1963 turkis beetle build summary

[hewica8]

Hi everyone. I don't post very often, and never started a build thread on my beetle, but I wanted to do a summary on it since I do get questions on the work I did to it. I purchased the car in March 2013 from an older gentleman in Asheville NC who had the car for only one month before he decided he didn't want to tackle a project after all. Unfortunately, he did not ask any questions of the previous owner, so I was left with whatever information I could gather on it from my own inspection. From what I could tell, the body was in decent shape and it appeared to still be hiding the original L380 turkis under the metallic green respray it was wearing. I wanted an original paint car, but I took a chance on this one hoping that I could uncover that turquoise underneath. Here it was a few days after I purchased it:

The first thing I did was put some bumpers on the car and test out a spot on the hood to see just how much original turquoise was left. Unluckily for me, I tested in perhaps the worst spot because this is also where the person who painted the car decided to do a quick repair by grinding off the surface rust and hitting it with some primer. As you can see, the turquoise doesn't look so great, but as you will see later I decided to press on with much better results. We also had some professional family photos done at this time, a few of which included the beetle. My son loves the beetle and calls it his.

I was still undecided as to the direction I wanted to take with the beetle. It was running and driving fairly well, so I was mainly focused on cosmetics and appearance. I wanted to lower it, but at the time I was in my final year of graduate school with a 1 year old at home, so I was very busy. Regardless, working on the beetle was therapy to me so I decided to tear into the suspension afterall. I was going the typical narrowed/adjustable front beam and rotated torsion bar route, so I tore everything out.

I did a few mockups to see how low I wanted to go and how it would work out with the stock sized 165s I had on the front.

Obviously those weren't going to work, so I broke down and bought some new 145r15 Firestone FR560s for the front and decided to go with black outers, ivory centers for the wheels. I didn't want to go full "panscraper" so I didn't want to use Smartcar tires or 135s, and the 145s fill out the wheel well better. You can also see here that I tested out a few other spots on the paint and also discovered that the front fenders were not original to the car. At this point, I decided that I was going to give up on the metallic green removal and just repaint the whole car, and I tested anthracite gray on the fender.

For the rear, I wanted widened smoothies even though I know so many people run them. I love stock inspired modifications, so to me there was no other option for wheels. I used the stock smoothie centers from the wheels I had and pressed and welded them into 80's GM 6" truck rally hoops. I finished them off with some 205/70r15 Firestone FR710s.

The suspension modifications were typical lowering techniques for a swing axle rear, king pin beam front suspension beetle. I won't add the step by step details here since it has been done by many other users who, by the way, I highly appreciate. If not for the many other build threads, I would not have had the confidence to do this myself. After much debate, I narrowed the front 3.5" which turned out to be perfect. When the wheels are turned as far as they will go, they are just touching the fender on the outside edge and the wheel well on the inside edge. I also added in adjusters, 2.5" drop spindles, and a new steering damper. In the rear, I had my spring plates extended by Womack's Suspension Werks, and I reinstalled them 9 degrees up from stock using a combination of inner and outer splines.

As you can see in the previous picture, it was also about this time that I gave up on repainting the whole car anthracite gray and just repainted the front fender with some paint I had lying around from a previous project. I had just finished graduate school, started a new job, and had another baby so I decided I didn't have the time to tackle a repaint or stripping the metallic green. By this point, I threw on some white line portawalls, got the mechanicals sorted out (which I will highlight in a second post), and just enjoyed driving the car for a while.

At this point it was late 2014 and I had been driving the car like this for several months and was starting to get the itch to work on another project, however, funds did not allow for that so what did I do? I broke out the paint stripper again and went after the beetle. After reading through many posts on here about uncovering original paint, my technique of choice was to use paint stripper and a stiff bristle brush and scrub the respray off. I was encouraged by the condition of the paint I revealed on the door, but the process was painfully slow and after a while progress grinded to a halt. You can also see here that I experimented with a new wheel paint setup. I pulled the portawalls off again and went with color matched centers and black outers. Also at this time we were in the process of looking for a new place to live so I lost all interest and time for the beetle.

After getting settled in the new house, I wanted something to work on again. I decided that the beetle wasn't low enough so I adjusted the front down and redid the rear springplates to 14 degrees up from stock. I also had to figure out what to do with the paint. As a last ditch attempt, I abandoned the paint stripper and tried my own technique. I decided to go after the respray with some sandpaper and much to my surprise, it worked amazingly well. I was able to strip the same sized area in about 1/4 the time. I also had more control of the process because I didn't have to worry about the stripper damaging the original paint. The sanding process was as follows: 220dry until the turquoise just started showing through, 600wet until the repray was gone, 1500wet to color sand and smooth out the original turkis.

After wet sanding, I then used some Meguiars heavy cut cleaner followed by Meguiars mirror glaze, both with a buffing wheel and a foam pad. I finished it off with a hand coat of wax. This picture shows the door after wet sanding, and the quarter after cutting/polishing.

Of course, I still had a few problem areas like the hood, rear apron, and front fenders. I wanted to match the original paint and patina as closely as I could, so after studying my original paint and searching the forums, I found that VW used a light greay, almost cream colored sealer followed by a dark grey primer, and finally the single stage laquer color. I found two primers that matched the original sealer and primer, and layered them on accordingly. For the color, I wanted single stage laquer, and found a place called Tower Paint in Appleton WI that will actually color match single stage laquer and put it in a spray can at a very reasonable price! After spraying the fender, sanding it for the faux patina, and a cut/polish, you would be hard pressed to pick out the parts with new paint. Here is a shot of the front fender which has completely new paint (wheel/tire setup are from later on in the build).

