Zarwerks shop spy cam ....

[ZwitterND]

Much better !! Well worth all the #$%@!!!
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Bill

[notchboy]

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[EverettB]

That definitely looks better. Nice work all around though, I have been following it.
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[johnshenry]

Some pics of the cover install on the last front seat back, showing the tucking into the lower rear slotted tube...

The horsehair padding had a tag also, like the rear seat pads. This one dated 31 Oct, 1950 (Halloween). My car '50 is a mid Nov manufacture. Parts sure didn't lay around for long, huh?

The spray glues I use. The Super 90 is amazing stuff, but it will bleed through some fabrics, so be careful. I very often spray it in a ketchup cup and use a brush with it. I get it at Home Depot for about $13 a can. They sell the 45 too.

The foam being glued on, a heavy coat of 90 on the horsehair and the back of the foam, and let it tack up for about 5-7 mins. (A piece of fabric is stitched to the spring cage before the padding is fit over, like in previous pics).

Then form it around the corners and trim it. I cut a "V" in it as the curve closed up.

So the tieback cords from the top of the hem inside are pulled all the way out an tied to the upper tube frame.

Then the cover is slipped down over the seat (not shown, but I stitched the padding, foam and interface material to the spring cage all the way around like in previous pics). As the cover is slid down, the slack in the tieback cords is taken up. Once the cover is pulled all the way down, the cords are pulled tight and tied off to the spring cage after being looped around it 2-3 times. I found that as I pulled the cord, if with my other hand I squeezed the side bolster, forcing the tieback hem toward the back of the seat, I could get them tighter. Much like I pressed the seat bottom cages down while I tied off those pulldowns.

So about that slotted tube; Lenny's covers are finished with a poly plastic strip sewn along the bottoms. I dollied out the edges and made sure the gap was uniform, about 1/4" wide. I also ran a file along the edges to make sure there were no sharp edges or burrs that could start a rip in the cover.

The trick seemed to be to walk the strip down into the gap by pulling the cover down. This was not all that hard, nowhere near as tight as the rear seat back was. Once I got it going, I could tap its other edge down in with a screwdriver. I dulled the blade a bit, and tapped gently. The plastic is soft, but you can very easily rip stitches if you hit it hard. As you can see, I did the front first, then the back lower edge.

I don't know if this is exactly how Lenny does it, but this seemed to work pretty well. Lenny said he "closes up" the tub e gap when he is done, but I didn't want to risk tearing the fabric by hammering on it, even with a wooden block to disperse the impact. I tried it a bit, and because the tube flexes in the middle, you can't really bend it closed all that easily.

I'll try to get a finished pic of one of the backs later...

So once I do the hand stitching on this one, the seats are DONE! I am pretty happy with the way they came out, that fabric is very, very nice. Workmanship by Lenny's guys is very good.

I'll get the '50 in the shop this weekend and tackle the B pillar covers, and side and door panels, then put the seats in. I e-mail Lenny (Lenny!!) about getting some more fabric for the cushions and glove boxes. I carefully took my pillows apart and can see how they are made, some pretty clever tricks there...... of course I'll post pics. I want to put some sandbags in the bottoms of them so they don't roll all over the back seat!!
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John Henry

'57 Deluxe
'56 Single Cab

[Neil Davies]

Nice work John!

I'd be quite tempted to add my own tag in there too, saying when you re-did the seats! Just one of those little bits that mean something to you but you know that no-one else will ever see!
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'67/'68 Cal Look Beetle, 2007cc, 48IDFs, 14.4 @ 93mph, Oct 2017.
'68/'70 Karmann Beetle, wife's project, progressing slowly.
'80 Devon Moonraker, wife's ratty but cool toy.
'86 Scirocco special project - still measuring up...

[johnshenry]

[ProjectX]

That's what the guy at the factory said "Warum die Hölle ich ist, der dieses Etikett hier drinnen gestellt hat. Niemand wird je es sehen. "

Translation "Why the hell am I putting this tag in here. Nobody will ever see it."

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Even my nuts are plated.....

195? Project "X"
1954 Oval Convertible

[ZwitterND]

Heck with the tag, slip a cd or flash drive in there with this thread on it
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Bill

[johnshenry]

[johnshenry]

Seats done!

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John Henry

'57 Deluxe
'56 Single Cab

[52brezelfenster]

Looks great John. Nice job.

[johnshenry]

Here's a few pics from an SWF Ribbed semaphore bulb contact making session the other night. I restore these sems but generally don't sell the parts I make for them. There are others here on thesamba who also make these contacts and sell them in the classifieds.

I use 15 thousands brass sheet (either from my local hobby store or McMaster). Originals are 11.5 thou, but I find that the slightly thicker sheet holds the bulb better. The blanks are cut on a shear, 129mm by 10.9mm. The width is pretty critical, too wide and they "stick" on the sides of the lens inside.

The spacing between the bolt holes is 30mm. I line up a few and mark them with a straight edge.

The holes are punched with a Whitney punch. The bolt hole spacing is pretty critical, I usually punch one or two and test it on a sem before I trust my stop bar and punch the rest.

I'm sure the best way to put the crease in them is with a press, and I have one, but I wanted to make up some quick tooling since I don't make that many. A modified brick chisel and a short piece of aluminum U channel.

