It has been a couple of weeks...

I have been able to work on the car here and there, I have not got anything significant accomplished.

One picture this time, next post should have a few more.

I have been spending time brushing down and stripping the rest of the paint off of the drivers rear quarter panel. It is starting to look pretty good but it is taking up a lot of time and is not very exciting to write about. This is where I have tell my self that time spent paying attention to details will pay off once the car gets painted. Hopefully I can get the rest of the car looking like this quarter panel before the end of the year (I hope but if it don't happen, it don't happen)

I have spent the last couple of weeks ordering some parts here and there. The garage is starting to get filled up with boxes of parts that I can not get installed just yet. This is going to be the way of things for the next couple of months, if not years.

On a side note: The Yankees will be seeing the post season unlike a certain team from Atlanta.

Some body work...

I am going to start off with the good and then move onto the bad.





I was just kind of toying with the body and the paint for a couple of days and a friend of mine suggested that I go to the parts store and find a chemical stripper. Going off of this suggestion, I made my way to the auto parts store on Saturday morning. The clerk recommended a particular brand that he said would strip the car "to the bone"... what a sales pitch!

I started with the rear driver's quarter panel and I was amazed by how effective this stuff was. I had to use a couple of applications to get through the coats of spray paint and then the factory paint.

There is not a lot of rust on the body and I am very happy with this!!! I thought that there was going to be a number of spots but it was just bubbled up spray paint. Also, I was very happy to discover that the body has not taken much damage over the years. There are a couple of dings, about the size of a dime, on the drivers door that I am going smooth out with body filler before I put on a coat of primer.



The above shows a nice and smooth quarter panel. There is some paint remaining but, that is because ran out of paint stripper in the later part of the afternoon and did not feel like heading to the auto parts store again. I will pick up some more this week and resume over the weekend (the wife is going out of town so I am flying solo, much work can be done).

The roof of the beetle is pretty good, there are a few rust spots but I was able to knock most of it off with a wire brush. Unfortunately, this picture was taken before I brushed some of the rust off so you can see some of the spots if you look hard enough.

This is a small problem for me... I guess I am going to have to learn how to weld now!?!
When I was removing the fenders I found that a couple of the nuts have been torn out of the body. I am going to have to find the hardware and get this fixed before I bolt on the new fenders. This is a picture of the rear driver's side... each of the fenders wells has at least one nut that has been pulled from the body.


Now lets move onto some of the bad things that I have found.

The roof has a pretty good dent in it. It looks as if a tree limb had fallen on the car. This might also explain why the windshield was busted on this side? Dents don't really bother me since they are pretty easy to fill but, this particular dent has folded the roof line. I am going to have to do a little bit of research before I can fix this one.

The floor pans are in pretty bad shape. There are a couple of spots that have rusted through but I was not able to get a usable picture. There are a couple of major sized holes (about the same footprint as one of the seats) in the floor pans that have been "fixed" by the previous owner. It appears that they have placed a piece of steel over the hole and tacked it into place. This is on both the drivers and the passenger sides.
I was not planning on taking the body off of the frame but it looks as if this is the course that I am going to take. I have been told all my life, that if you are going to do something do it right... no difference here. So, again, I am going to have to learn how to weld.


Back to that welding thing...
This is an odd shot; I am looking down into the hood. This is where the spare tire would sit.
There is some tin, or very thin aluminum tacked into place. This whole piece is going to have to come out and be replaced. There are too many rust spots, a lot of ugliness and, it will not due as is.

Here is another shot zoomed in.... yeah, that is my garage floor you are looking at. Below is one more shot from the other side.

I believe this is called the front apron? I have seen this in a few catalogs so I don't think I am going to have a hard time finding the replacement.


So, the next weekend should give me some time to get the rest of the paint off. I am hoping that I can get a couple of sections primered with a first coat.... I know this is going to have to be wet sanded and another coat of primer is going to have to go on but, I live in the south and I don't want the humidity to start rusting the exposed areas that are so fresh and so clean.
Maybe I will get around to gutting the interior some more (maybe)?

One last comment for this post.... I work with someone that has experience restoring an old car, he gave some advice that I thought I would share with everyone:
"Don't get frustrated if you don't meet your own dead lines. Life happens and time is stolen. It's not "fun" if you try to hold yourself to schedule….. Just enjoy the time you get to work on it and make steady progress."

The Windows and Fenders are off.

First off, it is hard to get anything done to this thing during the week. That little thing called WORK is really eating up the time that I can dedicate to my project. I initially thought I would spend about an hour each night, weather it be a little work or something major, just to keep the progress going. It really does not look like I am going to be able to dedicate the time during the work week.... especially now that we getting close to the post-season (Sorry, my first love is Baseball). As it stands this is going to be a weekend project for now.

Now, lets get back to talking about this tear down thing.

Lets start with the big picture:

From here you can see that I have all of the fenders off, all of the glass out, the hood has been removed as well as the deck lid and, I got a bunch of old seals and dry rotted plastic off of the body. I did a little bit of sanding on the car to try to get some of the old spray paint off. Some of the areas that have been spray painted prevented me from knowing exactly what I was dealing with because it was really caked on... hard to tell if it was rust of just 2000 coats of paint that has run all over.

