[flc]

Hey Rhysos, I follow your blog on the 65 that’s where I found the tool for folding back the seam trim, how is your car going? Not seen an update for a while. Glad you like my sense of humour. Always a good thing to have when restoring an old beetle :mental: as for the primer, I take a picture of the tin when I’m in the garage next. But it’s syntho 1k hi zinc, etch primer , with body colour tint . The paint man recommended it to me , saying “it will cover anything and anything can go over it” I was suspicious but , true to his word I haven’t had any reaction to it on all the stuff I’ve used it on. The only issue was it’s very thick and he sold me some 1k thinner that was quite expensive and when I had trouble getting the paint out of the gun he recommended that I just use celly thinners and put a ‘bit’ more in. I was using the dear stuff at around 5% then went to 10% cheap cellulose and worked a treat.

 

[Leigh d]

Hi Leigh, yes it's possible to remove them, they are a gusset , that can be cut almost level with the dash. Then flatted with a flap type wheel on the grinder. I think the layers you can see ,are the vent pressings that are kind of like a hoover attachment that is tacked in between the layers (I'll try to get a picture for you) I just cut all of mine out

Thanks might have a go at getting mine out tomorrow

 

[Rhysos]

Hey Rhysos, I follow your blog on the 65 that's where I found the tool for folding back the seam trim, how is your car going? Not seen an update for a while. Glad you like my sense of humour. Always a good thing to have when restoring an old beetle :mental: as for the primer, I take a picture of the tin when I'm in the garage next. But it's syntho 1k hi zinc, etch primer , with body colour tint . The paint man recommended it to me , saying "it will cover anything and anything can go over it" I was suspicious but , true to his word I haven't had any reaction to it on all the stuff I've used it on. The only issue was it's very thick and he sold me some 1k thinner that was quite expensive and when I had trouble getting the paint out of the gun he recommended that I just use celly thinners and put a 'bit' more in. I was using the dear stuff at around 5% then went to 10% cheap cellulose and worked a treat.

Glad my blog has been of some use I paused the project for a while to focus on other life priorities and also realised that needed a break from it as I had run into a few issues with the car that I couldn't easily resolve (compounding frustration). However, I'm feeling the motivation returning and hope to reboot the resto and blog in the coming weeks!

Thanks for the info about the primer. I had kinda hoped it would be in a rattle can for convenience, but I imagine that a 1k system with the addition of thinners is not too much of a faff?

 

[flc]

Glad my blog has been of some use I paused the project for a while to focus on other life priorities and also realised that needed a break from it as I had run into a few issues with the car that I couldn't easily resolve (compounding frustration). However, I'm feeling the motivation returning and hope to reboot the resto and blog in the coming weeks!

Thanks for the info about the primer. I had kinda hoped it would be in a rattle can for convenience, but I imagine that a 1k system with the addition of thinners is not too much of a faff?

Easy enough to use and I do wonder if the paint suppliers could put some in an aerosol for ease, I keep a separate gun for primer and don't worry too much about ratios now as it seams like it will cover ok no matter how sloppy I am mixing it up

 

[flc]

Ok back to business, When I left you last time I’d ditched the idea of ever finding a short fibreglass bonnet and reverted back to the yellow one I had, best of a bad lot really but not much choice, so i started making an assessment of the work required. Then this bleeder turned up

 

[flc]

Just popped up on Facebook, I just couldn’t believe my eyes, I mean what’s the chances? I ignored it for most of the day, thinking I’d already spent a fortune on the other glass one . But eventually it got the better of me and I zipped over a message, along the lines of “is it still for sale?, is it deffo a short one and do you want to swap for a long one?”:lol: Not expecting much back , less than a minute later I’d gotten a response “yes still got it, yes deffo came off my personal late bug and yes I am looking for a long lid” whuhoo I’m in here , I thinks . Where abouts are you, north side of Newcastle. Ok not impossible to sort. I know, you post yours and I’ll post mine? Guy says “no ,absolutely not wrapping a bonnet up” err ok how’s about I come up and get it? Yes that could work, anyway, another really long story short. We couldn’t agree on a suitable date, and he wasn’t that interested in the long one.. so gutted I left it alone. But did in the meantime ,sell the long one for my money back every cloud and all that. Then like a bolt of lightning I had a thought one last chance, I asked him “if I organise collection would you tape it up in a bin bag?” I mean what could possibly happen to a bonnet in the back of a van, that I couldn’t sort once it arrived right? And bless him he agrees