All told from initial testing of stripping the paint to final waxing, I had about 100 hours into the process. It is a process that I never want to do again, but the final product was so worth it. The original turkis just shines brilliantly with a depth that can't be matched by modern two stage enamel paints. You can also see here that during the paint restoration process, I also added some reproduction snowflake taillights, new window rubber with the correct trim, and big logo VW caps.

I also found a very nice original 1963 NC license plate at the auto fair at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

At this point, I was happy with the car and thrilled with the way it turned out. I even brought it to its first show at the fall show at Farmington. The kids loved it as well.

(photo credit Andrew Banjak)

The most recent thing I've done is to throw the whiteline portawalls back on just for fun. Other than that, I've just been enjoying the car.

I hope everyone enjoyed this very abbreviated build progress thread. I figured this was a nice way to consolidate the progress, and then if anyone had specific questions I could answer them below. I will also try to ad a second post highlighting all the mechanical related things I did to the car, however, that stuff isn't as interesting because I mainly just focused on repairing everything that wasn't functioning properly. For now, I'll leave you with one more picture.

[EMPIImp69]

Nice work, do you have any pics of the beam shock towers after you narrowed it? I am assuming you had to modify them to clear the body, Thx
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1963 Ragtop Bug
1966 Vert Bug

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[roy63]

nice build and that's a great helper you have there!
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MyBuild http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=571921

Some day when the rust is gone, I will at last found inner peace... (Peace has Been Found)

"Wide awake, and keeping distance from my soul"

[hitest]

Great job sir! Your kids sure have a cooler dad than my daughter's...
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[fly2kads]

I agree that the work you put in on the paint was worth it. It turned out well!

[BLAU GEIST]

That car is so badass, excellent work!
I would love to see some videos of it.

[hewica8]

[hewica8]

So recently I've been reading through some of the build threads in the Beetle Projects and Builds thread and noticed that many of them are years (some over a decade) old with no continuation or follow up. I suppose it's typical, people come and go on the forums, life and circumstances change, motivation comes in waves; I've been there. Anyway, it made me remember that I also have an old build that hasn't been updated in quite a while. I wanted to post an update just to show that some of these "lost" builds are still out there!

The story of my turkis '63 actually doesn't last much longer after the point of my last post here since I did end up selling it, but I do have more memories to share. After getting the car to the point I left off, I mainly tried to enjoy driving it for a while. My kids especially loved the car. We went to a couple cars and coffee gatherings and tried to keep it running smoothly.

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63 Beetle Build: The Army Brat

[hewica8]

I also enjoyed taking photos of the car. I have many, but this is one of my favorites from downtown Winston Salem.

Another great moment with the car was showing it to my wife's grandparents who are originally from Germany. Here they are looking it over with my father-in-law driving.

At this point I was starting to think about selling the car. I tried to freshen up the look by trying a few different setups with the wheels and hubcaps.

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63 Beetle Build: The Army Brat

[hewica8]

I couldn't shake the idea of selling it, so I took some photos and threw it up on Craigslist. These are just a few from the engine and under-hood. The car wasn't as clean as I remember it being.

I also cleaned up the dash with some touchup paint to freshen up the interior.

After several months, I finally had an interested buyer and we set up a time for him to come check it out. That morning, I took the bug out for one last drive and put a few gallons in the tank.

These ended up being the last two photos I took of the car because the potential buyer bought the car. It has been four years since I sold the bug and I still keep in touch with him. The car is mostly the same aside from a 1600 he added. He also informed me last week that he is considering selling it. Hopefully, someone picks it up who cares as much about it as we both did and can continue its story. For me, I eventually got the "bug" again and picked up another '63. If you care to see more details on it, check out my other build thread in my signature.

With that, I will bookend this build thread (for now), but I will always be around thesamba. If I ever get any new updates for this car I will definitely add them here. So long for now!
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63 Beetle Build: The Army Brat

[kinkerstinker]

Boy am I glad to have found this thread! I picked your car up about a month ago from a friend of mine up in Pennsylvania. Here are some photos of the day that I brought it home and one of it in my dad's shop waiting for me to get an engine in it.

My plans for it are very similar to yours. I'm putting a narrowed beam back on and re-lowering the rear; pulling out the black interior; dropping a 40hp in and just plan to cruise it while i "restore" my 65.

I'm so happy to now know a little bit of the history of the car and that some of the paint is actually OG. I've always wanted and OG paint car. If you see this, feel free to keep in touch if you'd like.

-Adam[/img]

[hewica8]

WOW! Thank you so much for the update! I am thrilled to see the bug again. I sort of kept in touch with the guy I sold it to but he never sent me any photos or anything. I'd love to see what you do with it. It's crazy how much the paint looks like it has started to fade again. It could definitely use a buffing!
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63 Beetle Build: The Army Brat

[kinkerstinker]

yep! The paint is on the list. I have been taking photos as I work through all of the little details that I am fixing. The car is still super solid, but needed the suspension sorted out again as well as some electrical work.

I'll dump the photos here once I get it back on the road and update this thread as I go if you're interested.

https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=682434

[hewica8]

Heck yeah I'm interested! It's great to see the car in such great hands. I look forward to seeing the revival!
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63 Beetle Build: The Army Brat

[kinkerstinker]

Ok, I lied. I decided to start a new thread for this car.

https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=778163