1971 Beetle Cal Look school project

This is a really good one - high quality - chromate free - acts has weld through etching primer so you only have to use one product - not the cheapest but certainly one of the better ones

www.bilthamber.com/paints-and-coatings/etchweld

Lots of the cheaper range of products simply don't really work or are ineffective

I use this one

www.kenteurope.com/automotive/?tx_products_products%5Bproduct%5D=p20887521en&tx_products_products%5BcurrentCategory%5D=19&tx_products_products%5Baction%5D=show&tx_products_products%5Bcontroller%5D=Product&cHash=1a54f80a06254729badf80e801d8cd72

Unfortunately its only available to trade account holders but I am more than happy to order it in and supply it to you if you wish


Let me know if you need any further info / help

Update! Back to school today and I find a pair of pan halves waiting for me! We decided to go for the more expensive ones (111-701-061MRG and 111-701-062MRG, if anyone's interested!) and they're so much better than ones I've used in the past. The seat rails for '71-'72 only are in place, but the jacking points and rear braces aren't, which suits me - jacking points are a rust trap and our rear braces are largely good and in factory position, so easier to line up!
I'm happy. Big thanks to www.vwheritage.com!

Three more boxes from www.vwheritage.com this morning! Basically the bottom six inches and the front three feet! Parts of varying quality but price reflects that, and availability of genuine parts is getting worse every year.
We've got front quarter panels from IGP - look ok but will need modifying for the 1200 bumpers, and I seem to have ordered the new without the fuel filler recess! Left hand side has a strange pressing in it (a lump sticking out into the inner arch) that I've never seen before.
Front bulkhead is from Sao Jorge in Brazil and again looks fair, although has a weird bracket on the front!
Door post bottoms from Auto-Craft look really nice. Heavy, well made and inspire confidence of fit.
Heater channels are from Klokkerholm and also look good, better than ones I've fitted in the past. Rear crossmembers also look of a fair quality, but strangely don't have the captive nuts to bolt them to the floor! Maybe Klokkerholm dnt think they're necessary? Rear quarter repairs are the standard bits that Klokkerholm have been making for years and are vaguely Beetle shaped, but I tend to cut them down as much as I can, so ok there, and the bumper mounts are also a bit iffy but again I'll be removing quite a lot, so no worries there.

Overall, you get what you pay for, and while I'd love to have an unlimited budget and access to New Old Stock parts, realistically with a bit of knowledge about how these things are constructed it's entirely possible to build a decent car with aftermarket parts. Hopefully we'll be able to do that!

That's why I can never get stuff from Heritage in a timely fashion; they're all busy packing up and sending you the entire catalogue

You can order again now, I've spent my budget for this year and next! I'm trying to juggle financial years and academic ones...

I've spent a bit of time this afternoon with a student trimming the drivers pan half to fit, and I'll do  the same with another couple of lads tomorrow. We're aiming to get the floorpan done by the time we break up for summer and we'll start the body in September 2019. By September 2020 I want to be sorting doors, wings and lids, and prepping for paint, with reassemble starting summer 2021!

With the Year 11 students virtually at the end of their school careers it's now down to the Year 10s to pick up the project, and so we continue with the floorpan.
The new pan halves from www.vwheritage.com had arrived and we had found that they're supplied a bit long. We started with the right hand one and trimmed 6.5mm off the back and around 12mm off the front, and dropped it into place. It just didn't look quite right though, the rear brace hole lined up front to back but not left to right, and the front of the pan didn't sit over the end of the Napoleon's hat quite right. It all pointed to the floorpan being a bit too wide, so I went hunting for dimensions and found some drawings over on www.thesamba.com, which I'll link to later.
Then we built a chassis jig out of pallets and an 8x4 sheet of plywood!


It shows quite handily that the pan half is also about 12mm too wide! I'm not knocking the quality of the floorpan but I'm glad I've got the space to make up this rudimentary table to test all this out on and I'm not doing it on the drive or in a single garage.





Once we've got this side sorted for fit we can carry on with the repairs to the spine before getting all this stuck together in time for the summer holidays!

Does it mean all the strengthening ribs and pressings will be in the wrong place when it's trimmed though?

No, it shouldn't. They're supplied with the extra metal on the edges that weld to the spine, which I suppose  could vary from car to car, especially with different years. Frameheads changed a couple of times, and the profile of the tunnel changed when they went to three runner seats in 1973ish - I don't think the width altered too much though.