Buying a 72 super beetle

First thing you need to know is that it's aircooled and not watercooled :-)

Might want to ask the your question in RAMVWA ("A" for aircooled) ... will probably get more responses and valid comments.

Well I guess you now know this is for water cooled.

In any case, I would say you are lucky it is manual. The only real problems I would look out for are rust (Check the floor pan, heater tubes and front suspension parts.) and the pollution control trash that was on it. Once that stuff gets screwed up, it is next to impossible to get it right again. If it starts and runs well, that is a very good sign.

Plan on spending a lot of money to fix it up. Main problem is RUST so take a close look at the floor-pan, header support for front suspension. Is the car in a rust prone state?

In my experience rust is fixable, but is in not a permanent fix. My family owned a body shop for 22 years. I did a LOT of repair and custom work. Sure, you can weld in patches or replace panels, but that won't last very long. The factory starts out with clean steel, spot welds the panels together, and then DUNKS the entire car body in cleaners, acids, and then primer. The primer seeps into every joint between 2 panels. It is impossible to field duplicate this process. Once major components like rockers, heating channels, floor pans, frame tube seams, etc. start to go, you won't stop it. You may slow it down quite a bit in the repair areas, but the rust you just repaired is only an indicator that the rest of the car will soon show rust in other places. It just does not happen in the one spot you can see. Car bodies rust everywhere, just at different rates. rustproofing compounds require flawless and COMPLETE application to be effective. Even then, the rustproofing will only stick to clean primered/painted steel. Again, difficult to duplicate in the field.

Beetle restorers know this well. They try to find "pristine" units to start with that have absolutely no visible rust on them anywhere. They then remove the body from the pan and sandblast everything to get a good look at the external welded joints and seams. They run long handled mirrors down the heating channels to look inside. I saw one shop using miniature cameras. Once done, some restorers reject vehicles at this point because, upon this inspection, rust has already started up all over.

That said, it is fun for some folks to undertake these types of projects. You can fix a bug up to look good for a year or two, and then decide whether or not to repeat the process when the rust starts to reappear. Just be sure to manage your expectations. Some sheet metal and bondo won't yield a $20,000 show car. Good Luck, Mike

.stuff snipped > Rust is fixable - most

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