Cipica, VW 1303S from '74

[tzepesh]

A little mock-up with the doors (Sorry, pic with the phone because I was just playing, not doing real alignment). It sits pretty well, a few mm here, a few there and it will be straight. The frame head is in the correct position, it just looked wrong at the first trial. I have to trim the A pillars a bit more (I cut them longer initially, to have room for proper adjustment). The rear has a bit of torsion, but nothing that can not be solved: With the doors aligned with the front lip, the top of the left one sits too to the outside, and the right one too on the inside. Measured at the bottom of the B pillars and they are not symmetrical to the center tunnel. But the heater channels do not allow them to move more. No problem, because this was the next step: cut the channels out because they are welded wrong anyway, and I also have to change the rear cross-members, then I will align everything properly. Stay tuned!

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'74 1303S, L98B Viperngrun (extra glitter), German Look
'64 1200, Sea Blue, under restoration

[tzepesh]

Time for a BIG update. I have done the side tins under the rear bench. That area was rotted and not much metal was left. I have to work on those holes to make them round.

Then I repaired the front ends of the heater channels. During the last rebuild I had to cut a few cm off because the splash panel was not fitting properly.

And I re-installed the heater channels, braced the body in all directions, and welded her back. I am quite happy with the result, the door gaps are good. I have to raise the right door a bit and lower the left one some. You can see on the left rain gutter the marks of an old accident. I guess it was rolled. But I will also replace that whole section with a good one. Also, the windscreen fits well, I tested with the old one.

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'74 1303S, L98B Viperngrun (extra glitter), German Look
'64 1200, Sea Blue, under restoration

[tzepesh]

Time for a BIG update. A second look at my work made me take some radical measures. I was not at all happy with the end result. After I removed all bracing, the B pillar area inclined to the right, leaving no place for further adjustment of the doors. Moreover, the vertical door gap on the left door was not right. the rain gutter are was terrible. So, all wasted work. I decided to try to find a new body.
So here's the next step of the story: I called a friend who I knew he had a 74 super without paper work, and he was looking for a registered chassis in spring. So I was thinking maybe he found a complete donor and might want to part with one body. Well, he told me he did not, and he actually thought about donating the whole car to somebody who was in need. I could barely believe there still are such people. If you are reading this, thank you again, Oreste! Long story short, I made the 1100km round trip to get it. Together with another Beetle owner who has a trailer. There was a great help from a guy with a tractor who was around and made some 150m of road for us in just a few minutes.
What I got: a STRAIGHT body, with good doors, 75 (?) hood, straight chassis that I can use as a reference to make a frame head jig, brakes, suspension, wheels, steering column, pedals, electrics, complete set of widened fiber fenders (same as mine, will keep as spares). There still is a lot of parts that I will have to take next time I'm in the area, because they were not in the same place as the car. I hope there still is the fuel tank, dashboard and parts, lighting. We'll see.
What needs to be done: almost the same as on the old body: left door bottom, heater channels (re-use from old body), front splash panel bottom, quarter panels, cross members, usual death foam repairs, some work on the rear body supports, rear trunk area, modify (again) for rack and pinion, front area repair, front valance, rear bumper supports. Time to work!
I guess after so many words you all want to see pictures. LOTS of them!
As found:

And here it is at its new home, with details on each area to be repaired:

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'74 1303S, L98B Viperngrun (extra glitter), German Look
'64 1200, Sea Blue, under restoration

[vamram]

Well, nice find, for you! I'm all about "saving the Supers," but man you are a glutton for punishment!!!
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Eventually, "we are what we pretend to be.’”
Give peace a chance - Stop Russian-Soviet Aggression!!

'74 Super 9/16 - present, in refurb process.
'73 Super - 6/18 - Present - Daily Driver!
'75 Super Le Grande...waiting it's turn in line behind '74.
Click to view image
Save the Supers!!