 

[flc]

So that would be that? Eh, well you would think so, he sends me the size/weight and the day he’ll be in. I book the collection (easy as I’d already done it before) the day comes and all I get is an angry message, along the lines of “I’ve waited in all day and no one has been!”
Looking at the tracking it’s down as been collected??? The guy says “no I’d no if it had been mick , because I wouldn’t be falling over it In my effin kitchen, would I?”
Err good point mate . To be fair the guy was really decent about it and actually went to the depot to ask if he could drop it off himself, but get this ‘they can’t process a parcel drop off for an item that’s already been collected’ sorry what? So a snotty email was sent from my end and a grovelling apology to the seller. This dragged on for a few days. Until I emailed the complaints department and made a formal issue of it.
I soon had a pleasant conversation with a lady who took awhile to understand what the issue was. At one point was going to reorder the collection from my house oh ffs 🤦*♂
I thought I’m never going to see this bonnet.
But the very next morning I got a text from my long suffering wife , along the lines of “ err mick, how many cars are you currently restoring?” To which I answer “ just one my love, why do you ask?”
“Because yet another f*€king bonnet has appeared in my kitchen! , that makes 5 by my calculations!!!” Oh dear, my emotions were split between the fear of my wife’s wrath and the excitement that I may just possibly have acquired a unicorn :lol:

 

[flc]

And a unicorn it was
The thing fitted like it had grown there, and the paint was showroom nice.
Unbelievable so after all this time I’ve finally sorted a bonnet out : no more rust issues for me,
I scotchbrited the gloss off the paint and hit it with a coat of the primer, thinking that when I go out to see if it’s dry , it will have reacted or something. But no, perfect finish. Only thing I’d missed was that the previous owner had done away with the handle (b289’d it?) a quick measure and popes a couple of holes and I was good to go finally things are going my way.
The only issue I had was what to do with all the surplus bonnets? To help and incourage me my wife asked me this very question, every single day :crazy: apparently, although she appreciates the finer points of vw design she preferred to not have a vw bonnet obstacle course in the back garden ,ok they eventually went a vw parts guy that hopefully has sold them on to repair some other cars :hug:

 

[flc]

So this basically leaves me with a fully welded rot free shell and mint floor pan 😎👊 . Feeling of deep joy , that much I can tell you, this now left me with some weld tidying and the need to seal all joints, but the shell being sat on the pan was hindering this, so a luckily timed job at work, left a load of 75mm diameter tube as scrap, a quick ask of the gaffer and she was mine just had to cut it up into transportable lengths and dig out some old trolley wheels I had kicking about and I made up this frame

 

[flc]

What the pictures don’t show is that this was mk3, first go the rear wheels hit the heater channels and the second was too high to go under the garage door mk3 required some wood chocks to lift the body (when inside the building ) and allows the pan to be rolled outside ; I was now able to seal and paint the whole underneath ect, and eventually it was time to refit the shell back on the pan, oddly I don’t have pictures of the paint process but it was just the usual, finger print removing bastard of a job that takes for ever and could always have been done better , but on we trot

 

[flc]

So for paint I had chosen the Miami blue that shell three ,came with, nice colour , but not entirely sure I’d ever have chosen it. Now for the rest of the car I had a brain wave , well no actually heritage were having a sale and jeans beetle window scrapers were part of it, hmm blacked out scrapers hmm 🤔 yes ,actually ,why not a blue jeans look beetle ? :lol: I’m a genius , ok maybe not ,but yes I like the sound of that. The paint chosen ,was in satin ,to try to hide my amateur attempts at painting. And blacked out parts for all the other usually chrome bits . As you can see the car had gained a front bumper in chrome!! And the required bumper indicator units, which of course now won’t work, in my stash I had a nos painted one, so front bumper no 2 on the list.

