Family 1957 Ragtop Project

[SomoBenjamin]

Like most people with a VW addiction, I was born with it in my blood. My father drove Beetles for the roughly 20 years before he moved on to other VW's and Audi's for daily use. The last beetle he owned was a 1972 convertible. In 1987 he bought a Jetta, but kept the 1972 and had a mild restoration completed. This car was around for most of my childhood, until it was sold shortly before I was of driving age.

In addition to my dad's 72, my great uncle had a 1957 Ragtop that sat in his garage in a state of disrepair for all of my life. The last inspection sticker in the window was 1982. Despite the rotting floors, mismatched wheels and tires, and lack of most parts, the car still ran. Once every summer, my great uncle would pull the car out of his garage, get it started, and we would take a spin around the block. (Picture below of me sitting shotgun in 1996)

From what I gathered from my great uncle (Now 94 years old), he bought this car in 1963. Throughout the life of this car many family members used it including my own father in the summer of 1976. He was home on summer break from college and needed a car to drive for his job. At the time the 57 had a bad engine. My dad happened to have a spare engine from a car which he no longer owned. My dad made a deal with my great uncle that he would give him the engine for the 57 and get it running as long as he could use it for the summer. At the end of the summer my great uncle would get the car back. And so it was brought back to life until it found its way into the state which it sat in the garage since 1982. (Picture below of my dad in the car in 1976.)

Fast forward to 2008, I was in my senior year of college and had aspirations of owning an air cooled beetle myself. My original intention was to buy a car that was already road worthy. Not having owned one before I thought this would be a great way to learn about them while enjoying the car. Living on the east coast I found it difficult to find the right car. I was set on a rag top which limited my search. I had apprehensions of buying a car sight unseen from from further away. One Saturday I drove 15 hours round trip to see a car that turned out not to be what I had expected. The search was wearing on me.

All this time, my great uncles 57 rag lingered in the back of my mind as an option. I knew it needed a lot of work, which is why I was hesitant to jump right in on it, but it had everything I wanted in a car. It had the rag top and it being an oval only made it that much cooler. As I learned more about these cars reading about them on the samba, I warmed up to the idea of taking on a big project. Finally, I made the decision that I would take on the restoration of my great uncles car. (Picture below of the day I brought it from my great uncles house to mine in 2008)

A few years have obviously passed since the start of this project, but I want to share through this thread the journey I have been on with this project. I have quite a bit of progress to catch up on and share. I hope you enjoy!

-Ben

[vwsonmybrain]

Nice! Great story. Looking forward to the progress pics.

[laneven28]

Cool story - anxious to hear and see more
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1950 Pearl Grey Hoffman Standard Split Window
1954 Iceland Green Euro 3-Fold Oval
1955 Strato Silver Transitional 3-Fold Oval
1956 Iris Blue Convertible
1958 Pearl White Lowlight KG Convertible
1961 Turkis Ragtop

[SomoBenjamin]

After deciding I was going to take on the project, I had the car towed to my parent's house where my dad agreed to let me work on the car in a barn/detached garage they had on their property. My goal was build a car that I could have fun with a drive. Hold a balance of something that looked good, but was full on restoration down to the nut a bolt. I just graduated college and didn't want to spend a lot of money, but wanted to get this thing back on the road and looking good.

The car was already torn down a bit, but my first step was to strip it down further and separate the body from the pan to see exactly what I was working with.

At some point, someone had put a generous amount of some sort of black coating on most of the underside of the car. You can see the stripe of it on the bottom of the door. At a glance this made it pretty hard to see what kind shape the body/pan was in. Based on the condition of what was left of the floor pans I new I was dealing with some serious rot from basically 2 feet down on the car.

As I exposed more and more and more I found less and less of the body still there. There was some pretty poor body work done to the car on various sections. Each of the lower quarter sections behind the driver and passenger door had been repaired with tin and rivits and about 2 inches thick of body filler.

The inner and outer rear wheel arches where pretty shot. The outer had shown signs of being replaced at some point.

The front had been hit or in a fender bender at some point at some point. Although not bad you could see signs and likely needing most of the front clip replaced to get it right.

So the list continues to go on....As I mentioned everything from about the foot down on the body needed lots of work. Having spent likely it's whole life battling Pennsylvania winters, this is not surprising. The good though is that minus the floor pans the frame was still in pretty good shape.

I soon realized that I was in way over my head. I thought I was up for the challenge and started buying the some parts to get the pan together.

I soon succumbed to the fact that I needed a professional to help out with the body work. The idea was to find someone to take care of the body work and paint the car and then I would handle the rest.

