The \'56 Oval Project

Right I thought I’d finally get off my arse and post some pics of my ’56 oval project. After looking for the right Oval for the right price for several months, I finally scored a ’56 model (thanks Nathan :thumb). Originally I planned on doing a full resto on an oval, however given the condition of this one was so original, I became a little undecided as to what to do.

The ’56 is mostly in its original paint with minor parking dings only, minimal rust (other than surface rust!) and the original interior (except the front seats). Its a great base for a restoration, but it seems like a shame to make it all ‘new’ again, so instead I’ve drawn inspiration from Martin Henriksson’s ’55 project (meanbugs.com) and Andy Ham’s ‘Bitch’ ’59 project (restowagenUK.com).

The plan is to remove the body, powdercoat the pan, paint all the suspension components, replace all the brake components with new parts, tie-rods, link-pins, king-pins, underbody items, new rubber seals, refresh the 36hp engine, convert to 12 volt, drop it a few notches at the rear, lowered CB spindles, plus a narrowed front beam with adjusters. Still undecided about what wheels to roll at this point.

“Let the games commence!”….









Surely this means it was only ever driven to church on Sunday’s……..🙂

:o Probably should be in Members Rides section...... Can this thread be moved??

Noice, it needs to be lowered.

Damn that is awesome. Best find I've seen on here for a while. Where do you get one of those? Who's Nathan? I want his number - haha.

I like it, good base for that style of project....good luck with it and chuck up some more pics as it comes along.

congrat's looks like a absolute gem

paint don't need no stinking paint it's like chrome hurts ya eyes should be baned

Goddam, that is a gorgeous thing! One of the most beautiful ovals I've seen.
Will be watching progress closely!

nice... it would look so much better all shiney though dont wat you guys get out of rusty slammed cars LOL

holy sh#t the paint on that thing looks amazing PLEASE dont paint it ever.
great score.

Still got that sweet 54 356?

Nice score:thumb

Reub - the '54 has been sold to a good home to make way for this project 😵‍💫

Good to hear you have started on it mate.
Didn't take long for me to fill her space in the shed after she was gone. LOL

A SET OF PPQ WOULD SUIT IT NICELY.....
CARE TO BY THE ONE I HAVE FOR SALE?/????
OVA156

Body Removal from Pan

The body is now off the pan. If anyone’s interested, the link below provides an excellent step by step guide for anyone considering removing the body from the pan:

http://www.wolfsburgwest.com/wired/wired_03_02/wired_03_02.htm

This was a pretty straight forward process (to get it off at least) – I did it with a mate in an afternoon, although I had gone around and WD-40’d all the bolts several times in the days leading up to doing this). Getting it back on the pan, I suspect, will be a little more challenging. Here it is once the body was off

IMG]http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j312/Nevada51/tn_IMG_0898-1.jpg[/IMG]

Note the ultra rare VW accessory – the disco mirror ball (note to self: always check what’s above you before lifting the body….fortunately it hit the ground and not the car when it fell).

The next step was the disassembly of the pan. To make the whole assembly process a little easier, I’ve bagged and labelled all the bolts and small parts so I actually know what goes where when I go to put it all back together (well that’s the theory anyway 🙂).

Here it is in the process of disassembly. The project supervisor was keeping a close watch…..



I’ve tried to take as many detailed shots of things along the way so I have a reference when I go to put it all back together.

The pan has now been sent to be media blasted so I can assess how much rust repair is required (there is a small amount just forward of the battery tray, but not much else that I can see).

Numerous parts have also been sent to be stripped and are now awaiting powdercoating.

D'oh - here's the first pic in the above post.....:duh

Good work mate - best of luck with the hard work which lays ahead! 👍

Rust Repairs - Pan

I finally received the pan back from blasting and it did not reveal any surprises – just the rust around the battery tray area - the rest of it appeared really solid. I didn’t want to go with a repro pan section as the pressing is different and the metal gauge is thinner than the original pans…..plus I am wanting to keep the car as original as possible 🙂 so a replacement section was/is required.

Here’s the pan in the process of being measured up for a new (old) section.



As you can see above, the battery tray area had been repaired at some stage in the past and wasn’t too bad, but the blasting did show the metal was very thin in this area so rather than do a half arsed job of it, a replacement was considered necessary.

Here’s the pan after the installation of the battery tray area – thanks for doing this Nathan, quality job so far :thumb



Forward of the new section you can see where attempt was made to weld up the holes that were existing, however the metal was so thin the welder kept blowing holes in the metal. So I'm now after a second-hand section as shown below. If anyone has a section like the highlighted section in the photo below or knows where I could get one from, please send me a u2u :thumb

Hows the grinding going mate?

BUGBOY wrote:Hows the grinding going mate?

