1974 VW Beetle 1303

I think you might get used to being surprised by finding more rust on it.
Thats a monu-mental undertaking and fair play to you for it!

This car is slowly coming together.

Rear clip is welded in place





Right side is now ready for the wing bolt repair panel. That is why I haven't radiused the joint to the C pillar as the repair panel will give me the radius and I would rather not cut it wrong.



Second job today was cutting out the rot in the boot floor and welding in the first repair patch. This is one of the worst bits to do on the whole car but I baulked at the cost of the repair panel especially as I would only have needed a third of it and you can't buy just the bit I actually need. It is going to take some work but I think I can make this panel good again. Not sure how much more I will get done this weekend as gauge on my gas regulator is telling me my gas bottle is nearly out.

I have been a little quiet on this thread as of late but that is because I have been busy working on ugly.

Monday saw a big parts order go in to VW heritage so hopefully I should have a nice big parcel arrive tomorrow. Also on Monday we managed to free up and strip down the front brakes and struts. Sadly the struts themselves went straight onto the every growing scrap pile as both of the lower spring seats were floating loose down by the drums allowing the springs to flop around loose. One was also cracked around the base and leaking. All in all I think they were beyond repair which is a little sad as, unlike the inserts, complete struts seem a little hard to come by and are very expensive new.



Then I jury rigged this little experiment together to clean up parts without the harsh nature of sandblasting. If my experiment works well I will make up a bigger, less jury rigged, tank that can be used for cleaning larger parts such as suspension arms and wheels.



The next job on the list was working on repairing bubbling on the bottom of the N/S door. Cutting away the porous skin revealed that the lower part of the frame that the skin spot welds to was also compromised so out came the angle grinder again to cut away the rot. A repair section was then measured and cut out of a fresh sheet of steel before being bent using a hammer and a vice, oh what I wouldn't give for a sheet bender about now.



Newly made section is then clamped in place before being butt welded into place, then a length of square section steel was clamped to the door frame and the edge dressed over with a hammer to give a mating surface for plug welding the door skin to.



Lastly the a L section was added to the end to complete the full length of the door. In hindsight it would have been easier to cut further and make the first section longer than use to sections but hey ho you never stop learning.



I then fabricated a new door skin repair section and welded it in place followed by copious swearing when I realised that I hadn't noticed the whole panel is slightly curved! This resulted in several hours with the panel beating hammers and dollies, and my arm feeling like it was going to fall off, to get the profile close enough that it will now only need a light skim of filler. Test fitted the door and I can't say I am that happy with the end result so more work is required. There is also one more repair need to the skin just above the lower hinge.

On other notes I have also been working on cleaning up the n/s front quarter and on that front it was not nearly as bad as it looked. There was a lot of surface rust but it has brushed back to solid metal in most places. This has been treated with a rust converter and any that was too thin has been cut out and replaced. The panel isn't finished yet but is looking a lot better than it did.



Hopefully will have more to post tomorrow.

N/S front quarter is looking much better.

A nice big parcel arrived today so I should now have most of the bit I need to tackle the really nasty bits on this car.



We have a;

- complete front apron panel.
- O/S mud guard mount repair panel.
- N/S mud guard mount repair panel.
- N/S lower front quarter repair panel
- Complete O/S front quarter panel.

I wonder how much of that I can get in place tomorrow?

We are currently rebuilding behind the front quarter and under the petrol tank. It's coming together even with the minor disaster caused by the earth clamp spring on the welder failing. Oh it welded so much easier after I noticed and stuck a pair of mole grips on the earth clamp to get a better circuit.

I had a similar failure a year or so ago Paul, used the end of an old jump-lead as my replacement clamp. Works a treat!

End of a days work, I can't do anymore today as it is now dark. I think I needed to stop as the quality of my welds suddenly dropped it's got good penetration but it is going to take some cleaning up.

A little more work today starting to piece together the front crossmember. I had a new toy arrive today in the form of sand blaster so once I get some aluminium oxide grit I should be able to get all of this much cleaner. It has been a nightmare to clean up with a wire brush.



The piece going down in the picture was placed simply to give me a good line to work to when fitting the other pieces. That will be cut away and replaced with a single panel.