'71 1200 Beetle Dolly ... Page 13. The resurrection shuffle

Hmmm. *whispers* but if I were to sell my RX-7 I could have an epic engine of utter epicness from the proceeds... *thought bubble*


Anyhooo, so we come to the inaugural meeting of the MWVW Club. Or Milford, Worthing and Wormley to give it it's full title. And yes, I know that's not enough "W"s, but it was getting silly. It sounds a lot grander than it is, anyway. Basically it's three mates who happened to all end up with Beetles at the same time. Lewis ( dex66 of this parish) has had his Dexter for a long time. Lewis is a man of few words, but has a perfunctory Dex thread here forum.retro-rides.org/thread/203749/1966-vw-beetle-cal. You met him before in this other thread, amongst others forum.retro-rides.org/thread/203522/volksworld-show-pics when we went up to the season-opener Volksworld show. While we were there, Ada fell a bit for a stockish and unassuming '67 (one-year only crossover model straddling the best bits of old and new(ish) Beetles). By the time we went to the Dubs In The Park show (linked to in a previous post of this 'ere thread), he'd bought it. And christened it "Lenny" for no reason that's easily understood. We called it "poppodom beige". Lenny has a thread here if you'd like to know more forum.retro-rides.org/thread/206134/lenny-poppadom-beige-vw-beetle

Right, so given that we all had Beetles and Ada's was the slowest and worst at hills, despite having 100 very real more CCs than my Dolly (I only mention it because it's funny), it was time for a meetup. Lenny was also depressingly stock and needed stuff doing to amend this. And what's the first thing we do to make our cars less stock and abject, boys and girls? Yep, wheels and lows. Innit


Trio by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

If ever a photo demonstrated the insane and unforgiveable standard ride height of a Beetle...

Anyway, th'Boy Ada had ordered in a load of stuff to amend Lenny with, but some was wrong and some more bits were needed so the first order of the day was...


riding selfie by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

ROAD TRIP!

*ahem*. I think that's actually only the second ever selfie I've taken You can see why. It wasn't the most epic of road trips, but at least it involved soss an hegg McMuffins and ended up at *choral paean* the Mecca of all things VW


messages after the beep by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

I still can't get used to calling it Heritage Parts Centre. Especially not when the website still redirects from "VW Heritage". We sat about while Adam tried to remember what he'd come for, and Lewis pondered the Wall of Wheels


Heritage worship by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Dunno why, Dex already wore what's generally taken to be the acme of Beetle wheels in the shape of detailed Fuchs. With genuine Porky centre caps, no less


Stuttgart original by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Maybe the fact he's since changed to gas burners might explain it Sorted for parts and shiz, we returned to our little garage community to get stuck in. Well, Adam and Lewis got stuck in, I mostly mooched around being useless and taking random "art" photos of pointless things


1500 reasons for fun by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Usually cherished as one of the most desirable combinations of car and engine, the '67 1500 Beetle rejuvenated VWs flagging appeal like no other. The engine was great, the car addressed many of the flaws long-time owners of older cars complained about. Sadly, Lenny no longer has his original 1500 lump, having a replacement 1300 that's been "thrown in" there (not my words). Lovely dash though


Lenny dash by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Dex louvres by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Dex has a lot more fun in his rear end than the other two put together.


Dex bay by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

On this particular day, Lewis was mainly about keeping an eye on all that extra twin-carbed 1700 grunt by fitting a tach he'd picked up. And a replacement steering wheel, dunno why. Not much wrong with the old one.


Dexters OG wheel by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

so while he got on with pretending to work really hard on wiring and stuff (which he does for a living, basically, so was fooling nobody)...


Pornstar pose by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

....me and Ada got on with jacking up Lenny. Well, I say "me and Ada", clearly what I mean was "Ada and I". And to be truthful, I didn't actually do very much You can see why these needed changing! Personally I've never been too much of a fan of late-style dog dish Beetle hubcaps.


