1975 Beetle Convertible Resto/Mod Build-Chop,Dash,Suicide,Shave.

[MACJELLY58]

[MACJELLY58]

I didn't wake up that early today, so I just put in an hour or two. I don't anticipate much spare time this weekend. My wife has a house project she's been nagging about for weeks. So I'm trying to get some progress on the bug during the week. It sucks having to do a little at a time.

I wanted to finish the Seam/Rain gutter this week, so I can move on to other things....That are not door related !

I had that strip at the top hinge patch that I still had to finish. Pretty straight forward except, there is a fair amount of lead there. It's really messy going. The splatter burning me everywhere and getting a good solid puddle is hard to find.

This strip was not that bad except at the very top and then there was the interior jam. The area at the junction of the Windshield post had quit a bit of lead. I was able to find some steel in there and put the welds in. On the plus side the lead just kinda melts everywhere and then when I use the MMM scuff disc, the lead just fills most of the pin holes and imperfections.

Not terribly pretty but, I got the general shape in there. I put the door back in and checked where the top of the door met up with the rain gutter and cut out a section. I left it a little big just in case I got it wrong. When cutting off the bent over portion of the seam, I found rust under the fold. Not like rotting rust and a little bit worse that surface rust. I hate rust!

Then put the door back on to check and I'll need to take it down another 1/8" or a little more. I also checked the fit after working on the inner jam. It looks okay.

[MACJELLY58]

On a side note, I was right...I think.
I had to know what that rubber anchor thingy that was at the bottom of the quarter panel. I got out the Endoscope and took some pics. I was hoping it was not something I dropped in there. When I had replaced the Heater Channel, I didn't even notice anything up there. But yah, it looks like a structural support for the struts/body. I gotta clean down there when I get the Bug Rotisserized!!



It's a tight fit down there. You can see where I had welded up the "Snorkle" pipe for the defroster hose/duct in the Heater Channel. So, that little space between the rubber bushing and the inner wheel well is all the room there is for that hose.

[MACJELLY58]

I finished up the Drip Rail today. I looked back at the chop pictures to see how the seam looked as a cross section. Because of the rounded pillar post, the "gap" is more pronounced here.

The plan here is to put in plug welds, as well as, welding the edge. I'm hoping to strengthen it up a bit, as I'm losing some stiffness by removing the bent over seam. Just making it up here.

It looked like it might work so, I put the door in and marked where the top of the door fell against the seam. I trimmed the excess off that section and removed the rest of the drip rail along that line, tapering towards the top.

Put in the edge welds .

Then, drilled the plug weld holes. I put them in about every 3/8"

Then cleaned up a bit.

A little comparisons.

[MACJELLY58]

The house project of my wife's went well but, it ate up just about the whole weekend. She says that she's there to help, but she really is just supervising and quality assurance. She sticks right by me, just in case I sneak off to work on the Bug. She's happy for now and I have permission to return to the "Hobby".

I used a couple of hours at the end of the weekend to do small stuff to further the project. Not what I wanted to get done, but I gotta tell myself that it would have had to be done at some point in the project. That usually makes me feel a little better.

The Doors are coming along, so I started to look at the rear door jam reinforcements and the rear quarter repair panel. I cleaned up the reinforcement "Elbows". Scrubbed them real good and shinny. But, I was tired and not thinking that great and forgot to give them a coat of the Phosphorous. 36 hours later...the rust monster had come and gone leaving his calling card all over them!

No biggy though, a little soak in the Phosphorous and then the POR. There were some eaten up sections that I'll have to fix later. The areas that the welds were located and created a seam got the worst of it. A few small patches shouldn't be too crazy. I also, cut out and fitted them to accept the hinges. The little square cut outs at the tops.

That was all I could fit in on the weekend. Monday, I took a day off to recover from the wife's ordeal. Then, back to the Passenger Door on Tuesday. It's Deja vu, all over again. I had test fitted the door, repair rear quarter panel and running board and all looks to be in sync. I found a picture of what I am afraid of, on Craigslist. The rear quarter panel on this car has a large gap towards the rear wheel.

I would surely like to get mine to be as even as I can get it. like....

Ha...Ha...I definitely could never build anything like that in my life time. By the time I finished, the U.S. would have outlawed Petrol Gasoline.

Back to my reality....I positioned the Passenger door, AGAIN! Welded in the four locking tabs to keep everything Immobile. Tacked the hinge pockets in, AGAIN. Then, cut off the tabs and tested the swing of the door. All good, AGAIN.

