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1972 basic beetle 1200; mahoosive project


DaveDorson

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Choppy choppy.. the cross member showed up so we set to work removing the rotten one again .

 

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Which turned out to be a case of just chiseling under this "weld" once we had removed the spot welds from the original bit and hitting it with a hammer.  Gone to the trouble of using a mig, unfortunately they hadn't penetrated the metal much and there was very little contact.

Now to prep the area and offer up the new panel.

 

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  • 1 month later...

Remember those door repairs.. IMG-20220205-WA0001.thumb.jpg.2d2f1ae552dc48995377ee8a4dde890f.jpg

 

Some shitgibbon has tacked and filled up the rusty old shit with isopon and then tacked a skin repair on, over the top and "skimmed" with more filler..  no wonder I couldn't ever get it to hang right.

 

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New skins ordered, I've had to get Brazilian ones, so I'll have to mess about cutting at the swage and letting them in, but it seems the supply of good used doors has dried up now.

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3 hours ago, DaveDorson said:

it seems the supply of good used doors has dried up now

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/VW-Beetle-rust-free-door-68-later-models-California-import-/115228214933?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&_trksid=p2349624.m46890.l49286&mkrid=710-127635-2958-0

Lots of pennies but might save you some grief. There are usually decent panels at the shows I attend if you're looking for anything specific 

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1 hour ago, bunglebus said:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/VW-Beetle-rust-free-door-68-later-models-California-import-/115228214933?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&_trksid=p2349624.m46890.l49286&mkrid=710-127635-2958-0

Lots of pennies but might save you some grief. There are usually decent panels at the shows I attend if you're looking for anything specific 

The cost of skins is the same as postage on those and the time and mig wire and gas is a lot less than £199 a door.  If I was paying someone to do the car then £500 on a pair of known good doors would be fair, but while I'm doing a lot myself, it's not really worth it.  

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Nice to see more progress. Door skin is a good idea. On mine it came with a good passenger door but the drivers door had had one of those bottom repair panels on it and then loads of filler to blend it... I just know that filler is going to crack!

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1 hour ago, dave j said:

Nice to see more progress. Door skin is a good idea. On mine it came with a good passenger door but the drivers door had had one of those bottom repair panels on it and then loads of filler to blend it... I just know that filler is going to crack!

£45 at heritage mate, if you don't mind a brazillian one (the window frame is a bit thick, so wants modifying!)

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6 hours ago, DaveDorson said:

£45 at heritage mate, if you don't mind a brazillian one (the window frame is a bit thick, so wants modifying!)

The Brazilian bugs are really odd, they kept the >64 small side windows right up to the end of production, but introduced the half-moon vent behind the rear side one along with the rest of the world. And stopped production only to re-start again years later. Anyway slightly off-topic, I take it there are no Mexican panels anymore? It has been nearly 20 years since they stopped producing Beetles there I suppose.

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That probably looks OK to non VW people but seeing those vents, elephants feet lights, Euro bumpers, short deck lid etc etc etc with small side windows is really odd to me. As for the square instruments...

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1 hour ago, bunglebus said:

The Brazilian bugs are really odd, they kept the >64 small side windows right up to the end of production, but introduced the half-moon vent behind the rear side one along with the rest of the world. And stopped production only to re-start again years later. Anyway slightly off-topic, I take it there are no Mexican panels anymore? It has been nearly 20 years since they stopped producing Beetles there I suppose.

images.jpeg.6510cb578da932e7136e6fa900107a98.jpeg

That probably looks OK to non VW people but seeing those vents, elephants feet lights, Euro bumpers, short deck lid etc etc etc with small side windows is really odd to me. As for the square instruments...

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Finding Mexico stuff is a bear now.  I do have some nice Mexi heads in my stash.  

 

Also... I don't like it 🤣

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 05/02/2022 at 18:58, DaveDorson said:

Some shitgibbon has tacked and filled up the rusty old shit with isopon and then tacked a skin repair on, over the top and "skimmed" with more filler.. 

“Shitgibbon”.    
 

Made me smile.   Added to my vocabulary.

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  • 2 months later...

Small bit significant update..

 

I acquired some Michelin XAS and XVS rubber at the weekend.IMG_20220514_134918_171.thumb.jpg.96650e23adb91ff713a1a8c2799a3f18.jpg

These are eye wateringly expensive rubber and I got 4 of each, then the same day sold 2 of each for double my total outlay.

 

Some of you saw my wheel refurb thread no doubt.. some throw away Empi 8 spoke Spyder mag replicas shown a bit of love.