Dolly reflection by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

It didn't look too hopeful under there, it has to be said. The track rods and balljoints looked like they'd been salvaged from a scrapheap and glued together with monkey turds. We left them soaking in penetrating oil in the misguided and hopelessly optimistic faith that might help


Gnarly track rod by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

"And why did you need to break all this stuff apart, L7?" I hear you ask? "Didn't a '67 Beetle come with disc brakes as standard?" Well, yes they did, I'm glad you asked. And top Beetle trivial knowledge there too, give yourself a house point. But, y'see, Ada had bought a set of wheels (Fuchs, natch, because apparently it's The Law nowadays that every third Beetle has to have Fuchs) that required a five-bolt stud pattern. And the '67 was the first year of the new Beetle 4x130 stud pattern. So we had to change everything to aftermarket early-style discs. And besides, there was the small matter of lows. Drop spindles were required!

About this time we got a mojo boost by the arrival of Eeyore, who was kindly dropping off his Auxiliary Big Hubnut Removal Tool (it's a scaffold pole). But it did at least give us a chance to wonder once again at the rarity and beige enormity of his amusing Hornet. Now with front buckets instead of the weird tartan split bench thing


Hornet by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

("work" is happening in the background, please note)


Jacking by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

As I said before, I love any car that has a "Desert" setting on the heater controls


Hornet dash by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Hornet s by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

And then ol' Eeyore was off, having unloaded his Mighty Pole of Great Torque... which, as it turned out later, was nearly the source of two of our deaths (possible disclaimer for slight exaggeration)... muttering as he did so about having learned his lesson working on Beetles. I think he's still traumatised by the hours it took him trying to re-assemble the eighteen-piece jigsaws that masquerade as Beetle headlights

And now I've got to pop off and be a parent (I know, unlikely as it might sound) so tune in next time when we'll be breaking stuff,


Snapped by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

burning stuff, swearing (a lot) , cutting off chunks with angle grinders, and two of us nearly die* Will our intrepid heroes conquer fifty-year-old Beetle suspension arms? Or will they fail catastrophically? OOoooh, suspense


* tiny bit of poetic license

Oh yeah, I forgot about that. United did used to be a thing, didn't they?

"""""Lewis ( dex66 of this parish) has had his Dexter for a long time. Lewis is a man of few words, but has a perfunctory Dex thread here forum.retro-rides.org/thread/203749/1966-vw-beetle-cal."""""

I am making steps to being more vocal 😁😁

Omg I had forgotten all about you and that spider (easily done as it was tiny and well, only a spider after all, not a T Rex!)
I think I laughed as hard at you with that as you did with me when I nearly cracked my head open like a boiled egg. I honestly didn’t realise you could move your feet that fast or get out as many words (mostly 4 letter ones) as quick as you did. It was a bloody funny and frustrating day in equal measures. Lots achieved though

Adam

Now he tells us

And that spider was huge. It was like an eight-legged spacehopper. With attitude. I saved both our lives by selflessly taking it out before it killed everyone in the entire street

Meh . Well, they're shiny I suppose That has to count for something!

Right. So. Then. Headlights Headlights, again

I straightened the bowl lips some posts ago (though in real terms it was months back). But I did it in a hurry so a) they weren't quite as straight as they could have been ....well, round rather than straight, but you know what I mean. And b) I hadn't had time to paint the bits where they pliers and bending had knackered off the old paint. All the while the weather was still wet and dreek I was conscious of the fact that they'd be rotting gently behind the chrome trims. Soooooo, with a dues sense of trepidation and dread, off came the headlights again. Good job too. Amazing how fast even legendarily good steel like old VW stuff can rust away.


Headlamp bowl straightening by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

This time I spent ages with the pliers making sure the rims were obsessively in the round, taking little tiny nibbles and bending every couple of mm till I was happy. Then masked up the entire front of the car (one of my weaknesses, being paranoid about overspray!), wire-brushed the lot and etched/primed/painted everything that even looked like it might think about one day going rusty


Headlamp bowl painting by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

And when it was done, I felt reasonably pleased it didn't look like it'd been done. And I'd never have to take the stupid, fiddly, annoying headlights off ever again*

* I would, of course


Headlamp bowl painted by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Next! While we were sorting out lighting, the offside indicator had been indulging in a slightly off-beat waywardness for the past few weeks, only working half the time. And I don't mean that in a "flashes on...flashes off" sort of way, I mean it didn't flash at all a lot of the time. Taking the chrome pod off revealed why


