Continue working on the VW bug center console #491

Now that the door electronics are functioning properly, I must return to the center console. The center console is going to be challenging, there are so many devices to fit and wire up. First, I must come up with a general design. Since the inside of the bug is tight, I must minimalize, but still fit everything I want.

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Finish wiring VW bug door poppers & power windows #490

After a week’s worth of wiring, I now have everything working in the doors. The door poppers, power windows and the door open switch are all working and I am happy with that. The only thing left to wire in the door is the stereo speakers. With this all working I can now move on to the stereo installation.

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Start wiring VW bug door poppers & power windows #489

Now with the door poppers and window motors mounted, I have to start wiring it all up. I have selected the passenger side floor board cavity to mount all of the controllers and relays. Now comes the fun part, wiring.

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Install VW bug door poppers #488

With the console kinda finished, for now, I am trying to get all the other electrical devices wired up. I am working on my door wiring to determine the door wire loom setup. First I must figure out the door popping mechanism, after some thinking I came up with a solution. Old fashion tech, I just used a few brass pulleys and a cable attached to a big ass solenoid.

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Finish the VW bug main console #487

I’m still working on the center console. Once I got both pieces to fit I removed them and cut the forward section into two pieces so I can remove the console during construction. I also filled in all the screw head holes and painted it to seal it. So now I need to get all the electrical done inside the console to be able to call it complete.

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Build the VW bug console #486

Now that the dash is temporarily finished, I must now construct some sort of center console. I guess just one piece at a time. I built a piece that fit over the center console and shifter first. I then built the front portion up to the firewall. I will have to put a break in the front portion to get it in and out.

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Finish plumbing up the VW bug AC vent hoses #485

With the ac finally working I can plumb up the vent hoses. There are 8 outputs in the classic auto ac unit. The 4 rear outputs are basically for the floor and defog vents and the front are for the dash vents. I have hooked up the defog tubes to the factory VW bug vents. It all works so I have to refit the dash board to finish everything up.

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VW bug AC initial setup and fill #484

With the radiator redesign complete I can now finish the air conditioning. I finished locating the drier and building the last 2 AC tubes. It’s all a tight fit, hopefully it will work OK. After putting in all the “o” rings and sealing up everything I am now bulling a vacuum to insure that there are no leaks. So far so good.

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Finish VW bug radiator redesign #483

Now with the radiator installed and functioning, I need to seal off the front nose compartment. I am using thin aluminum panels to close in the sides of the radiator and an extruded aluminum angle to close in above. All the hot air will now be forced through the front opening under the bottom of the nose piece. So far so good.

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Finish VW bug radiator redesign build ducting #482

Now that the radiator and AC condenser have been married together, I can put everything back together. I had to remake some of the brackets to hold the overflow bottle and power steering reservoir in a higher position than before. With the radiator filled and the car running again, I must now seal the nose of the front compartment from the foot-box area. I will install three aluminum panels to accomplish this.

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