My never ending 1976 Beetle Resto.

2009-02-16T08:29:00.004-05:00

Last night I pulled the doors out of the corner of the garage to start preping them. I started with the passanger side. I noticed that the window would not roll down and realized that I needed to take a look at the regulator. Getting the regulator out was no fun job. It took me about 4 hours to figure out how to get it loose. I finally found a how-to on TheSamba forums. http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=335018&highlight=window+regulator

This was one of the best tutorials I have seen. It was amazingly helpful. I only wish I would have found it a few hours earlier.

Anyway, after getting the regulator out, it was evident that it was rusted solid. I ended up drilling out the rivets that held the crank mechanism together to free it up. I wire wheeled all of the parts and applied grease to everything. It moves freely now. A little noisy, but functional. I will either rivet the unit back together or tack weld where I drilled the unit out.

I have no pictures as of yet, but will post some a little later.

ALSO,

I noticed in my settings for the blog, that comments were set to be accepted from Blogger.com members only. This has been changed to allow for anyone to comment. So if you were trying to comment at one point and couldn't, you should be able to now. Thanks.

Nose Job and new trunk lid

2009-02-14T23:01:00.007-05:00

Today I took some time to address the roughness of the front apron of the car. It wasn't horrible, but there were a plentiful abount of dents and dings. Also, the previous owner layered body filler over surface rust and many places that just plain didn't need it. After stripping down the whole apron, I DA sanded it to bare metal and cleaned off any surface rust that was left. A thin skim of glaze and some primer, and the apron looks like new. I also repaired the back of the apron plug since it was a bit rusted and not very strong. While I was working on the front of the car, I dry fit a new trunk lid that I recently purchased from a kind gentleman on craigslist (thanks Roy!). Here are some photos of the finished apron and new hood:

Aside from the apron and the trunk lid, I welded in a few captive nuts in to the fender mounting area. With the exception of the hood needing sanded and primered, all body work on the front of the car is done. I have one remaining wheel housing to primer and the rear louvers. Almost time for paint!!! WoooHoo!!

See ya soon!

Trunk Area and More Primer

2009-01-21T13:46:00.004-05:00

This is a bit of an odds and ends post but still warrants it being here. I got the rest of the trunk area cleaned up, stripped of its surface rust and primered. All in all it wasn't very bad. It just looked ugly with all the layers of overspray and surface rust. Here is a picture of it how it looks now:

I also got the passenger side rear quarter finished and in primer. There are no before pictures, but it was full of large dents, as if someone kicked it in at one point, and the bottom was rotted out where it meets the heater channel. This turned out nicely as well:

The car is mostly in primer as of now. I will post it's current state in my next post. But right now, it's freezing...so I'll get those pictures another day!

See ya soon!

Spare Tire Well Replacement

2009-01-21T13:24:00.005-05:00

The spare tire well of the car initially looked pretty decent. But as with the rest of the car, a little poking and prodding proved me wrong. This was really no surprise. I had looked at replacement panels for this application, but being that I am on a very tight budget, I opted to make one and spend mostly my time instead of money.

Here is a picture of the old panel. Much rust. After cutting it out, it was bout as strong as cereal box cardboard.

Cutting it out was the easy part. fabricating the new insert, proved itself to be a very trying task. There were indentations that needed to be put into the new panel to provide strength, rigidity and to keep the spare tire from sitting too much on the bottom and allowing water to be trapped under it.

It took me roughly 3 hours of pounding and smoothing with various tools that were clearly not designed for the job. I accomplished this by laying the cut piece of sheet metal on a 2 inch thick piece of roofing foam and pounding away with different pieces of heavy steel blocks until I achieved the proper indents. Note that the two outer indents are towards the bottom of the car, and the middle one is towards the top. This picture was during the fitting of the panel and before welding.

The panel turned out very nice and is alot stronger than I thought it would be. This will last a very long time. This next picture is after welding and seam sealer.

Now that this is done, I can clean up and primer the trunk area. That will be on the next post.

Bye for now!

The Gas Filler Neck Area.

2009-01-21T13:14:00.004-05:00

This will be a pretty short post, but I didn't want to leave it out.

The gas filler area was pretty rotted out on the front quarter and badly needed replaced. Also, since I am ommiting the fuel injection from this car, the fuel setup would need to be appropriately modified.

The gentleman I bought the rear apron from also sold me a gass filler panel from a '72 beetle. It fit my application to a tee. I searched high and low for the before pictures but couldn't find them anywhere. However, here are pictures of the new filler neck welded in.

