St. Christopher - Aussie 57 big window

[NUG637]

Back around 2010 dmy brother and i stumbled across this Oct 57 "big window" tucked in the back streets of Inglewood some three and a bit hours west of Brisbane (home) while doing one of the Vic trips. We left a name and number but never got a return call.

Picture from one of our trips in 2011

Every year or so we would show our face but always being turned away with the same story of "we will do it up one day" until 2016 on our trip to Cobar to pick up an oval we thought we would stop in once more. She relayed the same old story until we cut her off mid way through "we will do...." saying it looking much worse for wear than it did 6+ year ago when we first found it. She teared up and agreed it would be better at our place under cover then rotting into the ground, then and there the deal was done... some 2 weeks later the old man and i drove back out there to collect the old girl

the Recovery

they brought out a few spares they had sitting on the farm which included a full set of 60's guards a mint 4 tab bonnet and a 67 decklid

Got home and had a look at what i had just purchased, Some cool accessories such as light up indicator stalk, twin early sun visors, St. Christopher badge, glovebox pull handle and once had a centre mounted sun visor lbut has been nicked at some stage.

still has the factory goop on the back of the dash tangs, 36hp that turns over by hand with the Newstead Vw plaque and still one of the semaphore in tact.

Looks like the Og colour was Gunyah grey with inside un touch apart from the door cards and headliner being redone.

Last registered in 96

In then went into storage wihile we got married, had kids, 2 house Reno’s then a type 3 build…. And now it her time…

[NUG637]

With the notch pretty well dialed in for the moment and a new project purchase, its time to give this thing some love so it can hit the market to pay for the rusty dual cab i just bought….

Plan is to get it rust free, driving and stopping and then listing it for sale…. That’s if i dont fall in love with it even more as i work on it

The patina on this thing is pretty wild…. With a slam job it would be killer….

Pulled it out of the container on Tuesday after we got back from Australia’s biggest vw show Monday night and brought it home

The kids proud as punch with dads rusty junkers

Body off… the only way to do a vw… makes things so much easier IMO

Then straight onto some rust repairs… the bottom of the deck lid had little metal left…. It was all nylon rope, fibreglass and bog with both the inner and outer cooked

Original plan was to leave all the repairs in bare metal to surface rust like other parts of the car but i had a can of this stuff from something ages ago and it looks like a pretty close match to the previous paint job under the red so might even get creative with that… might have a play on the deck lid once i grind those welds tomorrow

[NotChrisHemsworth]

What a beauty! I picked up a '58 on the Sunny Coast earlier this year. Looks very similar but is the original colour. Yours definitely has less parts missing

[67rustavenger]

[NUG637]

Nice! I recon i may recall seeing the pop up on facebook


Love me a semaphore bug, I’ve had quite a few over the years

[zerotofifty]

Sweet story Keep us updated please!!!!!!

[NUG637]

Been playing with patina blending on the repairs a little, not finished just going through the trial and error stages for now….

The deck lid I sprayed in the cream primer and while it was wet I sprinkled it with grinding dust then sprayed with salt water. Not really stoked with the look so might grind it back and start playing with some cream and red over the top. This car will not get polished so might have to sand the red to get the ‘dull’ look. I will post more as I play

The rear apron repair which you can see was left bare and sprayed with salt water…. I think I will leave this as it will tie in with the surface rust on other areas

The driver side gutter repair was hand folded and fit better then the passanger side that I cut out of a roof section….

When folding the gutter back over the fold split from stress fracture so had to run a weld up the outside and grind it back

Then onto the rear window repair taken from the top of a 58 back window/roof section…. The curve was just off so a few relief cuts got the shape right

Put a little primer to protect under the window rubber but left the outside edge to surface rust and hopefully blend back in

Passenger gutter repair was a little more tricky…. This was a section from a roof but the curve was whack and I had to tie it into the deck lid jam…

Folding the gutter back on this side went without a hitch

And had to do a small patch the the passenger side apron to… nothing fancy

[finster]

in the uk there's a paint called 'rustypaint' and there are other types of rust paint available - might be easier than swarf dust and salt water...
https://www.rustypaint.com/Instructions-FAQ.php

_________________
"we're here on Earth to fart around" kurt vonnegut

nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect...