Indicator degradation by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

The rubber seal was pretty hard and obviously wasn't, well, sealing awfully well. I cleaned up the contacts in the bulbholder plate but this seemed like the ideal time to go through one of the rituals I have with pretty much every vehicle I've ever had. De-fried-eggifying the indicators. I mean, why wouldn't you? It's so easy that even M*x P*wer never had to dedicate a How To for it. Just take out the orange lenses, put in clear ones and change the bulbs to ones that flash orange


Indicators cleared by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Looks a miwwion times better (IMHO) especially if you use chrome-coated bulbs to totally lose the fired-egg look you get with orange ones. And, via the magic of SCIENCE (or possibly just magic) they still flash orange!


Indicator defriedeggified by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Next!

Rear seat base, then. The rear bench squab on a Beetle just sits on random bits of body at the side, and across the front has a shaped metal bar that locates the footwell cards underneath and the seat above. Mine was rusty, and given that I hate doing anything to a bit of a car I've only got the one of in case I destroy it somehow (plus it's easier to do one off the car than have to live without the one being in the car for however long it takes) I got a secondhand one to furkle about with. It was rusty. Rustier than the one in the car, of course


Seat bar rust by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

While I was stripping that back, might as well get on with something else in and around. A while ago I'd scored a dash trim that had been converted to hold a standard 52mm gauge. On earlier Beetles (such as Adam's '67) the fuel gauge had been an option, before that an aftermarket addition. By the time Dolly came off the Wolfsburg line, the fuel gauge had been incorporated into the speedo so there was no need to have the big square aperture for the Dehne or VDO ones cut into the dash trim. So my trim was just a flat grille piece. Hence the converted one. You can get these off the shelf, but this looked to me like a home-brewed conversion with brazing and stuff ... which I liked about it. Still, it was a bit rusty, so went into the magic ol' citric acid stripping bath along with some other bits I had lying around


Grille cleaning by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

But what's the gauge that's going into the aperture, Nik? I hear you cry. Good question, I'm glad you asked. Well, as just mentioned, I didn't need a fuel gauge. Tacho? You can get a nice 52mm one but why bother? A 1200 engine is going to limit its own revs by struggling to push through the morning mists, let alone over-rev itself. Temperature? Head temp or oil are common Beetle upgrade gauges, but again, why? If it's getting warm what am I going to do about it? Sit on the hard shoulder of the M27 and wait for Dolly to have a little rest? Meh.

There was only one thing I really needed, and that was


Clock by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

maybe it's because of my job, where I'm forced to account for every second of every day. Maybe it's growing up at a time when having a clock in your car marked you out as Someone. Someone who could afford a model a bit better than the base Popular L, anyway. Dunno why, but I just hate not knowing what the time is. And it's especially important in a 1200 Beetle, so you can tell exactly how late you're going to be.

Actually, funnily enough, there's only really one route to get to Adam's place from mine, over hill, down dale and along single-carriage country roads. I've done the same trip in modern electronic cars, 450bhp sportscars and everything in between. The journey always takes an hour... exactly one hour, whether you drive like Satan and all his fiery minions are hot on your tail or whether you drive like you're taking Miss Daisy out for a promenade. Always an hour. Dolly is the only car I've ever done the trip in less than an hour. How weird is that?

Anyway, time for a clock. First job was to make a gasket to cover the vents, stop air blowing right through the cabin from under the bonnet and hide the back of the wiring shambles behind


Grille and gasket by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Ada let the cat out of the bag about my secret rubber sheet in his thread so I might as well show it off, lol. Trickiest part was making a small hole to allow the clock adjustment button poke through without bending horribly the tangs of the grille. Meanwhile...


Seat bar painted by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Primed and painted the seat bar in Dolly Blue (whatever that is, still never found another one the same colour. Still no idea if it's even a VW colour). And since we were chucking paint about, I did the grille panel as well. I love this clock, it's designed to match the concentric-circles motif that early VW VDO gauges such as those on Beetles and Ghias had. Even though Dolly's speedo was a later one without the rings, it was still the best fit for the cabin in my opinion


Grille with clock by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Funnily enough, even though Beetles had been updated to the new clocks for some four years when Dolly was born, the dash retains the cutout for the square separate VDO fuel gauge behind the grille trim. I had to make this more suitable for a round thing


Clock hole relief by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

The wiring behind the dash was (is) still horrible and is still on my "to do" list. Maybe this winter . Still, it was easy enough to steal a parasitic feed off a permanent live to the ignition, fused with a little in-line holder to avoid putting any more stress through the sketchy VW fusebox... not even three amps!


