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Sun Apr 13, 2025 11:09 am

esde wrote: you've redefined "all in a day's work"
But, where are the tuba players?

seriously, I'm floored. The differential/transmission debacle would have stalled me for a few days, just out of frustration...
What is the plan for finish body work and paint? Will you have it painted on the pan, or take it all back apart? Either way I see the wisdom in building it first to make sure things fit and work; better to do that now than after finish paint.
SD

It’s all just experience! After so many years, one just has an idea and these cars are really forgiving, if you go too far in one direction!

Plan is to start the body work today, but I do want to assemble every aspect of the car to insure everything will fit and be correct, in every controllable way. I want to leave almost nothing to chance! There was just SO MUCH worked on. It’s is hard to know if it still is all within the tolerances needed for a great looking Bug. After that, if there is time left, I will start on the filling. Pulled out the fiberglass filler last night. Lots of tiny holes to get filled. I do not need any moisture creeping in behind the plastic fillers! Let’s see where I get to!

AMEN to that last sentence! So many times I have needed to redo something, after paint. Not this time! No more of that shit. Everything will get checked, then double checked!

Sun Apr 13, 2025 8:06 pm

One of my pet peeves that has bit me in the past is exactly what the above two posts are about! You get done working on each one specific subtask, with the unstated idea that it will all smoothly go together. And then, it doesn’t, often after finish work is (was) complete!

Like the front beam. It’s easy to do each step along the way, and loose sight of the fact that one may be HAMMERING on the trailing arms at some point to seat them in the beam! Or the rear axle plates that get PRIED or JACKED into place! I know I tried to keep my future rework to a minimum on the chassis, since it got powder coated. But I still ended up having to re-weld the jack point on one side after powdercoat. It’s frustrating at that point - but I can safely say now that I’ve been driving, those pet peeves register in my memory, but don’t affect my enjoyment of the car.

Sun Apr 13, 2025 10:48 pm

Got in another 4 hours! Got the first layer of plastic filler on the passenger door! Woot! WOOT! Guess I am starting on the next phase of the project, SANDING. Have I mentioned that I despise sanding! As a kid, my one job that I had was to sand all of the cabinets that my father would build. He built them, and I would fill the nail hole, sand out the faces and finished ends, being sure to ease all of the edges! I have years and years of experience sanding wood. But I can tell you it is very much the same!

Here is what I started with.

I had semi adjusted the door. Just something to verify that it fit still and would hang correctly in the opening without spending a ton of time playing with it! Gaps are good, sitting an 1/8” too low, but still has room to adjust that amount.

I then ran some tape around what I was going to work on. Then took my open hand, laid it on the door skin and felt the entire surface, mapping the surface issues with that hand. I then filled the bottom in and sanded it to shape, or as close as I could get without removing to much material!

Followed that up with spreading more Xtreme filler onto the door skin, building on top of what I already laid down and hitting the spots above that area. Then sanded it all. Then filled it all again, followed by more sanding!

It finally got to really close, so I shot a light coat of primer on it and then speckled some black on top of that!

Mon Apr 14, 2025 2:13 pm

I admire your willingness to sand. I hired a professional and let him do the sanding. Money well spent I thought.

Keep it coming, I'm still watching.

Don

Mon Apr 14, 2025 9:51 pm

sunroof wrote: I admire your willingness to sand. I hired a professional and let him do the sanding. Money well spent I thought.

Keep it coming, I'm still watching.

Don

I have sanded stuff my whole life! Hell, today, I was sanding the mating pieces of some ABS pipe, for a kitchen sink drain today! Easy money!

I plan on it! It should remain steady for a couple more weeks. Daughter’s wedding is mid June, so we are going into count down mode in a few weeks! I may be slightly less able to sand. Prepare for a lag in my posting soon!

Tue Apr 15, 2025 4:30 am

OK, I have to ask, How will you adjust your doors? I have the same problem with my '55.

Thanks

Tue Apr 15, 2025 8:38 am

Ted2 wrote: OK, I have to ask, How will you adjust your doors? I have the same problem with my '55.

Thanks

I did adjust the door during the welding. Hell, because of the body sagging issue, I have had to cut the pillars at their bottom welds a few times and readjust everything!

When I removed the shell from the rotisserie and placed it on the pan, the door sag was really large, alarmingly so! I thought for sure I was going to end up cutting and rewelding another pillar. But I finished going through and tightening the body to pan bolts, which helped a small amount. I then adjusted the hinges, which did the job! I still have a 1/16”+ to move the door up and I may use it, but leaving it where it is right now makes it easier to mask off!

I at least know that I can achieve the perfect placement with the remaining margin from the hinge mounts!

Did that answer your question?

