Alright, I'm gonna start this thread now, hopefully it will interest you. I'm 17, and have been working on my 1972 Volkswagen Super Beetle for a few years now. It's not a restoration project, more of a do-what-I-can-afford-to-do-to-keep-it-on-the-road sorta thing. The floorpans are solid and the body is relatively straight, but there are several rust spots in the inner fenders, heater channels, frame head, etc. that keep it from really being worth a lot of money and a candidate for restoration at this time. I want to restore the car myself one day, learn how to weld and all that fun stuff and do everything right...but that's after college, way down the road. For now, I'm having a cheap paintjob done. Well...I say cheap. But it cost $927 to have the welding done :yikes:, and another $600 to have it painted...cheapo paintjob but I have to pay my parents off for half of this (Other half being early graduation present)...and I don't have much money. And my parents already bought me an '09 GTI for my 16th birthday (which just rolled over 10,000 miles today), so I really hate being in debt to them any more than necessary after all they've done for me. This project is to be done on my money, I've paid for mostly everything else up to this point. Anyway, I'm starting this thread as the car is nearly finished. I started taking it apart for paint at the beginning of summer and it went off to paint today. I'll be putting it back together next week, culminating with one big freakin' detail once it's all together I don't have a bunch of photos, but I will have several coming up once I get the car back. I wasn't sure whether or not to put this in the "Show and Shine" section, as it's not purely detail related. Right after I got it back from welding: Interior after the welder, he had to pull out some carpet and I had to remove the backseat so it wouldn't catch fire In the process of dismantling: Some of the rust, this was not fixed as I am a cheap bastard. Here it is before I really started tearing into it...rusty and with a ton of miles, it still runs quite well. Artsy shot There's a website dedicated to creating what you want your VW to look like, it's called bugselecta. When I restore it, here's how I want it to look: And pretty much what the car looked like when I got it. The reason for the spray paint and primer in the later pictures is sort of a VW thing. In the aircooled VW world, original paint and patina are big right now, so armed with oven cleaner and graffiti remover I set about stripping off the awful repaint (which resembled lizard skin anyway at this point ) to reveal the original paint. Only to find large patches of bare metal where it had been sanded away. So I gave up and spray painted over the bare metal to keep rust at bay. For more pictures (and some immature rants about my parents from me that I'm ashamed of now :doh check out my Samba build thread here. Hopefully this didn't bore y'all to tears, I thought it would be interesting anyway :crash: I will be updating this as I make progress, hopefully soon! Lemme know about any questions, I have more pictures somewhere if you want any specific ones. Clark
Pretty cool man, I have a 69 Ghia that I am currently working on.....or should I say, having someone work on. LOL I don't know squat about aircooled and/or restoration. SO I will spend money to get it done Anyway, nice ride man.
Only one reply? haha. Anyway, more stuff for that one person I've been in the process of polishing up all the old aluminium and chrome parts, as well as cleaning some other random miscellaneous stuff that I got for the car. I picked up these original VW floormats for $1 each, compared for the $15+ each I've seen them going for online. They just needed a good scrubbing with Megs APC 4:1 and some treatment with 303 Aerospace Protectant and they look great! And some of the chrome/aluminium stuff I polished up, I used Mother's Mag & Aluminium Polish as well as Eagle One Never-Dull wadding polish. These parts aren't perfect but they were much cheaper than new stuff and still looked nice when finished. Forgive my awful picture quality. Headlight trim rings, the one on the right isn't as bad as it looks, it's my camera's flash. Roughly halfway polished...
I am too. Dont stop your quest. Seeing that car makes me want to grow my hair long and spark up a doobie.. Joe D.
