Cheers!
Tolstoy said "If you look for perfection, you'll never be content". Well, actually, he probably said "Если вы ищете совершенство, вы никогда не будете довольны" but we know what he meant. Maybe it's better to strive for "Meh, that'll do" rather than perfection cos at least you can get to sleep at night that way
Doors, then. Those who remember somewhere back near the start of this thread will recall I quick-and-dirty modded some secondhand doorcards to relieve the flat, unadorned blackness of the ones Dolly came with. Well, now I had to go again, only in beige. To be fair, the first attempt was only ever going to be a stopgap because the cards were a bit water-damaged and warped, but were stupidly cheap and Tolstoy-baitingly "that'll do" for the time being. Anyhoo, off they came
door skanky by Nick Liassides, on Flickr
The insides of the doors were still skanky, but reassuringly unrusted. Presumably thanks to the coating of sticky black tar stuff that fills the bottom third of the doorskin. However, water ingress seems to very much be a thing with Beetle doors, as borne witness to by the fact that all the doorcards I had (three sets, all from different cars) were water-stained on the inside and a bit warpedy. I got a roll of a few metres of non-curing Butyl "tape", although it's more like a putty that you can stretch to twice it's "at rest" length and then stick to the door, and to a plastic membrane. Y'know, sorta like modern cars have had since... well, since forever really
butyl scunge by Nick Liassides, on Flickr
This was then very unscientifically blordged* around the perimeter of where the doorcard would sit
* technical term. If you can't find it that's just because your Google-fu is weak
butyle lined by Nick Liassides, on Flickr
And I doubled the weight of the door by stuffing it with sound deadening. This was a bit unpleasant, partly dude to lots of sharp edges and partly due to having to clean off the weird tar gloop to enable the mat to stick. Just when I thought I'd seen the back of that can of thinners
door deadened by Nick Liassides, on Flickr
and then a big sheet of plastic to separate the doorcard from water ingress. The butyl tape means you can peel it off and re-stick it as often as you need to, should you need to get to the window mechanisms or whatever
door placticated by Nick Liassides, on Flickr
I also replaced the door release pull handles with some chrome ones, as I'd swapped the surrounds for chrome when I did the previous doorcards, but for some reason I'm at a loss to explain had left the release handles as black plastic. I was hoping that by the time this was over, there'd be no black plastic anywhere in the car!
chrome pull by Nick Liassides, on Flickr
Right, I'll be needing some doorcards then! The armrest/doorhandle (the ones I'd spent ages re-dyeing so they were cream rather than grey, yeah?) have captive studs that go through the card and have a VW special fixing stepped nut/spacer thing holding them to a metal plate on the back side. This hooks over a plate in the door structure so you're not just pulling on the doorcard when you shut the door, but actually on the metal of the door itself. I didn't have any of these spare so had to re-use the ones on the old cards
armrest fixings by Nick Liassides, on Flickr
The new JK cream cards, of course, didn't have holes for this. Well, they did have some random holes that went through the hardboard backing but not the actual foam or vinyl. And given that there have been many different variants of the handle/armrests over the Beetle's lifetime, none of them were in the right place. Some sketchy measuring out followed, plus offering the new cards up against the old ones I had and finding I had three different versions of where the armrest should go. Handy, that. In the end I took an average and hoped for the best. If the metal plate was in the wrong place and didn't hook over the door metal, it'd be a right pain. Hopefully the base of the handles would be wide enough to hide the holes if I ballsed it up!
