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ecdez wrote:Take your time, plan ahead, and measure everything out. Never cut too much at one time. You can always cut more. Patience truly is a virtue.

Definitely! Hopefully my torch hand will be steady in the moment of truth...No real timetable for the project though, just thought I should pick up these cars while they were close and cheap seeing that the 2-doors don't exactly grow on trees! It has been fun so far, as just towing the hulks on a trailer attracted quite a bit of attention wherever I stopped, so I'm looking forward to getting one on the road as it should be quite rewarding in many ways I hope.

Cut all the parts you need off it and then leave it in a field and let trees grow up around it, then try to sell it for $1000.

ORRRRRRRR

Cut all the parts you need off it, leave the drive train in it and make the first BAJA 412!

I know hat you mean. Its really hard to judge one dead. Here some sad stuff...since the beginning of my 411/412 career....I have sent...5 type 4's to the scrapper for various reasons

My first 411. 4 door..I got T-boned at 45 mph by a cuntless 442 . The engine and drive train went to someone who needed them. I saw that car sitting in that yard for a year...until the one guy I knew with a beat up 411 variant....one day appeared with very smooth...and very familiar front fenders and bumpers...I was happy. I felt vindicated....mainly because a year earlier in a drunken stupor...I had stolen all of the trim from his car ( I was young, poor and in college...and he lived in a rival dorm on the same street....it was inevtitable. He got the last laugh).

A 2 door 411...that was burned, bent, rusted and collapsed..but had a perfect drivleine....so my next aquistions would all be 4 speed . Gthe rest was scrap..except for all the little stuff...knobs switches...glass.,...heater....relays...visors....etc...etc.

My 73 412 4 door. Drove it for years. 3/4 done...a failed traffic light caused me to T-bone a van at 35 mph.....karma I guess. It still drove well. I drove it until ....I found an arrow straight 411 wagon up on blocks. Bought it for $75 . The guy said I would never get that POS running. I sold the 412 carcass to someone else working on a 412. They needed lots of little stuff. After a 3 day swap-athon....all suspension , engine, drive train, brakes....I drove by in my 411 wagon, honking my horning with the middle finger! I found something peculier though...a whole line of stickers...under the dash...from the dealer...denoting how many new pieces of sheet metal were welded in when the PO totalled the front end. Typical insurance job. No undercoating on the welds. The front suspension collapsed a year later.

Two days later...luck of luck....I aquired a 73 412 blue wagon...straight as an arrow...with a blown tranny. $125 later...and another 3 day swap-athon....and voila...a 4 speed wagon (yep..still running that 4 speed).

Good rear-ended by a moron in a Toy-scrota. He was so sorry......" Uh...sorry mister....I was turned around tucking my baby into his safety seat"....while going downhill toward a red light in rush-hour traffic in Atlanta #!!%$#%^&*(.....Fuuuuu*k!!!!!.

Oddly...I had just aquired my current 412 for $300. A 73 412 2 door. Not a scratch. It had sat under a shed for 11 years. Every document inside from the radio box and tag, all manuals, plates from the day it was born including German French and norwegian plates.....shipping documents...VW tourist dealer maps of europe (even have the Berlin wall carefully marked on them ).....end of assembly line printout...maintenance logs.....and shipping documents in triplicate out of OSLO norway... . Again....I drove by 3 days later honkng the horn. I think I really pissed that guy off though.....

Its been a long road. Hopefully she will be driving again before christmas. It will not see the road again though until it is painted and finished. Sorry for the length. Ray

Dang Ray thats awesome, I think only those of us bitten by the 411/412 would even understand how good you feel about these cars. I know Beetle people dont "hell, it's just a bug". Bus People? I love Buses but most bus people are too busy tie dying their underware and trying to score the next ounce to really give a crap. 411/412's are unique and I love them, just wish I had gotten into them sooner, and I just lucked into mine.

raygreenwood wrote: Sorry for the length. Ray

Not at all! I never tire of cars and car stories.

