Body Off - Pleasant Surprise

[donny1973]

My upholstery guy called to tell me that one of my header bow mounting plates was in questionable shape and my header bow was a little soft. This is AFTER he had the top about 90% done. I told him to stop the work and that I'd come get the car and replace whatever needed replacing. So, I went and trailered the car home and had to peel the new top, headliner and padding back from the header bow to inspect things. The bow was junk and the alignment pin mounting tab had rusted off of the passenger side mounting plate. The driver side was serviceable, but I decided to cut off both plates and weld on new ones. I went with a synthetic header bow instead of wood for obvious reasons. The quality of the bow is somewhat lacking, and I've had to do some major modification to it to get things lined up. Tonight I'll finish mock-up then tomorrow I'll weld the plates on, repaint the forward part of the top frame and bolt the bow in. I hope to have it back at the upholstery shop Friday to have the top finished.

On a positive note, the interior guy did a bang up job on my seats and carpet. I swapped out the black high back buckets for a pair of low backs and went with white for the seats, door panels, visors, headliner and top. Getting close to the finish line.

_________________
Who is John Galt?
The Second Amendment is in place in case the politicians ignore the others.
'64 Bug
'73 Thing
'68 Vert Body Off Resto: Click here

[donny1973]

Got the new plates welded in, cleaned up and painted. During mock up, I realized that I had to reshape the header bow even more to get it to match the radius of the windshield frame and for everything to line up satisfactorily. Also, none of the existing mounting holes matched the top frame, so I had to fill them in and drill and countersink new ones. Once I was happy with the way everything sat, there was still a pretty sizeable gap between the bow and the windshield frame, even with the J-hooks tightened all the way into the latches. I thought this might have been because there was no header seal in place so I test fitted the header bow with the seal sandwiched in and I still wasn't confident that it would be tight enough to keep the rain out at highway speed. To solve this, I shortened the threaded shanks on the J hooks by about 1/8" and milled the jam nuts to about half their original thickness. Now there's enough adjustment to pull the bow flush against windshield frame even without the seal in place.

So, the new plates are done, the bow is bolted in and everything fits nicely. This job turned out to be a bit more involved than I had anticipated, but I'm happy with the results. Tomorrow I'll trailer the car back to my upholstery guy so he can finish installing the new top.

_________________
Who is John Galt?
The Second Amendment is in place in case the politicians ignore the others.
'64 Bug
'73 Thing
'68 Vert Body Off Resto: Click here

[donny1973]

Finally got the vert back from the upholstery shop and it was worth the wait. I'm very pleased with the job. He did the top, headliner, seats and carpet and I'll do the weatherstripping and door panels. I want to pull all the window regulators and clean and lube the mechanisms before the vapor shileds and panels go in.

This weeknd I installed my new euro blade bumpers. What a pain in the ass as none of the four conversion brackets matched the curve of the bumpers or the mounting holes. In fact, they were not even close. I had to heat and reshape all of the brackets, then repaint them. I also had to cut down the eight little little reinforcement brackets because they stuck our past the edges of the bumpers, but the end result looks great. Much better than the bulky '68 bumpers.

I picked up a pair of '62-'67 tail lights that I'm going to replace the '68 units with. Just have to strip and paint them.

This shows how far off the brackets were. I got them "adjusted", just took a while and several mock-ups.

I had to take quite a bit off the reinforcement brackets to get them to tuck out of sight on the inside of the bumpers.

_________________
Who is John Galt?
The Second Amendment is in place in case the politicians ignore the others.
'64 Bug
'73 Thing
'68 Vert Body Off Resto: Click here

[69vduber]

any updates ?

[donny1973]

[silvertonguedevil]

I've really been with you every step of the way on this car and have agreed with you on all of it. But......as original and pristine as this car is, why would you install incorrect taillights on it? I understand that they may be better looking but.....
_________________
-Greg

[Cody1963]

Wow this thread just gave me the inspiration to get off my ass and go do some work on my 69 vert, same color as yours (Yukon yellow) but not even near the shape that yours is in! I strive to make my vert look as good as yours does! Great car!
_________________
Cody
57 Oval
63 Bug "Slammed"
68 Bug "Shortened"

[donny1973]

So now that the vert's about done, I'm faced with the daily dilemma of what to drive to work. Decisions, decisions...

_________________
Who is John Galt?
The Second Amendment is in place in case the politicians ignore the others.
'64 Bug
'73 Thing
'68 Vert Body Off Resto: Click here

[Cody1963]

drive the VERT!!!!!
_________________
Cody
57 Oval
63 Bug "Slammed"
68 Bug "Shortened"

[donny1973]

Put the vert up for sale if anyone is interested http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi...2649#v4-39
_________________
Who is John Galt?
The Second Amendment is in place in case the politicians ignore the others.
'64 Bug
'73 Thing
'68 Vert Body Off Resto: Click here