Clock wiring by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

and there we go, one clock mounted as if it was always meant to be there. *ahem* so says me, anyway


Clock fitted by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

meanwhile, under the back seat;


Seat bar old by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

while we're here, might as well solve one on-going problem that'd been bugging me. See that funny-shaped plate there on the tunnel? Under that lurks the gear linkage, the end of a steel rod that runs from the gear lever to the gearbox nose. The one connects to the other via a linkage consisting of a steel cage holding two rubber blocks to take up lash. Over time the rubber denatures, the action gets all vague and it gets harder to find the gears... or, worse, predict which gear you actually have selected. Better attend to that then. The plate comes off with a single self-tapper, and under it lies the linkage. The fittings for this are pure bizarre, in a German sense of humour kinda way. A square-headed bolt (with lockwire), a giant self-tapping screw that goes into a weird-ly shaped tube that's designed to deform as the screw goes in... it's like they had a specially long night on the Schnapps the day before they designed that one, with a mission to use the most eccentric and obscure fasteners the machine shop could dream up. Because the tapper distorts its collar sleeve as it screws in, it's really hard to undo it once it's rusted together for forty-plus years, especially in a small steel box with sharp edges all round. I was hoping to leave the gear lever end undisturbed for simplicity, but in the end had to take off the shifter the free the front end of the rod and thus enable the rear end to be moved about more. So I could actually get to the stupid, annoying, ridiculous bloody daft fasteners


Gear linkage OG by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Inherited internet wisdom has it that going to this trouble to replace the linkage, it's wise to replace it with modern poly bushes rather than old-skool rubber. However. The kit I bought was an EMPI one, and sadly EMPI products have come a long way since the glory days of the legendary Inch Pincher being one of the first Beetle drag legends and decimate all before it. Mostly nowadays the famous Globe trademark is no longer an indication of quality parts like in its heyday, but rather an by-word for "DANGER! this packet contains the flimsiest form of Chineseum yet discovered. Do not use on anything you want to keep together more than a week" OK, that's more than one word, but you get the gist.

So the advice is to re-use the original VW linkage cage unless it's rusted to oblivion and just insert the new fasteners and urethane bushes. You could see why when comparing them on the bench; the EMPI cage felt like it was folded together out of leftover KitKat wrappers, the OG VW one felt like it was forged from melted-down Panzer armour.


Gear linkage old v new by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Just as well I was swapping this out though, as the original rubber blocks had gone very manky indeed and separated from their containing blocks. In with the combo of new and old bits, then, and if winding out the old deformable screw assembly had been annoying then winding the new one in was really annoying but finally I could get on with the fun part


Gear linkage lockwiring by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

I love using lockwire pliers; not only are they a really cool little gizmo that's wonderfully simple yet delightfully efficient, but lockwiring done neatly always screams professionalism to me. It speaks of the artform Bugatti raised it to, or those hairy-chested Superbikes I grew up lusting after. And... done


Gear linkage finished by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

So all that was left... after spending ages trying to line up the gear lever properly again and tighten down the bolts by two degrees of spanner rotation at a time cos there's no smegging access through the cage... was to bung in the newly-painted seat rail


Seat bar renewed by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

That's better. A nice little dash of colour to the dour coal-hole black of the rear seating


Seat bar plus seat by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Better finish off that dash then. The clock needed light, so the best way seemed to be to steal it from the existing dash lights. These are arcane little olde-worlde spring loaded bulbholders that I was tempted to replace with maybe some LEDs but eventually discarded the idea. They work fine and there's nothing more annoying than a searingly bright gauge cluster at night... I speak from bitter experience, having had stupidly bright aftermarket gauges in the past. MY FD with one of the gauge setups was ridiculous; at night all you could see was a reflection of the gauges in the windscreen. And nothing beyond that. Anyway, it was easier to make up a new loom for the lighting than bastardise the old one. And it meant I could actually insulate the terminals, unlike the OG corroded bare ones. Hah, in your face once again, rubber-hating Germans!


