Hey guys,
First topic here but shes a goody, well for me anyway.
as of 9.30 tonight I am the proud owner of a 65 bug 😀
It's my LONG term project and i hope to have it finished by 2012ish
excuse the crappy iphone photos but thats all that i have till after work tomorrow,
Matt
well done mate! congrats on the new project....no idea how good it is from the pics, guess we'll have to wait for some decent ones! 😂
I just bought a 65 too....we can compare photos! 😁
Scarab (aka: Paul)
here are the pics 🙂
going to be started this weekend
lots of work ahead of me.
Interior and disassembly pics throughout the weekend
Matt
looks ike a big job but will be worth it in the end
LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!!!
Strip it and have fun with it 🙂
"So... when will the bug be finished?"
HA, better question: "will it ever be finished?"..
welcome to the 65 club I have 2
looks like abit cancer there
yeah it has a ton of cancer, needs 2 new floor pans, some repairs on the rear guard mounts and a full drive train overhaul
lotsss of work ahead of me
Matt
Hi Mat,
I've just bought a project too.
I need to replace my floors and spare wheel well.
Was just wondering how you were thinking of tackling these areas??
I'm thinking of just buying whole new floor pans.
I hear wolfsburg are making good ones at the moment.
I'm not sure about the spare wheel well though, haven't had any recommendations of where to buy those yet.
Any thoughts??
Good luck.
It'll be good to see another one on the road in in Brisvagas eventually.
Carl
ooops wrong account :S
meant to be on MAT792 not this one
Gday bugsandoil,
congrats on the buy!
as for rust ill be cutting the floor pans out and getting new ones in there
i have got quotes from mick motors for floor pans at 154.00 each so not as bad i was thinking,
but im lucky with my spare wheel well being in really good condition!
are you going on body resto or off body?
look forward to seeing your progress! maybe we can swap tips :P
Matt
Hi Mat,
I've finally started my own thread under 'members rides.'
'Lichen 1500 bug.'
Any progress on yours?
Carl
nahh mate rain and moving has been keeping me away from it,
if it fines up a bit tomorrow might have another go but nothing at the moment,
Matt
well its been 7 months since I have updated this! so heres a bit more 🙂
so basically since my last update, I started a new job, did a lot of stuffing around, went out a bit as young people do :P, went to a few car shows (each making me want mine done faster) and slacked off a bit. I have had it stripped down for a while now but its still "water tight" if you could call it that :P, so when I get home in 2 weeks after a 6 week working stint in darwin I will be getting a shed, putting all parts in said shed and getting the glass out!, the first metal will be new floor pans, I hope to get the body off and back on with new pans in 1 weekend (to minimise chance of body flex and other damage. Im still unsure wether I want to replace the heater channels or just weld them shut though... a new welder has been purchased and I'm pumped to get into this thing and get it drivable!
heres some photos of progress!
Sir Grinds-a-lot ( I have since started using quick strip discs which are much faster and nicer to the body)
I quickly learnt to wear long pants or hold on tighter!
little bit of rust in this one! (soon to be replaced)
Interior all cleared out, any ideas on how to get all the heshen strands off? just grind it?
my lovely girlfriend stripping the roof lining, and interior bits and bobs
wiring loom almost out, interesting job that one! probably my favourite thing done so far
all empty! ready to be stripped and primed 😀
same with all the dash components (all of which are fairly clean, will be getting a good polish before re-entering him though)
striping the hood down! very little rust in this at all surprisingly!
all etch primed
and thats where I got to before I left for darwin.
more soon!
Matt
so after moving house, and sitting dormant for a long time I finally got some time over the Easter long weekend to spend some time on my little rust bucket.
Saturday afternoon my girlfriend Emma and I began to take out the windows, managed to get all of them out in about an hour and I should mention without breaking anything at all! ( which we were surprised about :P )
sunday afternoon we got the urge again to go outside and have a play which resulted in the body magically falling off the floor pans! a major accomplishment in my books, after over a year of farting around and putting things off he has finally been seperated from his underside.
which leads me to the best part! driving home from work today I was thinking about where to get my floor pans, classic vee dub has been at the top of my list offering a very good price on pan halves ($102 a side I think) when I arrived home to an early anniversary present from the ever lovely Emma, so hopefully from here on in it will be full steam ahead
[
I still need to get new heater channels and lower covers but they will come in good time, this months project is to have the old floor pans out, remainder of the chassis wire brushed and repainted with a little added rust protection!
hopefully next time it wont take another 6+ months to update :P
thanks for reading!
Matt
Good to see progress like that - and I reckon Emma has got to be a keeper. :-)
From your ole' mate Jeff
you are most certainly right! keeper for sure, always keen to lend a hand 🙂
got a bit of wet weather this weekend and I had a bee in my bonnet to build a dolly to put the body on to keep it off the ground, 80 bucks worth of metal and a few hours later I had myself a dolly.
I had some wheels laying around but unfortunately it will be rolling over grass and gravel they wont do 🙁 will have to get some heavier duty ones.
