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Jan 30, 2019 23:43:26 GMT
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Soda blasting Even at 5p a carrier bag it shouldn't cost much to get it back to base As I keep telling the kids, I've restored worse! Bare metalling is the only way to go to find every little bit of grot, and I'm not completely convinced about acid dipping - I've heard too many stories about the acid getting trapped in the seams only to reappear 12 months or so down the line. There's a soda blasting place local to school that have done quite a few Beetles, Porsches, Jags etc., and they seem to know their stuff. When I spoke to them a couple of weeks ago we agreed that we would cut off the pan halves, remove the gearbox and beam and they'd blast it. Although the drivers side pan half looks like something that PG Tips might be basing their next design on, the passenger side isn't too bad at all, and could be saveable. The framehead is good, as is the bottom plate, and even the Napoleons hat looks solid. Blasting it before the pan halves go on will be a nice way of getting the edges perfectly clean and the whole thing ready for paint, which I also want to do at school! The body is a different kettle of fish though! Bottom six inches all round, and potentially front quarter panels too. It's actually on the original heater channels, so it shouldn't be too hard to square up the body - I haven't braced it yet because I want it to move a little to line up the doors and tweak the front end where I think the accident damage may have twisted the shell slightly. It'll all get blasted as well but that'll probably be into the next academic year.
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1968 Cal Look Beetle - 2007cc motor - 14.45@93mph in full street trim 1970-ish Karmann Beetle cabriolet - project soon to be re-started. 1986 Scirocco - big plans, one day!
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Jan 30, 2019 22:19:51 GMT
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Week 4 - body off! After a couple of lessons where students were distracted by trial fitting a 6-point roll cage to the car (better to scratch the paint on this one than the orange one while we're checking out exactly where it fits!), we finally split the body and floorpan this morning! The heater channel on the drivers side had been welded pretty much front to rear along the floorpan edge, so one of the lads got choppy with the angry grinder and freed them wherever he could. There were some rather horrible plates on the bulkhead but fortunately they'd not been painted so they'd simply rotted away and were really easy to rip apart! We'd had the shocks off a little while ago, so once the wheels were on and the car was on the floor, we bounced the car up and down by the spare wheel well and lo and behold, the body came away from the pan! Then we had to stop to disconnect the brake fluid reservoir, which we'd forgotten about, and cut a couple of extra wires that were in the way, and the body went skyward on the lift. My teaching assistant is by his own admission not a car guy, but he's keen to learn as much as he can, and both him and the other guy in the photo above were blown away when the body came off. The students reactions varied from "is that it?" to "that's proper rotten", with the general feeling being positive. In the afternoon lesson we started removing pieces from the floorpan ready for soda blasting which will hopefully happen fairly soon!
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1968 Cal Look Beetle - 2007cc motor - 14.45@93mph in full street trim 1970-ish Karmann Beetle cabriolet - project soon to be re-started. 1986 Scirocco - big plans, one day!
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Jan 29, 2019 19:56:28 GMT
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Matt, I don't know if you've come across IronTrap Garage on YouTube - he build some seriously cool early hot rods. I'm working my way through the Free T build at the moment - I'm sure there's a couple of episodes of use to you! www.youtube.com/channel/UCaIIoFbVqP6NNF78iit5-Xg
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1968 Cal Look Beetle - 2007cc motor - 14.45@93mph in full street trim 1970-ish Karmann Beetle cabriolet - project soon to be re-started. 1986 Scirocco - big plans, one day!
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Jan 27, 2019 20:09:40 GMT
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My sister-in-law had a mk1 - great drive but not the most reliable! Changed the rad as the plastic caps parted company, and the sloshing noise on cornering turned out to be sills full of water where the drains had been crushed closed. Stuck a screwdriver in them, twisted them to open the drain holes back open and watched best part of a gallon come out of each side...
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1968 Cal Look Beetle - 2007cc motor - 14.45@93mph in full street trim 1970-ish Karmann Beetle cabriolet - project soon to be re-started. 1986 Scirocco - big plans, one day!