Took the door off and put in some more welds with the .030 wire. Going slow and cooling. I accumulated a couple of inches of bead and went to test fit the door. I had a hard time lining up the mounting bolts to the floating plate behind the hinge pocket. Plus, one guy balancing the door on one knee and fiddling with little bolts, just ain't happening. I gave up and made some wooden dowels to screw into the threads of the floating plate and hold the hinge in place while I started the middle screw.

Got all the screws in and adjusted the door. It still looked okay. I had to leave it there, as I had to go to work and make some money to pay for all this silliness.

[jeremy.g]

Sweet!
Even when it's slow, Progress is still Progress.



-JG

[MACJELLY58]

[MACJELLY58]

Not much time lately but, I still tried to do something to move forward. Just like Mr. "G" said,"Slow progress is still progress". Man, Is It Slow...

I put in a few hours prepping the next pieces to install, sort of. I "ruff" fit the quarter repair panel. A little more trimming will be necessary. Stripped that rust inhibitor stuff off of the panel. That stuff is nasty. Either way, chemical or mechanical stripping of that stuff is a real mess. When stripping chemically, the stuff just gets all gooey and you still gotta sand the residue off afterwards. But, that is preferable to all that rubberized dust getting all over and into body cavities. I got the klokkerholm panel, rather thin.

A little paint stripper and scraping.

3M Rust and Paint stripper pad.

Went to finish the welds on the Pocket Hinges and fill the gap at the rear of the hinges.

I started at the bottom hinge. Fitted a little scrap piece I trimmed from the Pocket Hinge. I save all the little scrap pieces of metal, just in case I might need it later(can you say, Hoarder?). I was so pleased! can you see how Beautiful that weld Bead Is!! I was admiring it with a big smile...When I noticed that I had not put in the floating mounting plate! See the dark, empty holes there? I had to cut into my first and probably last pretty weld.

Okay, I got my mind right! I think?

The next day, I got up so early (before the sun) that I could not subject the neighbors to any cutting or grinding. So, in the name of progress I grabbed the closest part and decided I'd do some quiet paint stripping. That part was, the rear right fender. On the first pass, I found a large amount of Bondo.

I thought...Oh No! So, I took a look underneath to see what the damage looked like. But I couldn't see anything major under there.

Luckily, It was just a few little dents that I guess the PO decided it was better to fill them instead of just a little banging with a hammer and dolly.

The underside had a good amount of surface rust under the factory under coating. That stuff was so old and brittle it just chipped off nice and easy.

Cleaned up with the 3M. So shiny.

[MACJELLY58]

Just a side note. I was amazed at how much lighter the fender was after stripping off all that filler and paint. I mean really light. I'm sure that the fender was original. The paint and the undercoating and stuff was all "O.G" The vintage rust and all! So, I decided to check the gauge of the metal. I kept going down and down the gauge slots and ended up a 22ga! I had always thought that it would have been thicker.

[Buggeee]

I've got to get me one of those 3M paint stripper pads. Really nice work MacJelly58.
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[awreed]

Nice work, and all with that little hobby welder. You are a patient and methodical perfectionist.

I love the dash you built for this rest-mod. Very unique touch that will set your vert apart.

Can't wait to see how this turns out.

[MACJELLY58]

[MACJELLY58]

[MACJELLY58]

I only had the usual couple of hours today and decided to strip the right front fender. I really want to complete the right door mounting but, I don't wanna get hip deep into that and have to stop right in the middle. My brain doesn't work that way. If I don't reach a predetermined stop point, I get confused when I return to it later and it takes awhile to regroup.

I wasn't gonna post this strip, as we've all seen this before. But what the hell, posting is free...right? Plus, I think it's interesting to see what's been hiding under there and maybe someone else does too.

Again, the fender looked pretty good. I checked underneath and there did not seem to be any damages.

The bottom Running Board mounting hole area looked like there is some usual rust damage. The rest looked okay.

Looking underneath. Looks like it is solid and damage free except for the aforementioned mounting hole area.

Scraped off the undercoating...took about an hour. It was a lot thicker then it was on the rear fender. Plus, I learned from the wheel wells that there really isn't a good way to remove that stuff. I tried Lacquer thinner, Paint stripper, those just made a mess and it was still there only worse. Then of course grinding which just kinda melted and smeared it all over. So, I just stick to scraping.