[smeag]

Nice work, you are truly an artist...

[NUG637]

[NUG637]

This week saw the driver side turn the corner and become "rust free"

being time poor i sometimes forget to get pictures of the process so sometimes you get one of it just fixed up or a little before and after but no during

check out all that untouched Gunyah grey under all the tar under those wings....

the bottom of the "A" pillar had only rusted at the joint of the A pillar to the heather channel so i just sectioned a piece in here to connect the 2 again

a shitty little rust hole that had formed from the grass seed stuck behind the headlight bucket... 25mm hole saw and a little "plug" welded back in

thought i was gonna get away with the inner quarter but after all the griding and hammering on the outer skin the inner skin started to fall to bits so i had to get cutting until there was some metal worth sticking to....

formed it up by hand from some flat gal sheet i had left over from the snail build.... its under the rear seat and partially covered by the headliner that runs down the b pillar post so think im gonna leave this repair as you see it (with paint over it)... the next custodian can clean it up if it bothers them...

[NUG637]

So I’ve realised i really suck at before pictures…. Only got during or finished again

Think it cuts the small windows i time i get i am to busy trying to achieve something rather then document it.

Also ran a tap through all heater Chanel threads in prep for the body back on reunion that im trying to achieve by or over Christmas….

Got to set goals right?

That front corner of the b pillar had the smallest showing of rust which kept growing the more i poked…. With the outa skin still ok i tried to maintain the outa patina as much as possible

The bubble in the door hasn’t broken through yet… so im gonna leave that… i fixed anything that poked through with the screw driver…

The bottom of the passenger side front window frame had rotted where the loom had been sitting with a rodents nest against the window frame….

Made a piece and buzzed that in…

And the front cowl under the hood seal had a few holes showing up… again trying to just patch things in without creating to big of a job…. Came up fine with a new seal in that area

Next is the hood…. I really wanted to just patch in the smallest bits i could to maintain the patina that had formed but it was just way to thin along the front…. So i patched in a few bits and buzzed an entire new nose on from a hood that the hinge mount sections had rotted on but the nose was pretty sweet…. Gonna try blend a little and leave a little to surface rust and try get it to match in as best i can

[NUG637]

got the hood all patched up... havent ground it back or started blending yet....

An inside shot of the penetration.... i enjoy looking at some good penetration...

And the grand Finale... from the moment i unearthed this bit of rust in the sandwhich panel under the rear window i wanted to tackle it first knowing full well how much of a bitch it is to get to and i hate leaving the hardest part to last.... i looked at just dodging something up and moving on but i struggle to do that shit even in a rat

if you know this section its where the panel under the rear window runs into the carpet fold "well" in the rear luggage tray and both those panels weld to the drainage tray and air vents in the engine bay.... 3-4 panels over the top of one another and no easy way to get to any of them... I had to do a similar repair in my oval but not even to this extent...

its taken me a few weeks but i managed to get my hands on a cut from at early 70's fat chick...

I had to unpick what i needed off the cut... then i had to unpick the luggage tray and peel that forward before unpicking the panel under the rear window in prep for replacement...

I sand blasted and then coated the repair panel trying to protect it as best i can as there is no painting the back side properly once its in there...

then melted that shit in there.... the shape around the rear window lip had to be massaged abit to suit an earlier window but the rest was pretty good, i did over cut a little on the sides so had to bridge my welds alittle. 'cus i put joint as far to the sides as i could get, you dont get a site of the welds from the back when looking through the air vents for the engine air intake...

next is the "Z" piece off the back of the luggage tray... this area creates the well for your headliner and carpet to finish into...... the one in St. Christopher was cooked so I used the donor cut from the fatty to use as a reference and got a local metal fab shop to fold me something up...

this is the first rust repair panel i have had to purchase for this car yet

i will cut along the top of the luggage tray and buzz this in over the coming days...

then i will have to reweld the side of the luggage tray back in situ

and that will be the final bit of rust repair to be done on the body of this bad boy

[Apostle_]

Outstanding!