This filler setup had the assembly for the locking gas flap that was released from the glovebox. While I really liked this setup, it did not seem to fit as well as my standard door, and it was also kind of loose. I left myself the option of putting it back in later if desired. Over all it turned out pretty nice.

On to the BUBBLE-BUTT!!! (It's gotta go!!!)

2009-01-21T12:41:00.009-05:00

That rear apron had been bothering me for quite some time. I couldn't stand the look of it protruding from behind the car. I much preferred the sleek look of a standard apron with two exhaust cutouts. And since this car will never again be fuel injected...this was perfect. Here is a shot of the old fuel injected apron. Quite beat up as you can see...

I acquired a new apron from a gentleman in California as well as a gas filler neck area to replace my badly damaged parts. Both replacements needed a little tlc to look good, but it really paid off!

Here is a look at the rear of the car after drilling out all of the spot welds and removing the apron:

Next I fitted the new apron to the body and tack welded the outer wings. It fit really well and took minimal adjustments from the hammer.

Still a little rough looking, but at least it is original german metal. No aftermarket crap here! You can see that when the panel was cut from the doner car, the top ears were hacked off. I was able to piece these in using metal from my old apron. Also notice that someone drilled two holes in the center of the apron. It appears that this was done to make use of a pre-67 decklid. I welded these shut and did the remaining body work before primering.

This is a look at the semi-finished product. Sure looks alot better than the previous apron. This will look awesome when finished!!!

Well, that's it for this post. More to come, very soon!!!

The primer begins!!!

2009-01-21T12:26:00.005-05:00

Well, I have gotten most of the major welding completed on the project. Only a few minor areas remain. I started getting the areas that I have completed in primer to protect them and to also get a better look at how my bodywork turned out.

The front quarter looks alot better now that it is stripped of it's years of bad paint and weathering. The car will most likely be a few hundred pounds lighter lacking the many layers that I sanded off. Heres a picture of the drivers side front:

I put the body back down on the pan and got a little more primering done. It's slowly starting to look like a car again.

That rear apron was really bugging me when I too this picture. Big ol' bubble-butt! Luckily, I had already bought one from a gentleman in California, as well as a new gas filler neck and lid. Thos will be installed shortly.

More later.....

Fron Heater Channel Rot (continued...)

2009-01-21T12:00:00.005-05:00

Last I posted, I was repairing the front section of the heater channels. I finished the inside and it is structurally sound. Next I had to repair the toe board and firewall area where the heater channel is welded in. Below is a picture of the drivers side after removing most of the rot. The size of the hole after cutting out all of the bad metal was roughly 6"x6".

First I focused on repairing the inner section, where the heater channel actually goes into the firewall. I tabbed the ends to allow a mating surface to weld to the firewall. This will make it as strong as new.

After getting everything all welded inside, I cut and welded in the front section for the firewall. I failed to get a closeup picture, but you can see the patch in the following picture. The green is putty that I used to seal the weld seam. It is unnoticeable now.I'll leave it at that for this post. Much more to write and catch up on, but I will break it up into several posts.

See ya soon!

Front Heater Channel Rot.

2008-08-28T10:27:00.007-04:00

Ok, so I had a little bit of disapointment when I peered into the front of the heater channel while investigating another repair. After blowing out all of the debris in the channel to inspect thoroughly, I noticed some pin holes in the front elbow of the heater channel that goes up to the defrosters. I definitely did not want to let this area go untouched as I would never be able to get to it once everything else was sealed up. I ended up cutting about a 7 inch section out of the bottom plate of the heater channel so I could get a better look at the damage. After getting the plate section removed, I noticed that it was much more than a pin hole. The elbow needed completely replaced.

Elbow Rot:

My first step in getting this fixed, was to remove the elbow, and see how the rest of it was. If nothing else, I needed it to use as a guideline for the new section. After getting the old piece out, it was clear that I would be working pretty much blind. It was almost completely destroyed.

Old Elbow:

Knowing the basic dimensions of the part that I needed to make, I took a few measurements from the channel section of the car to determine what the original diameter of the pipe was. It turned out to be just a hair over 1.5 inches.

The new elbow was made from stock 24 guage flat sheet metal. I cut strips of metal and bent them around an aluminum pipe, and then welded the seam from the inside once removed from the pipe. I made two of these.

Next, I cut a diamond shaped piece of sheet metal to make the corner of the elbow. This would wrap around the outer corner of the elbow. Surprisingly, everthing turned out very well. Not bad from starting with flat metal!

