Just to satisfy a few that have asked, I have decided to post up the bug resto/ finish thread. I bought the bug from Paul at bugmad customs in January after looking for ages for a rot free jobby. The bug is a 72 that was aquired from someone who had spent a small fortune giving it the pre 67 look. sloping wings/ headlights etc. This is not a cheap project to take on as you have to cut off and weld in new front and rear clips so as the longer wings don't stick out and they have to be pretty accurate with the welding. Anyhow the bloke got it 80% done and ran out of funds, Paul stuck it back together for him and advertised as a rot free pre 67 looker. I enquired about him and soon found he had a good name in beetle/ aircooled restoration, The deal was struck over the telephone and text conversations and I set off down to Essex to collect her.. How she was advertised At this point she had a 1600 lump and was slightly more expensive than I wanted to pay, so we struck a deal where I got Paul to stick in a 1200 engine ( suited my lads insurance cost better ) and his mate got my 1600. I got him to put on the running boards for the journey home. Which was totally uneventful unless you count the biblical like downpours the lack of decent brakes and the 150 miles of draught through the none existent seals on the front end. She ran like a dream otherwise. tbc..
I quite fancy a project like this. My 8 year old girl has taken a liking to old bugs. If I started now it might be finished for when she's 17. I missed a beaut rag top on SVWOC last week. Good luck with it.
With the bug home and having decided the brakes needed upgrading we set about getting her how we would like her to look.. the steering wheel. carpet, front seat covers and brakes were changed within the first two weeks ( I will post pics up of those bit's later ) A deal was struck with a local paint sprayer to get her painted if we did the prep, £50 for the paint and £100 for a mornings work masking and spraying it if we did the prep. So we set about prepping her... for three and a half 10 hour days... And then took her in to the spray shop for a final strip down and prep..
We never went for a windows out respray as we never had the rubbers and can easily do them now we have them and paint it up when they are out.. we loosed the wings off so as he could spray behind them. We left her for the bank holiday weekend with the sprayer and then I got curious... but he was closed. A peek through the gap in the roller shutter.
Oooh you're such a tease!.....I thought we were going to see the finished article.... lovely shade of red....matches your eyes
In the meantime I will show you some of the interior work we did ( we will say nothing about the passenger side a post weld I broke off and now have to have redone )we stripped the floor carpet out and as it was very solid below we sound proofed and carpeted it..
Then we changed the steering wheel.. Not og but Neil wanted an old deep dish one.. The aim is to get her looking better than this one, This one wooden go!
Then we recovered the seat using some early front seats and the back padding from them too. They came out well in the end after a another stretch over-- first try.
Then we went to the spray shop and had a proper decko at the finish of our £150 spray job, and reassembled her..
He hates that.. I will polish it and he will NOT polish it. New paint always looks shiny what did you expect man?
That looks lovely, I always wanted a beetle and this gives me ideas (that I can't afford!) great job.