Got into stripping and here we go again...Bondo. I guess it's the same as the rear fender. Just a couple of little dings or something that I can pound out a little bit and maybe a skim coat of filler later.

I noticed on this fender that the repair was made when the Bug was still its original yellow. If you look closely, you can see that there is the yellow, then Bondo, then gray primer then there was a respray of the yellow again.

Sorry, the camera's batteries died and I didn't have any charged ones available. Damn Kids ...I didn't quite finish though, so I'll post those tomorrow. I'm kinda excited because I'm taking vacation days in August and I can do my yearly, PUSH!
Again this year, I got a predetermined goal in mind of what I'd like to get accomplished in August. To date(almost 5 years), I have yet to reach the goal I set, so I'll keep them to myself.

[MACJELLY58]

I continued work on the fenders. I want to POR the underside at the same time I do the interior door cavities and the repair quarter panel. If you ever used the stuff, it a has an extremely short shelf-life after opening. Especially, in a humid environment. I've been able to extend it to about 36 hours, if I shove some Saran Wrap onto the surface of the unused portion, seal up the can and then put it in the refrigerator. I read it somewhere and it seems to work. So as to not waste the stuff, I try to have enough prepared pieces ready for application at the same time.

Also, I really needed a break from the doors. Just sick of working on them...you know?

Finished stripping the front fender.

The fenders are very unwieldy, so I strapped it down with some rubber ties and put some weights in to keep it from moving around too much.

A few repairs on the fenders helps to distract me from those doors. Here's the front all cleaned up.

There seemed to be a minor dent at the midway point where all that Bondo was slathered on. It probably caused a crease up the side from that point and thus the Bondo.

A little hammer and dolly and I think I got it pretty close, including the upper side portion where most of the Bondo was located.

There was also a bit of very pitted rust and a dent down at the bottom of the back of the fender near the running board mounting hole. It was just too bad for me to feel comfortable in trying to salvage.

I thought it would be better to just patch it.

There was also some heavy pitting on the mounting flange.

I'm going with the '73 bumpers with the integrated turn signals. So, I closed off the mounting holes for the stock turn signal housings. You may have noticed on the rear fender that I started to fit the rear bumper. I cut out the slot for the '73 "Blade" bumper mounts on the fenders, but more on that later.

Then cleaned it all up.

[MACJELLY58]

The rear fender wasn't as bad. There was a dent/rip down at the bottom as is apt to happen with Bugs.

I cut the old repair out and hammered the imperfections as best that I could.

Then put in the new pieces and cleaned it up a bit.

[MACJELLY58]

With the right fenders prepped, I went back to the door and the rear quarter panel. I went to fill the old door hinge mounting hole and clean up the poorly made repair panel (it never ends with this thing). The door's repair panel had a little wave toward the rear of the door. While trying to remedy that, I noticed that I had flattened out the curvature of the bottom lip. As you remember, I did a lot of reconstruction to the whole of the rusted out bottom of the door. Apparently, the repair panel should not be shoved down upon the door's lower lip, which is straight (if I got the patching right).

I drilled out my plug welds and repositioned the rear 3/4 of the repair panel. Most of the "wave" went away and the curvature of the bottom lip looked a lot better.

That made better, I mounted the door again and better fitted the rear quarter repair panel. A little trimming and lining up the bottom edge and it was coming together.

But wait, what's that you say? That quarter panel is sticking out down there at the bottom?

Yes, it is! Now I'm getting that familiar flustered feeling. Like when I went "NUTSO" and bent the HELL outta the door. I had already marked to cut the repair panel to match the door and was about to GO TO TOWN. I had to step away and investigate the problem a little more, so as to not get myself into another Cluster Funk.

I took a break and wanted to bang on something. I decided if I'm gonna bang on something, it might as well give me progress. That messed up fuel flap area has been bothering me, so that's what I hit on.

As you may remember, I had dropped a heavy Recycle Bin I was moving on the area, causing a dent that I went "NUTSO" trying to quick fix it, making it worse.

I calmed myself and therapeutically tapped, tapped...tapped.

A lot better for now. I'll give it a little more attention later because, that's when I noticed the adjustment holes in the jams that I still needed to fill.

And the rear quarter window adjustment screw holes.