New Elbow:

I had to cut a bit of the new elbow section down to make room to mate it to the old pipe, and so it would be a little easier to get up into the fender area. I then made a smaller sleeve to slip inside the old and new pipes to get a nice air-tight seal. Everything fit amazingly well, and looks good also.

New Elbow in Place:

Everything is welded in place and sturdier than ever. I'm going to apply a layer of zinc coating over everything and then seam seal all of the welds as an extra added precaution. After that I will clean up the section of the bottom plate that I removed and weld it back in place.

In total, I spent fourteen dollars to repair my heater channel. Not too bad.

See ya soon!!

Finishing Sail Panel Welding

2008-08-28T10:05:00.005-04:00

I finally finished welding the patches into the outer sail panel on the drivers side of the car. After much cutting and piecing everything in, it turned out pretty well and will only require a skim of glazing putty to make it look good.

Before patching in the big hole at the rear, I tacked in a few tabs under the existing metal. This probably isn't the 'correct' way of doing this, but I didn't think I could flange the existing metal without ruining the curve of the body in that section.

Tabs Welded into Place:

Once I had the tabs welded in it was a pretty quick process to tack in the remaining patch. I had to go over the pin holes a few times to get everything sealed real good. As a precaution, I am going to spray the entire inside of the panel with a rust treatment before closing up the inside. This should keep my body work nice and fresh for years to come.

Finished Patch:

I noticed that after I finished the patch, that the area had a little warping had occurred from the heat. To remedy the situation, I heated the area with a propane torch, and then quickly cooled it with ice water. The metal shrunk back to its original shape after two times doing this. The below picture still looks as though the panel is distorted, but the dark areas are mainly from heating the metal.

After Heating and Cooling Panel:

Over all I was very pleased with the outcome of this panel. I'm glad that I did not have to buy a new quarter.

Thanks for reading!!! See ya next post!

Part III - Getting into the body work.

2008-08-19T12:42:00.008-04:00

I started getting into the heavy body work this past weekend. I mentioned on my last post that I was planning on starting on the front section of the drivers heater channel, but moved on to this instead. This is the part that terrified me for some time now. I had some huge gaping holes just below and to the rear of the drivers side rear quarter window.

Before Picture:

I've never been much of a bodyman, nor had I ever tackled this kind of repair before. The size of the holes really made this difficult for me to start since I really wasn't sure of the outcome. I figured I'd better just dive in before I chickened out.

I started by grinding out as much of the bad metal as I could using a combination of a 4 inch cutting disk on a Dewalt angle grinder, and abrasive stripper on a drill, and good old metal snips. The rot ended up extending about 2 more inches to the rear, and also stretched down under the wheel well about 4 inches. I decided to work from the outside in, starting to piece in under the wheel well, then up under the wing vent. Notice that I have the wiring harness pulled up and out of the way with a scrap piece of sheet metal. I didn't want it to be incinerated from the heat of the welder. Also note the hole on the inside of the body visible in my patch area. This is actually turing out to be fairly useful in shaping the outside panel from within. I'll patch that last. I left a little bit of an overhang on the bottom patch so that I would have a surface to mate the next patch to.

Patching in progress:

Next, I moved onto the fender mounting area. This was a little more tricky for two reasons. First, the metal had a double bend to it and second, I needed to fabricate the fender mounting on the left side of the patch. The stock panel had a 1 x1.5 inch indentation that I needed to mimic before welding in the nut. To do this, I cut a 1 x 1.5 inch piece of wood and clamped it in my vise, marked the center of the wood with a black dot. Next I drilled a hole in the center of where the mounting indentation was supposed to be. I then took the patch that I cut, centered the hole with the black dot on the piece of wood and hammered it over top of the wood using a rubber mallet.

Next Patch:

After getting the fender mount tacked in, I moved up to the section by the wing vent. I figured I would do this and the lower section seperately to make retaining the body line easier. This patch went pretty well with only minor flaws.

Patch below wing vent: Now it was time for the part of the patch that I really wasn't looking forward to. I was a little hesitant since this part of the panel has multiple curves to it and I do not own any fancy tools. I don't even own body hammers and dollies.

I started by cutting te patch metal to the rough shape of the hole, leaving about a quarter inch extra around all the edges. To get the convex bend in the patch, I layed the metal on a soft piece of pine and started hammering at it lightly with my trusty rubber mallet. After about 20 minutes, I had the metal in just about the right shape to make the patch.