And because I'd learned the hard way on the rear sidepanels, I didn't want to drill the holes and have all the foam matting wind itself around the drill like the world's most indigestible candy floss. I invested in a set of wad punches...
brave with the wadpunch by Nick Liassides, on Flickr
and the final step was to cut out the aperture for the release latch handle. Small as possible, because on my old secondhand cards it had been cut too large and there was an unsightly gap all round the handle escutcheon
fixin a hole by Nick Liassides, on Flickr
Then all that remained was to install about eleventy gazillion of those hateful little steel spring clips to the card. By the time you've done one cards' worth of these your fingers will be cut right through by these poxy little fox-pictures. Line them up with the rubber doobries in the door, give them a bash and hope they go in rather than just bend or ping all over the goddamned place.
doorcarded by Nick Liassides, on Flickr
And now it was very apparent just how black anything that was still black...err, was. Christ, even I didn't understand that sentence. Look, the seatbelts. The seatbelts were still black and now they stood out like casual racism in an Enid Blyton novel. That can be solved...
moar beigeitude by Nick Liassides, on Flickr
These new-fangled Securon belts are more complicated than my old ones. The inertia reel has a little pendulum inside that you need to align to the exact vertical if you mount them at an angle so they still retract straight. Ironically, the adjustor for this is a great big lump that sticks out the side of the mechanism, and meant that there wasn't room to mount them beside the rear seat base. Which meant I needed to mount them at an angle, then spend ages smegging around with the adjustor to get the pendulum set and the belt to work. If they hadn't had all this rubbiish, then they'd have fit straight in just like the old ones had and wouldn't have needed to sit the mech at an angle in the first bloody place!
rear seat done plus beige by Nick Liassides, on Flickr
I really wasn't happy with this; not only did it look curse word and twitch my OCD gland, but the belt caught on its own mechanism and wouldn't retract or pull out smoothly. It was about two days before I realised there was clearance behind the mechanism so that I could just take it off, re-thread the belt on its upper fixing bolt, and turn the mechanism round 180 degrees
In my defence, I was tired by this point in proceedings!
Just a few finishing touches, then. Years and years ago, faced with the fact that it was impossible to buy a model-specific gearstick gaiter for a first-gen RX-7 when I did the interior on that, I bought several random secondhand ones off eBay and used the one that fit best. This meant I had a couple left over, and what are the odds... a Vauxhall Corsa one fits a Scat Dragfast perfectly. See, never throw anything away, it'll find its own use one day
gaiter aid by Nick Liassides, on Flickr
Annoyingly, a few years back you could get the ferociously complicated handbrake/heater lever gaiters in any colour you liked from EMPI. Including cream. Now, of course, you can't, presumably because what was acceptable in the 90s no longer is today. So I bought a new black one to replace the split, knackered old one. I intend to replace the heater levers with painted ones to match the handbrake at some point, but it was really getting to the point where I just wanted it finished and back as a working car again. Still, gives me something to look forward to, and you can barely see all that gubbins when the seats are in. The second doorcard went quicker than the first, now I knew where to bash holes through for the handle
door passenger plasticked by Nick Liassides, on Flickr
Irritatingly, and presumably because these are bulk-manufactured by the hundreds to flog to 'Muricans and Yoorpeans, who as we all know, drive on the wrong side of the road, the storage pocket on these JK doorcards comes on the passenger door and not the drivers' door. To be fair to JK, it does say that in the small print on the website, I just never noticed it when I ordered. Smeg. Gonna have to live with it now, I suppose
all cards shuffled by Nick Liassides, on Flickr
Which meant there was one vital modification to make while I had the rear seat out (again) fitting new beige seatbelts;
scarficial box by Nick Liassides, on Flickr
I stole on of the kids many, many storage boxes (which they generally use as weapons, stools, impromptu steps to reach higher shelves, cunning trap devices for torturing the cats with... basically anything other than actually storing their curse word in. Which is, of course, strewn all over the floor covering as large an area as possible) and carved it up with a Stanley knife. Not out of spite or anything, but because all that was between my eldest offspring and the battery when he sits in the car is some metal springs and annoying though he often is, I'd prefer it if he didn't juice himself and burn to death, especially if that meant taking the car out with him
battery cover by Nick Liassides, on Flickr
Rubber sheet, plastic box, bosh. Done.
