Reviving The Volkswaffe: My VW Beetle Restoration

[[CPT]milopugdog]

Howdy all! I know it's been a long while, but I've got some additional items and some bad news.

To start off with the bad, I will no longer be working on this project. I'm leaving for my new job this month, so I will have to leave the VW at home with my folks. 

But do not fret! My pops will be working on her, so the project will get done; just not with my hands. He's way more experienced with cars than me, and almost everything I've been doing here has been with his help anyways.  

 

So onto the work!

We welded a patch into the radio slot. This was interesting because the sheet metal in the car is so thin, you have to be careful to not weld a hole in it. It's looks didn't really matter too much because it will be covered by a padded dash.

Spoiler

 

Then there was more work to the body with our body filler, because of course there was. While we had another person's car in our shop, they backed into my car's bonnet which left a dent. With that damage, along side some dents from the bonnet's handle, I smoothed it over with some body filler; just like what has been shown before.

Spoiler

 

 

The areas that got ground down around the passenger mirror from someone mucking with aftermarket mirrors were filled as well, which took a lot more work than I thought it would because the rounded shape of the door!

Spoiler

 

So now onto some exciting stuff! I completely restored my car's steering column. This involved disassembly of course, stripping, repainting, and also replacing all the switches that make it tick.

Here's a photo of what she looked like before without switches:

Spoiler

 

Some nasty old original 50-year old switches:

Spoiler

 

For comparison, here's the original ignition switch along side a brand new one. Can you guess which is which?

Spoiler

 

So from here, I had a box of parts which included the steering column, parking brake assembly (we'll visit that in this post), and also the shifter column. Through various connections, we were able to take them to a friend's media blaster, and strip all the paint off!

Action shot:

Spoiler

 

So now with a box of stripped shiny parts, it was time to paint them matte black, like they were factory.

Spoiler

(stripped)

 

(painting)

 

After the paint dried, it was time for reassembly, which was just the reverse of what I've already shown; so here's the finished column. It looks so much better!

Spoiler

 

Now we'll move on to the parking brake. Here it was before I touched it; it had a weird yellow/black color because it had a rubber boot covering the mechanism closer to the floor, so my uncle only painted the uncovered part of the brake (if you'll remember the car was yellow).

Spoiler

Funky looking, right?

 

So after going over the blasting and painting process we've already looked at, here are the parts the make up the brake lever. The actual lever, a half gear with teeth, spring, rod, and also a button.

Spoiler

 

In the lever, there is a rotating piece of metal with a round end, and a spiky end, which you can see sticking out of the lever in the last photo. The rounded end of the rod and this piece of metal are supposed to fit together so the tooth can be moved back and forth via the button.

Spoiler

 

So once you stick the rod in open end of the lever, get it lined up with the rounded end, then you insert the spring around the rod:

Spoiler

 

Then you need to screw the button on, which was really weird because you could hear the spring binding up. Although, it's supposed to be like that!

Spoiler

 

Finally, you get your gear with teeth, and put the C-shaped end around the hole at the base of the lever.

Spoiler

 

And there you go! An assembled brake lever! I was a little surprised about how simple the mechanism for this was, but I also didn't quite know what to expect.

Spoiler

 

 

So I want to thank you all for keeping with this thread! I'm a little upset I won't get to finish the car myself, but I'll have my whole life to work on her once she's actually done. If I get any other photos on progress while I'm gone, I'll be sure to post them!

 

Thank you all again,

Milo.

 

[ZachariasX]

40 minutes ago, [CPT]milopugdog said:

So I want to thank you all for keeping with this thread!

Beautiful work! Regardless whether you or your folks complete this restauration, it will always be yours as no matter how much you restore such a vehicle, keeping it running is a constant work in progress.

[CUJO_1970]

Please keep us posted about the progress, I’ve really enjoyed the updates!

 

very much looking forward to seeing the finished project.

[[CPT]milopugdog]

Hey everyone! Long time, no updates... to say the least, a lot in my life has changed, and I've been geographically separated from my dear Beetle since my last update. Plus, the really bad news is that my imgur account was lost and deleted, so many of these images are now broken.

 

In better news, she finally has some paint on her! And, more should be coming along shortly. This summer, all things going according to plan, she will be in my garage.

We got the engine deck done first to test the coloring, and clear coat since it will eventually be covered over with undercoating:

Spoiler

 

By the way, did you remember that the factory color is gold? The car was this color from the factory, part of a special package called the 'Sun Bug'. As far as I know, these types were the only Beetles factory painted this color, called Hellas Beige, then production changed to Harvest Gold. There was a special interior, wheels, and decals included. Although, the only remnant of any of these on my car is the spare wheel and its tire. 

 

Also, because I got bored and wanted something to work on, I bought a 1978 Puch Maxi moped. She's a pretty blue, kinda loud, and very slow, but also tons of fun. Packing a whole 49.99hp, I can get up to 30mph on level ground. I'll probably take her apart and dump some money into performance parts for her eventually too.

Spoiler

 

 

That's it for now!

Cheers,

Milo

 

Edited February 22, 2023 by [CPT]milopugdog

[ZachariasX]

19 hours ago, [CPT]milopugdog said:

Also, because I got bored and wanted something to work on, I bought a 1978 Puch Maxi moped. She's a pretty blue, kinda loud, and very slow, but also tons of fun. Packing a whole 49.99hp,

Ha… old times. But you certainly got the 48.8 cm3 engine, doing some (best case!) 1.2 hp. With 50 hp, you‘d go 100 mph… if you had more than that one gear.

[[CPT]milopugdog]

32 minutes ago, ZachariasX said:

Ha… old times. But you certainly got the 48.8 cm3 engine, doing some (best case!) 1.2 hp. With 50 hp, you‘d go 100 mph… if you had more than that one gear.

you're right. I'm thinking 2hp, 49.99CCs. Big difference lol