Aircooled VW South Africa

This car came to me. At the time i was only interested in the engine, but there was just something about this specific car that made it stand out from others. Although from the winter rainfall area, this car was kept in a garage for a large part of it's life. Also obvious was that this car was generally not fiddled with by some mechanics/ previous owners who did not know what they were doing. (With 2 exceptions and one act of sabotage, but later more on that).

Originally wanted to find a type 3 stationwagon. To make a nice spacious and practical daily driver. (Actually all my cars are daily drivers, some just more practical than others).
Those who had tried to sleep in a beetle half way on a Cape to JHB trip will understand. The kombi is practical, but i never owned a type 3 or 4 car before, and wanted to explore something different as well.

This car was just too good to scrap it for it's engine. And the type 3's i saw at the time were suffering from advanced body cancer.

Against keeping the 412 was: Body styling. At the time VW contracted Pininfarina to design the body shape, and they could have done better. Although from the side it does not look too bad.
At the time VW sprayed foam inside some body channels, which could cause rust to form if it got wet inside. Front suspension is a challenge to overhaul, especially centrelink, but when done properly it lasts well.

For the 412 was: already has disc front brakes and irs rear suspension like the last automatic type 3's that were sold in SA. And this particular car has a manual transmission, which i wanted. Already had a type 4 engine, front boot is massive, and car is quiet inside. Plus some effort was made by vw to design in a bit of crash protection/crumple zones.

This car was not used for the past 15 years, so the brakes needed some attention.
My first and most important objective is to do rust prevention, especially inside the body channels. This is more important than looks, so there are numerous places where little rust spots were removed, treated, and touched up with a little brush. Respray will have to wait until l have more time, and have decided on a colour.

Took the car for roadworthy. Parked at the entrance, and filled in some paperwork at the office. Then noticed the inspector and his young assistant at the car. They tried to open the bonnet for inspection. Thought they wanted to verify the chassis number, so i opened bonnet for them. This is what they saw:

The young assistant said "Ha-ha, where's the camera?", and looked around. Then: "This car was not driven, it was pushed here as a joke, there is even a carpet covering the gearbox!"
Then i remembered that there was an engine block lying under the bonnet.

Car passed the test, papers sorted and registered in my name.
More pictures to follow.

Congrats on the new acquisition, can't wait for the rest of the photos.

These cars have a special place in my heart, we had a maroon 412LE Automatic as a family car, we were 7 kids and we fitted in there quite comfortably with space to spare !

I'm glad that you have saved this one Dawie, congrats on the roadworthy That is always a relief. What colour are you going to spray it

Removed front suspension to overhaul centrelink, idler arm bush, and other suspension parts. Also removed tank to be able to get to spaces to do rust prevention treatment.

Surprise was that there was about 5 hands full of sand inside the tank. Had previously noticed that the fuel injection pump battled to pump. The fine strainer inside tank was semi-blocked.

Fixed the fuel sender unit.
Also modified the tank return line for easier servicing and improved safety.
The standard return line feeds into a bucket/baffle at bottom of tank. This means that if return line is removed or punctured, the whole tank will drain out, even if pump is switched off. (A switched off pump blocks the feed line, but fuel can still flow out of return line). Metal return line now goes upwards inside tank to top, where fuel direction turns around downwards and still exits into same "baffle-bucket" at the bottom. At the very top inside, there is a small 1.5mm hole to draw air. Preventing fuel to siphon out if return line is disconnected. Top of return loop is attached inside near top of tank to be steady.

Lower part exits through a hole at bottom of tank, where it was brazed. Old return line was then blocked.
This is what it looks inside. Colour balance is way out, so it looks more yellow and looks worse than it actually is.

getting the love she deserves!
Congrats on the 412!

Used the car to load some wood for the fireplace.


Some preventative maintenance i did to the bodywork earlier on. Rear and front fenders were removed to get behind them. For some surface rust removal and treatment.


Interior-carpets and covers removed for inspection and treatment.

Keep the pictures coming!

jolas wrote:we had a maroon 412LE Automatic as a family car,

i saw a maroon automatic parked in a street in paradys kloof whilst i was there. it had a cream coloured roof though.
maybe it was your old cab !

splitbusahollic wrote:

jolas wrote:we had a maroon 412LE Automatic as a family car,

i saw a maroon automatic parked in a street in paradys kloof whilst i was there. it had a cream coloured roof though.
maybe it was your old cab !

No, our 412 rusted away in our back yard in Durban all those years ago - my mom gave it away in the end

Dawie this car looks remarkably rust free - how did it end up unused for 15 years ?

The previous owner had a collection of some oldish cars, mainly American. The garage space where the 412 lived had to be evacuated as renovations was planned there. There was also some licensing issues to be sorted...

Prior to that, it seems the 412 spent some time around Gordons Bay area where that owner had a lockup garage. Think the fact that this car was garaged made all the difference. Especially in the winter rainfall area.

Some time a go i bought another 412 as a parts car for this one. Parts car had been resprayed before and looked good. But underneath, it was rotten to pieces. Because the last few years the previous owner had parked it outside in the rain. Seems that the moment water enters the inside of a car... rust happens fast. Continuous dampness around all those nooks and crannies and cavities where the factory's paint guns could not reach. Causing the car to rust from the inside.

The type 4 cars were sprayed with foam inside the cavities. Once this foam gets wet, "dan is dit nag", rust happens fast. What i did was to remove this foam where possible. Made some hooks and scratched into the cavities. Bent the hooks to get around corners. Then used a brush attached to a bent rod, and a mirror. (No chance of getting a spray gun in there). To treat the surfaces as preventative maintenance. This took weeks, and lots of patience. Must still fit normal tar type sound deadening pads in some places...

In the meantime, this has been a hard working and very enjoyable and practical daily driver.

Some time ago i widened two of the rims. At the time, was'nt happy with the results, as i measured 0.5mm runout on one. Found out later that some of the original rims (think they were made locally by Gustrow), had even more runout. And after reading some info under "advice", i realised that i was too critical. So i had some 195-65-15 tyres fitted to them. That is the most commonly available 15" tyre, i think. Nearly same outer diameter as standard 165-80-15 tyres.

Plan is to only use those wider tyres at the rear. Porsche found that a rear engined car handles better if the rear tyres are wider than the front ones. So i keep 165x80 on the front. Nice easy and lighter steering than using wide front tyres.

Standard rim offset was retained.
Thought about fitting Fuchs rims, (412 has same 130mm pcd as Fuchs, but 4 more holes needs to be drilled as Porsche has 5 bolts). But... i already have Fuchs on 3 other cars, (14", 15", and 16"), so i have enough of them already.

Got this message form HR:
"Spotted. Nice to see your 412 on the road yesterday. Post some pictures please."

Car still looks the same as in last picture. When i take another picture i will post it.
In the meantime, car has been a useful daily driver. A lot of time was spent doing rust-prevention and fixing minor rust issues in unseen places.

But externally it still has lots of minor stone chips- surface rust. In the distant future, this will also receive attention. But right now, i have other priorities.

Nice thing is that, at the traffic lights, the beggars leaves me alone and go for the more expensive-looking cars. Bad thing is that some guy with his superiority complex, driving his new expensive suv, will often try to push in front of me. When i drive the 911, their reactions are totally different.

Unfortunately there are not alot of Type4`s saved and if you owned one you will know how they drive awesome