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Jan 27, 2019 18:51:15 GMT
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Saw this, this week Which strikes me as an interesting evolution (apologies that it’s a beetle, but I like them) It’s obviously a classic beetle, but very contemporary at the same time It's... er... "interesting". I can appreciate the amount of work that's gone in to it. I bet it's a hoot to drive. I can see the RWB influence big-time, but for me it's just lost some of it's Beetle-ness. It kind of reminds me of the '80's Porsche bodykitted Beetles! Where I see the scene going is similar to how everyone else sees it. We'll still be into the cars we're into now, some youngsters will be into the modern equivalents (2010-ish Corsas and Clios for example) but in probably lower numbers. There will be more emphasis on cars that are "special" straight from the factory, like the Focus ST and the Civic Type R. Like the Americans with the Big Three doing their factory drag cars. I'd like to see some hybrid swaps though. Fancy a Prius under an early '70s Corolla personally!
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1968 Cal Look Beetle - 2007cc motor - 14.45@93mph in full street trim 1970-ish Karmann Beetle cabriolet - project soon to be re-started. 1986 Scirocco - big plans, one day!
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Jan 27, 2019 18:21:46 GMT
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I think the Key to a successful meet is to not be too regular. If it's every week it dilutes the special occasion feel. Mrs D and I have already decided to take our dads over for their birthdays (mine in Feb, hers in August) but we have also said we'd like to do a big meet up there with our older cars. As we're over an hour away its a decent drive out so worth spending the day - maybe meet up in Stratford and drive up together to the C&M venue?
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1968 Cal Look Beetle - 2007cc motor - 14.45@93mph in full street trim 1970-ish Karmann Beetle cabriolet - project soon to be re-started. 1986 Scirocco - big plans, one day!
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Jan 26, 2019 20:01:42 GMT
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I've had two wheels like that fixed. Look for a local wheel refurb place, they'll either be able to fix them or will know someone else who can. IIRC it cost about £35 per wheel, but that was several years ago.
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1968 Cal Look Beetle - 2007cc motor - 14.45@93mph in full street trim 1970-ish Karmann Beetle cabriolet - project soon to be re-started. 1986 Scirocco - big plans, one day!
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Jan 26, 2019 19:32:19 GMT
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We popped over in Mrs D's Fiat, had a coffee inside, met @retrowarwick and ChasR , then as small boy was getting fidgety we went into Stratford for a while. Came back later for tea tho! Next time we'll have the Beetle - going to take it into school next week and fix those brakes! Forgot to say, what an amazing place! 356C indoors was awesome, and I really rather like the whole aesthetic of the whole space. Love it.
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1968 Cal Look Beetle - 2007cc motor - 14.45@93mph in full street trim 1970-ish Karmann Beetle cabriolet - project soon to be re-started. 1986 Scirocco - big plans, one day!
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Ok, I'm still coming but without the Beetle. Slight weep of brake fluid and double pump of pedal to get it to stop (noticed just before Christmas, but not driven since) has become major leak and an empty reservoir is not going to fix itself! See you all later!
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1968 Cal Look Beetle - 2007cc motor - 14.45@93mph in full street trim 1970-ish Karmann Beetle cabriolet - project soon to be re-started. 1986 Scirocco - big plans, one day!
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Matt, I'll take the Beetle Haynes book please. Should be at the Caffeine and Machine meet later. Cheers!
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1968 Cal Look Beetle - 2007cc motor - 14.45@93mph in full street trim 1970-ish Karmann Beetle cabriolet - project soon to be re-started. 1986 Scirocco - big plans, one day!
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Jan 25, 2019 22:51:59 GMT
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If I can get the brakes sorted on the Beetle early enough I'll have a blast over. Wife and 3 year old will follow in the modern, just in case - last time it went as far as Stratford it came back on a low loader...
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1968 Cal Look Beetle - 2007cc motor - 14.45@93mph in full street trim 1970-ish Karmann Beetle cabriolet - project soon to be re-started. 1986 Scirocco - big plans, one day!
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Jan 25, 2019 22:46:56 GMT
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A friend of mines mum was doing the washing up after tea one night. She went to answer the phone and when she got back she carried on with the washing up. As she was finishing off she found a pair of DCOE carb bodies in the bottom of the bowl. Apparently it was fairly common - my mate said that he later saw them sat on the rack on the draining board and his mum had done a lovely job on them!