Thinking a little clearer, I believe that the repair I did to the rear lower door seal channel was messed up, causing the alignment problem. looking at the area, that corner bends down too much and should be more straight down to match the quarter panel. You can kinda see it in the picture. down there at the end. That twist probably added to the "Wave" I had down there.

The door seal channel seems in the right position, just bent inward. So, I gotta hackup and adjust that corner outward. OH, MAN!!

[MACJELLY58]

I've been trying to keep things linear for the viewer's benefit but, I seem to work better in my usual A.D.H.D. manner. So, please excuse the jumping around in my progress. I also have problems with taking pictures in the correct progression, so you may see stuff in the pictures that actually occur later in my timeline. I'm sure you may have noticed this already. View at your own risk!

I needed more time to free my mind from the devastating discovery of the miscalculation of my repairs to the rear lower door frame. I still needed to think about what would be the best way for me to fix that alignment problem. Previously, I would either go at it with the Big Hammer; immediately start cutting it up with a half-ass plan or be paralyzed for weeks in despair.

Now, I try to move on to other things and still make some progress while I try to figure it out. So, I went back to the fenders. The plan was to POR the undersides at the same time as the door and stuff. But now, they were gonna start rusting like the doors. Onward!

The front fender was just about finished, so I had thought. I noticed that half of the bottom headlight mounting tab had rusted off. It was kinda clean so I did not notice it initially. I looked at the other fender and made a copy of that tab section.

A day or two later, I was reading another post about mounting the headlight bracket and it appears that rusted off part isn't even used! Then I was prepping the other side of the headlight "Bowl" and found some hidden rust in the seam. I cut off a section of the rusted flange and was able to Acid eat out that nastiness.

Now it appears that the front fender is ready and prepped. The rear fender still needed some work. Still needed to be cleaned up a bit and then I found this heavily pitted area.

Prepped up the fenders and tapped them off.

Painted up with the POR. I really rough them up with 80 grit and then use the metal prep again, to get into the pours to make sure that the POR sticks. So far, so good. I found if done right, this stuff works pretty good. I've spilled all kinds of chemicals on it, I had to grind into it and it stood up really well. It's kinda like Plasti-dipping the metal. I hoping that it will last and do what they say its supposed to do.

I forgot to take a photo of the rust I cleaned out behind the Headlight "Bowl". Here's a pic of it after POR. Sorry, about the glare.

Since I opened the POR, I tried to have a few more areas already prepared that I also wanted to have covered. I painted the fabricated Suicide door reinforcement welds and also welded up the cut outs for the Reinforcement frame and painted those as well.

I wanted to get those painted so I could Seam Seal those areas. The POR really seeps into all the nooks and crannies. I like the idea that it can get in between the the welded metal. I feel that after the POR, then Seam Sealer, I should be good for several decades. I'm using the Eastwood, High Solids Seam Sealer.

And since I opened a Sealer tube, I went ahead and sealed more body seams until the tube ran out. The unused Sealer keeps pretty well, if I tape it up tight with plastic tape and then Duct tape. But, I prefer to use it up fresh. I like this Eastwood High Solid stuff. It is a little difficult to work with because of the high solids. It doesn't smooth out well and get a little messy if I play with it too much. I prefer the protection and durability over the looks. After all, just how pretty was the application of the original factory Seam Sealer.

It's a bit hard to see. Sorry about the black on black. On my first attempt, I had tried to smooth it out like I see other Seam Sealer applications. Using painter's tape to make a clean line and such. No deal with this...just too thick. My approach has been to lay a good bead down. Then, let it set for an hour. When I go back it has skinned over and I can manipulate/shape it a bit better. Still not pretty though.

[MACJELLY58]

I also repaired the little triangle piece that goes at the bottom of the convertibles rear door jam. It attaches to the rear reinforcement "Elbow" and rear seat cross piece. As you might remember, It was a little bit eaten up with rust.

I still had to repair the "Elbow" piece. But then it came to me. I had developed a plan on what I had to do, to correct that mismatch of the Quarter Panel and the lower rear door corner. I would keep the Quarter Panel the way it is and I would have to correct the door to match. Seemed like a reasonable assumption that the Quarter Panel had the right configuration vs. my novice reconstruction of the door. After all, we all know how accurate the after- market repair panels are.

Looking at the door over the last few days, I saw that the bottom of the door started to curve inward from about the 3/4 mark tapering toward the rear, where it got really off the line. The plan was to make a relief cut in the door frame itself, from that point down to the corner and then up the rear jam to where it started to skew inward.

