'75 UK 1303 Build Thread

[Dodgy]

Back again!

After a long break (house remodel took longer than planned, plus other delays), finally I took advantage of 'enforced free time' during COVID-19 lockdown over this Easter weekend to tear the Beetle apart again and get going on the rest of the build

My bespoke lift points in the ceiling of the garage came good!

So far I have stripped the floorpan of everything except the rear suspension (so I can lay out the 944 rear anti-roll bar and factory brackets to see if it can be made to fit)

The framehead is pretty crusty, but I knew that before. After stripping off the factory sound deadening panels I was happy to find that the floorpans are pretty solid and only need a few local repairs, will save a lot of work compared to full replacement - plus always best to keep the maximum amount of original VW steel as possible..

Before the body came off, I did a quick checkout whether the ABS module would fit on the floorpan in the area I had planned, looks like it will
I prefer to keep the brake system complelely on the floorpan - except the reservoir - as per factory, rather than mount the ABS module on the body, as Memminger do.
(Will be a long time before much more progress on this particular part of the build though!)

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'75 1303 (current project) owned since 1989!
'72 Squareback - full resto completed 2008 - now sold
356 Speedster kit, completed 2005 - now sold

[TK-CS]

Hey cool! Another high-quality 1303-build-thread making progress again...
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AC:
'71 1600LE (Type 3 Notchback FI/AT) Sunroof
'75 1303 (Super Beetle) 1600DP, Sunroof
WC:
'77 Audi NSU Ro80
'88 GTI 16V
'91 Corrado G60
Daily:
'04 Passat Wagon 2.0TDI
'13 Passat Wagon 2.0TSI

[Dal Churchill]

[Dodgy]

[VWCOOL]

Good to see progress.. even if it is 'enforced'!

[chicagovw]

Good to see you back at it, and another late model being done properly.

[Dodgy]

Well, so it begins...
Plunging in to the deep end, I am starting at the most rusty end, frame head and napoleon hat section. Got the Klokkercrap panels in and braced for major surgery.

Here is the 'before', passenger (LH) side is the worst with holes above and below the floorpan, but both sides are more holes than metal underneath.

So I got the old nap hat off. Enough clearance just from drilling out the front row of spot welds on the floorpan and bending the end up slightly. Plan is to leave the lower panel in place as a reference (it is solid enough for that), get the new nap hat in then flip the pan over to tackle the underside.

On both sides the rot had taken out the folded flange on the tunnel, so that had to be repaired before fitting on the new nap hat

So I tried fitting the new nap hat panel, but no way I could get it to sit happily over the tunnel with the base flat and correct hole positions. So in the end I cut it in half and that solved the problem.

Wonder why these panels don't fit? Klokkercrap lists this panel as "Support Frame Engine Carrier Front'

Anyway, that's progress to date. LH side of nap hat is in, and home-made end panel for the outer corner of the floorpan.

Now just the other side to do!
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'75 1303 (current project) owned since 1989!
'72 Squareback - full resto completed 2008 - now sold
356 Speedster kit, completed 2005 - now sold

[jeremy.g]

Progress! Congrats on your steps forward.

As you know I hate. Hate. Hate. HATE the fit of aftermarket panels.
WHY bother manufacturing them if they don't effing FIT! Stupid.

So... nice job working through the pain.

Keep it up!

-Jeremy

[Dodgy]

A bit more progress...

Nap hat (top half) is now welded in across both sides

Of course the panel is LHD and I need RHD
Getting the holes drilled square through the panel was a challenge, I should have taken a photo of all the clamps etc that I had rigged up in the drill press!
This is made more difficult by the fact that the repo panel is tapered while the VW panel is parallel. But in the end I got it done OK. The panel is bolted through with the spacers while it was welded in place, so it holds the sides parallel and the brake MC should go in square no problem.

I have completed the repairs to the LH edge of the floorpan, there were only a couple of minor patches needed on the edge (body seal ridge), this areas was the worst:

Then before doing the same on the RH side I got a bit distracted...
ABS carrier from (I think) 2005 Passat

A fair bit of cutting and reshaping later

Roughly in position

_________________
'75 1303 (current project) owned since 1989!
'72 Squareback - full resto completed 2008 - now sold
356 Speedster kit, completed 2005 - now sold

[Dodgy]

Been a while since my last post here. There have been a lot of other distractions but slow progress on the Beetle is still being made...

Repairs to the floorpan edges are complete, these were all quite local so no need to replace good German steel. Floorpans have been cleaned and primed now.

While repairing the edges I had to remove the jacking points, the passenger side (LH) was quite rusty..

So I had a pair of pattern jacking points lying around, no idea where from (maybe my Speedster build years ago). So, easy swap? Luckily I thought to check whether the pattern jacking points fit the VW jack. Guess what...
No

So back into reworking original parts for best end result. I blasted the jacking points back to bare steel and made up a repair piece by sectioning and reshaping the pattern part. Not exactly a 5 minute job!

All finished and ready for priming & refit

I found a couple of small rust holes either side of the framehead that needed repair. The welding gods were smiling on me that day:

So the front end of the floorpan is done. I have some minor rust cleaning to do on the rear torsion tube and horns, then it can be flipped over to start tackling the underside.

Not the most exciting update, but all steps towards the end goal
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'75 1303 (current project) owned since 1989!
'72 Squareback - full resto completed 2008 - now sold
356 Speedster kit, completed 2005 - now sold

[Dodgy]

All topside floorpan repairs and cleanup are complete now, next stage will be to flip the pan and start work on the underside.