Grinding is now complete - thanks for your assistance on this :thumb. The pan is now at the powdercoaters to be zinc'ed and powdercoated.

Other parts, including axle tubes, spring plates, pedals, etc, etc are all awaiting powdercoating also.

Bolts are getting plated at the moment also. I deliberated over coatings for ages and have finally gone with zinc.

I haven't even given the engine situation much thought yet, but I plan on getting the exhaust and heater boxes ceramic coated in the next few weeks, as well as the engine tin powdercoated (satin or gloss black??). I think I'm keeping the powdercoater in business at the moment..... 🙂

Pan

The pan rust repair has now been completed and has now been zinced and powder-coated in gloss black and it looks awesome . I had the pan blasted and powder-coated at A-Class Powder Coating in Moorabbin for a very reasonable price – significantly less than if it was professionally sprayed, but more expensive than brushing on POR-15.



If you are considering powder-coating your pan, you might like to do something about the chassis number before you get it done as mine has almost disappeared!

Here’s some of the other parts I had powder-coated.

Bolts

All the undercarriage bolts and washers have now been zinc plated. Pretty reasonable price of $40 for a can of bolts at Andrews Metal Finishing in Moorabbin. Other bolts such as spring plate cover bolts, fender bolts and interior shifter and pedal bolts are stainless items from Coventry Fasteners….not so cheap at around $1.50 per bolt…...

Door Cards

There is nothing worse in an interior than crappy door cards, so in the spirit of trying to keep most things original on the car (and as the original vinyl and piping was in great shape) , whilst tidying it up a little, I had the original vinyl and piping removed from the cards and put onto new card with plastic backing. No pic, but you all know what great looking door cards look like :thumb

Dasdubber wrote:Good work mate - best of luck with the hard work which lays ahead! 👍

"hard work which lays ahead" - you're not wrong 🙂 This is my first semi-serious project and I must admit I didn't think there'd be this much stuffing around involved (it all looked so easy on paper LOL). Its amazing how when the car is in bits and the body's off the pan your mind starts to think "well I might as well do x to it while its all apart"......

Pan looks sweet....thinking of the same for when I start on my 56 oval....

wow ,looked scary at first "ive started in a similar fashion once before" a few pics later man your on a roll, looks great

I like shiny.
Looks grest mate!

It'll all be worth it in the end !!

Cheers Nick:thumb

Inspirational. Looking forward to watching this come come togther. Best of luck.

b]CLR[/b]
An update on my slow progress so far.

I’m currently in the process I tidying up the inner guard sections and interior paint work. I’ve been using CLR to get rid of the surface rust in these areas. Here’s a comparison shot – guess where the CLR has been applied!



After CLR I plan on using a rubbing compound, followed by polish to restore that factory shine on (what’s left of) the factory paint, on the undersides of the car - I don't think I'll touch the patina yet 🙂

Exhaust & Muffler

Initially I planned on getting the exhaust system ceramic coated, but after much research I decided to go with POR-15 Hi Temp paint instead. Whilst the POR-15 is not cheap, it was about a quarter of the cost of ceramic coating. I understand that this stuff works really well if the surfaces are prepared well, so I had the exhaust system powdercoated and then I sprayed on the Hi Temp paint.

Assembly

I've been a bit tied up with work lately so not much progress has happened on the assembly, but heres a couple of shots of the rear so far.



Putting stuff together thats really clean on a car is great, but the downside is that you don't want to scratch anything while doing so. I'm glad this isn't a show car, as that would add another level of difficulty to the project :duh



That's more POR-15 Hi Temp paint on the drums. I was going to go with black, but I had heaps of the silver left from the exhaust, so I thought what the hell.

Next step will be to assemble the rear brakes...and take off the bearing on the left rear wheel as I forgot to put the spacer behind it didn't I. D'oh! D'oh! D'oh!

Looking good mate - very tidy work!

Nice to see the Bellamy's tins in use, you'll have heaps of em mate so don't be scared to chuck em out. LOL

BUGBOY wrote:Nice to see the Bellamy's tins in use, you'll have heaps of em mate so don't be scared to chuck em out. LOL

But they're so good for storing stuff in!

The pan is progressing, brakes are coming together, new heater cable, accelerator cable, clutch cable all now fitted. Clutch cable was a b!tch to install, and thats without the body fitted. Not looking forward to changing it on the side of a road one day. Makes me think I should have put an access hole in the tunnel before getting it painted...but then it would have been original would it! Next on the agenda is the front brakes and bending the brake lines - hopefully this weekend..... I plan on overtaking Craig's build in VWMA 🙂

Dasdubber wrote:Looking good mate - very tidy work!

