I started on the plenum assembly restoration today.
I had the 1/2 side sitting in solvent overnight and went to it with brushes and scotch pads.
I sat there with the piece sitting in very hot water with Purple Power in it and scrubbed, rinsed, scrubbed, ran brushes through galleries and holes, etc.
This is hand/wrist/finger breaking work here but outside of having a parts media blaster, I see no other way.
I cannot even begin to describe the night and day difference between the part before and after I worked on it.
This first cleaning go so much filth off.
I had to use different sized brushes, and I can’t get into every space, but look at that (above)
I mean, that is almost brand new and probably what it looks like was it rolled off the assembly line.
You can even see production cast markings that were never filed off or generally smoothed out. The dirt hid all of that!
As hand hurting as this manual labor is, it is with this kind of work that I find ultimate happiness with Type 1 Beetles.
I mean, it could be anything similar. But for me, the simple honest work that can go into making something 41 years old in this instance look so much better just gives me a sense of satisfaction that very little else in my life brings me.
I can’t describe it at all really.
There’s just something amazing when restoring a part and you see it transform right before yours eyes.
I am just trying to imagine the finished product, with the totally clean throttle body and hopefully cleaned up cold start valve up top and all new hardware holding it all togther with a custom cut gasket.
The water was so filthy after cleaning. But it worked for the first cleaning.
I decided to get a bit of head start on the 1/2 side and was working on the externals when I realized what time it was.
I needed to mow the front lawn now that the rather hot sun was setting but before it was annoy the neighbors.
Perhaps I’ll have time tomorrow to get the first cleaning done on this side.