My 63 Ragtop

[soupcups]

Been following this thread for awhile now and it's amazing the work you are doing. I think I already know the answer to this but why not buy new heater channels. Classic Fab makes them so perfect you don't need any retrofitting. I am amazed at this rebuild tho. What are you using for breaking the spot welds? Can you make me some wheel wells and mail them out to me? Haha. You can get the size off of yours. The look like this now.

[63Ragtop NZ]

Thanks guys!
Bob, I make the dents with a very high tech device called a lump of metal with a groove filed into it and a big hammer!
When first made them I would try and hold the metal in place and try to hit the same spot where the groove is, this does not work well. Now I clamp it in place, mark everything out hold the pointy end of a panel hammer in place and then give the flat end a good crack with said big hammer, might have to do it a couple times till I'm happy.
Soup, looks like you got your hands full there mate
if you guessed "I'm a tightass" then you're right!
I'd be finished by now if i'd got some funky green channels, they do look very nice, but I do actually enjoy this work also.
thanks for watching.
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[63Ragtop NZ]

When we last saw our intrepid hero he had welded up the rear strengthening panel and had cut the other end of the channel and the A pillar open.
Well I don't have a photo but the rear panel is welded back in place and looks just like the other side now, I then chopped even more of the rot out and last week sandblasted the lot.

front

side

inside

the bottom lip on the front of the channel there was not as shot as the passenger side, so I decided to keep it and try to weld up the small pinholes caused but rust pits and some idiot with a spot weld drill(me).
I also sandblasted the top of the sill, where the carpet holder strip was welded on. The metal had very bad surface rust and really needed sorting

carrying on, out with the old shit, in with the new.

goes here.

including my world famous pat. pending dents.
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[63Ragtop NZ]

All ready to be melted in place.

like so

smoothed out nice.

and primed

one more part done.
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[63Ragtop NZ]

Right, onto the A pillar!

and the front of the heater channel.

but first I had to fit this little patch to the bottom of the firewall, as after blasting it looked pretty thin.

it's only small, but there are four different angles to match up, not as simple as i thought!

So I get a PM from a fellow nzveedubnut asking if I'd like to use spotwelder, as he doesn't need his for awhile yet? HELL YES! I'm not really ready yet either so I've been bustin my ass this week.

say hello to my little friend!

this will speed things up!

swapped out the big boys out for these easier to handle electrodes.
Still weighs about 12kg! Quite alot to swing around, hold and operate.

got this assembled and welded in place last night in about 45mins, saving about 2 weeks time in the process.
So I carried on and welded in the firewall patch, if I could magic up some more compressed air to cool the welds I may have worked though the night, so stoked!

I'll sleep when I'm dead!!!!!

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[63Ragtop NZ]

Done and done.

still need to smooth out the bird shit in the corner there, need some more dremel tips.
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[63Ragtop NZ]

Had a great week, last week.

Got both wheel well panels welded in and ground down on Saturday.

minor/major milestone, still heaps to do!

detail of the little triangle sticky out bit.

and I folded/hammered the fold back over yesterday, pretty pleased with that also.
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[bobnorman]

This looks great. I love the attention to detail that you've been doing. The areas you fixed will look completely untouched when you are done! Well done sir, keep at it.
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Air does not freeze. Air does not boil.

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=289807

[63Ragtop NZ]

Thanks Bob, doing the best I can, it's not prefect and will need a bit of bog here and there, but it's solid, rust free and looks pretty factory so I'm happy.

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[63Ragtop NZ]

So on to the rear panels.

I started finishing up the panel I had roughed up months ago when I first cut this side open.

mocking up er'thang, Door to panel to fender to running board to door to....

With the extra weight of the door and fenders on one side, I have to prop the stand up with my chair. Safe as houses mate!

this corner bit was tricky as, I nearly said bugger it, and was about to chop it off.

Got there in the end.

Started tacking it in, messed a little, so ended up with a sweet gap to bridge.

and though the magic of television it's all done.

looks real good here, but just okay in real life.

nothing a bit of bog can't fix!

Just the other side to do, then bottom plates!

Made a start on repairing the old panel off the drivers side, not as rusted as the one I just finished, and making that one was a bitch of a thing, so this will do.

welded up all the spotweld drill holes and managed to fill the rust holes up after I had sandblasted it.
So really just that back corner to fab up, whoo who!

Oh, and spot-welder are awesome!
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[63Ragtop NZ]

Finished up the drivers side remake.

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.

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. How are we going for time on the spot welder lovol? do yo need it back soon??

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.
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[63Ragtop NZ]

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!

YEAH!

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 lovol!) 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.
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[63Ragtop NZ]

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!
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[LaSpaz]

Amazing work guv'nor.

[63Ragtop NZ]

haha, getting there slowly!
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[1966vwfan]

I'm liking this!!

[63Ragtop NZ]

Cheers 66!
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 got the vents sandblasted yesterday, so I should be able to start putting it all back together soon!
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[grandpa pete]

Dropped by your thread again to see your progress .
I was getting frustrated that my " one year build "has gone past the 2 year mark so reading about your Odeessy has put things back into perspective .

Thankyou for sticking with it and still posting photos and progress .
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66 sedan delivery Type 6

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=569619&highlight=sedan+delivery

[Lidpainter]

[63Ragtop NZ]

Cheers boys!

Yeah I'm a little bit over this metalwork carry on, I just wanna drive it, it's summer here and I'm missing it again!
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