Thanks mate - your green beetle was awesome and the Type 3 is looking great too - it needs to be slammed with some earlies on it :thumb

A quick update - I've assembled the front brakes - new shoes, new wheel cylinders, new german master cylinder - and have just about completed installing the brake lines. Doing the brake lines is a real PITA - I can only imagine what it would be like to do while the body is on the car! Bending the lines was relatively straight forward - did it by hand (thumbs :thumb :thumb are killing me today though). Not sure about other brands but I used Wolfsburg West lines, really good quality lines, but it seemed that none of them were the correct length (yep I ordered the correct kit) which, combined with bending the lines in 4 dimensions (the fourth dimensiion did come in to play I am sure), added to my frustration.

Still looking for a piece of heater channel and green front seats - see my wanted ads 🙂. Am also looking for a master cylinder push rod (bit that attaches to the pedal cluster and pushed the brake master cylinder in. u2u me if you can help out with any of these things. Cheers, Cam.

Was the kit you got for RHD or was it a LHD kit you ended up with?

I'll have a brake cylinder plunger rod for you here.

BUGBOY wrote:Was the kit you got for RHD or was it a LHD kit you ended up with?

I'll have a brake cylinder plunger rod for you here.

You're the man Nathan - I'll fix you up for it when I get the semaphores.

Re the brake lines, it was from WW so one would assume LHD but everything should flip fine I would have thought.

Its been a long tine since the last post and, well, things are progressing veerrrry slowly. Here's some pics of the heater channel repair. Fortunately there was only one section at the right hand rear side that needed to be replaced. Here's a pic of the body on Nathan's rotisserie in the process...



Heater channel in the process of being clamped up ready for welding:



After welding - didn't get a bare metal shot but thanks to Bugboy's welding skills there ain't no filler involved in this repair at this point 👍

Next on the agenda was installing the engine, however I've run in to a problem whereby the small riser tube from the exhaust at the left hand side hits on the heater tin (where the screwdriver sits in the photo below. WTF is that about?? Its a 36hp exhaust and original tinware - Any suggestions would be appreciated!



Hopefully the car will be driving by Christmas - this has got to be the worlds longest rat build....

Slow progress is still better then no progress dude.
Will all be worth it in the long run.
Looks great so far 👍 (would still rather an early 356 though 😀)

Thanks Reub - I would have to agree on the 356 call - I want a Speedster next 👍

Speedsters are nice...but I'd have a coupe anyday instead...😀
One day...I wish...volksies are here to stay in my household I think...

A quick update - the body is back on the pan at long last, the engine is back from being overhauled and in the car - a few minor pieces to go before I can finally drive it. Firewall deadener material (what was left of it) was removed and the firewall polished - photos don't do it justice



The wonders of CLR. Check out the difference in these rear guards 👍 one on the left looked just like the one on the right before hitting it with some CLR and rubbing compound and polish.

Nice. What's the other oval tucked away in the shed?

That'd be Bugboys oval rag project - my shed's only built for one 🙂

Great work so far mate....👍

Its been a long time between posts, so a quick update is in order. After setting myself a deadline of getting the car on the road by the time we moved out of our place, I ended up puching that deadline to the limit and got it registered the morning the removalists came round to take our stuff to our new place.

The car needed some new rear tyres for the RW so had to mount these on the rear....





So itended up looking like this when going for the registration inspection:

The first order of business after registration was sorted was to lose the Baja height, this called for a 4.5" narrowed front beam (with shock towers) - thanks Nathan 👍.



If you ever wondered what a Michelin 155 on stock wheel looked like on a narrowed beam (well I never did, but I guess someone might!), this is it:





This set up scrubbed on the outside of the guard and the headlight bucket on one side running this set up. Due to lack of spare time I have had to drive the car around like this (ie ridiculous rake look) for the last month or so.

Yestderday, I finally got around to mounting the front wheels (with Continental 145-65-15's), and lowering the rear.





Check out the ride height!! Its now a little low for my liking, but the beam is set up on its highest adjuster, so my only option would be to mount the stock spindles and lower the beam. I guess I'd get a little bit more tuck to the fron wheels if I did that.

Looks the buisness 👍
Simon

Finally got around to some more posting some more pics

Looks very sweet mate....👍
...still loved your 356 though 👍

Wow :o You've put a hell of a lot of work into this one, mate. Sets the standard for all the patina'd cars out there 👍

Great to see a Rat done properly.

Very nice

Again, well done and thanks for the PM reply bout the rear tyres. Is it possible to get a photo of the narrowed beam and where the upper shock mounts sit in relation to the body. I have a 2" narrowed beam on mine and the uppers just miss the inner guard area. Do yours now sit inside the inner guards, like under the fuel tank area??? I have no idea.

Thanks, Kev.

wooooooow Nevada you must be happy with that, it looks awesome! I love the roof rack! 😁

Wow such an awesome car.😀
Am loving this.

Well done.