Finally finished shining up all the aluminium trim last night! As pretty much all aftermarket aluminium trim is garbage and does not fit properly, I cleaned up the original stuff. But I had some difficulty at first...no matter what I tried, I could not get it to shine! It looked almost oxidized. I tried steel wool, aluminium foil, along with a combination of a couple metal polishes. No go. Some advice from the TheSamba.com :: Volkswagen Classifieds, photos, shows, forums, and information told me that from the factory, the trim was anodized to make it look nice and shiny for a while. Over time that anodizing faded and cannot be polished back. So I was told to strip it with oven cleaner, and then I would have regular aluminium to polish again. As much as I hate working with harsh chemicals like oven cleaner, I gave it a shot. And it worked! After two hits with the oven cleaner, I could polish the aluminium up...and it turned out pretty good. Some pics, once again...my camera sucks, sorry :crash: All the trim before: 50/50: After! Box of random chrome parts waiting to be re-installed: Door panels...before: After Megs APC 10:1 and 303 Aerospace. (I found them too shiny, so I buffed it to a more matte finish after these photos.) Rear ashtrays...befores: After...using Eagle One Never Dull wadding polish. My camera flash makes it look like they're really scratched, but those scratches are hardly noticeable in real life. Thanks for looking! Mostly little detail stuff now, the big stuff happens when I get the car back...which should be soon. No call from the paint shop yet but it won't be long. Clark
Just a couple random photos. The guy who did the welding was reluctant to do the work, but fortunately he took the job, or I wouldn't be this far along with the car. He had me remove the rear seat and door panels so he could do some welding...and also told me that he was finished with the fenders, and that I needed to take them home, as well as the backseat and all my tools :yikes: So we somehow managed to get all of that in the back of my 2009 GTI. Never thought I would be saying this, but I love having a hatchback :thumb: Not really sure what this has to do with anything, just thought I'd share. Expecting the call from the paint shop any day now, it's one of those really quick in-and-out places so it shouldn't be too much longer. Clark
great progress! I personally am not a fan of the older VW, but it's always great to see a classic car come back to life (or get a new birth on life). I have hopes of one day being able to restore my own classic car. Some day! Glad to see a young guy as your self getting so into it!
Love it. I have always wanted a pre 67. I know 67 was a one-off year. Not a huge fan of the Supers. I love to long hoods and no bumpers.... I will buy one, someday. Almost bought one earlier this year, but decided to opt out for now. Dad had a 73, Auto. Since then, I have always wanted one. Hell, I subscribe to Hot VW's and I do not even own one...... Also, a Beetle was the first car I have ever painted. Convert and Baby Blue. (chicks car)
haha thanks everyone! If I could do it over I would have bought an early model with less rust, but what did I know at 11 when I got the car!? Anyway, it's what I've got and I love it--it's the car I learned to drive on and everything. IT COMES HOME FROM PAINT TOMORROW. It only cost $600, so I'm not expecting anything amazing, just something to look good from 15 feet or so. I'm excited Clark
For anyone still reading this... I got it back from paint! It looks great, a ton better than I expected--that high build primer really hid a lot of stuff. If you look closely you can still see marks where I had sanded the paint under the repaint, but I seem to be the only one with a good enough eye to catch it, haha. It's got something like 5 coats of single stage enamel on it, I think there's a 3 year warranty on it too. The door jambs aren't pretty--it cost extra to have them painted so they have primer and scratches and stuff all over them, but I figure I can paint them myself if I so desire. And they didn't paint the inside of the decklid, I thought that since the whole thing was in bare metal they would assume I wanted it all painted...I was wrong :doh: So the inside of it was still bare metal. I brushed on a coat of MasterSeries, a rust encapsulator which will also protect the bare metal from ever rusting again. I did this in place of spraying primer for convenience--spraying would probably get overspray all over it, something I DID NOT want. And now I can paint the inside of it whenever I have time. Sorry for the long post, I'm like a little kid on Christmas morning right now And I can't post this without saying THANK YOU to my amazing parents, for helping me pay for this and putting up with my crazy hobbies :applause: :kilt: (I've always wanted to use that emoticon.) Pictures! The lights in my garage make it look more orange than it really is. Filthy engine. I might wait on cleaning it for a bit...the shop said to not wax it or use any sort of chemicals on the car for around a month, so the paint has time to cure. And I don't want to splash chemicals or anything onto the paint from cleaning the engine... Normally I kept the interior clean, but after being in and out of shops and being sanded on, dust and dirt and stuff has made my interior a real mess! That I will be cleaning...SOON. Oh, and the backside of the decklid. When I actually detail it I may start a thread in the "show and shine" section. Thanks for reading! Clark
For anyone who is still reading this: (copied from another forum, I'm too tired to type something different here ) It's back from paint and re-assembled!!!! I worked from noon till 2:30 AM yesterday getting everything put back together and some more today cleaning it up, and I have to say it looks great, far better than I expected for the bodywork I did and the price of the paintjob, which was only $600. I hit a few snags, please check out this thread here. And pictures! I know I need bumpers, the originals are too rusty and bent to re-use, and I'm $800 in debt to my parents right now (the other $800 was an early graduation present, so the job cost $1600) so I'm not incredibly concerned about getting them. My old camera wreaks havoc with red cars, sorry Pretty clean in there, picked up some original floormats too: Clark
