San Diego Nov61 T34 #0 001 200

[notchboy]

Yeah! One step closer.
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[OKType3Tim]

Keep "herding all the cats" toward the finish line.
And finding rebuildable original single port heads (of any version) is a worthy exercise.
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'69 Squareback restoration
'69 Fastback restoration
'66 Type34

[Lee Hedges]

Mid-March 2020 during the Coronavirus Lockdown: with Pedro's help I was fortunate to get Francisco to take-on the body & paint phase. Francisco has great experience with Pedro's past two T34s and is an all-metal kind of guy. This is a BIG step for me, as it's not been easy to save up the money with so many other projects. The body will be Sea Blue with a Blue-White roof. Interior will be built by Pedro to match the early style in Blue cloth & Ice Blue vinyl.

[Lee Hedges]

With Francisco agreeing to do the bodywork & paint I quickly dropped it off at his shop in San Diego 30 minutes south. Rolling the body was easy with the dolly system built by Kevin Zagar. First time it had been in the sunshine in 3 years!

First step was the left rear tail light. It has been damaged with the outer edge creased, the beltline dented & split, and the surrounding metal buckled. Thanks to Dave Whittick I was able to buy a Canadian 1962 parts car and used the tail light section for this repair. He also repaired the dual reverse lamp holes in the rear apron & removed the many dents in the rear panel. Looks fantastic now!

Second step was to replace the rear shelf that was rusty & had speaker holes hacked into the center. Luckily for me Jack Fisher had a spare rear shelf (thanks to Greg Skinner) so the old one was removed & the new one welded into place.

Third step was to cut-out the rust in the left-rear rocker panel & repair the fender that had been badly hammered by a previous repair. Rear rocker panel came from Pedro's stash & Francisco used only what was necessary to get the repair done right, ghost line intact.

[Jason37]

Looks like it got into a great set of hands for the metal/body work.

[Bobnotch]

[KTPhil]

You're really jonesing for a roof over your head, eh?

Likes like a solid start to another SD miracle car!

[bad1916]

Glad to see that it coming along👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻Look forward to more progress.
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SEMPER PARATUS!
1963 SQUAREBACK

[Lee Hedges]

With the body at Francisco's shop and Pedro designing the new interior, it was time to get the front seat frames restored. 1962 Sea Blue seat frames were painted Ice Blue to complement the Ice Blue vinyl. I visited Meza Paint in San Marcos with an original Ice Blue to get spray cans made.

In late-April Tessa & I disassembled the front seats down to their bare metal pieces. We used the rotary wire brushes to remove the paint down to bare metal. I'd forgotten how dirty a job this was! There are three components to the seats: base frame, back frame, & springs. Slowly the frames were cleaned, washed, and primed. The springs were painted black & the frames were painted Ice Blue.

Next step is to give them to Pedro for the installation of the blue cloth upholstery. He's already finished the rear seats and the combination looks fantastic!

[Lee Hedges]

Now that we're in May the bodywork has progressed to the right side & nose.

[Bobnotch]

Looks good. I take it it's going to be painted Sea Blue? Going off the interior seat covers.
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Bob 65 Notch S with Sunroof
71 Notch ...aka Krunchy; build pics here;
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=249390 -been busy working
64 T-34 Ghia...aka Wolfie, under construction... http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=412120

[Lee Hedges]

Today was the dash transplant process. The original gauge holes had been hacked open to mount Porsche 356 gauges & there was rust at the outer edges of the instrument panel from leaky window seals. Fortunately I have the donor instrument panel from the Canadian 1962 T34 thanks to Dave Whittick. Francisco was able to remove the bad dash and weld-in the new one.

And the exterior body got its first round of primer.

[bally]

Any updates Lee?

[Lee Hedges]

Since June 2020 the bodywork had taken a break, as Francisco was not allowed to work in his backyard shop area. He found a new shop but that didn't work-out. So by January 2021 he'd moved into a new shop in Spring Valley where he had his own space & living area in the same unit.