Thanks for the replies. For the sake of completeness the tyre combo is 145-65-15 Continentals on the front and 205-65-15 Yokohama A Drives on the rear. Glad I didn't go any wider on the rear as I reckon I may have run into scrubbing issues and might have been borderline unroadworthy prior to the rear drop. No scrubbing at all at the front 🙂 Would have liked to have run Michelin 135's on the front, but was concerned about having the rim too exposed to curb rash so the 145s were the way to go. They would provide some much needed height at the front though.....

Kev, I'll take a pic of how the beam sits near the inner guard on the weekend. It was a tight fit, but no body mods are required. Despite it being so low, it handles a treat. The beam rides pretty stiff, but I have brand new oil filled shockers on the front which doesn't help. Apparently worn shockers are the way to go.

vwkg: You've got an awesome car there (I think it appears in the background of a few of my pics on this post 🙂)

Thanks Nevada.🙂
Yep, I did spot my car in the back of those photos, recognised the location from some I was sent before I bought it.

Credit to you. Lovely ride.

So its been a while since my last post 🙂 I am thinking of trying to preserve the paint somehow. After hitting it with some CLR and elbow grease I am thinking of either:
a) Ankor Wax; or
b) Clear coat.

Interested to hear if anyone has had any experience with either option, or has any other suggestions for how to preserve the OG paint. Have heard that Ankor Wax is not good if you want to respray the car at some point in the future, but I find that hard to believe if you prepped the body properly. Gut feel on the clear coat tells me that this might have its shortcomings too, and it may only prove a temporary measure. Any links regarding experiences with either option would be appreciated.

Looks great, love the height. I would think the both have plus and minuses. I would think you would have to keep topping up the wax and that the clear would stick. I would go wax. If you were to paint it you would strip it bare anyway? no?
T54

Right I have decided to take the Ankor Wax route and have started with the CLR, but have now been sidetracked by a canary on the car yesterday. My friendly local policeman slapped it on it whilst it was parked at the train station. What a top bloke - didn't even get to talk to him. Apparently its too low (100mm minimum ground clearance - and by my tape measure, its 100mm. Clearly its a different 100mm to what the police use - 'kin idiot, I had previously spent the best part of a day sorting out the ride height so I am confident its fine). Also stated that it needs a drivers side mirror (was never a requirement in 1956. Again, 'kin idiot). Also said the drivers seat needs to be repaired. Given the policeman in question didn't give me the courtesy of talking to me, I have no idea what is wrong with it - it hasn't changed since the RW last June.

Right, now that I've got that off my chest, I can continue with the cutting and polishing...I would say after I've sorted out the RW items, but hey, there's nothing that needs doing other than going and getting the certificate. What a wanker!

Nevada51 wrote:Right I have decided to take the Ankor Wax route and have started with the CLR, but have now been sidetracked by a canary on the car yesterday. My friendly local policeman slapped it on it whilst it was parked at the train station. What a top bloke - didn't even get to talk to him. Apparently its too low (100mm minimum ground clearance - and by my tape measure, its 100mm. Clearly its a different 100mm to what the police use - 'kin idiot, I had previously spent the best part of a day sorting out the ride height so I am confident its fine). Also stated that it needs a drivers side mirror (was never a requirement in 1956. Again, 'kin idiot). Also said the drivers seat needs to be repaired. Given the policeman in question didn't give me the courtesy of talking to me, I have no idea what is wrong with it - it hasn't changed since the RW last June.

Right, now that I've got that off my chest, I can continue with the cutting and polishing...I would say after I've sorted out the RW items, but hey, there's nothing that needs doing other than going and getting the certificate. What a wanker!

Mate, you should look up Policeman in the dictionary. The definition will state 'see Wanker' 🙂
Just like QLD police have nothing better to do than play with speed camera's. 🤪

Nevada51 wrote:Right I have decided to take the Ankor Wax route and have started with the CLR, but have now been sidetracked by a canary on the car yesterday. My friendly local policeman slapped it on it whilst it was parked at the train station. What a top bloke - didn't even get to talk to him. Apparently its too low (100mm minimum ground clearance - and by my tape measure, its 100mm. Clearly its a different 100mm to what the police use - 'kin idiot, I had previously spent the best part of a day sorting out the ride height so I am confident its fine). Also stated that it needs a drivers side mirror (was never a requirement in 1956. Again, 'kin idiot). Also said the drivers seat needs to be repaired. Given the policeman in question didn't give me the courtesy of talking to me, I have no idea what is wrong with it - it hasn't changed since the RW last June.

Right, now that I've got that off my chest, I can continue with the cutting and polishing...I would say after I've sorted out the RW items, but hey, there's nothing that needs doing other than going and getting the certificate. What a wanker!

I would like to know how things turn out with the Ankor Wax. Thinking of using the same stuff on my car. Where did you get it from?