Great strides

We're at a point now where it seems like we're nearing the end of the disassembly, and we're starting to put things back on to the bug now. THAT is a good feeling!

It's been really hard to find the time to get up and work on the car, but Renae and the boys went to PA this weekend. It was "payback" for G and I going camping two weeks ago I suppose. So I have been taking full advantage of the situation and using my time wisely, if you will! Unfortunately, I also spent most of this weekend so far pretty sick - so out of three days, the first two went pretty slowly, but today as long as the cold meds were working so were we!

We've been making up hard to find panels from scratch. Sometimes that is pretty easy, like the inside rear apron that nobody is really going to see. But other times that is pretty difficult, like making up the outside "H" apron that EVERYONE is going to look at. We spent a little time today shaping the bar stock that will form the "H" and the little bars to either side.

Once the relief is made up, a template is used to cut out a steel blank. That steel will then be clamped to the form, and then hammered into shape. Hopefully soon we will have a planishing hammer (its on order) which will make this much easier, faster and more professional looking. The bead roller helps make the long, even grooves and shapes. It's really cool!

We got the transmission out pretty painlessly today. That was a real relief after it taking more than a dozen hours of hard labor getting the motor out last fall. We were able to save the emergency brake cables and tubes, complete with zirks. We're going to change over the brakes to a larger dual cylinder system, so most of what we took out won't necessarily be reused.

I spent a good deal of time cleaning up hardware though ~ ironically, while we can make panels large and small, matching hardware seems to be quite a problem!

There was a bit of rust that had formed in the center of the rear seat area. We knew a while ago that it had to go, so we made the repair panel some time ago - but we didn't get to actually cut out the bad area and weld in the good until now. I have to say it was a pretty challenging piece, as we had to line up panels and grooves coming from several directions.

After lots of cutting, welding, hammering, cutting, welding, hammering, cutting, welding and hammering... We got something that looks pretty darn good!

We got all of the butt welding and most of the rough shaping in tonight, but we sort of lost our light - and our steam.

So - we'll see what tomorrow brings!

Interesting metal forming...

Things are moving along again now! As solid as things looked, I'm in that position where I have to make a judgement call as far as if the original steel is in good enough shape to save, or if it should be replaced. Then we have to figure out if a suitable replacement panel can be obtained, or if it needs to be made.

I had been buying many of the parts from BFY, and I'm not disappointed in the parts, but they are often more correct for later year cars than what is coming off of mine. So my friend showed me how well he can reproduce some of these awkward parts. At right you'll see the engine compartment "triangles." These were around $130 from BFY if I remember right.

Well my friend was able to use his beader, and a jig he quick made with his plasma cutter, to form almost exact replicas of the originals, in 100% new heavy gauge steel! While I don't think it is the kind of thing or effort that we're going to want to put in to EVERY panel on the car, having that skill sure helps to make sure that we keep the cost down and also get a very authentic product in the process.

So, how far do you go with this? Reproducing small metal pieces mostly hidden from view is one thing, but would you reproduce any high-scrutiny items? Again, we had what appeared to be a solid "H" rear apron, but once we cleaned it up, you could tell even lead was going to really make a perfect panel. In the photo on the right when we held it up to the bright sunlight, you can see the pinpricks of daylight coming through in just too many places.

What to do? A reproduction panel is probably about $500 from Denmark. So we're going to try our hand at seeing how closely we can reproduce this high visibility piece, and then we'll make a determination as to which one we will use - the repaired original with the pinpricks leaded in and the exhaust holes welded up, or an all new reproduction out of new clean steel?

I'll give you a hint. This is a heavy steel plate, and how the process starts! Note that everything has been marked and plasma cut now. Each of these layers and some other stock will form a template the steel is stretched over and pressed and hammered to. Fine curves and grooves will be put in with a bead roller, and the rubber seal channel will be created new and welded in place.

As we were joking around, we started talking about building a 100% reproduction "W" decklid. It will be pretty ironic that with all of the customizers out there that have destroyed so much of the old stock, that this vehicle that seeks to be "all original" will end up with these reproduction parts. Kind of like restoring a Kubelwagen I suppose!

More bad news

A little more is happening each day now. Today I got the bad news that much of the rear apron is pretty much swiss cheese. Our options are to do a heck of a lot of brazing and then filling with lead, or making up the necessary dies to make our own panels. (Or spend a TON of money to buy someone else's panel.)

So, I think we're going to try and save the original H, and then try and see how well we can make a well thought out reproduction. Who knows, if it goes well, I may have some extras to share. ;)

Hopefully we'll put in some serious time this weekend.

Finally an update!

It's been a couple of months now since anything got posted here. Progress has been very slow since I don't get up to work on the car as often as I should. But just in the last few days we've made considerable progress.

We started inside the car, first making sure the pan was solid. Overall, it was in good shape, but a previous owner had installed carpet using nails and screws, so we had many holes to braze. And, as could be expected, the area under the battery was too weak to save. This required cutting it out, and shaping a new piece as carefully as we could to match the old. We didn't have rollers that matched the profile of the bead we needed, so we first had to make them. Then we could roll the indentations, and then cut and place the steel.

As you can see in the pictures, the patch came out really nice, although we didn't get the turning radius on the corners quite as sharp as what the stock panel was. Once painted and covered with carpet it should be far superior to having replaced it with an aftermarket panel.

Just from sitting since the 1960s she suffered some rust damage. Of course the bad repairs didn't help too much either. The area behind the back seat was "weak" so we decided to replace a good chunk of it. Again, we made up a custom panel with the exact same profile as the stock grooves, and used the English Wheel to get the proper curves. In the photo, you can see it before welding.

