I managed to get my hands on a fairly decent 1966 Deluxe. My kids have called him Kirby, but since I'm the one doing the bulk of the work, I'm calling him Frank!
The intention is not to do a full restoration, but to do a period sympathetic body off rebuild with modern updates for safety. Main updates are the front seats, and the wheels. Putting in a pair of BMW E36 coupe seats, and rebanding the wide 5's to 15x6 with staggered offsets to keep the tires inside the guards.
Engine is a 1300SP that runs but with low compression, so will get a rebuild along the way. Minimal rust, just in the rear of both front wheel arches and bottom door hinges, along with a few other repairs, which is to be expected in a 50 year old car!
I'll upload pics as I go, but here are some to get started with. And yes, I'm planning this to be at least a 3 year build.
Cheers, Greg.
nbturbo ·
Welcome to the VW restoration world.The 66 with 1300 is my all time favourite.Will look forward to see how you attack it.
KalgoorlieGreg ·
nbturbo wrote:Welcome to the VW restoration world.The 66 with 1300 is my all time favourite.Will look forward to see how you attack it.
With a couple of welders, a media blaster and a grinder!! 😎👍
KalgoorlieGreg ·
I've just uploaded pictures to my Imgur account. Feel free to check them out.
Looking good- did you machine the centres from the rims?
KalgoorlieGreg ·
Manually with a 5" grinder and 1mm cutting discs, working very carefully. Took about 4 hours per rim to dissect both and combine the wide 5 centres and 6" wide bands.
It's back on the ground now, and I started messing around with fitting the BMW E36 coupe seats. Real easy to make the mounts, and I'll be able to fold up a drawer for under each seat, on ball bearing runners, for a bit of extra storage. And there is just as much, if not more room to access the back seat than the original seats.
Bizarre ·
KalgoorlieGreg wrote:Manually with a 5" grinder and 1mm cutting discs, working very carefully. Took about 4 hours per rim to dissect both and combine the wide 5 centres and 6" wide bands.
GREAT work
have you had them balanced yet?
Heard they are buggers to get done.
Some one was selling special adapters for them to get balanced
KalgoorlieGreg ·
Was going to use the Dynamic Beads for balancing. Unless I machine up an adapter plate at work.
KalgoorlieGreg ·
I have a bit of a technical question. With my seat runners, I've tacked up a quick frame to get my heights and placement sorted. As you can see, I've run my frames across the seats, with the intention of folding up some drawers for under the seats.
Would it be better to have my frames running with the direction of the seat runners, with flat bar running across the seat to join the two halves? This way should give me more height for the drawer, I think.
Got some more done tonight. Getting the seat mounts fabricated.
iob.imgur.com/uYGg/yjZg60X0Iy
Slowly getting there.
KalgoorlieGreg ·
Whoops! Meet Pig, the parts pig. Fibreglass wide guards and whale tail engine lid, jellybean mags and a healthy 1600 dual port. Some bits will be for sale.
Body/pan bolts came out last night. Bondo on where the trim holes were welded up. Repair panels arrived yesterday so have started to mark up for them as well. Hope to have the body off over the weekend.
Thank you! I'm trying to walk the line between too many and not enough. But I'm new to this type of work so taking heaps of pics. Not swearing on the captions is proving to be hard though!
Nice find there with the "Birthmark"... pity to paint over it. 👍
Although having worked with sheet metal for over 60 years, Lysaght CRST is a new one on me, I can't remember seeing that before. I assume it's Cold Rolled Solution Treated, but not really sure. Most common steel sheet used for cars back then was CRCDQ - Cold Rolled Commercial Drawing Quality [now known as CRC].
Keep up the good work. 👍
Burradoo Greg
KalgoorlieGreg ·
Started on the bottom of the engine cover. Not in great shape.
KalgoorlieGreg ·
More work on Frank's vents and rear valance. Damn I hate sanding!!