The life you save may be your own
Tolstoy said "If you look for perfection, you'll never be content". Well, actually, he probably said "Если вы ищете совершенство, вы никогда не будете довольны" but we know what he meant. Maybe it's better to strive for "Meh, that'll do" rather than perfection cos at least you can get to sleep at night that way
Doors, then. Those who remember somewhere back near the start of this thread will recall I quick-and-dirty modded some secondhand doorcards to relieve the flat, unadorned blackness of the ones Dolly came with. Well, now I had to go again, only in beige. To be fair, the first attempt was only ever going to be a stopgap because the cards were a bit water-damaged and warped, but were stupidly cheap and Tolstoy-baitingly "that'll do" for the time being. Anyhoo, off they came
door skanky by Nick Liassides, on Flickr
The insides of the doors were still skanky, but reassuringly unrusted. Presumably thanks to the coating of sticky black tar stuff that fills the bottom third of the doorskin. However, water ingress seems to very much be a thing with Beetle doors, as borne witness to by the fact that all the doorcards I had (three sets, all from different cars) were water-stained on the inside and a bit warpedy. I got a roll of a few metres of non-curing Butyl "tape", although it's more like a putty that you can stretch to twice it's "at rest" length and then stick to the door, and to a plastic membrane. Y'know, sorta like modern cars have had since... well, since forever really
butyl scunge by Nick Liassides, on Flickr
This was then very unscientifically blordged* around the perimeter of where the doorcard would sit
* technical term. If you can't find it that's just because your Google-fu is weak
butyle lined by Nick Liassides, on Flickr
And I doubled the weight of the door by stuffing it with sound deadening. This was a bit unpleasant, partly dude to lots of sharp edges and partly due to having to clean off the weird tar gloop to enable the mat to stick. Just when I thought I'd seen the back of that can of thinners
door deadened by Nick Liassides, on Flickr
and then a big sheet of plastic to separate the doorcard from water ingress. The butyl tape means you can peel it off and re-stick it as often as you need to, should you need to get to the window mechanisms or whatever
door placticated by Nick Liassides, on Flickr
I also replaced the door release pull handles with some chrome ones, as I'd swapped the surrounds for chrome when I did the previous doorcards, but for some reason I'm at a loss to explain had left the release handles as black plastic. I was hoping that by the time this was over, there'd be no black plastic anywhere in the car!
chrome pull by Nick Liassides, on Flickr
Right, I'll be needing some doorcards then! The armrest/doorhandle (the ones I'd spent ages re-dyeing so they were cream rather than grey, yeah?) have captive studs that go through the card and have a VW special fixing stepped nut/spacer thing holding them to a metal plate on the back side. This hooks over a plate in the door structure so you're not just pulling on the doorcard when you shut the door, but actually on the metal of the door itself. I didn't have any of these spare so had to re-use the ones on the old cards
armrest fixings by Nick Liassides, on Flickr
The new JK cream cards, of course, didn't have holes for this. Well, they did have some random holes that went through the hardboard backing but not the actual foam or vinyl. And given that there have been many different variants of the handle/armrests over the Beetle's lifetime, none of them were in the right place. Some sketchy measuring out followed, plus offering the new cards up against the old ones I had and finding I had three different versions of where the armrest should go. Handy, that. In the end I took an average and hoped for the best. If the metal plate was in the wrong place and didn't hook over the door metal, it'd be a right pain. Hopefully the base of the handles would be wide enough to hide the holes if I ballsed it up!
And because I'd learned the hard way on the rear sidepanels, I didn't want to drill the holes and have all the foam matting wind itself around the drill like the world's most indigestible candy floss. I invested in a set of wad punches...
brave with the wadpunch by Nick Liassides, on Flickr
and the final step was to cut out the aperture for the release latch handle. Small as possible, because on my old secondhand cards it had been cut too large and there was an unsightly gap all round the handle escutcheon
fixin a hole by Nick Liassides, on Flickr
Then all that remained was to install about eleventy gazillion of those hateful little steel spring clips to the card. By the time you've done one cards' worth of these your fingers will be cut right through by these poxy little fox-pictures. Line them up with the rubber doobries in the door, give them a bash and hope they go in rather than just bend or ping all over the goddamned place.