Clock light wiring by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

And let there be light


Clock finished by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

As Paul McGann says in the incomparable Withnail & I... even a stopped clock gives the right time twice a day. This one gives the right time all the time. Läuft und läuft und läuft und....


Clock lit by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Just a couple more little cosmetic touches before shiz takes a serious turn for the heavy then. Back in the day, Volkswagen actually sold heavily on the reputation for Beetle's reliability. Läuft und läuft und läuft means "runs and runs and runs", of course, and that's exactly what they did. Legendary VW advertising traded on the fact all you needed to do to keep up with your neighbours who bought a new car every year was to repaint your old Beetle... nothing else changed, after all. (Except everything; by the time the last Beetle rolled out of Pueblo production house, the only component it shared with the original KDF-Wagen of pre-war was the bonnet weather strip! Everything else had been redesigned through the years, despite the car looking broadly similar throughout). anyway, reliability; owners whose cars kept going without major repair were actually given a commemorative plaque by the factory and a letter of congratulation. Well, Dolly had long passed the magic 100 000km mark on her original engine, so it seemed reasonable to reward her stoicism.


Reliability plaque by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Almost certainly a reproduction, but whatever. Some might say a 70s Beetle is a reproduction of a "real" one anyway. Like I care. But the plaque was a bit... well, new. And the enamel a bit bled out. And the metal a bit... aluminiumy. If that's a word. Spellcheck suggests it ain't Out with the art stuff and I got all Bob Ross on it's modern repro ass


Reliability plaque aged by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Suitably weathered, I snaffled the perfect fxings... don't tell Mrs L7. Y'see, our Thirties house had to have the doors replaced with fireproof ones when we did the loft but I kept all the original handles. So all I did was steal a couple of the pre-patinated 80 year old screws from the doorhandle escutcheons and it brought the fauxtina of the plaque together perfectly. IMHO, of course


Reliability plaque fitted by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

I've always wanted a car with a venetian blind. Ever since there was a Citroen DS Safari that lived down the street from us when I was a kid. So I bought one. It's.... errr... well, it's a bit cack, to be honest. But meh, original ones are stupid money (if you can even find one) and in all probability wouldn't fit Dolly's embarrassingly large modern rear screen anyway. So a modern repro was the only choice, courtesy of Heritage


Blind spars by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Fitting is easy. Disturbingly easy. And disturbing. Because what you basically do is wedge the spars with the hinged mounts in under the screen rubbers. And errr... that's it. The only tricky bit is spacing the little tangs out to the correct length, because as you can see, the tightening screws are on the glass side of the spar so once they're in place you can't then adjust them. It's a bit dicey because I was conscious of not taking them in and out too many times and tearing up the rubber or scratching (or worse) the glass


Blind slats by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Then all that remains is to sort the slats into the vaguely correct length order to follow the width of the window. This, too, is mostly trial and error. Clip them into place and give them a week or two to straighten out and stop drooping


Blinded by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Done. If only all jobs were so straightforwards! I wonder if the VW OC is still a thing?


Blinded d by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

And because I hadn't done one since I got her, an oil change seemed a Good Idea. Especially since Beetles only hold like about half a pint of oil, yet rely on it heavily for cooling. And don't have an oil filter, for that matter


Oil changing by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Annoyingly, Dolly doesn't even have a drain bolt in the centre of the strainer plate, meaning you have to remove the entire thing via six bolts. Which you'd have to do anyway to clear out the mesh "filter" but it means the oil goes absolutely smegging everywhere as the plate tilts about. Gahhh. Bloody Germans and their sense of humour. Anyway, I hadn't prepared for this eventuality, or I'd have ordered a plate with a drain plug. But I didn't so had no choice but to clean out the mesh screen and put back the non-drainy plate. Complete with lots of gaskets. Well, two, but that's really one too many to my mind.


oil change gubbins by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Fitting the clock had proved to me one thing... that the time is always later than you think. But philosophy aside, it had proved one other thing; I couldn't live with looking at that wiring any longer. Nope, of course I didn't dive in and sort it out, I went one better. I bought a cover, made some brackets to mount it, got some stainless wingnuts so it'd come on and off easily, and hid the whole sorry mess away out of sight and mind


