My UK RHD '66 - owned for 3 years now.

[tofufi]

Just a bit more...


Having removed the floors, a bit of repair was required to the bits surrounding them.



I only used offcuts of repair panels, as the repair panels are quite frankly shite.



A bit later, I had fitted two new floorpans. They were/are the 'Heavy duty' ones as sold in the USA by Wolfsberg west IIRC. Very nice and strong, and easy to fit. Everything seems to line up well

Wahey.





Continually finding rust, more rust..

Without bracing the body, I cut out the passenger side sill.



A friend and I then lowered it onto the chassis, and fitted the new sill. At the front, there was NO decent metal to weld to, so I had to make brackets to hold it in place until I could fit a new A pillar.





I then found the bodge artists had been at work on the front 1/4 panels too. Spot the double layered bits ::)



So it went from this...



to this...



New panels are still (just) availiable from VW. But hard to obtain now production has stopped.



Front 1/4 welded in...



And made a bit prettier




Clean inner wings





And a new A pillar bottom.

[tofufi]

I then also fitted a new sill etc on the drivers side...



And found this mess (also drivers side)



This repair panel had just been slapped over the original metal (with original paint on it still!).

But I havn't got round to replacing the inner wing (front) there yet.

Also...

Old bulkhead was rotten...



New one





Finally, I made a big hole.





Again, lucky I have some new metal to replace it.



Just needs a bit of fettling...





A few tack welds...



And a huge loads of tack welds and going very slowly later (to avoid distortion due to heat)...



That ^^ is with no filler, just a thin later of primer to keep the rust at bay

And finally...



Someone had enlarged the radio hole with a sledgehammer.

Leaving this mess...



So I welded up the radio hole.



And with a radio blank




1000 times better - just needs paint now! (And a bit of filler, all the above is only metal with a very thin layer of primer)

Again, the primer is only temporary, to keep out rust before I paint the whole lot properly.

[volksbugusa]

your doing a super job. your bug had a lot of bad areas,that you repaired
I am very impressed with your work.keep going. after you are done with all the welding DON'T rush the block sanding process when sanding your baby for paint.you are going to need an epoxy primer and I would strongly suggest base coat, clear coat application only...not single stage....
Matt
volksbugusa

[larryho]

Hi Tofufi,
I really admire your patience, dedication and the work you are doing for the car. That really show how much you love the 66 as we all do.
When its all done show us the love of yours. I am sure you (we certainly will) be so proud.
I will soon be restoring my car which is also rusting away and will look at your inputs which should assist my project.
GOOD WORK TOFUFI.

[tofufi]

Cheers guys, been a while since I updated this

Bit more work done... The front 1/4 panel







Channel...



Looks ok.



Looks ok too,

But not from here...



Some cutting later...



And I could put the outrigger in place. Needs a bit more trimming yet.



Bodgery - found lots of that today.



Bottom plate attached.



And channel sat in place.




A lot of persuasion later...




And tacked in...

I then went to the front... Damn.





Nothing was even vaguely close to lining up.

This put me off working on it for a very long time. Anyway, my friend Tom came over today after work for a few minutes.

Within 10 minutes, we had sorted out the problem... the drivers side heater channel was fouling the bulkhead pushing it forwards and lifting it up. A bit of persuasion with a grinder, and the offending messy bulkhead was no longer a problem





And the front beam mounts fitted too ^^

After that, I just did a small repair to the guttering at the rear...

Holey...



Sorted.



Round to the other side..

Fitted the bottom hinge...



Adjusted everything until the door fits perfectly..





I then adjusted the passenger door, and welded everything up to get a bit more strength in there.

Next time to fit the front 1/4 panel. It is getting there now. Everything seems to fit OK, although there isn't enough of a curve where it meets the A pillar.



Glad I fitted the fuel tank support seperately, considering none of the holes where I drilled out the spotwelds line up with the 1/4 panel now



Removed old bulkhead...



New bulkhead ready to go in...





Just filled the bulkhead section with POR15, as it was an old panel and had some surface rust where it hasn't been rustproofed inside.

And welded in:

Just two pics from today... Bulkhead outside



And inside...



I can tell you this area is a pain to get at, when the body is on. I didn't feel there was enough strength in the bodywork to remove the body, however, so I had to struggle cramped up in the footwells cutting away


More to come

[jmartini]

Well I'm impressed! A lot of really nice work here!

[tofufi]

Thanks

Plenty more to come, I'm still updating with the work I've done over the last few months!

Started welding the 1/4 panel in.







Followed by doing the seam on the A pillar...





I then made a small hole.





Whoops.

Found lots of ugly mess when removing the old 1/4..

I mean, why use filler here?



Old body mount didn't look too bad really...



was actually very messy...



New panel very vaguely trimmed to fit..



With a bit of persuasion, got everything to line up a bit better.





Rear under seat bit still looks tidy...






That was meant to be a straight line. I've never been able to draw straight lines, and I sure as hell can't cut them with a grinder either

A bit more cutting...



Some trimming on the B pillar...



And it was ready to weld..

After tacking it in place, it would have been rude not to trial fit the wing and running board.








Lots of welding, and grinding...