There was an area in the front where it appeared that the bug had been hit and the panel had separated a bit. The "professional" repair that had been done in the 1960s just lightly tacked the panels back in place without fully removing the old panels, and without fully welding them in place like the factory would have. This metal on metal and bad welding caused the steel to rot out when sand and moisture got in there, and of course left us with a bit of a surprise as to how bad some of the metalwork had really become.

On the left you can see a very common sight where the spare tire well has rotted away from past bad repairs. The apron itself was salvagable, and with a combination of panels from BFY, the original and some creative metalwork, it should look "like new" when we're done.

The drivers side clip was another big surprise. We could see that it wasn't welded in properly, but we didn't really understand how badly until we got in to it, and had to cut out the welds. Once the panels were off, I was able to grind out all of the welds and clean up the metal while my expert set to work making patches and straightening panels.

There are a couple of great things about having taken the panel off though. Now we're able to spray a rust converter into areas that would have otherwise been inaccessable to us, and of course we're able to clean and reinforce every weld union. While we have the side of the bulkhead open, this gives us the perfect opportunity to put in reinforcements and change out the mounts to put in a dual cylinder master - an "upgrade" that I believe is absolutely necessary since this restoration will not be a trailer queen.

We also found that the heat run was in not such great shape in this front kick area as we had hoped. While it was solid inside the car, the bad repair had allowed sand to get in up front there, and a small animal nest compounded the problem. In the pictures on the left here you can see the amount we had to cut away, and the panel my friend expertly stretched and shrank to fit into place.

He asked me yesterday as we worked on this if I fully appreciated the level to which we were restoring. I couldn't begin to thank him for his expertise in what we are doing. The number of hours in the smallest details is incredible. I know this won't be a Concours level restoration - in part because we're not starting with a near perfect car, but also because we have to make many of the parts we can't afford to purchase. But I know that from the inside out, every little detail will have been attended to and no body shop could afford to do the kind of restoration that we are doing.

Once all of the repairs are made to the structure of the car and she is straight and solid, we'll begin the process of removing the shell from the pan. Since this is the first of several cars we're going to be doing, we've decided to build a rotisserie. Since Harbor Freight had them on sale this week, I purchased 6 ten inch pnuematic tire swivel casters and two fully pnuematic 18in jacks. This will allow us to freely rotate the shell as we beadblast the areas that need it and we get ready to squirt her in the original L227 Stratos Silver that she will wear when complete.

Moving, but slowly...

Things have been moving along, although somewhat slowly. With a little help from the PortaPower, the nose and rear got a little straighter. The order from BFY finally came in as well, with the bumper mounts included. So we're getting ready to do the first real welding that will show. The rubber and the trim are all now tucked away safely.

Anyhow - we're just at one of those awkward points where everything takes a while and there aren't a whole lot of outward changes. But its coming along...

Bad Camberg 1995 to 2007

Every four years, real VW fans make a trip to Germany to the greatest of all oldies shows, the Lotterman Veteranen-Treffen. (http://www.lottermann-veteranen-treffen.de/)

I am still hoping that I will get the chance to get over again in 2007 to see my friend Stephan, but we'll see what airfares do between now and then. But for now, I pulled out my video from the 1995 show that aired on Deutsche Welle TV around the world. Thought it might be a fun idea to upload it, and share it with other VW fans.

Part of doing a restoration like this is documenting what you've done, and better yet, getting to look back at how far you've come. To that end, I'm going to try to include a lot of pictures and things that I've learned here.

A lot of the stripping got done today. The dents in the roof also got the rubber block treatment to get everything nice and smooth following my cousin's kid's treatment in the barn years ago. (Another whole issue to get upset about some other time.) But the roof came out very nice.

I ordered $1000 of parts today, and there are more to come. As we take parts off, the rubber has gotten hard, and is powdering as we remove things. I can't believe how much all that rubber costs - but then it is great that it is still available after all these years, and the chrome trim too.

We cleaned up the VIN tag a little bit, and the numbers all match between the chassis and the body, and they all check out in the book as a 1954. Everything is looking great on that front. As we take off parts we're getting to areas with the original paint, which appears to be Stratos Silver, a very cool metalic silver/blue/green combination that changes depending on the light.

I should have done this years ago, but now I need to send to Wolfsburg for a "birth certificate." I don't think it will give me too much more information than I already have, but I'm hoping it will include the M codes for some of the cool rare accessories that were in the car (like the reclining leatherette HULS seats) and tell me the original country of delivery. I know it wasn't the US since the speedo in there is in KM, and they didn't "officially" start importing beetles until 1955.

There seems to be a lot of concern over

the "H" rear apron, and the "TT TT" or "four finger" front aprons. Reproductions are extremely expensive, or just not available. So just to ease my mind, I took some pictures to make sure I had the right aprons front and rear.

I shot a lot more pictures than I can post just today, but I want to share one or two other interesting details... You may notice on the front bumper a bracket for mounting driving or fog lights. These are factory mounts, and I have a great set of driving lights to mount on them. Very cool...

When we pulled the fuses from the fuse box, the paper that states what each fuse does was still present. Hard to believe an almost 60 year old paper has survived a decade and a half of driving, 20 years in a field in the mountains, and almost another 2 decades in my barns and garages waiting to be restored.

Looking back, I have to say I am extremely glad that I left her alone until now - had I taken her apart before having the parts and money to do it right, this just wouldn't be possible...