Well this evening marked the start of the restoration process!

Drivers side rear wing, and rear bumper is now off...

All is looking quite good so far :)
Now just to strip the waxoil and underseal off the inner arch to see what lies underneath...

Photos to follow...

Wish me luck!

Well todays update!

I'll let the pictures do the talking...
I think I'm going to need to invest in some more panels....

First - something to brighten the spirits...


Now for the not so good bits...
Hidden by the seal :(


Original Bumper hanger only has a small rusted out bit


An interesting patch where the seat belt mount hole is (on the lower of the quarter panel)


Some more interesting stuff happening around the rear body mount


Then comes the filler 😞 - about an inch of it...


You just can never tell when to begin with it looks like this -

KlassicFab heater channels and rear quarter panels due for delivery later this week 🙂

Finally the panels have arrived!

Wow these things are heavy - about the same weight as some OG 60's items I had...

The pressing detail in the rear quarter is also impressive!

Money well spent!

So that is at least the rear end sorted out so far...

Now just to work my way around the other 3 corners and to un-stick that choke cable outer... hmm....

An update at last!

The nasty '90s headliner is now out.....
What a mess that was! It was foam backed... All the foam had rotted...

So a few questions...

Any ideas why this is here? What is it hiding?
There seems to be a small dent just below the plate?


I guess that is factory grey along with the rust on the inside of the roof?


Is that asbestos?


The big windows conversion is fairly well done...




Bolted in??


Front drivers side quarter....
A small patch to take care of...


Hmm.... filler....


OG rear wing - looks like the holes for the snowflakes are in the right place on these too... (off a '58 - so the fronts need the indicator holes welding up...)
Black - but look to be stratos silver underneath?
I picked up a full set in need of a little TLC


...and with the cabrio lid I picked up a while back...


More to come as I get time!

Well I now have a 2 week old baby boy....
Now just to wait so that he's big enough to help me in the garage with the Beetle!

I managed to get a few hours with the Beetle today.....
Not much progress - but some is better than none....



I knew there was some filler there - but wasn't expecting quite so much!

I have also managed to bare metal half of a rear wing - photos to follow once it's all stripped of layers of paint and filler.....

Don't worry about there being a lot of filler. Garages always ladle the stuff on and just sand it flat. If it was you or me doing it, then we'd sand away as much as possible, but they never bother.

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Keep at it even if its just a few minutes to clean summat or removing a bit of old filler, it keeps the interest up if you leave it for weeks it is more of a chore to get started again, believe me I know, I wish mine had just been filler at least there is metal behind it :smile: by the way congratulations on the little un :d

Glad the forums are back!

I've been missing the folks from here - as there's a far nicer group here than on thesamba or volkszone....

I have some more updates to come - it has been sitting waiting for me to have some free time....

UPDATES SOON!!

Look forward to seeing them :beer:

Andy W

So here is what I started with... After 5 years or so of not really going anywhere I blew the tyres up so that I could actually push the car out into the sunshine....





I did remove the passenger side wings - as previously I had only worked on the drivers side....

The underseal was caked on really thickly in some places - but only just there in others....

I spent a great deal of time with a small scraper to be able to remove it fromthe body of the car...






After several hours the inner wings now look like this....









I did find some previous repairs...

Nothing too large or too bodge-tastic it seems....

I am yet to remove the glut of filler from the rear end though....


See below for the patches discovered...

The rear body mounts do leave a bit to be desired though - all sorts of weld on them...


Would this little square have once been a clip to secure the speedo cable?

it will be worth it in the end

Andu W

Nice clean car. I think i'd be driving it, not restoring it!

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That is the plan... but a few things needed attention all at the same time....


I'd sooner be driving a well sorted car - rather than having trouble every time I take it out......


So on the to do list.....


Set of wings - rub down and paint


Paint engine lid


Tackle the monster that is a stuck choke cable outer....


Clutch cable...


Engine tidy-up


Repaint wheels as the trims killed the paint (I now have much nicer trims!)


I have removed some more random extra wiring that wasnt connected to anything!


Pedals are being rebuilt :)


I need to find the small bits of body that are missing as a result of the window conversion.... As I can see daylight in odd places!





Not much!

Seeing you restarting your project is giving me the will to start on as well 🙂
Keep up the good work!

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Well remember the dreaded choke cable that I snapped off trying to pull out of the front of the car?

IT IS FINALLY OUT!!

I managed to get hold of enough of the remainder of the cable that was sticking out of the back with a pair of mole grips....

After several years sitting in oil with lots of pulling - an inch or so at a time - it finally came out of the back....

The cable was covered in oily rust/sand and was pretty grotty....

The outer sleeving looked like Nora Batty's stockings..... very wrinkley!

Now a new problem - when trying to thread the new cable in - it goes about 6 inches and then wont go any further.... So I now have a blockage? Probably some rust/dirt/cable outer combination....

How do I go about clearing it? Or is there something else I need to be aware of?

More photos to follow - once I have found somewhere suitable to upload them!

The body is about to part company with the pan...

I have been busy on the wings\doors\hood and deck lid to get them back into bare metal...

The wings contained quite a lot of filler - for no real reason than some dents generally smaller that a 10p! Although they are off an american import so that might explain things... the body shops over there always seem to love the stuff and almost use it as a base coat before the paint...

The panels will be off soon to have all the dents knocked out and then be zinc coated!

No more rusty panels!

Then the small matter of tackling the 'pan and the various conduit\pipe replacements required....

Wish me luck!

Looking good! I had the same type of cable problem with one of the heater cables on my oval. It took about five hours of squirting Plus-gas down the guide tube and gradually working the cable out. It was also rusty and gritty. Once it was out I just squirted WD40 down the tube and worked some thick stiff cable down the tube to soften and clear all the crud out of it. I t ook ages but eventually it cleared nicely.

Keep up the good work and good luck!

Andy.

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More photos and updates to follow...

Looking forward to it ​​​​​​​