[Westy Steve]

I've recently learned that if you ask around enough, you can find someone who welds on the side for cheap. Think of yourself as a homebuilder...contract out the stuff you need to, and do the rest yourself. But keep going. Once you decide your project can wait, it becomes easier and easier to just let it sit.
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Have nice 914, want nice Bug

[SomoBenjamin]

Thanks for the advice Westy Steve. I have experienced the ups and downs of motivation to get this thing done and unfortunately been through those periods where things just sat. For the most part I have been tackling this thing on my own. One of the reasons I am writing this is to make the effort to get more engaged with the community with the hopes to build connections, resources, and friends with the same passion.

[SomoBenjamin]

As Westy Steve suggested in the previous post, I actually took that same approach. I started seeing who I could find to help take care of all the body work and paint for cheap. I called some people locally and made some calls I to some people I found on The Samba. Ultimately, I found someone to do the work that worked full time at a body shop during the day and was into aircooled VW's. He agreed to do the work on the side for me at a very reasonable rate. This is the part of the story I am going to keep short as it is the dark period for this project. This was a year and half of many unanswered phone calls and frustating conversations about very little/no progress. There was a period that I wondered if I would even get my car back I hadn't been able to get in touch with him. I finally got a a hold of the guy, cut my losses, and showed up that next weekend with a trailer.

He was able to get the pans on the chassis and most of the other stuff on the chassis together and cleaned up. That was was looking alright, but the body was sitting pretty much exactly as it had a year and half before. This is one of those situations you look back on and realize you get what you pay for with a little extra bad luck thrown in there. I was down some money and back to the drawing board.

[Westy Steve]

I know I'm jumping ahead on your story, but I have to pay alot of tradesmen for stuff, and I've learned the only way to do it is by small milestones. Do this small thing and I'll pay you and then give you the next task. Seems to help speed things along.

Can't wait for the next installment...its col you have so much history with the car.
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Have nice 914, want nice Bug

[Bret2094]

Cool car man, great history! Don't be afraid to learn on the car. Take a look at my 59 rag build in my signature. I am still in college, on a budget that basically is derived from hauling scrap metal . You can learn to do practically anything on your car. once you get over the fear of welding being some magical or divine concept, the sky is the limit. I have faith that you could learn to do it yourself. I just got through removing old channels, and I assure you it is more of a mental constraint than anything! Learning to do everything yourself (aside from machine work)is the single most rewarding part of owning a VW and being an enthusiast, in my opinion. Keep on Keeping on!


Bret
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1959 baja beetle ragtop( going back to Full body)
1959 beetle
1960 Beetle frame Custom buggy
1962 Karmann Ghia
1967 beetle( august 66, first car)
1967 beetle (parts car)

1977 Westfalia Camper

1972 Plymouth Duster

Just another 22 year old jackass who caught the bug, and lives by the motto " NO fatchicks allowed" , I've got too many cars as is (buses N/A)

[SomoBenjamin]

At this point it certainly crossed my mind to quit on the project. I had already lost money on it and barely had anything to show for the time and effort I had put into it. I could probably sell it where it is for a couple grand and put the money I was planning to spend on it to buy something I could enjoy right away. Although, I searched before for a car and didn't find what I wanted. This car was my chance to make something exactly how I wanted it. It was a tough decision, but I figured it was worth a shot to try to find someone else to pick up where the last guy had left off and get some more opinions on exactly what we were looking at with bring this back to life.

I finally decided on taking the car to Red Barn Restorations in Ohio. Unlike the last guy, Dan who owns the shop has a very credible history working on air cooled VWs. I cannot say enough good things about working with Dan through this project. He was very honest and accommodating with all of the work that he did and in the end he was able to deliver exactly what I wanted. He had a few customer projects ahead of mine, but within of few months of contacting him he was able to get things started.

I was able to take the car to him right away, so he could begin evaluating what was ahead of him while he finished up the other projects he was working on. After seeing my car it was apparent that it needed a lot and was going to exceed my budget in finding all of the pieces and completing the work involved to get a straight body back together. It just so happened that he had a 57 bug that he was looking to sell at the time. Most of this car was missing. It was just a complete body shell and a chassis, but nothing else. Having this car available presented everything I needed because between the two of them I would have all of the pieces I would need to make this work. The difficult part of this decision for me was that I knew that one of these cars would perish in the process.

My goal from the beginning of this project was to make a solid driver that looked good and one I could have fun with. I made the final decision. I had solid chassis, the other 57 had a solid body. I was going to marry the two. This made the most sense to accomplish what I wanted with the least amount of work. There was only problem with this, I really wanted a rag top and the body I was now using was a sedan. The purists may cringe, well they are probably already cringing with what is going on here, but I was going to graft the sunroof from my car into the other 57 body I was going to use. And so the work began...

[SomoBenjamin]

Work started on the chassis. As I mentioned there wasn't a whole lot of work to do here. He got things cleaned up and painted on this pretty quickly looking very nice.