I checked the driver's side door which initially was in much better shape than the passenger side. I did a lot less reconstruction on that side. It looked right and I made a cardboard cut out template. It looked like about 1/2" out of wack.

I made my cut marks and dove in. I wedged the gap open to maintain the correct spacing and double checked with the template. I also measured the the "new" frame width and compared it to the driver's side width. All seemed in sync. Tack welded in a couple of tabs to keep it all copasetic.

Before getting to far along...you guess it, go for the test fit!

It was looking good. Everything seemed to be coming together. I went to lock in the rear Quarter Panel. A little trimming and then patching where I had trimmed too much. I had the panel lined up wrong and cut off too much material earlier. More work...more FUN!


I got the rear panel nice and tight. But, I wanted to be sure I was all good. After all, I've been here before...celebrating , only to be horribly wrong! It was a big hassle, but I got out the Running Board, got the rear fender, put in Clecos and checked them all together.

:fist: ...YES, I WAS FEELING ALL OF THOSE! Specifically, in that order. As usual, it still was not that easy. The three fender bolts don't quite line up with the repair quarter panel, about 3/8" off. But, Hell...I'll take it! I still gotta finish welding the relief cut in the door frame and weld in the quarter panel as well. But, I think I may be able to see the end to this Passenger Door nightmare.

[MACJELLY58]

Well, I did not have a lot of time this week. As you may recall, I took some vacation time this month and the wife ACTUALLY wanted some kind of vacation!

We settled for a stay-cation. I'm in Hawaii, so we went to the Disney Aulani Resort for a few days with all the family in tow. A little "Disney" pricey. You know the $8 fries and etc... but a good time was had by all. I often wonder, if I won a trip to Hawaii on a game show, would they like, just send a taxi to my house and take me to a hotel?

Anyway, when I got home I welded up the relief cuts in the bottom of the door.

Then, I wasn't happy with my repair near the front bottom corner.

I cut out a little more of the interior door panel in front of the bottom hinge. It was sticking up and that will give me a little more room for the window regulator to go in.

As you can see, the door is beginning to rust again. I put it back into the Metal Prep bath, because this time I'm gonna POR15 the inside.

This is the stuff that I'm using. It's a pretty blue.

All cleaned up and ready to go!

I wanted to get all of the inside and the lower Seal Channel. The channel seemed to get the bulk of the rust, as this is where the water settles getting in to the seam of the door skin and the interior channel. I tried to tape those sections off. This stuff is real messy. You may notice that I tapped up the Lap weld seam. This will leak all through that seam. That's what I like.

After trying to clean the inside of the door, I knew it was gonna be a pain to get a brush in there and I sure as hell wasn't gonna try to spray this stuff. I can only imagine the mess I would make. I got out my torch and tried to make a "specialty" brush for the hard to reach places.

It went pretty well. I got almost all the interior and into the seams of the door skin. There were a few crannies that I just couldn't reach.

To get to those places, I used the Eastwood Channel spray's long hose nozzle attached to a Black rattle can. It took a little modification to get the nozzle to work with the can of Rustoleum.

Before doing the POR for the door, I welded up the Quarter panel patch. This is so I could POR the interior of that with the same can of POR.

Finished the final touches to the fitting and closing up the poorly made front corner.

Prepped the body to accept the welds and then put it in.

All cleaned up.

From there, I went on to the convertible reinforcement "elbow" and "triangle". Sorry, I don't know the actual names of these pieces.

Just like the Triangle piece, I had to repair some of the rusted out areas.

Then I prepped the area to accept the little Triangle reinforcement.

Welded that in and then test fitted the "Elbow" piece.

It was looking good. But before getting that welded in, I wanted to seam seal all that before welding it shut.

Then refitted the "Elbow" and drilled holes for the Clecos. It looks really Frankensteined.

Got it welded in and all cleaned up.

To move on, I gotta spray some Epoxy Primer on the door, quarter panel and the fenders. But, I gotta go to work a couple of days and I want to have some time to prep.
So, I started looking at doing the other side door and quarter panel. Previously in the thread, I had talked about the beautiful repair to the inner lower door jam. The problem is that I did it wrong and said I'd have to fix that later. Well, it's later!

This is the repair. Pretty right? But, it's supposed to go straight down to support the leading edge of the quarter panel. I made a cut and bent it outward and I'll have to weld a piece to fill the gap.