63Ragtop

I have no idea about any of this stuff, but well done for doing it your selfs, very clever, I is impressed.

I got one of these things when I bought the compressor, it has a massive tip, a 4 or something stupid. can I get a small one some where, so I can use it for primer at least?

how do you do that on these things? drop everything out the bottom?

I haven't really given a lot of thought, as to what the finish look of this car will be. I've just been trying to make the body solid and the chassis road legal, the plan was always just to have it back on the road looking like it always did, but without all the rot. But as the metal work is starting to near the the end, thoughts of paint and other finishes are starting to form in my head, everything from a smoothed out custom, to a fauxtina ratter, or a Motorhead inspired Gasser! I mean come on! with song titles like - Killed by Death, No Remorse and of course The Ace of Spades, and Lemmys motto; Born to Lose. Live to Win emblazed on the side! it's perfect for the ultimate underdog that VW's are. And as I'm a tiny budget, it's never going to be a show car with a garage paint job, and I tend to thrash things a little anyway so, might as well have some fun! Anyway, I stumbled across this the other day I gotta say, I friggin love it! the battle scarred old paint, the wide rims and white lettered tyres, that "i mean bidness"stance, to cool. Like it just came off the track after a awesome battle with these guys. So the idea of a old school street racer is where I'm at now, a imagined past that never happened where my car was a midnight highway stormer, kicking ass and taking scalps and pinks. Enough nonsense! I've always wanted to have real bucket seats in this thing, low fixed back buckets, like cobra make, but at 4-5 hundy each I wasn't going to worry about it any time soon. a couple weeks back I noticed these for sale on TM, and cheap. but my stupid brain forgot about them/don't really need them anyway, then I got a fixed price offer from the seller, guess no one else wanted them, okay I'll take them! One problem, they're in wellington, or rather Kapiti. No problem I'm pretty sure there is a veedubnut in kapiti, hope they are close by! Turns out the seller is pretty much one of KombiZombi's neighbours! so they are now safely tucked up in his shed till I think of a way to get them north. Look pretty old school racer to me! Just need one of these. It's the smaller not monster tach size, which would look sweet fitted to the steering column like dis. hopefully I can suss out some way of doing to with my later 60's style steering column. I think that's enough bullshit for one day, what do you guys think? Disclamer: The contents of this post is subject to change without notice. 63Ragtop accepts no liability for any loss or damage howsoever arising from any use or misuse of or reliance on any information in this website so na na nan na na!

shit yes!

HELLO EVRYBODY! So I've removed all the crap from the window frame and side, with the deft hand of a skilled surgeon. By which I mean I pulled it off with pliers. Which reveled a small amount of rot in the very bottom of the roof gutters. A little bit of bog and a weird hole someone had punched? After drilling out the spot welds that hold it on, the inside panel was finally removed, I didn't take a pic, there was a fair bit of krusty krap in between the two layers of metal, so again, I'm glad I did this. After spending a solid 5 hours grinding, sanding and blasting, this and a fucked sandblaster is the result. rusty tail ends bobbed I got this far with the other panels before the blaster died. I also made a what is for me a rather exciting discovery, tucked way up inside the roof cavity. a scrap of the factory aussie headliner, one of the very few things that I know is original to this car. Moving on, I made some patches for the gutters, this was harder that I thought it would be! the metal gently rolls up, then has the sharp crease were it folds over. looks okay now. I have also welded up the drill holes in the rear wondow frame, and couple other small holes and now it's ready for the panels to be welded back in. I'm going to see if i can get the two grill panels pro blasted, so until that happens I might have a wee rest.

that sounds like a very good idea.

Giz rusty red golf to go with my rusty red bug! yep, just as well I didn't go also.

yep, I always hated points, replaced mine as soon as I could. new points, cap and condenser might help. fucking cool car bro, gotta be my favorite old jap car!

matty B, bro? goes hard!

blackness makes me want a 4door esky, well done.

just going to stick this here, I like this. a lot.

meanest bambi ever.

Oh come on!!! don't be like that!!