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1968 Cal Look Beetle - 2007cc motor - 14.45@93mph in full street trim 1970-ish Karmann Beetle cabriolet - project soon to be re-started. 1986 Scirocco - big plans, one day!
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Jan 25, 2019 22:42:24 GMT
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End of week three! We keep uncovering bodges... "Today, class, we will be learning why certain people shouldn't be allowed anywhere near cars." I thought welding the bottom six inches of a bolt on wing was bad. I thought that using self tappers to replace snapped off M8 bolts was ingenious although stupid. Welding a floorpan washer or three to the 'pan was annoying, and welding the heater channel repair panel to the floorpan was just lazy. But whoever welded a patch over the rear corner of the floorpan and completely covered one of the bolts deserves my pity and contempt. In the word of one of my year 10s, "what a complete fox picture."
Still, they've learnt more angle grindering and removed the corners of the floorpan completely along with the jacking points on both sides. They removed one of the 17mm bolts on the rear suspension mount and snapped the other (which had been replaced with a 13mm bolt for some reason!), crowbarred the plates off the front bulkhead which had been blobbed in place and marked out the last bits of weld holding body to floorpan. I'm saving the pictures for next week when we have separation!
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1968 Cal Look Beetle - 2007cc motor - 14.45@93mph in full street trim 1970-ish Karmann Beetle cabriolet - project soon to be re-started. 1986 Scirocco - big plans, one day!
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Jan 24, 2019 19:45:24 GMT
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Yes, 8.8 inches to be precise. Sorry, couldn't help myself!
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1968 Cal Look Beetle - 2007cc motor - 14.45@93mph in full street trim 1970-ish Karmann Beetle cabriolet - project soon to be re-started. 1986 Scirocco - big plans, one day!
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Jan 22, 2019 19:42:02 GMT
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Very cool. The P1800 gasser behind is also a bit awesome.
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1968 Cal Look Beetle - 2007cc motor - 14.45@93mph in full street trim 1970-ish Karmann Beetle cabriolet - project soon to be re-started. 1986 Scirocco - big plans, one day!
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I never fit the jacking points to new pans, and quite often hack them off old ones too! I've seen more than a couple of creased quarter panels where the jacking point is moved up but the car stays stil...
I work there because I refuse to grow up! I'm in my 17th year of teaching and it's changed so much in that time. This school has a really nice feel to it, and although the students are incredibly challenging at times, the staff always pull together to make their time with us as beneficial as possible. I'm really glad I made the leap out of mainstream schools.
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1968 Cal Look Beetle - 2007cc motor - 14.45@93mph in full street trim 1970-ish Karmann Beetle cabriolet - project soon to be re-started. 1986 Scirocco - big plans, one day!
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Yeah, it's pretty bad but nothing that can't be fixed. This academic year we're concentrating on the floorpan and get that fully done, then body next year. I'd like the body off the pan by the end of this week and ideally soda blasted before half term. I'm incredibly lucky with the facilities I've got access to! Still looking out for more though - if a cheap blasting cabinet turned up I'd be on it like a tramp on chips...
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1968 Cal Look Beetle - 2007cc motor - 14.45@93mph in full street trim 1970-ish Karmann Beetle cabriolet - project soon to be re-started. 1986 Scirocco - big plans, one day!
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Jan 21, 2019 22:31:52 GMT
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Did I mention that l love my job - this is my classroom with another Beetle in there that belongs to the head of the Key Stage 3 school next door, and his 1915cc motor almost ready to put back in. Waiting on a rollcage to be delivered to school for that this week too...
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1968 Cal Look Beetle - 2007cc motor - 14.45@93mph in full street trim 1970-ish Karmann Beetle cabriolet - project soon to be re-started. 1986 Scirocco - big plans, one day!
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Jan 21, 2019 22:21:59 GMT
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1968 Cal Look Beetle - 2007cc motor - 14.45@93mph in full street trim 1970-ish Karmann Beetle cabriolet - project soon to be re-started. 1986 Scirocco - big plans, one day!
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Jan 19, 2019 12:45:28 GMT
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Do it! If you need it I've got a 1970 pan with V5 too...
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1968 Cal Look Beetle - 2007cc motor - 14.45@93mph in full street trim 1970-ish Karmann Beetle cabriolet - project soon to be re-started. 1986 Scirocco - big plans, one day!
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