The small bolt in the channel is only there to give the vice something to clamp on and hold it, while the bottom of the channel is supported my the top of the jaws. The punched blank is laid on the channel in the position shown....

....and the chisel with the edge cut back to just the right length positioned ...

... and with a calibrated whack I am able to get just the right crease in them.

The "V" creases are finished at each end of the crease with an ordinary pair of pliers. Not a press operation, but the result for a run of 10-20 of these is pretty uniform.


As for my '50 interior, I did start the B pillar covers a copuple weeks ago, but messed up by gluing it under the quarter window before I had it all formed around the B pillar. No choice but to get another and start over. Good news is that Lenny had a pair of pillows he gave me a sweet deal on as well as glove box liners, all should be here this week...
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John Henry

'57 Deluxe
'56 Single Cab

[johnshenry]

Not much description needed here, could be titled "Trial and error. And error, and error. Trial, trial, error, error, error, error, error, error, trial, error, error, error............"

Can you spot the original part amid all the "protos"?


Those are SWF sem pivot springs. For the most part, I can usually find good used ones, and the ones used on the ribbed sems are the same as on the smooth. But every now and then I have a set of ribbed sems that has everything but a good set of springs. So I played around with making some tooling to "wind" my own for weeks. I really get caught up in making tools sometimes. I am getting pretty close. Fortunately that "music wire" spring wire is about $6 for a 250 foot roll.....

As for the interior, I have most of one B pillar cover done. The assist strap actually helps "pin" the border between the headliner and B pillar cover, an issue in this split since I am not redoing the headliner....

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John Henry

'57 Deluxe
'56 Single Cab

[Sepi]

How it is really for those B-pillar headliners? I have seen usually straight long pieces (and got new ones from Himmel Service - Germany) without that part under rear quarter window.

[johnshenry]

I some splits, maybe most original ones, the headliner material runs along under the rear quarter windows. For me, this is not an option as I am not replacing the headliner, have no idea where/if I could get material to match, and the original (from previous restoration) fabric there was in bad shape. I think Lenny at WCCR can supply the B pillar covers either with, or without the part under the rear quarter windows.
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John Henry

'57 Deluxe
'56 Single Cab

[Splitdog]

Pretty cool, John.
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[johnshenry]

Stan Wohlfarth is a steady member of our local club and tomorrow is our 10th annual "Dust Off" cruise. Stan was laid off from his job at Bentley Publishers last year, and last month opened up his own VW shop in Natick MA. You can read about it here. We hare very happy and excited for him and wish him the best.

As you can see, Stan has been working to "customize" his shop a bit, and has asked for any "wall art" that folks might have. Stan is pretty much a bus guy, and I thought he needed some Beetle stuff visible there...

(can you see where this is going??)

So tomorrow one of the first stops is Stan's shop for coffee and donuts. I had really wanted to drive the '50 with its new interior, but will have to take the '57 since the interior is not done. Then it hit me.....

Tonight I scrounged some old ribbed handles from my parts boxes, tapped the bores with an M10 tap and bolted them up with some ribbed escutcheons. That armrest is made out of a block of wood, some glue and some piping and fabric cut from one of the other old panels. If he has room, he can put a rear panel next to it on the wall. I did look in my parts for an old ashtray, but only had a spare nice ivory one I paid $200 for, and Stan isn't getting that for his wall. (anyone have a ratty broken one, or one of those Japanese metal repros? If he puts the back panel up...).

So the legendary "college porch couch" interior isn't dead and gone yet. Hopefully it will live on the wall of Stan's shop, representing our dear split Beetles. He needs to find something cool to slip in the map pocket....

I'll get Stan to send me a pic of it on his wall (if he is brave enough to put it up....!) and post it here...
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John Henry

'57 Deluxe
'56 Single Cab

[johnshenry]

Here's a couple pics of a new speedo calibration setup I built. The speedo is driven by a variable speed drill with the trigger locked and an adjustable make speed thumbscrew on the trigger. The input shaft is bridged by a short piece of rubber tubing to allow flexibility and limit the torque should something go wrong (steel shafts are slipped into either end of the tubing).

A Harbor Freight photo tach is aligned with the input shaft and a piece of reflective tape is attached to the tubing. By adjusting the trigger screw on the drill, I can dial in various speeds.

The table is from a Excel spreadsheet that computes the MPH for a given shaft rpm, for a given tire diameter. Note the significant difference between a std 15x5.60 bias play and a 185/65/15; 6 mph difference at the higher speeds.

I don't do that many speedos, but have always wanted to make a better setup than my old way of just relying on the labeled no load speed of a cordless drill to do a rough cal. The phot tachs have gotten pretty inexpensive lately.

As for how the speedo is adjusted, it is primarily just adjusting the pre-load on the needle as it rests on the "0" pin. Slope and linearity can be adjusted by tweaks to the spring on the inside that change the torque per degree of rotation.

520 is an rpm value in the table as it is the no load speed of a cordless drill that I sometimes use for a quick check of accuracy.
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John Henry

'57 Deluxe
'56 Single Cab

[r39o]

[eurodub]

hey there John, i have a small question. as you have often dealt with speedo restos and calibration, will there be any significant difference when running 15" wheels on a split speedometer?
from what i could check here the local technical inspection allows up to 3% tolerance when changing wheels/tires.
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1960 1200 model 117 deluxe ragtop
1976 MK1 Golf