Tue Apr 15, 2025 9:33 am

Loving this! I step away for a few months and I miss all the action!

Tue Apr 15, 2025 10:36 pm

Busstom wrote: Loving this! I step away for a few months and I miss all the action!

It was F’N AWESOME!!!!!!!

Wed Apr 16, 2025 2:42 am

VW_Jimbo wrote: Ted2 wrote: OK, I have to ask, How will you adjust your doors? I have the same problem with my '55.

Thanks

I did adjust the door during the welding. He’ll, because of the body sagging issue, I have had to cut the pillars at their bottom welds a few times and readjust everything!

When I remove the shell from the rotisserie and place it on the pan, the door sag was really large, alarmingly so! I thought for sure I was going to end up cutting and reeling another pillar. But I finished going through and tightening the body to pan bolts, which helped a small amount. I then adjusted the hinges, which did the job! I still have a 1/16”+ to move the door up and I may use it, but leaving it where it is right now makes it easier to mask off!

I at least know that I can achieve the perfect placement with the remaining margin from the hinge mounts!

Did that answer your question?

Thanks Jimbo

Fri Apr 18, 2025 8:33 am

Got another hour in after work yesterday! Managed to spread some filler. Sand it down to within reason and prime it up again. It will require a little bit more filler, but is about 80% there!

And the best part is I can no longer see my weld seam! The rear quarter panel was the first piece of steel I replaced, if I am remembering that correctly! Felt great! I should have a few minutes this weekend to finish this panel off.

Sun Apr 20, 2025 12:28 pm

Happy Easter all! Hope everyone has a great day with loved ones!

It was a Good Friday here in the temple of the Bug! Got in another 4 hours!

Finished off the roughing in of the rear passenger quarter panel. How it was left from Thursday. There is an old leaded patch right below the window. I have no inclination to remove the lead, as it seems like a solid patch. It just failed to cover all of the damaged area.

So, I decided to pull that crease out a bit while hammering out the opening a tiny bit. The curve was just off along this area, and I knew if I could stretch the steel out away from the opening, I would be able to hammer the high spot down in the window rubber area, which the pop-out window would need to seal against.

So, I started drilling and popping, while hammering along the crease!

One.

Two.

Three. Can you hear Sesame Steet’s the Count, counting?

4, 5, 6, 7, 8. There are 8! 8 holes along the crease in the panel. Let count them again, together…. You all get it!

With the counting done, it was onto the Duraglass filler. This is a missed step in many builds. If you know plastic fillers at all, you understand that they are sponges! They absorb water and hold onto it. Then the steel, which the sponge is attached to, gets hot, expands a bit and the plastic does the same thing. The moisture within, gets hot and starts getting free, from the expansion of the plastic, and wicks its way back to the hot steel, because that is just what happens in nature. Once the moisture hits the steel, the process starts. Say it with me, OXIDATION! Or rust, the 4 letter word we all do our best to control! (Ha, laugh with me on that one! More like denial.)

Anyways, that layer of fiberglass is a vapor barrier between the 2 hemispheres! Without it, the open holes in the steel would leech moisture. But now they will not! Thanks to the Duraglass filler! And here it is all smeared in!

After the filler cures, I use my dull razor blades and scrap down any high in the Duraglass. Then sand it lightly with 36 grit and apply the Rage filler on top of it.

Then sand that down with 80 grit.

I then rubbed the panel, marking the low spots. Refilled them with Rage, sanded, repeat. By the 3rd time it is as close to good as I can get right now. So I primed it. It is ready for a good sanding to show where the glazing putty can go!

Mon Apr 21, 2025 10:09 am

Wow. Congratulations Jim.

I was away for the week and the first thing i see when i pulled up the thread was a transmission in pieces. That got my attention and what a wild adventure. Glad you got to drive the pan. I am sure all your neighbors came out to cheer you on. (haha)

Have fun with body work. Nothing like keeping a garage clean while sanding...

Mon Apr 21, 2025 11:28 am

Just came over this vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MblO3So3gv8
and had to think on your project!

Mon Apr 21, 2025 11:47 am

matthew henricks wrote: Wow. Congratulations Jim.

I was away for the week and the first thing i see when i pulled up the thread was a transmission in pieces. That got my attention and what a wild adventure. Glad you got to drive the pan. I am sure all your neighbors came out to cheer you on. (haha)

Have fun with body work. Nothing like keeping a garage clean while sanding...

Thanks Matthew! It was fun and short lived. I have a few oil leaks to attend to, down the road. But it did run!

The neighbors, well the friendly ones, came out and were amazed that it finally moved out of the garage!

Mon Apr 21, 2025 11:48 am

pastellgreen wrote: Just came over this vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MblO3So3gv8
and had to think on your project!