 

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Et Voila, rear tyres at least sorted and will have a very significant impact on the overall look of the car.

Front rubber is currently en route to me, and will be the narrower 145 r15 which will also reduce the front ride height.

I have also got a Vertex Magneto winging it's way to me as well as some other vintage performance goodies, and purchased a full set of Bilstien shock absorbers for the car.

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The bodywork restoration saga is an on-going battle but it's a lot more metal than rust now at least.. door reconstruction is holding up proceedings a bit.

 

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Speaking of just like they used to run in the 1970s..

 

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I need to find someone who can test and check this over, remove the rev limiter for me and change the advance so I can make it advance to something more suited to a Volkswagen flat 4 engine.

 

I also need a clamp for it as it's a big old thing and if I hang it out the crank case using a distributor mount, I will crack an expensive engine case.

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I love new parts.

 

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Everyone buys the worst shock absorbers on the planet for air cooled VWs and then moans about the way the car drives.

These have been developed between Paul at Type 2 detectives near Cambridge and Bilstien to actually make a car that drives nicely, rather than one that bounces and shimmies down the road like a skateboard on marbles.

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  • 1 month later...

One of the issues with project like this, is that it can get a bit overwhelming, hence gaps between updates.  You need to be in the correct headspace go at something like this because you can spend a day and it feels like you've got nothing done.

Things like welding up a pineapple roof aerial hole.. 

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It's a small thing, but it can take a bit of time to get it right, and the welder is a big unweildy thing that can a dick to move about and get into space, especially when it's not in the workshop and you're trying to work around other jobs.

And then you can shoot a bit of paint or primer at if and suddenly it feels like you've making leaps.

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  • 3 weeks later...

it's the little things that can make and break how a car drives.  Obviously, I've bought the Bilstein shock absorbers  for this car, but something often overlooked with these beetles are the gromets and bushes that are used to keep the torsion bars in check and the torsion leaves up front, they're over-looked because you can't see them once fitted to the car I think.

I'd been using the now defunct Machine7 Automotive in Nuneaton for all my parts, sadly they folded earlier this year.

One of my friends Russ runs a race team Shiftin Ghia (he's got a Karmann Ghia with a VW 20vT engine) and he also does what he can to provide good quality parts to those of us carrying out restorations.

This will be a road car (mostly), so I didn't want to buy urethane suspension parts, I also didn't want to use the urethane stuff available for classic VW's because they're shit, they don't fit, they squeak even when correctly lubricated, but rubber stuff is a bloody nightmare, so finding some good quality stuff is key.. the end caps that hold my torsion bars in place are also really badly corroded, so I got a new pair of those too.  These are often overlooked when people build beetles and it means the suspension does some odd stuff meaning the car can squirm and shuffle, adding to the already interesting handling characteristics that are part of owning a swing axle suspension car.

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The top bushes, fitted to the plates in this picture are handed L and R, (the generic urethane ones aren't!) and have different part numbers.

The brake hose clips I'm just replacing as a matter of course.

The grease nipple is for the front torsion beam, I've got one missing.

Silver plates are actually locking plates for the front brake callipers, mine are shot, so new ones.

The stack of 4 bushes are for the front torsion leaves in the beam, they're a grease seal and mine are alright, but while I'm there...

And finally, the bottom two are inner rear torsion bar bushes. 

I've already bought new ball joints, tie rod ends, earlier in the restoration, I've also bought some castor correction shims as I'm going to be running the front suspension lower than usual, with some skinner front rubber, and fatter rear giving a nose down stance, and want to make sure the front suspension basically acts like it should do, again this is all stuff that's absolutely irrelevant for Instagram, but quite important to how a car actually drives.

New chassis components so far:

  • Refurbished Calipers
  • Master Cylinder
  • Brake discs and bearings (fr)
  • Solid Lines
  • Flexi lines
  • Flexi to Solid line clips
  • Torsion beam bushes
  • Ball joints
  • Tie rod ends
  • Steering box (refurbished)
  • Steering box connector bush
  • Steering box damper
  • Tyres
  • Floor Pan halves
  • Rear torsion bar bushes, inner and outter
  • Rear torsion bar location caps
  • Rear wheel cylinders
  • Rear shoes
  • T2D specification re-valved Bilstein Shock absorbers front and rear. 
  • Castor correction shims and HT Bolts for front beam location

That's quite the list when you break it down, and doesn't even get into the engine, gearbox, body shell, glass/seals, interior etc.

 

 

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