Matt
Mate, check the creeks and paddocks for stuffed shopping trollys, the wheels are excellent for the dollies. 👍 though you do need to be a bit selective, you need the ones with the full rubbewr tyres, BTW, what happened to the bonnet, one shot it's a nice blue etch prime then it's back to rat. 🤪
I dream of a day when a chicken can cross a road without being asked for it's motive!
will have to keep an eye out for some shopping trolley ones! cheers for that idea, these come of data cabinets (get them free from work) so had to give them a go, as for the bonnet the car sat idle under a tree at mums for a couple of months and in that time managed to re rat itself, will have to strip it again and re do it,
Matt
Hi Matt I have just got 65 bug one of my employees gave me for a birthday present
Yes his employee of the year yours is coming along nicely look forward to more updates
sounds like you have a good staff, id be giving that bloke a promotion :P
Matt
so its been a slack few weeks, I started drilling all the spot welds out, went through a dozen and a half drill bits and i still think that I'm doing it wrong... however a mate put me in the direction of a spot weld drill bit so I've since brought one of those and it seems to go okay..
I've mad a trolley for my welder and gas bottle makes getting it round the backyard/ barn a bit easier needs larger wheels to handle the rocks though...
apart from that I have done a bit of wheeling and dealing somehow managed to get onto Grahame quickly and scored this beast of a 58! It seems very doable to me so looks like ill now have two projects on the go!
more photos to come.
p.s if anybody has a early front cut/clip that they are looking to get rid of (for a reasonable price) in the brisbane/south east qld/ far north nsw region please let me know!
and last weekend a few friends, my girlfriend and I paid a visit to the Gold Coast Vee Dub show at heritage park! had a great day and came home with a few little goodies for myself! I dunno if I paid too much but im stoked with the oval window clip that I scored! by the time it comes to put this bad boy in we will have rewelded a few in!
and to finish a big congrats to my mate Dan for picking up a top 10 place this weekend, I absolutely love this bug! and he is a top bloke too! always good to teach me something and lend a hand picking up bulkier parts :P
I am also searching for a new early chassis around the same area as the front clip, it needs to be a roller with wheels so we can move it around easily, floor pan condition is not a problem ( easy enough to change )
Matt
more progress! the sun poked its head out long enough on sunday for me to pull my finger out and get stuck into these floorpans! managed to get both off in the one go (with lots of work drilling out before hand), I spent about 4 hours drilling out the last of the spot welds and peeling the old pans away! At some point in the next weekend or 2 I'd like to strip the pan down a bit more and get a wire brush onto the remains for a good clean up, will just have to see how lazy I feel 😂
anywho here are some pictures of where I left it sunday arvo.
Matt
Hey Matt Handy hint for next time. do not drill out all the spot welds. just cut as close as you can to the main chassis spline then get under the pan skin and peel it back along the spline. After removing pan metal just grind down spot welds till flat again. This will not weaken your welding area. 👍
Ps Will save a shitload of time too 👍
Customer service is not dead in Australia.
Always after HAZET & MATRA & VW factory tools
Thanks Marcus, definitely wouldn't do it that way again! In the ended I peeled it back. not looking forward to welding all the small holes....
Matt
so I have had this week off of work and managed to make a tiny bit of progress. I have trimmed the floorpans to size and removed the jacking points as I don't plan on using them to actually jack the car up. I'm happy with how they sit but I will leave it a tad longer before I weld them on as they will be outside for a bit longer.
Also if anybody has tips on final fitting of the floor pans ill take any help I can get. Should I sit the body back on and tighten a few of the body to pan bolts back up to ensure everything is aligned properly? or is there a better method?
anywho here is a pic of the new pans.
Matt
So I spent the better part of the morning helping fix my girlfriends 64 but managed to get onto my own rustbucket at about 1, I finally plucked up the courage to weld the new floorpans on and I'm happy with the progress so far! 😀
I have an rdo tomorrow so I'll be going out in the morning to get some seam sealer to finish it up.
At some point in the next fortnight I want to get the gearbox out and take it to be serviced/ checked over so while thats off I will paint the whole floorpan/chassis assembly.
heres a few photos. Enjoy!
Matt
so I spent this morning ( my final day off work 🥲 ) finalizing the welding of the floorpans and seam sealing! went alot better than I thought. the bottom looks like a dogs breakfast but hey! its the bottom and I'd rather it look messy and be sealed than leak water. For the top side I decided I'd tape it up and try to make it alot neater! Im very happy with the results so it was worth the extra time 🙂
I also purchased the paint for the chassis this morning so next weekend I will be stripping the pan down and taking my box off to be serviced, have been told to give Phoenix Engineering a go for the service, does anybody have any experience with these guys?
anywho have some pictures!
also if any mods happen to see this post is there any chance that I can get my thread moved to members rides? please and thank you 🙂
Matt
Did you drill through the new pan halfs and plug weld it,or just tack weld the edges of the pan halfs???
69 Beetle
66 Beetle
56 Beetle
tack welded it to begin with and then when they were held in place i plug welded about 50% of the holes
Matt
No worrys,have you test fitted a seat on the runners,i used the same pans as you but have not yet tested a seat to see how good the runners are.
69 Beetle
66 Beetle
56 Beetle