As I mentioned in the previous post the biggest part of this was to get the sunroof cut out of the one car and grafted into the other. Getting things measured up and cut on the new body.

Sunroof in place

And finally cleaned up and primed.

Things started moving along pretty quickly at this point. There were a few other things that Dan needed to repair on the car, but before long the car was in primer and soon after paint. This car was originally prairie beige with the red interior. I definitely want to keep the red interior, however I have chosen to go with L87 Pearl White for the exterior.

Finally after quite a journey, the car was back home ready for my work to begin.

My great uncle offered to let me keep and work on the car in the same garage that it had sat for 30 years before this project started.

[wcfvw69]

To be honest, when I saw how badly your original body was at the beginning of these thread, I thought "yuk, that will be expensive to fix"! I think there was nothing wrong with using the best of the two bugs to make one good one.

It looks good so far. I hope you keep the thread updated.
_________________
Contact me at [email protected]
Follow me on instagram @sparxwerksllc

Decades of VW and VW parts restoration experience.
The Samba member since 2004.

**Now rebuilding throttle bodies for VW's and Porsche's**
**Restored German Bosch distributors for sale or I can restore yours**
**Restored German Pierburg fuel pumps for sale or I can restore yours**
**Restored Porsche fuel pumps or I can restore yours**
**Restored Porsche distributors or I can restore yours**

[SomoBenjamin]

Now that I had the car back, I could start putting all of the pieces together to build the car exactly how I wanted. I started with chassis and getting all of the mechanicals sorted, starting with the front beam. I definitely wanted to have the car lowered a bit but not extremely low. I contemplated 2.5 drop spindles vs. adjustable beam vs. both 2.5 drop spindles and adjustable beam. I definitely thought through this way too much. I was worried that if I just went drop spindles I would be lower than what I really wanted, so I decided I would get an adjustable beam first which would give me flexibility to find the right height. So I ended up with a 2" narrowed adjustable beam from CB performance. I figured, the 2" narrowed beam would give me some flexibility as I read if you add spindles it pushes the wheels out slightly and I could still run shocks. I then got the brakes together. I decided to upgrade slightly to the 58-65 brake setup to add slightly more stopping power. I got everything from the backing plate out.

One of things that amazed me the most taking on this project is the idea of the project vs. the reality of it. In just writing the last paragraph about putting the front beam together and the brakes, in writing it comes off as if it happened quite quickly. Sure, if you knew what you were doing and had all the parts this might be simple, but looking back I think about the countless hours I spent reading trying to figure out all the parts that I need to make it just right. Once I ordered all of the parts I needed and they came, I then realized all of the pieces that I didn't think about. The bolts, washers, grease fittings, etc. It is a great way to learn, but you learn quickly how many little details there are to each task. I imagine some of you have experienced the same thing?

-Ben

[txoval]

My biggest advice is to spend time developing a plan and stick to it. When wander off course you lose time and spend a lot more money.

For example: I went from completely rebuilding/powdercoating my braking system to disc brakes. This then lead to dual circuit master cylinder and stainless steel brake lines...there is also a domino affect.

Another example, I knew what rims I wanted, but struggled to justify the cost, so I settled for powdercoated stock smoothies. Now those smoothies hang on my wall! and I have the rims I always wanted.

Good progress and keep moving forward

[SomoBenjamin]

The overall look that I am planning to go for with the car will be stock but lowered. Originally my uncle's car was Prairie Beige with the Red vinyl interior. I am a big fan of white cars, so I decided on L87 Pearl White and I am planning to stick with the red interior, I think. One of the color combos I really like is from the 62 Ragtop in pearl white with red interior and the beige roof, wheels, and running boards. This is what my plan is now, but I haven't bought the interior fabric yet so I may still venture off of that. In the meantime while I am working out the details on that decision I got the wheels done in beige and white. It is nice to see the wheels looking this clean!

Additionally I have Started to do some work on electrical for the car. I order a new loom and getting all the pieces sorted for that. I started in the back and had to drill new holes in the fenders to mount the taillights. I found a great diagram on the samba as to exactly where the holes should be. Cut up some strings to length and measured out from various reference points on the fender. Measured up a few times to be sure everything looked right and drilled the new holes in. I am very happy with the result. I also was able to get the fenders mounted on the car. In order to save a little cash just to get it on the road, I decided to just mount the fenders without any refinishing. They are little rusty and dinged up, but once I got them on I realized they really do not look that bad. I kind of like the look it gives the car by not having everything cleaned up like new.

[SomoBenjamin]

I haven't made an update to the thread in while and I will admit progress has been slow but I have been chipping away at it. The primary reason for the lack of attention to the project this summer is due to the fact that I bought and 86 Vanagon at the beginning of the summer. Here is a picture of the two on a day I was out working on the beetle.

