63Ragtop Posted September 5, 2012 Share Posted September 5, 2012 Thought I should make me one of these thread things for my bug. got it when I was about 21 and was my only car for over 10 years, good old bitch. over the years it's had new shocks, brakes, gearbox( later 1500 one) tart up panel and paint and a warmed up 1600 engine. engle 110 cam, lightened flywheel, hd clutch & oil pump, heavy valve springs, 36mm DRLA Dell etc... was still running good, save a dodgee starter, but the rust was starting to get noticeable and was a bit bent here and there. gutters under rear seat under rear window bad repairs shitty bonnet drivers door lines up well! So that's were it started, hopefully it will end well, i've never done any bodywork or welding etc 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
63Ragtop Posted September 5, 2012 Author Share Posted September 5, 2012 one more pic of how it use to look, 20 footer, good from far, far from good. so the plan was to start at the front and finish it as much as possible, and not blow the whole car apart, get overwhelmed and give up(ant' happing) car has four differant fenders of four differant years and models bugs 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
63Ragtop Posted September 5, 2012 Author Share Posted September 5, 2012 these cars are so easy to take apart, getting it back together, well. had to buy a grinder plus wire wheel. this side had quite a bit of damage which was poorly repaired, then covered in bog. driver side not so bad. hello rust, i can see you. so i got this pair of front fenders off a 50's era car, even though the headlights are the same and fit the body, vw changed the pressing though the years, these have been blasted and i hope to repair them. I've now go three pairs of front fenders for the car, should be able to fix these with parts of the other two sets. wheel sits perfectly in the wheelarch got me some spotweld drills started by removing the seal strip holder thing crusty removed the mighty rust trap that is the horn mount. then got the valance off. pretty fucked 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
63Ragtop Posted September 6, 2012 Author Share Posted September 6, 2012 Forgot to say, all this started at the end of 2009, damn that's ages ago. here you can see how bent the front was, it took much beating to get this fitting better. pulled the spare wheel tray next, was krusty in the corners. and the washer bottle tray also got a few goodies of some other vw nuts tacho NOS stock heads compete new loom compete stainless nut and bolt set found the og key 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
63Ragtop Posted September 6, 2012 Author Share Posted September 6, 2012 bought this POS for $80 on TM had about 3 inches of swamp in the pan but solid where I wanted it young felix thought I'd bought him a car! a few weekends later it looked like this then this then this got what I wanted and sold the rest to the scrapyard and some dude took the pan away for a couple bucks, made most of my 80 back 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
63Ragtop Posted September 6, 2012 Author Share Posted September 6, 2012 got this off a good mate who is an engineer, don't use it no mo. let the birdshit commence! templates making replacement patches first welds smoothed out then started on the spare wheel panel holes and blended into the factory steel and all done, took about 2 months of sundays sandblasted and primed with weldable primer 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
63Ragtop Posted September 7, 2012 Author Share Posted September 7, 2012 took the rest of the parts car apart Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
63Ragtop Posted September 7, 2012 Author Share Posted September 7, 2012 In order to get the front panels lining up and looking good, I got a new/old bonnet, mine had never fitted and was rusty plus full of bog. attempting to get rid of this gap new bonnet, ratty but solid. next I started, letting in the repair patches I fabbed up, you can buy repop's for these panels, but thats no fun is it! test fitting welded up back and ground down, pretty happy with it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
63Ragtop Posted September 7, 2012 Author Share Posted September 7, 2012 Didn't take any pics of fixing the other side of the valance, wasn't as bad as the first side, joined it though the bumper hole, less welding! moved on to the body side of things chop chop. cut out the bad metal, then blasted as much of the surface rust out as i could. fitting up the patch. covered everything with weldable primer drilled holes for plug welds on the bumper mounts and after some of the worst welding in the world just like a new one! cracked into the other side years of surface rust welded primed just had to weld the fender nuts back in place got the old supercheap sandblaster out better look good just sitting there, will weld everything back together when the body is off the chassis and i can get at the back of the front panels under the gas tank area, sandblast etc... another mock up to make sure everything still fits 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
63Ragtop Posted September 8, 2012 Author Share Posted September 8, 2012 moved on to the wheel arch areas carefull cutting weld primed welded up the ariel holes, the bottom one should only about 5mm, but had rusted out. finished 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
63Ragtop Posted September 11, 2012 Author Share Posted September 11, 2012 To carry on the "bite sized" work that I can handle, I spun the car 180 and started on the rear. unbolted the bumper, fenders, engine lid, then dropped the mighty 1600 out. my work space then built this little table it store the engine out of the way cost me a box of woodys from the engineers shop across from work, GC there even cut it to length for me. then bust out the spot weld drill got the old valance off in mostly one part this is why the valance needed to be removed it's also pretty smashed as it sit's low at the back of the car and would drag on driveways etc.. bashing the exhaust when it hit the ground 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
63Ragtop Posted September 11, 2012 Author Share Posted September 11, 2012 some more damage started by removing the inner panel that way i could get in behind the valance it's self with the welder/dollys/sandblaster etc... started on this side then did the top part, should have just replaced the whole thing sanded down needed heaps of little repairs like this For the other side i replaced the whole thing, i didn't cut the shape out for the fender bolt, i thought i'd just drill a hole the same as the fender has so when the fender is bolted on so is the valance, good idea? dunno yet, i'll have to go back and fix the other side this patch was tricky as fuck fit's better than the other side now though another test fit smoothed out Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