So in preparation I started working on my customised framehead lower plate

Step 1: Get standard panel and a piece of 2mm steel

Step 2: After a lot of measuring, cutting, bashing, welding:

Step 3: Grind smooth for factory appearance, quick spray of primer:

Step 4: Trial fit

Thread inserts on the flange are for a spash panel I'll fabricate when the floor and body are reunited.

Still making progress!
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'75 1303 (current project) owned since 1989!
'72 Squareback - full resto completed 2008 - now sold
356 Speedster kit, completed 2005 - now sold

[Dodgy]

Some progress since last post:
All repairs to the top of the floorpan are complete, so the pan is now turned over to tackle the underside.
The frame head is pretty rusty but should be straightforward to repair because the top half has been done already, so I started by tackling the scabby areas at the back. There isn't much really, this is the worst:

Remove all the layers and replace with fresh metal

Both sides done

Hang on, something else is different...
Check it out here
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'75 1303 (current project) owned since 1989!
'72 Squareback - full resto completed 2008 - now sold
356 Speedster kit, completed 2005 - now sold

[Alex Juszczyk]

I love how happy the front end of this little thing looks!!!!

[Dodgy]

Time for another update, a major milestone has been reached!

The last significantly rusty part on this car...

...has now been removed!

Time to fit some shiny new metal to fill the hole
(You know what is coming, to avoid the rant look away now)
No, it doesn't fit

1 The flange at the rear edge is too short, and not straight (both sides)
2 The holes at each end are too big and at the wrong pitch to match up with the upper half of the napolean hat and the bulkhead on the body. Also the recess doesn't let the panel sit flush to the upper repair panel from the same manufacturer
3 The spine at the front is wider than the spine on the OG floorpan, so wont line up
4 The raised crossmember is too low, lower than the OG floorpan spine but it is supposed to be prominent
5 The flange that is supposed to fit inside the floorpan spine really doesn't (I cut a lot of it away to get it fitted as shown)
6 The front flange is so badly pressed there is no flat area to join to the upper half of the napolean hat (the other side is OK because I modified it previously, see post 22 Nov 2020)

Looking back, the first pattern panels I fitted in this project were the rear bumper mounts which took a massive amount of re-work to get to sit properly & true
How appropriate that the last (hopefully) panel I have to wrestle with requires about the same amount of re-work

If you are restoring early Beetles there are companies reproducing better quality pattern panels nowadays, but much less choice for Supers. So we have to wrestle with this crap.

To give you an idea of how much reshaping has gone on, here is a halfway pic:

Once all the modifications had been completed, the panel looked like this:
(After this photo was taken I sliced & expanded the flange in area 6 to create a flat joint face)

Phew!

Welded in:

Cleaned up & primed:

Looks a lot better than what I started with!

I remember lots of not-very-good patch repairs in this area made over the years by various garages to get this car through its annual MoT test, it was very satisfying to see them go.

Eagle-eyed readers might have spotted that while I had a nice access hole, I replaced the fuel line which was a fiddly job. Now a double line for "future proofing"

There are a few minor (pinhole) repairs still to do on the floorpan, then start to remove the paint & underseal. Not looking forward to that...
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'75 1303 (current project) owned since 1989!
'72 Squareback - full resto completed 2008 - now sold
356 Speedster kit, completed 2005 - now sold

[H2OSB]

Hello Dodgy

Nice work. Any idea what that that rear sway bar came from? It looks very Porsche 924/944-ish but factory Porsche 944 rear sway bars don't have multiple holes on the ends.

Keep up the good work, and congratulations on getting to the last of the chassis rust.

H2OSB
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(o\_i_/o) I'm not a vegetarian because I love animals, I'm a vegetarian because I hate plants.

[Dodgy]

Thanks H20SB 👍
It is a Porsche 944 ARB, I extended the ends and added the multiple holes to allow for the modified installation geometry.
All detailed on my other thread here: Porsche 944 Brake conversion on 1303
(I know you have seen that photo already because you posted on my other thread too! 😉😄

Each job completed is one step closer to getting this car back on its wheels and on the road, seeing how these modifications work out...
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'75 1303 (current project) owned since 1989!
'72 Squareback - full resto completed 2008 - now sold
356 Speedster kit, completed 2005 - now sold

[Caledfryn]

Love this build thread, especially as you've done most of the work I'm about to do on my 03.

Please keep posting!

I worked the other way around and got the floorpan done first.

[/img]

[Dodgy]

Thanks. It looks like you are a bit ahead of me!
It is good to see other threads from people doing the same work - a motivation to keep going, and opportunity to share experience & ideas.
I hope you will start a thread on your project?
Always good to see a fellow Samba member from this side of the pond
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'75 1303 (current project) owned since 1989!
'72 Squareback - full resto completed 2008 - now sold
356 Speedster kit, completed 2005 - now sold

[Caledfryn]

[offtherailz1]

Nice looking pan there Caledfryn. I done the underside of my pan with raptor, it’s holding up really well.
What’s your body rolling on and where did you get it?
I’ve been looking into a rotisserie, did you find one suitable for a 03?
Go on do a thread
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“ My worry is, that if I die suddenly, my wife will sell everything VW for what she thinks I paid for it.”

Cuppa tea man, living in a latte world.

1973 1303, one previous owner, my Dad
1975 1303, Fourth owner, mum 1975 to 2014, me from 2017
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=711269&highlight=
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=740901