European '66 Beetle Restoration Log

Here's the spot to show off your 1966 Beetle Restoration projects
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SeeBlauKafer
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European '66 Beetle Restoration Log

Post by SeeBlauKafer »

This thread documents the restoration of my one (now two) owner 1966 Beetle which I bought in the Summer of 2000. See the "My 66 VW" section and the "New Member" section for the background on my Sea Blue baby.

I'll catch you up on the history then begin adding new posts documenting the progress.

Upon purchase I would consider my car a good 20/20 car, in other words it looked great from 20 feet away or going 20MPH. If I could have done things differently I would have looked for a candidate with less rust but I'm glad I ended up with the car. Once I performed my first general cleaning my vacuum cleaner began sucking up pieces of the pan and heater channels behind the worn carpeting! I also removed all the exterior chrome trim and cleaned out years of organic material from behind them ... enough to fill a coffee cup.

(Soap Box Time: When buying a VW or any collector car, always, always, always buy the nicest one you can afford. You would be surprised at just how much money it costs to get a Beetle right and it seems there are a lot of quick buck artists out there in "Car Restoration Land".)

After having fun driving the car for a few years I wanted to begin the restoration but didn't have the time to do it myself. I searched and found an independent body shop about 20 miles from where I lived that claimed they would replace both floor pans, heater channels, and quarter panels for one price. After dropping the car off, the body shop kept the car for about 3 months then called stating it was "done". What I didn't know at the time was that while the major body components were installed, they were only tack welded in. The illusion of integrity was complete by their having shot liberal amounts of RTV silicone into the rust holes, crevices and weld seams. They then undercoated the unjustness with a thick coat of rubberized undercoating. I only found the damage months later when I attempted to remove the transmission to have it rebuilt. My wrench went right through the passenger side rear wheelhouse area freshly coated with undercoating. It was a sickening feeling.

Having learned a hard lesson I decided to restore the pan myself and have a different body shop restore the body. This second body shop is owned and operated by a good friend of my family who I trust completely. Had he not been busy the first time around I would have had him do the initial work.

At this point in time I completed the pan restoration myself and coated it completely with POR-15. I eventually got the body over to the second (trustworthy) body shop and after about 4 weeks the rusted panels have all been replaced with new metal mail ordered from Wolfsburg West in California.

I will post some photos of the stages described above, then will keep you posted on the latest developments. [Photos finally here - see follow-up posts!]
Last edited by SeeBlauKafer on Mon Sep 17, 2007 4:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by SeeBlauKafer »

Here's where it all started. Looks good allright ... but could be better ... much better! And will be soon.

What was the rust like? Well let's just say ... ever dipped cotton candy in water? ... well that's how the underbelly looked. Fred Flintstone would've loved it. That's my cat in front of the garage.
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Post by SeeBlauKafer »

Hi folks! OK, the reason for all the slacking/stalling on updating this thread is because I've ... temporarily ... misplaced the memory stick containing the pan restoration pictures .... sigh... (update 15-SEP-07 found it!!!)

So, until then let's just make the best of things and I'll write a little bit every couple of nights and upload the pic's when I find that stupid wafer.

Now then where was I?

OK, well about the time I was discovering the rusted holes, rtv silicone and liberal amounts of rubberized undercoating (I curse the day that stuff was invented) that was concealing a not so good pan restoration effort ... I decided to pull both the engine and transmission for rebuilding.

These two units are thankfully the original powertrain and I could only trust them to a vw mechanic friend my Father and I have known in the hobby for many, many years.

I last drove my '66 in February of 2002, and finally slumped over the back bumper and pulled the engine late one night after work. I skinned one knuckle in the process but that's ok, the grease soon salved it ... and concealed it too! I transported the engine to my friend's shop the following morning. He told me he used the very last set of 1300 cc pistons and cylinders he had in stock (yes, he actually had some in stock - unbelievable) on my engine. He performed the usual gambit of a rebuild (we won't go into the details here as I did not do it myself). He turned the engine around in a very reasonable amount of time.

The transmission was an entirely different story. It fought me tooth and nail. I even had a VW friend there to help extract it but no dice. His wifie called him away before the wee hours (don't blame her though) and I still had the two rear shocks holding the works in place. Even after sawing off the bolt heads and using a drift punch the bolts wouldn't budge, it's like they were welded in place. I finally had to hack saw (in a very cramped space) the shocks off (too bad I didn't have a torch for that). They weren't even nice German shocks either ... they were American! Maybe that was the problem? Bogue brand shocks will go back on there eventually.