doorcarded by Nick Liassides, on Flickr
And now it was very apparent just how black anything that was still black...err, was. Christ, even I didn't understand that sentence. Look, the seatbelts. The seatbelts were still black and now they stood out like casual racism in an Enid Blyton novel. That can be solved...
moar beigeitude by Nick Liassides, on Flickr
These new-fangled Securon belts are more complicated than my old ones. The inertia reel has a little pendulum inside that you need to align to the exact vertical if you mount them at an angle so they still retract straight. Ironically, the adjustor for this is a great big lump that sticks out the side of the mechanism, and meant that there wasn't room to mount them beside the rear seat base. Which meant I needed to mount them at an angle, then spend ages smegging around with the adjustor to get the pendulum set and the belt to work. If they hadn't had all this rubbiish, then they'd have fit straight in just like the old ones had and wouldn't have needed to sit the mech at an angle in the first bloody place!
rear seat done plus beige by Nick Liassides, on Flickr
I really wasn't happy with this; not only did it look curse word and twitch my OCD gland, but the belt caught on its own mechanism and wouldn't retract or pull out smoothly. It was about two days before I realised there was clearance behind the mechanism so that I could just take it off, re-thread the belt on its upper fixing bolt, and turn the mechanism round 180 degrees
In my defence, I was tired by this point in proceedings!Just a few finishing touches, then. Years and years ago, faced with the fact that it was impossible to buy a model-specific gearstick gaiter for a first-gen RX-7 when I did the interior on that, I bought several random secondhand ones off eBay and used the one that fit best. This meant I had a couple left over, and what are the odds... a Vauxhall Corsa one fits a Scat Dragfast perfectly. See, never throw anything away, it'll find its own use one day
gaiter aid by Nick Liassides, on Flickr
Annoyingly, a few years back you could get the ferociously complicated handbrake/heater lever gaiters in any colour you liked from EMPI. Including cream. Now, of course, you can't, presumably because what was acceptable in the 90s no longer is today. So I bought a new black one to replace the split, knackered old one. I intend to replace the heater levers with painted ones to match the handbrake at some point, but it was really getting to the point where I just wanted it finished and back as a working car again. Still, gives me something to look forward to, and you can barely see all that gubbins when the seats are in. The second doorcard went quicker than the first, now I knew where to bash holes through for the handle
door passenger plasticked by Nick Liassides, on Flickr
Irritatingly, and presumably because these are bulk-manufactured by the hundreds to flog to 'Muricans and Yoorpeans, who as we all know, drive on the wrong side of the road, the storage pocket on these JK doorcards comes on the passenger door and not the drivers' door. To be fair to JK, it does say that in the small print on the website, I just never noticed it when I ordered. Smeg. Gonna have to live with it now, I suppose
all cards shuffled by Nick Liassides, on Flickr
Which meant there was one vital modification to make while I had the rear seat out (again) fitting new beige seatbelts;
scarficial box by Nick Liassides, on Flickr
I stole on of the kids many, many storage boxes (which they generally use as weapons, stools, impromptu steps to reach higher shelves, cunning trap devices for torturing the cats with... basically anything other than actually storing their curse word in. Which is, of course, strewn all over the floor covering as large an area as possible) and carved it up with a Stanley knife. Not out of spite or anything, but because all that was between my eldest offspring and the battery when he sits in the car is some metal springs and annoying though he often is, I'd prefer it if he didn't juice himself and burn to death, especially if that meant taking the car out with him
battery cover by Nick Liassides, on Flickr
Rubber sheet, plastic box, bosh. Done.
The life you save may be your own
. Yes it's a pain to keep it clean at times, but isn't it nice to go into a clean car as opposed to a grimy one?
I have no need or desire for fuel injection in my life 
Or water cooling. It's practically witchcraft 