63Ragtop Posted September 11, 2012 Author Share Posted September 11, 2012 more sandblaster etc... the inner panel there, was bent, rusted and needs alot of work started by knocking it back into shape, then trimmed the raggy bottom edges this thing is normally bends back(up in the pic) and is spot welded to the bottom of the valance, I wanted to trim the valance down to give more room for the exhaust system, so i rolled the edge under and then needed to extend the inner panel to meet it. but first, an't it pretty. so, started fixing the inner panel here it is welded in place first i had just folded the end over but that looked shit, so i did a little hammering and stretching, much better. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
63Ragtop Posted September 11, 2012 Author Share Posted September 11, 2012 Above birdshit was ground down, I then filled the hole for the fender bolt on the other side so they matchy matchy I'm going to make this panel bolt on, rather than weld it back on, will make pulling the engine even easier. With the valance sorted, i took the spot weld drill and cut off wheel to the rusty thing that use to be a bumper mount. this part of the car has cleverly been designed to create as much rust as possible not much left of the old one also removed the inside engine tray so I had full access to both sides of the panel out again you can buy these panels as replacement pressing, but they are not very accurate repro's of the factory metal, so I thought i'd have a crack myself. wish i had real metal work tools and not just a hammer and a vice, still pretty happy with the way they turned out. this was fun, had it make some cuts to get the metal to bend in the right places, then weld back together, then grind then I cut the rust out baja spec fitted in place and welded up on to the other side, something like 36 spotwelds on these pricks thought about trying to fix this mount up, but na got two new ones from the metric nut in chch they fit very well, just a little long at the bottom edge, easy fixed and that's me up to date, i have ground the welds down on the patch and have started making up the replacement panel for the drivers side quarter and will hopefully let that in, in the next week or two, from now on this is going to be a slow update thread. i also scored these on TM, 36mm DRLA Dellorto's got em cheap as some one thought or was told they were sidedrafts, they are not. bad for ford owner, good for me! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
63Ragtop Posted October 3, 2012 Author Share Posted October 3, 2012 got onto the right side, had to replace more than the other side as the damage went up a bit higher up. chop chop so the replacement had to be bigger i can not tell you how long this took to make, ages, just ages.The indent where the valance overlaps took some thinking and a lot of hammering, pretty pleased with how it turned out. and just when i thought i was getting there, i offered the panel up to the car and it was not bent enough. so i pushed until, crack! back to the welder. as you can see in the first pic, the panel was not long enough by 5-6cm, i did this just to save a bit of metal oh well , the plan was to join it at the bottom then let in a small patch on the side, but as i was trying to fit the replacement, i found i'd cut it too short I spent another night extending the panel to fix my fuck up. at lease I got to practice my welding more. This is the finished thing. then tacked in place and test fitting the fenders etc. inside and welded in spent alot of time smoothing it out as best i could eally hard to get a good photo with the reflections, not perfect but the bumper mount will cover it anyway :lol: I took a photo in primer but it just looked completely flat. I was very happy with this finish, as i was stressing about it a bit with all the angles etc. I been so focused on this panel so much, now it's done I'm not sure what to do next? got to put the engine trays back in I guess then the bumper mounts. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
63Ragtop Posted March 8, 2013 Author Share Posted March 8, 2013 Been meaning to update this for age's, not that I've done heaps, just keep chipping away. everything still seems to fit Started on the engine lid and found it's full of lead! oldschool right there! removed the inner panel 50 years of crud found some factory paint this is lead also, and crud fixed up the engine bay side trays and the engine bay corners all that was left after removing the lead and rust Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
63Ragtop Posted March 11, 2013 Author Share Posted March 11, 2013 So in the above pic you can see the start of the repair panel I thought I'd have a crack at making This is actually the second attempt to make this piece, the first one I just kind of free styled it, which is why it failed, I had to take a much more measured approach. so after much fuckingabout.... it might actually be getting close. And the newest addition to my high tech arsenal of metal working tools, behold! I made this out of a old post so i could make a start on the outside of the lid, chop chop choppity chop check out the rust holes! fitting up the patch tacked up didn't notice that the lids shape had relaxed after I'd cut a hole in it, about 5mm's of wonk nailed the second one better the under side, many little cuts to get the metal to fold under. the outside all ground down and primed with the lip all smoothed out not bad! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
63Ragtop Posted March 12, 2013 Author Share Posted March 12, 2013 Suggestions, theories, comments or queries //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/33947-63ragtops-63ragtop/page__hl__ragtop Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest 63Ragtop Posted March 15, 2013 Share Posted March 15, 2013 In other news my mate ed came round and we refitted the engine the other friday. and it still fits! the side trays are just sitting there in these pics... wanted to be sure after chopping so much of the rear off, that the 1-2 side would clear, It was always a mission getting the valve cover off that side as the body was so close, is that normal? is it cause I have a 1600 in a 1200 body? Anyway it's still close and maybe a little better? but not worse so sweet as! also did the points on eds esky then took it for a thrash in the waitakes! such a awesome wee car. back to working on the inner panel now, slowly getting there! meanwhile, a little bug waits..... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest 63Ragtop Posted March 20, 2013 Share Posted March 20, 2013 Got a bit more done on the inner panel for the lid. smoothed out seems to fit. I still need to figure out how I'm going to weld this together, I thought about just cutting the rest off and welding the inner panel into the lid with out the second layer but I'll see if I can make it look factory. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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