New user, and new project - 'Throwitbacktogether' !

[mj2k]

Bit more Bondo in the rear wings to cover the joints, with careful work it's close to looking smooth now, without resorting to 1/2 inch thick nastiness.

Also I finished my wheel well modifications - it's strong enough for me to stand in now without bending, so should be fine with 70kg of EV batteries in it when it's sitting on the frame head

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"I looked for silver linings, But you're rotten to the core" - Devo: Gut Feeling (they must have seen my Super)

[mj2k]

Quick pic of my modified spare wheel well balanced on the frame head - should line up nicely once I've welded it in place:

Also, in my quest to fit blade bumpers, I got hold of a cheap standard sized rear wing - shows just how oversized my current wings are

Do the holes in the wing look like they're for the earlier round tail lights or the Tombstones? Think they're for tombstones, but not 100% sure.
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"I looked for silver linings, But you're rotten to the core" - Devo: Gut Feeling (they must have seen my Super)

[mj2k]

I've got another rear wing coming today, and got some white primer / L90D white paint to experiment with the 2 tone look once I've finally got those much-welded side panels looking straight.

Does mean my rear wheels look rather ridiculous though, so need to experiment with the small pile of alternative styles I've acquired. And then fit the disk brake adaptors / disks to the 1302 (early Super) struts at the front, and see what will fit over them. Might be able to get away from the super-wide wings at the front with a bit of luck, but I'm not holding my breath on that - having the tyres sticking out beyond the fenders like they were originally with later type struts is an MOT fail in the UK.
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"I looked for silver linings, But you're rotten to the core" - Devo: Gut Feeling (they must have seen my Super)

[mj2k]

Other wing arrived today so did a quick mockup - looks good from the rear at least:

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"I looked for silver linings, But you're rotten to the core" - Devo: Gut Feeling (they must have seen my Super)

[mj2k]

Did some checking of my alternate wheels against the new back wing...

Existing Empi alloys without the spacers - look good, but even without the spacers they stick out beyond the edge of the wheelarch:

Chromed Baja steels - don't look so great and still stick out beyond the arches, even without tyres:

Chromed version of standard steel wheels - not as good looking as the Empis, but look OK. Perfect fit behind the wheelarch:

Then temporarily fitted the front discs plus 1302 strut adaptors and checked against the standard steels - clearance is tight, but still seems fine:

So looks like we have a winner...
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"I looked for silver linings, But you're rotten to the core" - Devo: Gut Feeling (they must have seen my Super)

[mj2k]

Feeling a bit the worse for wear today (hopefully food poisoning and not another bout of Covid) so couldn't do much, but I got the 1302 front wings today, and loosely fitted them.

Empis still fit under them fine, though I haven't tried them with the disc brakes / 1302 adaptors yet, which could be the big challenge.

I'm sticking to my Karmann Ghia headlight mounts - it'll allow me to have a huge range of cheap sealed / semi-sealed headlights from all sorts of sources (including these LEDs if I want them), rather than the shoddy-but-expensive RHD Super headlights. Only thing is I'll either have to find headlight surrounds which suit the adjusters, or drill my current surrounds:

And as for the blade bumper - still not got the mounts, but balanced on a box it looks like a perfect fit to me:

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"I looked for silver linings, But you're rotten to the core" - Devo: Gut Feeling (they must have seen my Super)

[mj2k]

I'm in the middle of touching up some paintwork damage caused by removing the thick Bondo from the rear 1/4 panels, but couldn't resist test-fitting one of my new tombstone lights - looks good to me

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"I looked for silver linings, But you're rotten to the core" - Devo: Gut Feeling (they must have seen my Super)

[Buggeee]

"I'm in the middle of touching up some paintwork"

OMG am I the only one. This just struck me so funny because half the car has been replaced with welding.

I bet you are! Hahahahaha.

The car is looking great. What a good feeling to be where it is now.
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1966 Sportsmobile Camper https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=...mp;start=0
72 Super Duper http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=672387
(adopted out) 61 Turkis Pile https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=728764

[mj2k]

[mj2k]

Got the disc brakes fitted - they actually fit better under the Empis than the standard wheels, which makes me want to keep the Empis even more...

Also found out where the errant blade bumper mounts are - they were stuck in UK customs like I expected, and were just released today...