Thank you! Cool video!

Tue Apr 22, 2025 8:54 am

It was another day off and another day of filling and sanding.

Moved sideways to the front quarter panel! Started with how it sat the last time I spread Duraglass and Rage onto the shell. I did install the fender first!

Had to get up close and personal with the body, peering intently at the body lines where the fender meets up with the corner panel. This corner is okay except for 2 low spots. Not huge but enough to make me take notice.

Those 2 areas where the beading will sink a tiny bit. I will need to fill a tiny amount. Then there is the front. Actually that is not too bad. Maybe a few bumps with a hammer will knock it out!

I forged ahead by marking the fender bead line on the inside of the trunk.

I then took one of my Dollys and set the pointy end into where the stamping is on the quarter panel, which outlines where the fender rests. I then hit the dolly, pretty damn hard, with a 32oz. hammer! It pushed out the panel a bit. I might have less than 1/16” of filler to have to fill now. The positive keeps going. Loving it!

While I was taking care of that, I was reminded that this area has a ripple along this same area. Let’s see if I can document it.

Can you see the ripples? Really odd. It is like someone was trying to shrink the panel. There is a uniformity to the markings. Never seen that before. Oh well, let’s beat on it and see what we can do. Smoothing it out may help those adjacent low areas, since the metal will stretch a tiny bit. I may be able to use that in place of filler!

That made a tiny bit of an improvement. I can more feel it than see it, but if you have a keen eye, and I get the picture taken well, you might have a shot.

Nevermind. You can’t make it out at all! You would need to feel the difference!
My bad! With those areas bumped as well as I can do, it is onto fiberglassing the pin holes. I then grabbed the sander with some 60 grit spinning on it, to give the fiberglass something to tooth into!

Then I smear a thin layer of the Dura glass over those areas, tapering off the ends as I push that material through the tiny holes.

I also hit the fender.

Then I sand that down with 80 grit and smear Rage over it all. Well, I did that 3 times, building up the areas slowly. You never want to much filler in one swipe. Leads to a series of bad events! Ask me how I know!

Sand that all down with 80 grit. Rub it and feel for the low spots. Smear another layer, sand feel, fill, sand, feel, etc….. You get the picture. Then a coat of Filler Primer, so that those 80 grit scratches get filled!

See, no more ripples!

Onto the fender! (You could probably see the filler in the previous photo.

And that is when the steam ran out. Tomorrow is another opportunity for advancement!

Tue Apr 22, 2025 9:54 pm

Had another 4 hours this afternoon to work on the old Bug! Got back into the front fender. Got straight into sanding down the filler I spread on yesterday.

This layer got way closer to the mark! But it was still a little bit off here and there, plus a few high spots showed up during the sanding. So, first, I smacked those down with my body hammer. Once I was happy with the spots levelness, I rough it up and primed it all again. Then speckled it with black primer.

I let that dry, more or less and then sanded it again, this time really focusing in on how the body lines go. It got SO MUCH closer!

I then did a light coat of filler and was waiting for it to kick off, when the clock went off. It was time for dinner with Mrs. Jimbo!

Until Saturday! It time to go make money again!

Wed Apr 23, 2025 6:50 am

Nice progress for a day.

Question for you. How do you decide when to fill pin holes instead of replacing the metal? What is the tipping point?

Wed Apr 23, 2025 8:42 am

matthew henricks wrote: Nice progress for a day.

Question for you. How do you decide when to fill pin holes instead of replacing the metal? What is the tipping point?

The pin holes I am referring to, ARE from replacing steel. I am
not laying product over compromised steel. These are mostly the welded seams between old and new steel. Pin holes are unavoidable welding sheet metal together. Just a byproduct of not being able to lay a complete bead of weld down. I have seen several repairs on other cars with “patches” that have been only tack welded into place. They then go back and bondo over that “patches”. Crazy!

I try and sink a tack weld sequentially along a seam, overlapping the tacks by 50%. I have found that, that process makes for the best welded seam I can get with very little being missed in between the pools of molten steel. BUT, the pools sometimes do not take to one another 100% and then we get what is referred to as a “pin hole”.

I have continually returned to my past patches, while the welder was in hand, and tack in a few thousand of these through the project, but there are still several awaiting me after grinding the mass down. I am sure someone more experienced could make it 100% the first pass, I am not that guy. But, I am not dumb either.

So, we know moisture will gain access to anywhere and everything! So, how to mitigate what we know is there but cannot be seen and will soon be covered? Maybe even covered with a sponge like structure material, like Bondo! We isolate the product! We make the back side impervious to water intrusion and the front, we do the same thing! Sandwiching the sponge! No air to carry moisture in, no oxidation with steel is possible!

Hope I answered that question!