Wiring cover by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

and finally for this round of cosmetic tarting around, one vital thing was missing from li'l Dolly


Badge by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

All the way from the You-nite-ED states of Wiiiiiiiide 'Murica (cos I couldn't find one cheaper in the UK...damn you, scene tax!). I'd wanted to fit one of these since getting the car, the slanted Volkwagen emblem being another thing I remember on our Beetles as a kid. So I got brave, looked at lots of photos of Beetle engine lid badges on t'net and got stuck in


Badge holes by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

That looked about the right angle and spacing. Deep breath, summon up Brave+1 power. Drill holes in perfectly good deck lid


Badge calamity by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Looked OK to me. Hah, nuthin' to be worried about. Except then we went to Bugjam (thread here forum.retro-rides.org/thread/206770/perfunctory-picture-essay-bug-belatedly ) and I parked up next to Adam and Lewis with their factory-fitted bootlid badges.


Arrival by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Smeg

Nothing like


Oh, well, tune in to the next thrilling installment, when things will be going into massive overkill mode. I can promise explosions, death* (again) and changing the car beyond all recognition. Don't miss it, groovers

*Almost actual death, anyway. Again

I've never really done metalwork on anything before; when I used to mess about with cars as a teenager they were the sort of cars that cost fifty quid and a bit of ally mesh and a lot of pug was considered bodywork. Then I had cars that were so bad that bodywork would not have been even as good as polishing a turd. Not even rolling it in glitter. Then I only had two-wheeled transport for ten years before being broken and snowed on too often lost its appeal... and after that it was plastic cars where bodywork wasn't really a thing. But I set to with a will and enthusiasm and learned by doing how to knock dents out, and also learned that Isopon has come on a long way from what I remember it being like


Rusty hinges by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

I didn't want to bare-metal it because rattlecan primer would presumably not stick as well as the VW stuff that was still obstinately hanging on after 47 years. But I did want to get rid of the primer some Yank fool had covered the OG paint in, because judging by the shading where the badge was, it had been on there a long time and primer absorbs moisture. I didn't want to spray my nice new Dolly blue over soggy primer that was going to peel off on the first damp day


Prep inside by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

and I didn't especially care what the inside of it looked like; the current engine lid on Dolly was mostly covered with a thin film of oil and grime anyway, and when a Beetle engine lid's open it's just something to bang your head on while trying to diagnose engine faults, not something to look at in its own right. But I did get it as straight and level as possible, because why not since I was there. And cleaned off all the rust, of course


Cleaned hinge by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Eventually, it was as good inside and out as I felt it needed to be and it was time to make it beautiful again. Ada came down to snigger help stand around taking photos and offering sage advice and we got stuck in


Prepped outside by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Note ingeniously-fabricated spray stand hastily fabricated from a couple of ladders. If wed thought harder about it we might have taken time to clean all the spiders' webs, grass clippings and generalised crud off them first. Too late now, let's go


Awesome spray booth by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

I started on the inside, as already mentioned, because I didn't care too much if it turned out looking cack. It looked promising, though; although it was smegging tricky getting into all the nooks and crannies of the web reinforcing without runs and blobs happening


Primer going on by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

And after etch, high build and normal primer coats, it was actually starting to show promise. A fool looking unfeasibly smug with his bodgery;


Primed inside by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

and once that was dry, we flipped it over and started on the "pretty" side


Going one colour by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Amazingly, when it was all done there were no bees or craneflies stuck in it, it was all one uniform(ish) colour and there were no obvious massive dents or dings that had escaped notice at the prep stage. Unlikely as it may sound, it looked OK


Everyones a critic by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Although the li'l un doesn't seem quite so convinced

so that was that for a few days while a) the primer dried and b)I went back to work for all the hours God sends and a few more besides. Eventually, I got time to start sanding the primer back nice and smooth


Primer sanding by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

which of course was the point when I started finding imperfections that had made it through. Some I fixed, some I didn't because a) I don't mind stuff not being perfect when it's nearly 50 years old and the rest of the car isn't perfect; 2) there was a dent that to fix would have meant pretty much starting again from scratch and iii) I couldn't be smegging bothered. It looked alright though...


