New user, and new project - 'Throwitbacktogether' !

[mj2k]

Finally it's standing on it's own 4 wheels again!

Still waiting for yet more welding gas so I can do the final bits of tidying, but the door gaps seem to have mostly sorted themselves out (just a tiny catch on the door lock post when either is opened / closed) and the 'stance' at the front looks about right. So I can finally bolt the chassis up to the bodyshell properly, and start hacking away at that spare wheel well to see what horrors await underneath...

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"I looked for silver linings, But you're rotten to the core" - Devo: Gut Feeling (they must have seen my Super)

[Dodgy]

Back on four wheels is a significant milestone! You are doing good work and making great 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

[mj2k]

[VW_Jimbo]

Great progress! Your rate of repairing is awesome! You have to be getting excited NOW!

Keep up the great work!
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Jimbo

There is never enough time to do it right the first time, but all the time necessary the second time!

[mj2k]

[agramer1966]

Super progress 👍
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1966 VW1300
1973 VW1302
1974 VW Trike
1984 924
Bunch of old Jap motorbikes
Instagram & YT: #agrameroldoctane

[Dodgy]

[mj2k]

[Dodgy]

Ah, but he had to wait to grow the trees necessary for the structural body repairs! That'd slow any project down!
_________________
'75 1303 (current project) owned since 1989!
'72 Squareback - full resto completed 2008 - now sold
356 Speedster kit, completed 2005 - now sold

[mj2k]

_________________
"I looked for silver linings, But you're rotten to the core" - Devo: Gut Feeling (they must have seen my Super)

[mj2k]

Today was unexpectedly spent refitting the steering mech, no idea how but I spent almost the entire day fitting a steering arm to a new box, deciding which of my 3 universal joints, 4 idlers and 2 sets of control arms to use, and bolting them up to the car

Bit of a waste of time tbh since I'll need to take it all off again before I paint / underseal, but useful for moving the car around (I'll be able to wash that damned Bondo dust off at last) and I'll be able to see what clearance I need to leave when I turn the spare wheel well into a box. Oh, and I've finally got no play in the steering, which is a bonus.

Aside from that I shoved on a new Mexican unslatted decklid (the slats would have played havoc with an electric motor in the rain). Pretty ropey quality, but IMO it suits the car more than the original. I'll be leaving the VW 1303 script off too, it looks better without to me.

Before:

After:

Not so sure about the bulging Mexican rear valence's looks, but it gives extra clearance for the motor, so will be staying.
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"I looked for silver linings, But you're rotten to the core" - Devo: Gut Feeling (they must have seen my Super)

[mj2k]

Had an, er, interesting weekend.

First, the good news - I can safely run my existing motor on a lower current

So I trial-fitted the batteries and battery charging / management components in their final places. I had to put more behind the seats than I intended because there are new crash safety laws coming in specifying the batteries have to be at least 40cm from the front of the car, so couldn't extend the battery box right the way to the front, and decided to stick with approx 50kg extra over the front axle to ensure I didn't push the weight in the front up too much, which is approx the weight of 14 batteries plus the controllers once the weight of the fuel tank plus fuel is deducted.

So 18 batteries behind the seat together with the 12v DC-DC converter (12v battery will remain under the seat):

Seat back still goes up fine, so all good with that placement:

And with 14 batteries and the charger components in their correct place the front looks like this:

Which effectively means I don't need to alter the spare wheel well's shape at all.

However, the spare wheel well appeared to be an iffy mass of bondo and appeared to be made out of several disparate bits underneath (which made the MOT man think it was a cut'n'shut!):

So i needed to cut the spare wheel well out anyway, which meant removing the front panel (which was pop riveted on, it came off with one good tug) and having fun with my grinder. However, once I'd cut the well out it turned out all that bondo mess and iffiness was for nothing - the extra panel underneath was there for no reason at all (it's not present on the original so feck knows what it was there for), the metal was fine, and the mass of filler was just to cover a couple of dents...

Why the hell approx 2kg of filler and a pointless sticky-out bit of metal seemed a better idea than just beating the dents out is beyond me, but hey, at least I won't end up with yet more bondo dust over everything now I've cut the tray out.

So all I'm going to do is get a new spare wheel well, add more strengthening to it, and weld it back in where the old spare wheel well was, which makes all the palaver of cutting it out pretty much pointless (though no doubt quicker than removing all that bondo).

The one bright side was it enabled me to see the steering geometry properly (which resulted in me replacing the steering idler again), check out the frame head's strength and straighness properly (all good) and enabled me to clean up / rust proof my new inner wings and bulkhead repairs much better than I would otherwise have been able to do:

So not a total dead loss after all

Just need to finish cleaning the remains of the old rustproofing off the frame head, drill out and helicoil the two bolts which are supposed to go into the bracket in the centre, and do a couple more repair patches on the frame head (done 1 already), and sort out the brake pipe routing, all of which are much easier to do with the wheel well out.
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"I looked for silver linings, But you're rotten to the core" - Devo: Gut Feeling (they must have seen my Super)

[VW_Jimbo]

Nice job summarizing what needs to be and how. I like the new panel idea, but those are always a gamble. You never know how far off the shape will be!

