B1 Passat Estate

[ajbull88]

Well we started the repairs to our Estate today. Plan is to replace motor with one from our donor car, repair a few minor dents & repaint. Lots of small thing need to be fixed too, dash clock doesn't work but we have spare, replace hand brake cable and maybe reupholster interior. Hope to get the car back on the road again a.s.a.p

[Peter Jones]

Very cool!

There's not nearly enough Passats on the road.

Looking forward to watching the progress.

Good Luck.

Pete

[ontarv]

nice body looks in good nick
keep the updates

[16v_kid]

Looks like its never been restored...(which is good!) very original car.

Great project mate.

Keep us updated.

Cheers.

[ajbull88]

The car is original paint, last owner had it for 18 years and was sad to let it go. He updated to a new Volvo Estate. I have never owned VW before, but thought this too good to let go. I'm restoring it for my daughter and she is helping with the resto. Were going through everything, CV boots, seat track rails and even the dash clock. It's going to be her ever day driver so I want it to be in perfect order. Luckily I found a donor car with lots of spares too (1974 4 door hatch) on ebay which had been in a shed for the last 20 years with only 98K on the clock.
I'm amazed at how good these car drives!!!!! Haven't seen any others on the road, but i think the parts will be hard to get now, especially the tailgate.
Will keep updating as we progress.

[tassie_euro_mk1]

Excellent!!!

I really like the B1 passat estates. I have an original 76 passat sedan, two owners in its life one being for 31 years!!! The drive great. Suspension is a bit soggy though. Its a very simple car.

Parts are a little bit difficult to find. I always cruise the international ebay sites, there can be some cool, retro rare stuff on there for the passat. But in America its called a Dasher, in Germany its called passat 32, UK dont have alot but its passat B1 or mk1, and the Brazilians have a few good passat parts also. Worth a look.


Anyways its great to see another B1 passat having a resto. There arnt many left on our roads and they are a very underated car IMO.

Keen to see more pics and updates
Cheers
Eric

[Jarred]

good luck with it all, keep us updated!

[auditwmba]

ajbull88,

Thanks for reminding me of our B1 Passat days - we had a '76 LS sedan and a '77 GLS wagon for about 13 years. We travelled many thousands of kilometres in them and our kids learnt to drive in them.

The sedan had a Weber 32/36DGV carb with TS manifold as well as GLS (four light) grill - with spot lights, it would light up the road with 580 watts of power! An 80 amp Audi alternator was mandatory. I still have the GLS grill (for sale).

Good luck with the restoration. By the way, the headlight reflectors look a bit sad. Also check the plenum chamber for rust - the sound-proofing retains water rusting the metal underneath. The worst case is rust holes leading to water dripping onto the fuse box (it happened to me); big effort to fix.

Good luck

Rob

[vinderliker]

Old skool rules! OK!

[ajbull88]

Thanks for all the positive comments everyone, as I'm new to VW's it is a learning experience every time I undo something. Pulling the motor out was straight forward. Luckily with the donor car we have replacement head lights, spare parts for repairing our seat track rails as there worn. As for rust, under the plenum is really good condition. There is some small rust holes on the passenger side-sub frame where it bolts to the engine cross member. With the motor now out this will be easy to weld up. The car is almost rust free, a little surface rust under the drivers door and a little above one of the side chrome moldings. As we are painting the car, I'll remove all the moldings, bumpers and door handles to get a good look under everything and a nicer paint job too. We are going to repaint it sky blue in Acrylic, as I don't have a booth at my workshop.
more pic's soon