I eventually dropped off the transmission about the time I picked up the engine and again he did an outstanding job for me (as usual). Since this work was done I don't think my friend does transmissions anymore. (I'm down to only one VW tranny guru who still does this type of work and he's probably retiring soon ... next time I see him I'll ask if I can publish his name and shop number.)

Skipping forward to about September of 2002 I decided to split the body from the chassis (which was still minus transmission). We'll pick up from there next time! (hopefully with pictures).
Last edited by SeeBlauKafer on Sat Sep 15, 2007 12:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by SeeBlauKafer »

Well I still haven't found that silly memory stick so I'll continue with the pan separation segment for now. (update 15-SEP-07 ... I found the memory stick!!!)

The fall of 2002 I had an engineless, transmissionless (are those words?) VW sitting in the left stall of my garage/workshop. I really hate the fact that I had to move from that house ... my garage was 24' x 24' and had all the room in the world for restoring a Bug with plenty of room to work around the car. Now I'm down to a "2 car garage" that is about 2/3 that size!

I decided to use my new air wrench and vertical compressor to take all the pan bolts out. So I started on each side and easily spun each bolt out (which was easy since the bolts had just been re-installed that January). I then removed the bolts from the front axle beam, shearing one off in the process. My easy-out extracted it for me and I replaced it.

I then removed one of the two rear pan bolts from the passenger side rear wheelwell, but the driver side sheared off (despite sprinkling liquid wrench in liberal amounts and letting it soak in). Well OK at least I could try lifting the body with no head on the bolt right? Wrong!

The front lifted up easy enough but the rear seemed glued in place, what could be holding it? It wasn't until I was surfing the web studying an online photo of the color picture of the chassis in the original owners manual that I saw two little bitty dots in about the location where the sides of the rear seat are. I went out to the car and sure enough there were two very dirty 'camouflaged' short bolts holding the rear of the body in place. I removed them easily enough, and immediately the rear end was able to be lifted.

OK great! Now what? I enlisted the help of 2 car nuts from work, and one contractor who worked with us who was about the size of the incredible hulk, and then my brother in law (5 of us). I had already removed all the peripherals from the car like the steering column, fuel tank, front and rear hoods, etc. before attempting this. My doors and window glass were still attached to the car though. I don't think 'contractor hulk' needed any help at the back but my brother in law helped him anyway.

We lifted the body off and placed it on a pre-created support mechanism to store it while I performed the pan re-restoration. What I had at that point amounted to a "VW Wheel Barrow" with the front wheels present but no transmission installed in the rear. I rolled the pan out into the yard and used one of those green or purple colored cleaners to clean as much of the dirt, grease and goo off the pan as possible prior to beginning work.

I'll pick up next time with the report on the condition of the pan as well as where I started the work.
Last edited by SeeBlauKafer on Sat Sep 15, 2007 12:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by SeeBlauKafer »

(Temporary break in continuity)

I thought you folks would like to see where the Body of my car is at this exact moment in time (22-JULY-2007). It's undergoing media blasting. The bodyshop rolled it out and onto it's side (onto an air cushion). This way they can media blast into all the little nooks and crannies on the underside of the car easily.

The prominent gray area you see is the freshly media blasted underside of the luggage compartment behind the rear seat area. No rust there yahoo! ... although a couple of surprises were located in the driver side wheelhouse area and were quickly attended to.

The media blasting will continue on mainly just the rusty areas of the car. The non-rusty portions will be stripped to bare metal via other means.

I can't wait to see this thing in paint .... heck ... I can't wait to see it in etching primer!

See ya!
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Post by SeeBlauKafer »

(OK, Now back to Fall 2002 continuity)

I first removed the front axle beam from the pan so all I really had left was .... well, a pan. The basics of what I had to work with was a backbone ("transmission tunnel") with two new pan halves semi welded onto it. Now the guy who did the pans did an "OK" job in that (with body attached) he got the alignment proper enough so with all the body to pan bolts in place the door gaps remained true and the doors opened and closed as they should.

The new pan sections were welded in place with a nice thick bead of weld every few inches along the transmission tunnel ... that I had no beef with. What was missing was any type of welding to the front or rear bulkhead sections or pan corners to the transmission tunnel. What I did find was more RTV silicone shot into the unwelded areas.