Anyway, it's kind of a family tradition to start something that looks like a lost cause, then just soldier and make it work somehow on when you've found out that it definitely is. Obviously, I don't have the best upbringing to calibrate my practicality "barometer", so you could see why it's tough for me to consider a car too far gone, but with support from you guys, I think I'll be able to let go eventually...
You know, I can't remember why I got interested in 411's/412's recently. Maybe it was that discussion on vwvortex.com about rare VW's? They've been kicking around the back of my mind since the day when I was a young kid and realized the car I was seeing at the VW shop down the road wasn't a type III. I was like "Whoa, what the hell is that thing? It's weird!" Whenever I would see it again, it grew on me more and more. I'm always a fan of the underdog, the unappreciated, the underappreciated, and the obscure. Anyway, I think the 412 is a rather nicely styled car, quite avant-garde, which suits me just fine. I'm looking forward to seeing how they drive.

Its really interesting...with the cars you have found lately...and the one Death bus just came across.....and a few here and there,....like I said, these things are coming out of the woodwork. They will never be as plentiful even as type 3's....but its nice to see.

Practical. Now theres a word. Its one of the reasons I harp about replacing everything NOW....is practicality. Though we like to think the prevalence of these cars appearing will help us get more after market, save for a few people making parts...it will not happen. Just too few.
By that, I mean hard parts. The rubber parts and some of the cloth and plastic are just not that hard. Suspension, brakes and body.

When you put it all together correctly, do a few upgrades....its amazing how practical these cars are. I put about 150k miles on he gold 412. It died with a total on two engines of about 230k miles. The gray 411 wagon probably originally had 90k. Some refurb...I put another 60k on it. The blue one had about 70k from me and about 80k on it.

My current one...the chassis has about 200k on it. But everything under the skin has less than 10k on it. These are quite practical. More practical than a bug even. They have good power, good heat...are comfortable....handle well....and they have killer acoustics for a godd stereo. Ray

Oh, I don't doubt the cars are good. I can see it's just way more sophisticated than a Beetle, it's just that mine (like most) need quite a bit of work! It seems that many (Type 4's) that are still around are in original condition (rough, but unrestored), which says a lot! Who knows how many times a lot of Beetles you see have been completely rebuilt.

You can really tell that the 411/412's and the late buses were the last of VW's quality cars for a long time. How many Rabbits and A1 Scirroccos do you see? (trying to wipe bus goo off my hands as I type)

The rusting of the early A1 based cars is simply horrid, which doesn't help anything. Some Dashers and Quantums are still around and fairly solid. I'm sure they were trying to cut costs drastically as VW's were no longer cheap in the '70's, especially the 411/412 as I've read. As far as quality of VW's built in different places at different times, I'm not sure, as all the VW's I've had so far, barring the 412's, have been watercooled either USA or Mexico built.

my Golf is a total piece o crap, at 80,000 miles everything just stopped working.

Haven't too many problems with my '98 GTI, though I'm only at 73k mi. I had to replace the starter, and that's about the only thing besides wear items I've had to do (besides mods and accident damage repair). When it comes out of storage, I'll be doing a major tune up, including all fluids, serpentine belt, check the timing chain guide, etc...

The rabbit was actually a pretty good car. In 1978 it was THE most in-demand car in this country and almost worldide. There was a 6 month waiting list. They drove well, and got good gas milage...and wer decent quality. Then to keep up with demand, they opened a plant in Westmorland PA. Those cars wer juunk. That plant closed about 10 years ago because no one wanted what it produced. German parts (mostly) assembled in this country did not work. The Golfs had a problem mostly with too many variations in parts. They were trying too many things too fast to work out the bugs. If something did not work well...they simply replaced itwith a new design teh next year, that had its own bugs.
That also may be why the VW Audi group is now miles ahead of a lot of other car companies in technology....who knows.
The Dasher was actually a very good car....accomplished with too high a degree of complexity though. The carb on the carb version was insanely complex. But....look very carefully at the four door. Itsstyling is just one notch past the 411/412. I percieve that it was the first full size design after the 412. It had very nice seats on the nicer version. Drove very well..and was built very well. Ray

Yeah, I've heard that the USA built VW's are the least desirable. Interestingly enough, my '85 Golf is one of the first Golf II's built at the Westmoreland plant, with a production date of 9/84. Supposedly, production didn't start until 10/84 according to VW. What's interesting is that the sticker that specifies the engine and transmission codes says EN/FN which indicates a 1.7L Rabbit motor and transmission, though most doubt there is any way it came with that combination. As it is now, the engine, fuel system, etc... came as a hodgepodge of parts from different cars of varying year, so who knows?