[tzepesh]

Hey Victor, what do you mean? I know that the "new" body has rust issues, but at least it is straight. Out of a registered car with a very bad body (mine) and this one without paperwork but good body, I can get a good car. A car without papers is worthless here, you can not register it in any way, so yes, in this way I am saving it. And the panels that need to be changed are exactly what I had to do on the other body. I just have to do again all the front bodywork...
Around here you do not find many late Supers. If it has paperwork, it is over 4k (and I would not use a registered car for parts). Either way, a 45 year old body would still be in bad shape, due to climate, road salt etc. I found several bodies in Germany, Austria, Netherlands, but they were not in much better shape. And to pay 400-800 Euros for just a bad body, plus transport from at least the same distance I did it makes no sense. I was lucky to find this opportunity. And I got to have some much needed spares for my car.
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'74 1303S, L98B Viperngrun (extra glitter), German Look
'64 1200, Sea Blue, under restoration

[vamram]

Hey Tzepesh - my apologies, nothing bad meant. I forgot you were in a place where old Vdubs were harder to come by.

Looking forward to your next move!!

Víctor
_________________
Eventually, "we are what we pretend to be.’”
Give peace a chance - Stop Russian-Soviet Aggression!!

'74 Super 9/16 - present, in refurb process.
'73 Super - 6/18 - Present - Daily Driver!
'75 Super Le Grande...waiting it's turn in line behind '74.
Click to view image
Save the Supers!!

[tzepesh]

Next move: I cut the old body down to pieces, so I can move the new one in and start working on it. I cleaned the new one thoroughly and took put the wiring. I have to re-organize or build a shed to keep all the big parts, because I do not have enough room in my tiny garage.

And the "original" front end, the old one I cut off because it was heavily bent and rotten, is now prepared to start a new life as a grill. I have to make a frame with wheels and add the Albar style fenders and bumper I have laying around (see pic below if you have not heard about the Albar Kafer).

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'74 1303S, L98B Viperngrun (extra glitter), German Look
'64 1200, Sea Blue, under restoration

[tzepesh]

Well, remember this pic?

The PO said he did not have the keys for the car, and when I first tried to turn the key it did not work. I cleaned all those keys and tested them one by one. We have a match! And a second match! And a third match! So I have tree keys that work on the ignition and doors. And two more (the ones with the nice W shape) that fit the fuel tank cap. I discussed with the PO to take the rear hood lock too, when we meet next time. I did not bother with it then because I was quite sure he knows that the keys don't fit.
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'74 1303S, L98B Viperngrun (extra glitter), German Look
'64 1200, Sea Blue, under restoration

[tzepesh]

Little work the past few weeks, because the autumn house activities have priority. I disassembled the old body, so I can better store it for grafts. And I went to take the rest of the parts from the PO: a dashboards, badly cracked but I want to leather wrap it anyway, fuel tank, because mine was badly bent, dashboard ventilation pieces (one was melted. how???), front wiring, some glass, various bits of headlights and some interior bits and pieces.

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'74 1303S, L98B Viperngrun (extra glitter), German Look
'64 1200, Sea Blue, under restoration

[tzepesh]

Time for a very small update. I have been thinking for weeks how to start working on the car. My idea was: repair the front splash panel, change the rear cross members behind the heater channels, weld the channels in. Well, I was stuck at the first part because I did not want to re-do all the nasty alignment work I have done for the old splash panel. I could only think to cut pieces of it and re-do all the work again. Then, I stood in the garage with some beers and it came to me: I took out the complete splash panel I have repaired and I will just drill the spot welds to take the rusty one out and put in the good part. And if I was at it, I also took out all the front reinforcement panels (that I already repaired). Much easier work now!

And I installed two pulleys to help me lift/lower the body onto the chassis by my own.

And I think I will change her name into something with "snail". Man, did I take out of it so many snails, and they keep appearing! More than a full bucket. If I had an italian guy around, I would have made so much money for this restoration! But I don't so they "ran"free.

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'74 1303S, L98B Viperngrun (extra glitter), German Look
'64 1200, Sea Blue, under restoration

[Dodgy]

Nice one! Keep it up...
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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

[tzepesh]

I have restarted work last week. And I got a huge progress: I changed the rotten front splash panel and the rear cross-members. This week's topic: heater channels.
Old splash panel:

Front panel in:

Rear cross members:

I removed as much "death foam" as possible, but I will continue when I open up the interior panels. Here is the damage... Good thing the old body is good in those areas so I can use grafts from it.