My first job was to strip the areas I was welding, so I purchased an angle grinder from a local specialty tool store along with various vice grips to hold the sheetmetal together while I welded. I already own a little 110 gas mig welder but I am a real novice at welding with it so I won't go into how to's here. Best to do as my Father did and take a welding class at your local Community College. He also bought the welding gauntlet, helmet, crazy cap, etc. to go with that class, so I got to use those.

Again, I am in no way a welder, and I don't pretend to be. In fact my welding skills equate to someone who colors outside the lines in a coloring book. So with that in mind please realize it took several days for me to complete the welding. I would lay down a bead or a worm of weld where I could. Sometimes it would work, sometimes not. Eventually I learned that welds like nice bright metal held tightly together and learned from several mistakes and "burn throughs".

I think my proudest moment was when I patched a little hole the size of a dime by cutting a close tolerance dime sized piece of scrap then holding it in place with a telescoping magnet while I welded it. When I finished and ground the welds down it was hard to tell where the hole had been!

OK, so after a few days I had the pan welded as I wanted it but the bottom was still coated in sticky new rubberized undercoating (sigh.) The object now was to remove the sticky nasty undercoating to bare metal then prepare it for a treatment of POR-15 to protect it.

We'll pick up there next time!
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Post by SeeBlauKafer »

(Editorial Note: It's important to note here that I didn't do much work to the car from the Fall of 2002 through early 2004. The removal of the undercoating and general stripping of the pan took place during the Spring of 2004.)

OK, on to the removal of the undercoating. Blah... when you're dealing with ancient 30 year old undercoating (you know the crispy kind) it ain't so bad. That stuff almost chips right off with a plastic hammer. It's that new stuff that comes in an aerosol can that I hate. It never really seems to dry ... it just stays in "tacky" limbo forever! Such was the case with the bottom of my pan and various places on the body of my car.

I tried wire wheels, wire brushes, bug & tar remover, paint stripper, all kinds of stuff and none of it made any significant progress. I was almost ready to give up when a friend turned me on to a citrus based stripper I believe was called "Citri-Strip". It claimed to be "environmentally friendly" yada, yada, ... bottom line here is ... always wear protective clothing and proper gloves, eye protection and a respirator mask no matter what they say. "An ounce of prevention" you know?

The citri-strip was applied to small sections of the undercoated pan and left to sit for a bit, then scraped off with a putty knife (I used various sizes). Once it was all done I wiped everything down with a solvent and man did it ever look good ... almost like it was made out of aluminum.

For the areas coated with old ancient undercoating, I heated them up slightly with my heat gun and chased the 'coat as it would slightly bubble up with a putty knife. I had an entire fender well stripped in about 10 minutes. Again, lots of fumes are let off from the heated undercoating so again please use a respirator if you do any of this. Sorry if I sound like your Granny here but I don't want any Volksie friends getting hurt or sick.

While I was stripping the pan I sent my torsion arms out to be rebuilt by a local VW machine shop. About the time I was done they were ready so I tackled that next. I cleaned the torsion arms up and gave them a coating of POR-15 along with the front axle beam. Once the unit was all "POR-15'd" it sort of gave me renewed energy. I wanted to see the entire pan coated in it.

I had recently bought some nice new jack stands with the little rubberized cushions on them. I proudly displayed my 'clean as a whistle' pan on them and plotted my next move.
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Last edited by SeeBlauKafer on Sat Sep 15, 2007 12:29 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by SeeBlauKafer »

(Flash forward in time again to July 2007)

Here's a pic of the VW as it was on Friday 27-JUL-07.

Most of the media blasting is now complete and the shell has been treated with a surface prep.

The media blasting did reveal some tiny holes here and there but nothing major, she's really solid now! Just some minor tweaking here and there. All the body filler is out now too so the panels can be properly repaired. YAY!!!

(PS - It's sitting on a shop dolly the body shop uses. Please don't try that at home.)

(Now back in time to the Fall of 2002)
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Post by SeeBlauKafer »

(Remember to wear safety gloves as POR-15 won't wash off and will remain on your skin until it wears off.)

OK, so back to the unpainted pan in 2004. I went ahead and bought two more containers of POR-15 in the chassis black color along with two tubes of POR Patch which is a sort of seam sealer/filler that goes with the POR-15.