I have enjoyed driving around in that car so much since I have gotten it. It really makes me eager to wrap up the beetle and get some miles in before winter hits. I have hit some road blocks that I will share in another post but have also made some headway on some others. Most importantly I got all of the interior ordered from SewFine and it looks awesome! I cannot wait to get it in the car. I am in the process of upholstering the seats now and will post some pics shortly.
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[silvertonguedevil]

Looks great! Neat story!
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-Greg

[56bugdan]

It's obviously been a long road for you but you've come a long way and learned a lot I'm sure. It's looking good and it's a completely different feeling when you get to drive a car that you've done yourself rather than one that was already done. Now when you drive it and people start asking questions about the car and what was done to it, you'll know the answers because you did it yourself. And believe me, if you've never driven an old VW you're going to be surprised at how many people will approach you and want to tell story's about the one they had years ago or just to compliment you on it. It's pretty cool actually. I think you made the right call with the ragtop and personally I'd rather have a ragtop than a convertible any day. I'm doing the same with my 56 because there's nothing like cruising with the top opened and they just plain look cool. I even put one in my first project 67 many years ago and I don't think it hurt the value since I didn't go stock with anything on the car. I'm going a Different direction with my 56 and keeping it pretty stock except for the engine and trans. Good job with it and I hope you get to drive it soon.

[SomoBenjamin]

Long overdue, but am getting back to this thread where I left off. I have a quite a bit of catching up to do. Where I had left it, I was facing a few ups and a few downs. More downs the ups it felt like! I had my new interior and was excited to get going on that, but I had some mechanical issues that I really needed to get sorted. The engine was in the car and running great. However, once I got the pedal assembly in and the clutch connected, there was something not quite right with the clutch/transmission. The first primary issue was that I was not finding all the gears properly. Where 1st and 2nd should have been I was finding 3rd and 4th. Then, while trying to figure out what was going on there, I pushed in the clutch and heard a loud snap followed by complete loss of tension in the clutch. Upon initial investigation, the clutch cable was still in but the operating shaft into the transmission was completely lifeless. Unfortunately I suspected the arms on the operating shaft had broken and the only way to find out was to pull the engine back out. Sure enough, once the engine was out I saw exactly that.

As I had mentioned previously in the thread I had hired someone to do all of the body work and paint on the car. There were a few additional odds and ends items that I wanted him to take care of later on in the project. For one, unfortunately, there was some slight damage done to the paint on one of the rear fenders by the shipper when it was originally shipped back from his shop. It was minor, but I still wanted it taken care of. Also, the bracket holding the spring for the rear deck lid cracked and no longer held the lid open so I wanted to get that welded and painted. I also wanted him to paint some new bullet housings I had gotten. Ideally, I would have done this when the car was almost complete. However, now facing yet another issue with replacing the operating shaft and then trying to figure out what was going on with the transmission, I was feeling quite overwhelmed. I was hitting a breaking point and needed some professional assistance to rejuvenate this project. Luckily, the timing was right and he had and opening for a few weeks between other restoration projects during which he would be able to sort out this whole transmission/clutch issue as well as the other items I asked him to do.

With that in place I needed to get the car to his shop which is about an hours drive from where I live. This time, rather than risk it with another shipper, I decided to borrow a car with some towing capacity and make sure it got there safely on my own.

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[SomoBenjamin]

I transported the car out to his shop without any issues. He was able to very quickly get a new operating shaft in the transmission.

Once this was done it was on to figuring out what was going on with the transmission. He confirmed what I noticed in that he was unable to find all the gears. Ultimately the issue was that the shift rod had somehow gotten twisted such that the "hockey stick" at the end was not finding its way up to first, second, and reverse.

It was great to have all of this now sorted and I was excited to get the car back and move on to other things. While the car was at the shop, I had him complete a few other things. As I had mentioned, the bracket on the rear decklid that holds the spring cracked, so it no longer stayed open. he was fortunately able to weld this back up without affecting the paint on the outside.

Additionally while the car was there, I asked him to do a once over on all of the work that I had done on the brakes, suspension, and steering. This was my first time ever working on a beetle so I wanted to make sure I got everything right. When I picked up the car I wanted it to mechanically sound and ready for the road. Before I knew it, his work was done and the car was ready to come home.

Unfortunately, when he completed all of his work, it was in the middle of winter here. With limited space at his shop and another car coming in, I was on a tight schedule to pick it up. I debated some options like getting a storage area nearby for a few weeks, but ultimately decided to pick it anyway despite the bad weather so I could get it home to start on the interior. It ended up being a pretty nice day when I got it but there was still some muck on the roads. Here is a picture on a local road just after picking it up.

I cringed every time a little bit of road muck jumped up on the car, but I knew I could give it a good bath when I got home. I made the trip back safely and pulled it right in the garage for wash.

And finally pulled in with good company and ready to begin the interior work!

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