 

[Zebedee]

Looking good. A blue jeans bug could be cool though theres already a blue jeans from 1995. The graphics aren't as cool as the 70s version.
http://www.sebeetles.com/jeans_95/

 

[flc]

Looking good. A blue jeans bug could be cool though theres already a blue jeans from 1995. The graphics aren't as cool as the 70s version.
http://www.sebeetles.com/jeans_95/

Thanks zeb, didn't know about the later jeans. Interesting how they used the name but not many of the details. I'm just going for the blacked out trim look, the side trim was deleted as I did up the body .
Machine 7 also had a sale ,which included a set of black door handles , so now I have new locks/keys the rest of the parts were sanded down and rattle canned, not sure how this will last but can be easily redone if needed. This includes the wing top indicators, the wipers, the badges, engine lid and bonnet handles, the headlamp rings and I also got some mesh grills in stainless which were etch primed before paint again I'm not sure how long these will stay black but... also I found a black plastic mirror in my stash of parts, and proceeded to goose the thread while half arsed fitting it, I found out later bugs have them so orders a pair only to find another bleeder in my stash :lol: so at least I have a spare . Now the thing I noticed was they are really light compared with the chrome ones I'd previously bought grrr 😡 so that's 2sets of mirrors to add to the ever increasing list of rejected parts for this car, but light weight they are, so I'm calling them a performance increase investment :lol::incheek:

 

[Zebedee]

Gonna look good with all the bits blacked out. A nice set of satin black side stripes along the bottoms of the doors/quarter panels like a golf GTI would look cool.

 

[flc]

Like the idea , I’ll look at that Zeb.
As you can see in the pictures, it’s now wearing the front wings painted. This did not go well. Although fibreglass doesn’t rust or dent, it does crack and chip. To the point where I bought a product called a fibreglass big boy it was neither big or assigned a gender. But at less than a tenner it was cheerfully cheap, until I’d bought 3 of the cows and could have bought enough stuff to build a boat for the same price. These kits come with every item need to make fibreglass repairs including a pair of gloves that instantly dissolve the second I stopped using the supplied spreader and got mushing things about with my digits (is it just me that does this, with everything, filler , bathroom sealer etc?) hence no pictures or my phone would now be fibreglass’ed to the side of my head. I also had the usual nose itch exactly one minute into this, but now have healed up remarkably well.

 

[flc]

As all this fun was happening, a local mate was selling a grey Audi TT interior, that was for sale a while and steadily got cheap enough to fall onto my radar, this radar is mainly for things that are too cheap to ignore and possibly would work on my car. Being from Yorkshire this is a perfectly normal thing for us naturally tight people :lol:
So with these collected I looked at fitting them, the og seat rails just wouldn’t work for me, so I designed some one off’s . These are box sections that had been cut away to lighten but keep strength, welded to the tunnel and large diameter holes across the pan and a bolted mount that’s welded to the heater channels on the outer edge, the rear mount was angle iron welded in a similar way with captive nuts to lessen any faffing when installing the seats. This took a fair while but leaves me with the full adjustment at a nice stock feeling height

 

[tattoodave]

This has been a great read for an hour, good stuff.....i'll look forward to more

 

[flc]

This has been a great read for an hour, good stuff.....i'll look forward to more

Thanks Dave :hug:
I've enjoyed recalling the tale and perversely even though it's fought me at times, I've really enjoyed this resto

 

[flc]

Now that fate had provided me with a pair of grey front seats, the decision had to be made about what to do with the rest of the interior. The car originally came with some home covered black and white checked door trims and while these suited the rat black og car , they just were not going to cut it, with the now much more refined layout ( funny how once you improve one part, it really shows up the rest?) this was originally going to be ,a fast road ratty beetle with a big motor. Well... I’ve come along (spent a load ) since then :moon
I made the reluctant choice to replace the cards and I wanted to fit a rear parcel shelf , for two reasons 1, to insulate (as much a possible ) engine noise. And 2, to cover up the cavity behind the seat( i planned to fit coil and stuff here. So get this I bought a black vinyl covered one, 2 days before I finally decided that I wanted to have a bash at doing my own interior in some sort of grey? Hmm 🤔 why not make my own shelf too? Here we sodding go again :lol:

 

[flc]

Now I luckily work at a place that gets loads of deliveries and has an abundance of packing crates and the like, so getting some free plywood is fairly easy. So add to the list some 12mm and a load of 4mm for the door cards, I got some measurements, from the net and set about making a shelf, all good so far , unfortunately I don’t know what car they had measured but it was loads different to mine??? So that one was shelved :lol: and a modified drawing was made , unfortunately for some reason I’d completely cocked it up so that’s three (if you count the vinyl one) so far ..arse. the next one I’d gotten right. I had by then found a material supplier