And got yet another load of parts from the Netherlands (paruzzi.com) which were sent 6 days after my French bumper mounts, but arrived a day before the parts from France (you can see France from some parts of the UK on a clear day) had even cleared customs.

So fitted them to the car - standard semi-sealed beams, suitable rims to fit over the Karmann Ghia headlight adaptors, and my 1962-style indicators. Between that and the tombstone rear lights, I think it looks rather nice in the white primer, so I'm now very tempted to make the blue and white colour scheme permanent:

I've run out of white primer, but just one more fender to spray and I'll be able to get the full effect. It'd definitely look better with the Empis (well, fake Empis, as I noticed) though. I'll have to mess around with tyre sizes and see if I can get them to fit under the arches with the narrower profile tyre they're supposed to wear.
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"I looked for silver linings, But you're rotten to the core" - Devo: Gut Feeling (they must have seen my Super)

[VW_Jimbo]

Man! You are ripping through this! And doing a stellar job!

Looks great! When do we get to see full body shots? Really interested to see the two tone interaction, on all its glory! Sounds so cool! And I agree with you, the scheme looks great right now!
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Jimbo

There is never enough time to do it right the first time, but all the time necessary the second time!

[mj2k]

[VW_Jimbo]

Sounds like a plan!
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Jimbo

There is never enough time to do it right the first time, but all the time necessary the second time!

[mj2k]

So, I started doing the left hand door. Shame to cut the whole skin off because it was perfect, but the door was kindof bulging in a weird way (still no idea why, except it came from a much later bug) and the bottom had rotted out (of course) so off it came, and I replaced the door bottom. Still some work to do on the lips, but looking good so far:

And since I've now got some more white primer, finished off the right hand front fender, and de-rusted / primered the front valence (top half is staying night blue), so quite a busy day.
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"I looked for silver linings, But you're rotten to the core" - Devo: Gut Feeling (they must have seen my Super)

[VW_Jimbo]

That is a shame! That is a hard weld right there. Getting that panel to end up looking like a properly shaped door will take ALOT of patience! Just remember to cool the entire door down in between a few welds.
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Jimbo

There is never enough time to do it right the first time, but all the time necessary the second time!

[mj2k]

[mj2k]

That worked better than expected

I flattened the lips the door skin attaches to (which hold the door seal in place too of course), repaired them, and spot welded down each side. Then I beat the lips back to their proper shape, checked the door frame / skin fit in the car, then carefully welded the top area, the hardest part to get right. Then once everything was nice and flat and undistorted, I spot welded the bottom lip and hammered flat.

Still needs finishing but I've got a good result - the door skin is nice and flat, and fits in nicely with the shape of the other panels (please ignore the grubby handprints on the white primer):

The one thing which didn't go quite so well was right in the centre at the bottom, where the window winder attaches. On the right hand door there's a simple welded on nut which the winder attaches to, on this left hand door there's a hefty bracket. Aside from meaning I need different winders for each side, it also means the left hand bracket sticks out from the door frame a bit on the outside, which has left me with a couple of inverse dimples, where the bracket's pressing against the outer skin. Wish I'd noticed that before I fitted the door skin - I'd have dumped the bracket, welded in a nut like the other side, and bought a new winder

Still, at least that explains why the door skin seemed more rounded and bulbous - it was, to fit over the bracket

BTW, what year of bug had this type of bracket for the window winder?

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"I looked for silver linings, But you're rotten to the core" - Devo: Gut Feeling (they must have seen my Super)

[mj2k]

[mj2k]

Got the 'special' 1303 blade bumper brackets from France at last - they're just the plain old Empi ones which aren't for a Super, which I could have picked up for $100 less in the UK, so feel well and truly ripped off

Still, the front looks good, but the brackets will need modification, which I was hoping not to do:

Also the rears look wrong to me whichever way up they're mounted, either too high or too low. Think standard blade mounts might have looked better, but I'll have to see once I can roll the car out of the garage and see it in profile:

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"I looked for silver linings, But you're rotten to the core" - Devo: Gut Feeling (they must have seen my Super)

[vwuberalles]

The rear always look a little weird when you put blades on a late model because there's so much more apron.
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1973 Superbeetle: 1st car, owned since age 12. Update thread --> https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=9919140#9919140
1967 Kombi: Owned since age 17, Dad's retirement project.
1966 Beetle: My new project. (SOLD) Build thread--> https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=678040