I held the patch up against the cut out section and trimmed any metal that would over extend the hole and also mated it on the overhang of the lower patch. I had to continue bending and hammering the metal as I spot welded it in to help with retaining the shape. All went surprisingly well. Especially for my first attempt.

Semi-finished patch:

All I have left to do for this patch is to fill in any pinholes left from welding, make final adjustments to the body lines from the inside, which is why the hole on the inside of the patch will be useful, and finally put a coat of glazing putty to smooth over the patch. Over all, I think this turned out pretty well.

That's it for this post. For the next post I am going to try and finish the rear drivers side sail panel.

See ya soon!

Part II - Still catching up...

2008-08-15T21:26:00.000-04:00

I finally got around to startng work on the body of my bug this past week. There were a couple of spots that I really hadn't taken into account when looking for rust. Other than that, I knew that the car did indeed have a notable amount of spots that rotted through. I just didn't realize the severity.

After stripping the body to bare metal, I found some pinholes in the sheet metal just behind and below the rear quarter window. One thing I found to be very true... Where there are pinholes, there will be bigger holes. When I sanded the area, the hole grew to about the size of a Nerf football. I think this area will be the most challenging since it's very visable, and the body has many contours at that point.

After uncovering the mess on the back quarter panel, I started poking and prodding the heater channels since rust loves to accumulate there as well. Over all, the heater channels were in surprisingly decent shape with only minor repairs necessary. The front toe boards are rotted out just where the heater channels meet them. They were also rotted out at the rear running board mount, just above where the jack support sits.

Before the repair:
After the repair:

I still have to finish a few welds to fill in any pinholes on the repair panel, but I'll need to grind down the spot welds that I did already to make a smooth work surface. Not too bad of a job for a novice right? While I was at it, I decided to tear out the rear heat ducts that reside under the back seat. I found plenty of rot there too. The passenger side was alot worse than the drivers side, which means I will need to purchase a full cross member repair panel for it.

Passenger side:

Drivers side:

I decided that for the drivers side cross member, that a patch using heavy guage sheet metal would be adequate. After some cutting and bending the metal with my vise and a hammer, I was able to make a patch that fit very nicely, and is every bit as strong as the original. I still need to grind down the welding.

Drivers side after repair:

Next I will be finishing the spot welds on the back of the heater channel, then moving to the front of the drivers side heater channel and toe board area.
More to come!!!.......

Part I - Catch Up

2008-08-15T15:00:00.001-04:00

Early in 2005, I had the opportunity to purchase 4 VW Beetles on an Ebay auction. All of them were in pretty rough shape and the common 'Beetle Rust' was far beyond started. I really wasn't sure about purchasing them though as I had no idea where I was going to keep them. I didn't even have a garage at the time, and all of my parking was on street. So on a whim, I brought the lil buggers home in the hopes that someday, one of them would make it back to the road. My mother and father housed 3 of the cars for a short time while I came up with a plan. (Thanks mom & dad!)
I carefully looked over all of the cars, trying to decide what would be done. After much poking and prodding, I decided to keep the 1976 Standard Beetle that had, so lovingly, given me the hardest time during transport. It was painted (hideously) between a shade of purple and pink, and looked like the paint was done with a mixture of a Wagner power painter, like the ones you paint your house with, and a paint brush. The paint was actually so bad, you really couldn't tell if there were any dents or body work. This is a pic just before the long trip home from Ohio.

I stripped the other 3 cars for parts, sold one, scrapped another and the last sits somewhere out on the outskirts of town in the clutches of an evil presence.
The first few months, I got alot accomplished on the car. I completely dismantled it and began stripping it of it's thick exoskeleton of paint. This is a picture of the body in it's semi current state.

After about 2 years of not working on the project, I finally picked it back up and really started tearing into things. One thing that I learned.... Rust can hide in MANY places! Official work resumed in late July 2008.

I started with some brand new floorpans from the JC Whittney catalog. Shortly after recieving the new pan halves in the mail... I discovered that they were made in Brazil. Brazillian pans are not quite the strength and quality that German made pans are. (Glad I ordered the Heavy Duty set.) It took me about 2 days to prep the chassis for the installation of the new pans, which included alot of grinding, sanding and welding some miscellaneous patches into the frame area. Welding in the pans actually only took about an hour for each. I was quite pleased with the results. A nice coat of Rhino Liner on the belly will make these last a very long time...

I'll end this post here to keep things at a readable length. I'll do some more catching up on the next post. Stay tuned.....