'm going to probably just end up running hose all the way down. There's no point in this, honestly. If this goes bad this is going to leak no matter what. I know these fit on these so I'm just going to do that, but obviously again, I need to clamp these on.

I don't like how close this is getting to that right there so I'm going to cut it, sleeve it, and then we'll use this as kind of a protector for that guy right there. And I'm pretty sure that is just a steel line from an early car that somebody reused. So I'm going to keep this for future use on a car. Probably not, actually. We always go to a dual circuit master cylinder, so no I'm not going to save it.

So that steel line should protect our bottom flex line. We can put some brake fluid in, here make sure that our master cylinder supply lines aren't leaking. And then from there, I can go and get to work on the back brakes. But I think for today, up here, I'm actually going to put the fuel tank back in and button up everything up here and call this good, maybe.

And forgive the funnel. It looks dirtier than it actually is. Well, it's just really, really stained.

Apparently our reservoir is just leaking straight out of the reservoir. I don't know why I didn't see this on the bench or when I was flushing it out. It is literally just pouring right out the seams. Well that's unfortunate.

Well at least the lines aren't leaking. Fortunately, somebody out there was kind enough to reproduce this because this is a one-year only master cylinder reservoir. Like so many other things on a 1967 that are one year only, that's another one and I've got to pull that out.

All right, before I installed this one I made sure that I filled it up with fluid ahead of time and made sure that it didn't leak ahead of time. Now it's just going to leak on this thing right now with a little bit of fluid I have in there.

There we go. So I get that in place and get those lines set over. Is it as cool as the original ones? No, but if it does leak brake fluid everywhere, that's cooler, I guess right.

One of my buddies back from my younger days, he had a 1967 and he forever as long as he owned that car fought with that leaking reservoir and back then they didn't make replacements.

Let's get this guy mounted back in place. Finally, I can put a fuel line on here, hook it back to the gas tank, and bolt in a fuel tank.

I'm going to do one more double check on everything. No leaks, fuel line grommet there, new hose is there. Steering dampener has no issues, or shows no signs of leaks, no pitting on the shaft. I think I'm ready to put a fuel tank in. Now that the stock fuel tank is flushed out I'm going to put a new tap in it and set it in place.

Bent line there. Still need to get a gas cap at some point, but we'll get there. I'm not going to bother bolting it in place just yet until after all the brakes are bled. But at least now it looks like a trunk.

All right, I call that a pretty successful day's worth of work. Not really a day, like half a day. Got our headlights installed after modifying the aftermarket headlight receiving assemblies. Not too big of a deal, but you got to do what you got to do to get those things to fit.

After that was pretty straightforward. We got the tail lights on. We got the license light housing on. License plate bracket on. Did we do anything else at the back of the car? No, I think that was it at the back.

We got a new master cylinder installed and a new brake fluid reservoir installed, along with some new feed lines down to the master cylinder. So at this point I'm ready to start working on the back brakes and then I can go through and bleed the whole system and finally have brakes in this car. That'll be nice.

And then I can put a battery in it and fuel in the gas tank. Then once I put a seat in it, I can go for a drive. Until then, I'll keep working and even after then I'll probably still have work to do.

Later guys.

overall rating: my rating: log in to rate