It may take years and years, but everything eventually needs to be replaced.
It’s not just the oil in the engine of your beetle that needs to be changed regularly. Everything, just like us. is aging. It may be the rubber hoses going to the air cleaner. It may be the spark plug wires, or the points and condenser. However, everything will eventually need some sort of service.
This became quite apparent on my recent 1975 Yamaha XS650B motorcycle. The tires are almost 20 years old, yet look brand new. If this sounds familiar, you are correct. I replaced the tires on the Sea Blue Beetle last spring, not because they were worn, but because they were old, really old. While they looked brand new, I knew that they rubber was probably hard as a rock.
It’s the same on the 1975 Yamaha, the tires look beautiful, but they are not safe. However, it’s not just the tires that are old on the bike. I found a wire that leads to the rear brake, that had dry rotted. Probably not a huge issue for some owners, as it really is just a brake wear sensor wire. It triggers a light on the instrument control, if the brake shoes are worn out.
In fact, many owners of this model (and the other four model years it was installed on), have disconnected the wire and drive without one. Like with the beetle, I am a purist, so I am not going that route. I have temporarily repaired the wire and began a search for a NOS (new old stock) replacement.
The problem with this particular part is that having only been on four model years, you can’t find the part anywhere. In fact, even finding the part number was an exercise in frustration. I could not even find it in the Yamaha service manual.
We are lucky as beetle owners to have a service manual created by John Muir (How to keep your Volkswagen Alive). The Yamaha service manual can’t hold a candle to the work done by John Muir, his wife Eve, and Peter Aschwanden. I have to say the Yamah service manual for this bike was close to worthless.
Anyway, I am guessing that there are only 120,000 Yamaha motorcycles that were produced that had that specific “lead Wire”. You can be sure that of that number, some fifty years later there are not a lot of those bikes on the road.
So, finding a “Wire Lead” for a 1975 Yamaha 650 is just as hard as finding an original seat hold down strap for a 1966 beetle. In actuality, it’s harder to find the Yamaha part since many more beetles were produced than this particular model of motorcycle. That is one of the benefits of having a machine that was mass produced, and all of them so closely related.
Fortunately, I was able to find the NOS part for the bike. It came at a pretty high price but that is the world we live. The folks that have original parts, know their value. I will keep the original one as well, and see if I can do a more meaningful repair.
So where does all of this lead us? Look at your bug and make sure that your parts are in good shape. Not just the superficial obvious stuff, but the parts you can’t easily see. The master cylinder comes to mind as one of those hard to see items, as well as brake and fuel lines etc. Sometimes you get lucky and stumble on to something that needs to be fixed or replaced. However, inspecting your beetle regularly will keep you from the “gotcha” stuff. It will also give you time to do research and buy parts to keep your beetle running like a top.