I never thought that I would buy an orange car in my life, life is full of suprises. Think about that one.... if someone asked you "Would you buy an orange car?" what would your answer be?

The Rear end with no fenders and no deck lid.
So a picture is worth a thousand words.... I have a few words that I can think of to describe this engine and none of them are very favorable. There is still some pine straw in the engine compartment. No worries though, the engine and the transmission are going to come out as soon as I get the rest of the interior gutted and I clear a space in the garage.

The body is pretty straight. There is some rust to deal with in spots but, I don't think they are going to pose to much of a problem. The wheels are pretty horrible but they are not going to be on this car for too much longer.

I pulled the back seat out and most of the insulation as well as the headliner that was ripped in a bunch of places near the rear. A bunch of the insulation is still stuck to the metal, where it was previously glued into place.... it might look like rust from this picture but, it is just rust colored gunk (glue, fibers, sanded paint, etc...). I am going to head over to the local auto parts store or super center to try to find some kind of chemical stripper to get the rest of it off.

The doors are a bit of a concern. There is a good bit of rust up by with the window as well as around the bottom part of the door. I am hoping that I can sand the rust down a good bit and fill in the "pitted" areas with body filler.

Well.... here you go.... still ugly

Hopefully, I can get a good bit of work done over the weekend. I am taking a couple of days off of work next week so, I should get a good bit done. My next update should address items such as the floor pans, the heater channels and whatever else I can find as being a problem.

Tear Down...

Here is the plan... I am going to remove the fenders, the glass, remove the hood and the deck lid, and gut the interior. Once I have the car torn down then I should be able to start putting on new seals, new carpet, etc...

The interior is pretty nasty as is. There is a good bit of mold on the head liner and there is a smell in the car. It is kind of musty with a mix of funk and auto fluids. Sure the car has been sitting for a year but you can tell that the car probably did not smell all that great when it was still on the road. I was pretty happy when I had the car in the garage and found out that there was nothing living in it.... well nothing big, a few spiders and some ants I can deal with. I guess I was expecting something out of Christmas Vacation when the rodent comes flying Christmas tree. Dont ask, for some reason it is what I had in mind.

Hopefully you can see that there is a "I Heart New Kids" button attached to the headliner. What can I saw about this car and what it must have seen in its life? At least it will not have to suffer such indignities while I own it...

You can tell from this photo that the interior has indeed seen better days. Anyone interested in a tape deck??? Not that I really considered a stereo when I wanted to venture into restoring this car.... just one more thing I guess.

One little side note on this photo... you can see my GTI through the cracked windshield, what a fun car she is, I really hope this Bug turns out to be a fun car to drive.

The odometer is showing 58+K so we are are most of the way to 200K miles. The steering wheel is showing some serious signs of age as well. Ahhh... yet another thing that is going to have to be replaced. This is where you have to have two types of feelings.

1, This is exactly what I want to do and it does not matter how long it is going to take this is what I want to do. Kind of like that old man in the dinosaur movie, "we spared no expense!"

2, What the hell have I gotten myself into? Wouldn't I be better off going to dealer and getting a new car?

What it looked like when it arrived (Sept 2007)

So, the seller and I settle on a price... keep in mind that it is not running and it has been sitting under a tree for about a year.... after I get it towed to the house and the neighborhood had a few hours to take a look at this masterpiece, I got some room in the garage cleared out. Why should they have the privilege of looking at a fine example of German workmanship all day and night?

Yep, no working e-break!
The sad part, this car was not vandalized. The previous owner liked to add a new paint color every once in a while.
You probably cant make out the front fender "Real Men Cant Read".... you tell me?
Equally perplexing is, I heart Robot, on the drivers door???

Take a little vacation in the sun with this palm tree. I like sunny days!
No doubt about it... this car is ugly and needs a bunch of work. No worries, I have time and patience (well, for somethings anyway!)

Back Ground....

I am a VW owner aside from the beast you see on this site.
I own a 1997 GTI VR6 while my wife is the proud owner of a 2001 Jetta GLS. Both are outstanding autos in their own right.

The best way to describe the GTI is... FUN!!!! She is fast all around the RPM range, can handle corners with no worries and can stop on a dime to make change. The car is mostly stock but there are a couple of mods; cold air intake, front sway bar and a set of cross drilled Zimmerman's on the front and back. All around, this is a great little car that has been a ton of fun over the years.
The Jetta is a great everyday car. My wife and I carpool and the Jetta has been doing a great job getting us back and forth to work in relative comfort. There are no aftermarket parts on the Jetta... All I have been doing is keeping up with the oil changes and some other low end maintenance. 120K miles later and it is still running like a champ.

I cant even think about getting a late 60's American muscle car without paying through the nose for a rust bucket (I saw a '69 Camaro in the area, no engine, no tranny, no interior to speak of and the guy wanted five grand!) After looking at what is out there, it just dawned on me.... why not a VW? I already have two so why not?