[NUG637]

Thanks!

Got the rest of this parcel tray all buttoned up….

And thats a wrap on the body repairs… i will continue to play with blending but next up is pan and slam

While rehanging the panels i found an old hood emblem i inherited while building the oval but it was missing a mounting tab so it never got used…decided to get creative for st Christopher considering it didn’t have one when i collected the car

[NUG637]

With the body all but done it was time to tackle the pan…

It was clear i was in for 2 x rear pan halves at a minimum. After disassembly i gave the front halves a quick wire wheel and apart from half a dozen pin holes on the driver side i decided i could pull the trigger on getting them from justkampers au. Ordered Wednesday night, waiting at the front door by Friday lunchtime… unreal! And what topped it off, we had a weekend of kids parties so i got a fair stint in the shed while the mums and kids hung out.

The gear shift coupler was the only thing to fight me on the entire pan, had to cut it off otherwise everything else came out beautifully

Carnage… had to drill out and preserve the seat rails to be reused after the new halves go in

Took a few measurements and wrote them down on something safe for reference points before i started cutting… helped line everything back up before burning the new panels in

Then the seat rails

Will i be refitting the jacking points? Hell nahhh…

I was gonna tar paint the new halves to match the old stuff but it got the better of me. The old tar was flaking off in places so rather then risk it holding water i decided to spend 2 nights stripping the shit off… wondering if it was done as a factory option for rust/soundproofing?

Then a solid hit with the wire wheel before a seam seal and a fresh coat of paint. No Bog. Decided to leave the tunnel as the paint is fine and the factory tar board will be going back on where i removed it for the repairs..

[NUG637]

i like to try achieve something each day big or small....

Built a 6 inch beam reusing as many parts as I could for 2 reasons, the main one being most repro stuff is sub par for quality and fit and also budget

Due to no shock towers I opted for using 4 x upper control arms with the bottom tube being 6mm longer each side to create the factory offset that is normally built into the upper and lower control arms on a stock beam. This eliminates the shock bolts swaying in the breeze and looks much more appealing

Made my own little end plate gussets from some scrap metal we had laying around and a 51mm hole saw

Being an early beam, it ran micarta bearings for the inner and outa surfaces. So i got a stainless drift marginally smaller than the I.D. of the beam and marked a rough depth on the drift, then taped the inner bearing into the depth i now required

Then I taped the bearing out of the endplates i had cut off the stock beam and beat them into the end of the new cut down beam ends

I also drilled and taped to reuse the grease zerks

then onto shortening and dimpling the spring packs

Done!

got my sticky little hands on some drop spindles this week which will help with the front end assembly

[NUG637]

cleaned up the Gearbox and fitted brand new front and rear gearbox mounts. New axle boots to come once it back on the ground and the axle lift up off the rear frame horns

Been Wire wheeling and painting hardware as I go in prep for the body back on the pan

Sandblasted the rear drums and backing plates and started mounting them with brand new axle seals

Pulled all the cables through in prep for the pedal assembly to go in. choke cable fought me on the way out but with abit of grease and a clean it slid straight back in

Pedals got wire wheeled and painted

kicking goals as the budget allows

[finster]

looking good
_________________
"we're here on Earth to fart around" kurt vonnegut

nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect...

[NUG637]

Thanks mate

finished assembling the rear brakes with all new seals and brake cylinders then got it on the ground and fitted new axle boots

Another local vw guy hooked me up with some dropped spindles. I Fitted a little grubscrew to stop the king pin rotating inside the spindle and clapping out the king pin housing. Then assembled them with some OG vw link pins that were in very serviceable condition.

followed by the front brake assembly again with new wheel cylinders, and new front bearings (inner and outer) and seals

Before...

After....

painted and fitted the new master cylinder along with all new soft lines front and back...

Got the front end on the ground and finished assembling the narrowed front beam by shortening the tie rods and retaping new threads, fitted a quick steer that i kept off a friends 61 we bought off him that i put a 4.5" beam back in almost 10 odd years ago. fitted new tie rod ends, and flipped the outer tie rod ends

then continued to wire brush and paint og pan hardware