Inner wing...



More welding and grinding later...



That's with NO filler.



Sadly, the last bit isn't quite as good, will need a thin skim of filler to get right.



This bit inside looked a bit messy.



Cut out...



Here's one I made earlier...










To give it time to cool down (to avoid warping) I kept on going between that, and making a start on the front 1/4 panel (drivers side).



I clamped the old 1/4 panel to the new one and then cut round the fuel filler.

A quick couple of tack welds, and it is held in place. I'm slowly going round this with hundreds of little welds to avoid warping it.



the passenger side, now almost fully welded.






At this point, my daily driver 1971 bay window van decided one of it's valves didn't need to be complete any more, which meant I had to pause to deal with this...



More to come later

[tofufi]

I then started cutting the front inner wing out...




Whoops...



Seriously, who the feck thought this would be a good idea?






Almost 1' of the inner wing was overlapped with some the front clip on the car.

Spot the multiple layers.



and the OG paint in there too!



Front 1/4 panel partly welded in today...



Trial fitting wings...



Next, I had the fun job of fitting a bumper mount to the 1/4 which was tack welded in.

With the bumper mount welded in, I was able to fit the bumper



Just a few more pics... makes me happy seeing it more together again.



Fuel tank fits perfectly, too.








Oh, and I tidied the garage this afternoon too...



Continuing with the 1/4 panels...





So off that came



Hang on... is something on fire?



What could that be...

Oh, don't worry, it's only the old newspaper someone has stuffed into the 1/4 panel and covered with filler as a 'repair' :rolleyes:



More great repairs :rolleyes:, including someone bodging a huge plate over the perfectly usable return flange (teehee) of the boot floor panel.



Mmm... nice




Rear 1/4 cut down to allow it to be placed on the car



and trial fit with the decklid and valence



Trimmed down to fit



cut using a 1mm cutting disc, allows for a good join



Door gap is good to go...



Tacked into place...



Inside looks alright too



And finally, with a wing on to test the fit





lots more delicate welding and grinding...



And fitted the rear bumper (on the late bug bumper mounts) to see how it looks. I now have about 3mm of clearance with the decklid

[tofufi]

The bumper mounts were wrong, so off comes the existing ones...



and whilst there, I couldn't fathom out the reason for this hole..



so I welded in the original section for the rear light wiring to come through.



(no filler or anything in that pic, just metal with a thin layer of primer)





and the other side...



as well as making the rear valence removable (for ease of engine swaps) using a couple of captive bolts.



Bumper sits OK, too (exhaust is wonky, I've now fitted another one...)



I then finished welding up the rear 1/4 panel...



The engine bay was a touch rotten, so that was dealt with too..



to this...



and the other side done, too



This whole area, under the rear seat, was a bit ugly...



so I cut out the previous repairs, and fabricated the new repairs to include the small hump for the heating pipes to pass through under the floor.



Now working on the other side...



That's all up to date now!

[Blue Baron]

Wow, I'm glad you're such a stuborn person! That's become a massive project.

[Cherokee]

I admire your dedication to this project, big time!

Look forward to seeing the finished car!!

Cherokee, Shropshire UK

[tofufi]

Thanks guys

Just a quick update...

Pretty much all the welding is done





With all the bolt on panels fitted...



I had to buy a rust free bonnet and a pair of rust free doors as I just wasn't happy with my attempts at repairing the original ones




Body back up in the air...



And 'pan stripped down and ready for painting...



Just need to learn how to spray paint now... never done anything like this before

[rokemester]

I'm glad you made this recent post! I just caught up with your journey with your 66. You are doing an amazing job. I've learned just by looking over your previous posts. As you have heard from other members of this forum, you make us proud to be 66 owners! With all that hard fabrication work, don't rush through the painting steps. You've done so much on your own, I don't suppose you would consider having someone with a proper spray booth and professional hand put on the finishing touches.

[tofufi]

I'm glad you made this recent post! I just caught up with your journey with your 66. You are doing an amazing job. I've learned just by looking over your previous posts. As you have heard from other members of this forum, you make us proud to be 66 owners! With all that hard fabrication work, don't rush through the painting steps. You've done so much on your own, I don't suppose you would consider having someone with a proper spray booth and professional hand put on the finishing touches.

Thanks

Painting it won't be rushed... it won't be on the road 'til next year now, as I will be back at university fairly soon.

I did consider getting a professional paint job, but I'd rather learn to do the job myself... so I can sort out any blemishes / knocks if it gets bumped. It's also cheaper, and I'll be able to say I restored the whole car to the best of MY ability, not the ability of my wallet

And, to that end, I fired up the compressor and did my first every bit of painting today... (having spent the last few days doing prepwork)










Huge thanks to my friend Sarah for all the help with the paint/prep stuff

More to come

[rokemester]

I have no doubts that you will do an awesome job! Get some advice on paint system to use. There are some pretty experienced folks in this forum and on www.thesamba.com.

...don't forget the 1300 emblem on the rear engine deck! I love the earlier shot of your Bug. It looks like Joseph and the multi-colored Dreamcoat, or something like that. I just love your energy to bring your Beetle back to life.