I inverted the pan on some sawbucks and gave it a good cleaning, then used some solvent to wipe the pan down to ensure there was no greasy film that might interfere with the POR-15. Man the pan sure looked beautiful in it's shiney bright metal color ... what a shame to have to cover it all up.

I had to spray on a product called Metal Ready first. It is designed to be used ahead of the POR-15 and helps prep the surface for the POR-15 to adhere to. After the Metal Ready dried I used POR patch to fill the seams down the transmission tunnel and on the ends. That stuff really cures hard too but still has some flex to it.

After the POR patch cured I scared up some cheap paint brushes and began the process of spreading the POR-15 itself onto the bottom of the pan. I really didn't have any trouble with the POR-15 as it is self leveling and a little bit really goes a long way. The good thing about this phase is the instant gratification factor, as the pan begins to take it's new coating it seems to transform before your very eyes to a more factory fresh look.

I allowed a couple of days for the bottom of the pan to fully cure out before starting on the top half. I basically followed the same procedure on the top as the bottom. Once it was all done it really gave me that sense of momentum so I began looking around for anything and everything I could apply the POR-15 to (including the rusty front axle beam of my riding lawn mower!). I think I eventually got all 4 of the Beetle's brake drums, the pedal cluster and the transaxle tubes.

Once everything was all cured out after a couple of days my Father came by to see how the pan was coming along. He also helped me position the front axle beam on the frame horn. We carefully set the whole pan once again on my new jack stands. I took some pictures (yes I know ... when I find the wafer I'll post them ... update 15-SEP-2007 you found it!!!).

Next step(s): install tranny, install front steering components
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Last edited by SeeBlauKafer on Sat Sep 15, 2007 12:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by SeeBlauKafer »

I think the most fun I ever had with the pan project was bending new brake lines for it and installing them onto the nicely coated glossy black pan. If you've ever replaced brake lines on a Beetle with the car intact (body and pan together) it can be one of the most knuckle busting frustrations on a VW. My pan and body were apart, therefore it was a pleasure to make all the bends perfectly and install the threaded junctions without cross threading! (If only I had a dollar for every cross threaded brake junction I ever caused!)

I even cleaned up the old brake backing plates and gave them a coating of POR-15 for good measure. Suddenly I began to worry about people looking under the car at a VW show ... VW show? ... wait wasn't this just supposed to be a daily driver??? Yeah right.

With a little bit of help (bad back) I was able to get the transmission back in place. It had been rebuilt back in February of 2002. During the time it was off the pan I scraped about an inch of gooey oil and grime caked gunk off the rear mount. After it was thoroughly degreased it also got the POR-15 treatment along with it's two gigantic bolts.

The rest of the pan assembly turned out to be more therapy than anything else. I could hardly wait to get home from work each evening so I could do something new to the pan ... install shocks, new rubber plugs and grommits, I even cleaned and armor all'd the bump stops on the rear spring plates.

The front steering components were much easier to install without having to work within the cramped confines of the fuel tank area. I made sure to torque the various bolts down to the proper values (found in any number of service manuals). Once torqued I dabbed a small bit of white paint on the nut so I would know which had been done already.

I then rebuilt the brake system by installing new wheel cylinders all around, a new master cylinder, and new sets of shoes and shoe mounting hardware all the way around. I topped everything off by installing new drums to the front and rear.
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Post by SeeBlauKafer »

>>>And now we flash forward into the future again (well as of 17-AUG-2007 at least)

Here's a picture of my Beetle being epoxy primed. A tad of body work is being performed to the passenger side quarter panel and the front apron area.

The bodyshop is using DuPont Chroma One primer and paint on my car.

The car is sitting in a sort of ready room attached to the spray booth.

(Photo appears a bit grainy, it was taken by a camera phone.)
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Post by SeeBlauKafer »

<<<And now we flash back to 2004

I cleaned up and (you guessed it) POR-15'd the stabilizer bar for the front torsion beam. I purchased a kit containing the rubber bushings and the beefy clamps to hold them in place ... and whoa! ... what a frustration that process was. I used everything from channel lock pliers (to cinch the ends of the clamps together enough to install their retaining plates), to a length of rope (to twist and ease the bar into position after having anchored one side). I think by the time the stabilizer bar was in position some parts of me had become out of position ... like my left leg, right arm and both knees. I've never heard of anyone else having trouble with such a simple installation before (and with the body off mind you) so I must have done something wrong, fit something backwards? I don't know, it's on now and I'm not touching it again!