Once again, awesome progress!
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Jimbo

There is never enough time to do it right the first time, but all the time necessary the second time!

[mj2k]

[mj2k]

I've got the Klokkerholm replacement wheel well, it seems to be shaped properly.

I'm still going to just use the centre section though - the Kokkerholm hasn't got the cut-outs for right hand drive and the 'shoulders' of the existing panel are fine. Besides, the Klokkerholm's made of thinner metal so I'd be making things worse rather than better by fitting the whole panel.

But before that I've got yet more welding to do - I went to weld up a pinhole I spotted in the left hand footwell below the 'frunk' spring mount, and it blew straight through. Looks like the metal there is paper thin despite cleaning up well, so I've now got an awkward patch to weld in which would have been much easier without the inner wing fitted, and no way to reach the weld to clean it up once done

So that's a definite 'gotcha' for anyone replacing the inner wing - check the area round the 'frunk' spring mount very carefully before welding the replacement wing in 'cos it'll be much harder to patch once the wing's in place.
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"I looked for silver linings, But you're rotten to the core" - Devo: Gut Feeling (they must have seen my Super)

[mj2k]

Posted this in the wrong thread 2 days ago...

Spent yesterday redoing the repair panel behind the right hand door and rewelding the lower hinge mount on the left hand door.

Lots of gardening to do today - whilst not great for humans, May's weather in the UK has been great for weeds

But I did have a couple of hours spare after almost an entire day weeding and cutting plants back, so planned to do the panel behind the left hand door and the upper right hand hinge, but once again bondo thwarted me.

The right hand top hinge mount had a bit of bondo near it, so started to grind it out. And ground, and ground. Turned out a repair panel had been welded into the bottom of the rain channel, but wasn't quite the right shape, so it had been reshaped (badly) with a load of bondo. Wondered why the front of the door was way too close to the windscreen pillar...

Rest of the day was spent cutting the old panel out, cleaning out the rust behind it, making a new panel in the right shape, and rolling the edge so it fitted in with the reamining part of the channel:

So just got to do the panel behind the left hand door to do (at least I know there's no bondo in there, I've already repaired that panel once) and finally the effects the wonky bodyshell had on the door apertures will be gone
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"I looked for silver linings, But you're rotten to the core" - Devo: Gut Feeling (they must have seen my Super)

[mj2k]

Finshed re-welding the left hand panel behind the door, and re-mounted the doors.

Left hand door still scraped a tiny, tiny bit, but once I'd sanded off the 6 thick layers of different coloured paint from the door edge, it was fine, and the door gap was back to 4.5mm with the door closed. At least that explains why that later door doesn't look quite right - the paint on it is so thick it's puffed up like a cushion! (I reckon it's been on quite a few bugs since 1974...)

Right hand door closed fine with the door striker removed and also had approx a 4.5mm gap all round, but it bound on the striker as soon as I fitted it. Much puzzling and examining the gap from both inside and outside with a bright light shining through it, I couldn't see any issues so ground a bit off the edge of the striker (as per my other thread), which made a slight difference.

...And then noticed there was a slight lump in the door aperture, near the line where the body curves out from the window. Gave it a tentative hit with a hammer, and a lump of Bondo dropped out.

So put a piece of straight angle iron against it, and sure enough the door aperture's twisted there, and was pulling the section where the striker sits out of true

So looks like I may have yet more Bondo removal / patching to do there (unless it's a plain, good, old fashioned dent cover-up) but in the mean time I gave the distorted part a few big whacks with a hammer until it sat straight, and now the door closes with a 'click' rather than a scraping sound

Annoying I've now needlessly damaged the striker a little though
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"I looked for silver linings, But you're rotten to the core" - Devo: Gut Feeling (they must have seen my Super)

[mj2k]

Still waiting for a new brake master cylinder to arrive before I sort out the brake pipes (might as well leave the spare wheel well out 'til I've done that), so I've fitted my new carpet (except on heater channels) to give myself a bit of a boost:

Image also shows just how much Bondo dust there is over everything. Need to give the car a thorough spring clean to get rid of all that, once I'm sure there's no more to come

Also a quick pic of the door gap - much better after a little attention with a hammer

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"I looked for silver linings, But you're rotten to the core" - Devo: Gut Feeling (they must have seen my Super)

[VW_Jimbo]

Bondo dust sucks! I dislike breathing it as well!

The car is looking more solid. It is a good feeling moving it along through the process, right?

Fingers crossed for figment of the carpet!
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Jimbo

There is never enough time to do it right the first time, but all the time necessary the second time!

[mj2k]

Carpet looks fine, and even though it was a cheap Ebay special, it's far nicer quality than the proper carpet sets you can buy through your favourite Bug parts supplier

Did my one other bit of necessary EV body modification today - making the spare wheel well's bottom flat. Took unexpectedly long, 5 hours, but all I need to do to complete it is weld a thick section of angle iron on the underside, and weld a suitably high metal block onto that so it can rest on the frame head. That'll be plenty strong enough to support the batteries.

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"I looked for silver linings, But you're rotten to the core" - Devo: Gut Feeling (they must have seen my Super)