And I bought a set of 4 Phone dials, 6J ET52. I wanted them for the center caps ( I have 4 more Phonies, 7J ET23 without caps), but I checked and they fit on front with the 21mm spacers I used to make the Cookies work. So I kept two of those and sold the other two to a friend. Anyway, as I have said before, I do not like Phonies much, so I will have them as winter rims. Cookies all the way!

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'74 1303S, L98B Viperngrun (extra glitter), German Look
'64 1200, Sea Blue, under restoration

[tzepesh]

I can't believe how easy it is to work on a straight body! I'm two weeks into this work, and I already did what took me 6 months on the old, crooked body. Also the paperless chassis is very good to align everything; I will make a chassis stand and take all reference points from it to get the frame head right on my registered chassis.
So, heater channels are in and rear quarter panels are changed. There are the old channels and the rust that pored out of them. And yes, I found more snails!

What puzzles me is the amount of filler from factory. On the left quarter panel there was a lot, and I could tell that it is original because that side was never hit, never worked on. I could see that on the inside of the panel, and also by the layers of paint: the gold it is now, then a green, then the original gold (definitely original, it is everywhere on the car, same layers everywhere), then the filler and finally the primer.

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'74 1303S, L98B Viperngrun (extra glitter), German Look
'64 1200, Sea Blue, under restoration

[AutoMechanic]

Looks like a fun restoration so far. . Love the color.

[tzepesh]

This week's update: front end work. I removed the front valance and repaired the rust damage on the steering box support. Actually I changed the complete part, which I repaired some time ago and added the rack and pinion nuts.

This is what I started with:

And rust:

Good part and everything patched:

Next: clean and repair the shock absorber support. You can see I already repaired the body in that area.
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'74 1303S, L98B Viperngrun (extra glitter), German Look
'64 1200, Sea Blue, under restoration

[oldtimercraiova]

Good job mate!

[tzepesh]

Thanks! Still a long way till finish.
Last week's update. Not a good progress. The bumper support repair panel gave me headaches. It just did not want to fit. Until I cut the corresponding piece from the "old" front end and compared them. Well, guess what? The replacement part is VERY bad. Not close to the original shape: it is shorter and has the wrong curvature. I tried to hammer it but did not succeed. So I will use original sheet metal, it is not so hard to restore it properly.
I tried all this with fenders, hood and front valance installed, to get everything right.

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'74 1303S, L98B Viperngrun (extra glitter), German Look
'64 1200, Sea Blue, under restoration

[Lost69Convertible]

Hi Tzepesh. This is my first time reading your thread. It's all great. Wow.

I'm taken by the look of the first car: big front wheels, spaced out wide with fender flairs, combined with the wide 1303 hood. It's a good look. Do you plan to keep this look on the final car?

[Dodgy]

Hi Tzepesh
I think you have seen my thread and know I share your frustration about badly formed pattern panels... Wait until my next post showing the lengths I've had to go to, to get the lower frame head plate to fit!
You are doing the right thing in keeping as much German steel as possible, using pieces of the pattern panels to make repairs where necessary.
It just takes patience, but afterwards it's good to look back and see how the final job is better, thanks to the extra effort.
Still impressed with the lengths you are going to with your project!
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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

[tzepesh]

@lost69convertible Yes, I will keep the same look, just a lighter color. The purpose of this work was not to change the mechanics (well, maybe just the type4 engine will be instead of the type1), but to do a correct bodywork. Remember that this car looked good only from 30 feet away and in some pictures... You saw what was lurching below...

@Dodgy, Yes, I am following your thread. I think we have pretty similar work to do. I wrote this before, I will write it again: whenever I feel lost, or think I will never finish, I just browse through some threads (yours included, but also China Clipper's and Jeremy G.'s and others) and get confident again. If others can restore cars in worse shape than mine, I can definitely do mine!
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'74 1303S, L98B Viperngrun (extra glitter), German Look
'64 1200, Sea Blue, under restoration