Around this same point in time (within a week or so) I installed new spring plate bushings and new spring plate end caps. One of my end caps had rusted completely through (yes it was the passenger side - everything on the passenger side got the worst rust for some odd reason). In any case I had to remove the spring plates to both coat them with POR-15 and to install the inner and outer spring plate bushings.

Now the procedure for removing and re-installing the rear spring plates involves both unloading and re-loading of tension (very high tension) on them. I'd just as soon not go into how to do this as you can wind up hurting yourself easily and I don't want that on my conscience. Plenty of repair manuals and VW magazines have featured the procedure. I will tell you that I had to borrow a special tool from a friend to perform this. Now the physical act of unloading/reloading the tension was actually not the biggest battle in the process. No, the big battle was the fitting of the new end caps.

Once I had installed the nice new spring plate bushings I fitted the new end cap (I had my Father there to assist too). The bolt holes (though drilled perfectly) would no longer line up with the bushings in place. It almost drove me crazy. I could get 2, maybe 3 bolts in, but that was it. After nearly 2 hours of pounding on the end caps with rubber mallets and wedging the bolt holes with screwdrivers (carefully, so as not to mess up the threads) we finally got one end cap in position and tightened it down. We then wrestled with the other one for about another good 35 to 45 minutes. Again, I must have done something wrong for that to be such a frustrating task. Not looking forward to ever having to repeat it that's for sure.

So, once everything was in place I did some touch up with the ol' POR-15 and was all set for the future handling of the car. It's been said the new spring plate bushings make all the difference in the world ... we'll see.

Here's a picture of the pan prior to my having mounted the front stabilizer bar (which was a bear to mount mind you). Just look at all the junk in my garage! You can see my welder in the back left side. I'm already starting to store items on the pan LOL!!!
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Post by SeeBlauKafer »

Well after doing the pan restoration I really lost a lot of momentum with the project. Around April of 2005 I found myself changing jobs and getting used to a new company. My commute, even in my 2001 New Beetle TDI, was over an hour long and I realized I would soon need to move closer to my job.

The '66 sat largely abandoned during this period which is a shame as my old house had a detached 24' x 24' garage with plenty of elbow room to work in. In the Spring of 2006 I moved to within a much more reasonable commute distance to work ... but that opened up a new problem ... ever tried to move a completely disassembled car from one location to another? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I don't recommend it, don't try it, don't even think about it.

Eventually I found a body shop willing to take on the balance of the work left to do on the body of the car. This is a very rare situation as some of you already know. For some reason automotive body shops shy away from projects that have been "started" by someone else. I also lucked out in that the body shop is only one mile driving distance from my new location.

As I was seriously cramping the bodyshop's style, they had to work me in. Luckily they allowed me to store the car on their premesis (covered) while they waited for a slot to open. It took almost exactly one year for a window to open and work to begin on the body of my car.

Now you all have seen some of the "flash-forward" and "flash-back" pictures I've teased you with over the months ... so from here on out I will continue from the present day forward.

What's been happening lately? Well the body has undergone final sanding and final epoxy priming all ready for paint. The driver side door had a lot of bondo and wrinkled/stretched sheet metal, so the body shop just cut the wrinkled steel out and welded in sheet metal of the same exact thickness (so I'll get that nice authoritative German "clunk" when I shut the door).

I myself have been lending a hand to the bodyshop by stripping the paint off the 4 fenders and rear decklid. MISTAKE! I should never have volunteered to do that. I also attempted to use a chemical stripper ... which works fine mind you ... but it's extremely messy and has a pungent ammonia odor which causes me to use a respirator when working with it. I will say it does leave behind beautiful clean metal once it's done it's job.

Hey! Here's a pic of the finished pan. Note my neat little brake lines, new shock absorbers, and tidy fuel lines front and rear. I used matte black POR-15 on the bottom and high gloss POR-15 on the top of the pan (mainly because I accidentally ordered one of each instead of two of the same). Boy, what a morale builder that sight has become for me!

I'll post more pictures next time the bodyshop reaches a new milestone. We're gonna be in L360 Sea Blue soon! Ciao!
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Post by crazydaze »

Keep up the GREAT work!!!!

Alex.
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Post by SeeBlauKafer »

Thanks Alex, I'll give it my best effort.
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