The first area of improvement was the engine compartment. The flat surfaces were thin & rusty & the inner metal shields for the single carbs had been cut-out by a previous owner wanting dual-carbs. I was fortunate to buy these inner panels many years ago when they became available and needed them now. After getting the metal pieces welded into place he covered the flat panels with a thin layer of fiberglass to strengthen them. These get covered with insulation so they won't be seen anyway.
Next step was to pre-fit the front & rear hoods for gap alignment. The rear hinge spring attachment was rusted-away so Francisco welded-in replacement panels & ring supports. I had to find replacement rear springs, something I'd never done in 33 years with any T34. Thankfully Pedro's 1966 parts car still had them & Jack was gracious to help me get these buggers out. Pulling down on the hinge allows plastic inserts to fill the gaps in the springs to keep them extended & allow removal. Installation went the mirror method, finally removing the inserts. We fitted the rear hood with bolts & adjusted the gaps until even.

The front hood springs were still in the car but when we fitted the hood it would not clear the body into the space. Weird! Pedro discovered that both front hood hinges had been bent backwards (likely from the front hood being forced open at speed). The comparison image is substantial. So now I needed to source not only the front hood springs but also the hinges. I posted an ad on T34 World FB group and fellow 1962 owner Brandon Cope offered up his spare set, whew! The the 14mm bolts were stuck hard into the bottom of the springs, not allowing removal. So Francisco cut the bolts off and we replaced the hinges & springs on both sides. Front hood was fitted and fit the space perfectly now. In 33 years I'd never heard of this situation, so I'm ever thankful for Pedro, Francisco, Jack, & Brandon.

Next step was to decide if I wanted body color inner fender wells or black. I have always preferred the contrast of black fender wells to go with the black front beam & rear subframe parts. So Pedro & I scrubbed the inner wells & removed loose debris then applied several coats of rubberized undercoating.

[bally]

Nice work. Interesting challenges it is throwing you, even after all these years of playing with type 34s they still throw up these curve balls 😊

[KTPhil]

Nice to see in these COVID times the T34 A-Team is working away! Miss you guys, hopefully catch y'all at one of the T3 venues this year!

[andybla]

Very nice progress

[Lee Hedges]

On Valentine's Day what better place to be than working on the T34? Pedro & I took careful measurements for the placement of the 1962-only side script holes. Based on the location of the rocker trim holes we were able to accurately spot the locations. The 1962 Coupes had these scripts on the right side while the 1962 Cabriolet prototypes had them on both sides. Nice to get these holes drilled prior to paint so they can be easily installed.

[Lee Hedges]

By mid-February I'd started on the chassis. The floorpans had previously been replaced with original late-model Type 3 blue pans, and the work was done really professionally by Tim Miller back in 2014. 1962's have one-year only front seat rails, and the inner rails were still attached to the tunnel. But the outer rails had been removed (with pan attached underneath) & not transferred over yet. This is where my buddies Pedro & Jack enter the scene. They have the skills & experience with welding seat rails so they carefully measured where the outer seat rails were welded and then removed the old floorpan metal & welded the rails to the blue floor pans. We test-fit the restored seats with the loose outer rails to make sure the seats would install easily. The rear seat pedestal had not been attached at the outer edges, so Pedro fabricated a support piece & Jack welded them securely to the pans.

Next step was to strip the tunnel sections to remove the old tarboard material glued to the tunnel. This is the kind of mindless simple task that I can handle. I used a high-speed wire brush to make quick work of the dirty process & a slow-speed drill with wire brush to get into the small spaces with finesse. Underneath was beautiful clean rust-free metal.

Undercoating went on quickly & easily. Huge difference in the overall look!

[bally]

That’s looking great Lee. Do you have a replacement for the tar board? I’m at a similar stage with my squareback.