Primer sanded by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Time for some colour then. Given that this is the first time I've ever sprayed such a large flat surface and that I was using rattlecans in a dusty garage, it could have gone a lot worse and before long the first coat was drying in my epic and amazingly middle-class paint oven


Epic spray oven by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

That went fine. The second coat... not so much


First coat by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Not sure why (and I'm sure there'll be plenty of painting gurus who can tell me exactly where I went wrong... abject muppetry might be the starting point). But it was mega-hot that day and I think maybe I put the paint on too dry so it formed epic orange peel. And when I say epic, I mean the texture of Katie Price's face sans inch-thick slap. Yep, it was rough


Astonishing orange peel by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Oh well, it was done now. Nothing for it but to throw a load of lacquer over it and leave it to cure before coloursanding


Cut in half by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

And that took forever. Like, seriously hours. I didn't want to use too aggressive a grade of paper and cut right through, so it was just hours of fondling the paint gently through the medium of 1200 grit. And it'd clog, and tear and leave scrapes and generally just be annoying as hell no matter how much water I sprayed on. A proper sanding block helped, and not buying cheap Halfrauds paper helped too


Colour sanding begins by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

but eventually light could be seen at the end of the tunnel and it didn't seem to be a train


Getting smoother by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

finally I could switch to 1500 and finally 2000 grit and it all looked rather promising. I managed to go through around some of the boltholes where I simply hadn't flattened the metal wel enough, but they were easy to touch in and would be hidden by the bonnet furniture anyway. Most importantly, I didn't manage to go through in the bits that had been worrying me; the edges and the vent grilles and suchlike


Final sanding by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

and because I'm sure if I had one I'd find uses for it, I figured I may as well get a mop... albeit the cheapest one I could find. I got a Silverline one with a package of sponges and compounds off eBay, and just went in balls-out. whilst modelling a natty ensemble made from bin liners, which mostly failed completely to keep the compound juice out of anywhere very strategic. Seriously, the stuff goes everywhere! Pretty much ruined my second-best dossing shorts


Splattered by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

BUT;


Finally shiny by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Damn! Shiny! The eagle-eyed will spot the ...errrr...spot where I managed to go through, just to the left and below where the numberplate will mount. I was hopeful the plate might hide it when fitted (it didn't ) but whatever, there was no way I was re-doing the entire thing! But yeah... looks shiny enough doesn't it?


Reflection by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

and so, after several weeks faffing around on and off, it was time to start transferring all the old bonnet furniture over from the OG engine lid


Numberplate light by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

and add that badge that was the cause of all these shenanigans. And yes, that spot where I burned through is really annoying


Swapping over by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Maybe I only notice it because I know it's there?


Trinkets transferred by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Then came the slightly apprehensive moment of actually fitting it to the car. what if the colour was miles out? At this point I realised I'd never even test-fitted the damned thing before I started in on paint and whatnot. It might not even fit!

Nahhh.... it's a genuine VW part. Surely teutonic efficiency would mean it'd just drop straight in? surely?


Lidded by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Errr. well, yeah. It only smegging did! (Once I'd worked out how to balance it on my head, use one hand to line up the giant bonnet spring, one hand to keep it in place and another one to get the bolt started, then another hand to grab the ratchet and wind the bolts in, all the while trying to avoid the unbelievably strong spring firing the entire lot into orbit via my face There's probably a knack to it, but I don't think I ever want to try fitting a Beetle bonnet (snigger) singlehandedly again. It was not fun


Done by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

but it fitted... in fact, it fitted better than the OG one had, weirdly. That had needed a lot of faffing around with the latch to get it to engage, and even then it needed a damned good hard slam to latch. This one drops neatly into place with a very satisfying and extremely German snick of self-satisfaction. The colour matched, the badge was aligned to the correct Jericho Trumpet angle and all was right with the world.

So next time, we'll be taking the entire car apart in search of something else to utterly knacker. Tune in to the next thrilling instalment, groovers, when we'll be going full mental


floor cleaning by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Nice. I've got to agree with you about the two-vent lid looking best. I've got one ready to cut up to graft into my '67 lid but I've been putting it off for several years! I really admire that you just fire straight into things without overthinking it!