Since we’re not doing anything major to the ’68 Beetle, there are a few things that I want to freshen up on it. The car has a brand new interior, dash, carpet, rubber mats, seat padding and covers, etc. Last week I freshened up the wiper arms with a good cleaning and fresh coat of correct paint and new blades. I’ve also got a new emergency brake boot to install, but I’m dreading it because I remember what a pain in the butt it can be. All of the light lenses are original and suffer the fading and cracking of 47 year old lenses, so I’ve got replacements on the way along with a new turn signal switch. I’ve also got new lap belts on the way from Wolfsburg West. Can’t wait to get them installed! The speedometer is in really good condition, other than the gels needing replaced and the infamous speedo whine. This speedo really sings and it is annoying! The speedo and cable are original to the car and many times, oiling up the speedo cable will take care of the whine. I’ve oiled it up twice now and it hasn’t had a positive affect. And since most aftermarket speedo cables are crap, I really want to keep the original. So what’s left is to pull the speedo, take it apart and grease the gears. It’ll also be a good opportunity to replace the gels. Buying a ’68 speedo is an option, however, the ’68’s are a one year only speedo and they can be hard to find and very expensive to replace, so my best option is to rebuild and freshen up the one I have. In the meantime, I’ve purchase a ’69 speedo to put in it’s place while the ’68 speedo is being rebuilt. The ’69’s are much easier to find and much, cheaper. You can see the differences in the speedo in the pics above. The ’69 donor I purchased is on the left, the original ’68 in the car is on the right. So hopefully, this will be next weekends project if I get the donor speedo in the mail this week.

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