Yes motivation is peaking!! nice to see a car again, nice to be able to walk around the shed without having to move something first. Back window time, Started unfolding the gutter. previous repair left a little to be desired. decided to just cut the whole thing out. there wasn't really much holding the panel in at window frame, the sides are buggered anyway and when I took the donor car apart the spot welds under the vents where right bastards, this must be one of the few area's were the spotwelds could actually be seen on the car, but they are so well finished that they are completely invisible from the top/outside, making drilling them out tricky. sorted. I'll go back and clean up the scrappy bits on the weekend and remove whats left of the window frame. here's the old one with it's replacement. this is the inside, I had thought about just cutting patches out of the new panel and patching the holes, but after seeing this side, I'm glad I've removed it completely. I'm also going to remove the second vent panel that the engine lid hinge's attach to, as there is rust stains running out of there, only time to do it, so might as well! yeah yeah yeah!

Nice one man, Granddad would be proud!

This needs to happen!

ready for a drive out west?

So the long weekend eh? dug the pan out from it's resting place, heater channel bottoms bolted on. enlisted 8 year old to paint the insides of the channels with rust kill paint, will be flooded with more paint and fishoil once done. also to help in lining up the two halfs, I got a couple nice long bolts that fit the four front floating nuts, cut the heads off them and cut them in half, then screwed them into the floating nut things, this made placing the shell a little easier. nearly ready to go, I took the shell off the spit first myself, lowered it onto the wooden frame. then a couple of my awesome neighbours helped lift it onto the pan. WOW! been a long time, been a long time! Oh joy! had to do a little mocking up! the 8 year old looking pretty pleased, and so am I, everything lines up, nothing seems twisted or bent, fucking win! I started spot welding the channels in place yesterday, just need a few along the outside edge to hold it in place so It can be fully done once back on the spit. Which was I was going to do before i got it back on the spit, but now i have a wee bit more time with the spot welder(thanks mate!) I think it would be best to sort the rear window rust now, because next time it goes back on the pan, the pan should be nice and shiney with new paint and stuff. enjoy.

looks fucking great man, well done!

So drivers side, Fabbed up the tail end of the OG panel, no it's not made of playdough, it just looks like it in this pic. Welded that sucker in, getting a bit over this rust bidness. Not really all that happy with the finished result, the front wheelwells are better, and no one will ever see them! Very tricky not being able to reach the back of the panel, there is a very gentle curve to these sides, nothing is flat, anyway, I gave it a bit of a beating with hammers and leavers and got it much better, will have another go at it later. I did start getting the bottom plates ready to be spotted into place, stripped the black paint off, welded the nuts (just in case) flattened and welded the two big drain holes up, dunno if this was a good idea or not, might be a reason the factory added these? primed with the weldable stuff, and some very tidy tail light housings I got on the weekend. So the next update should have the body temporarily back on the pan, hopefully everything still lines up and I can spot the bottom plates in place. Gotta get hold of my brother in law first, he's a cop and works crazy shifts so is hard to reach sometimes, even though he lives about 2 minutes away. I need his thread tap set, one of the runningboard bolts is broken off in the sill, it's always been there since I've owned the car, so I'd like to sort that before the sills get closed up. And then, um, I'm not sure then. Body will have to come back off to finish up the spot welds and will need to put some paint on everything. I'd like to paint the whole shell off the pan but will prolly just do the inside, bottom/underneath, sill, wheelwell etc and then paint the outside on the pan/rolling body. Then I guess it's time to strip and paint the pan so the body can go back on for good. HELP!!

been following along also, I also need a tame peter, where can one acquire such a thing?

Yep, good work man, must just about be the cleanest Mk1 around.

Drill a hole in the handle thing(bar with black hand grip) and stink a split pin in it, saves it from falling out and you from shitting your self the first time you roll it over. I also welded a nut to the top of the part so I could screw a bolt in to lock it in place, to stop it tuning when working on the car. yours looks ok, but mine has heaps of slop so when it turns the wheel on the ground move around as it pivots, I wish I had made my feet wider like yours also. Have fun!

looking good man, light at the end is getting brighter!