I thought it was about time that I started a build thread for my 76. I've had it for about 2 years now and bought it off a family down in Albury who had owned it about 20 years.
This is my second 76 and the 3rd bug I've owned and was bought for me by my wife for my 40th (that's right getting old).
These pics are what it was like when I bought it.
Apart from the bodykit and wheels it was pretty standard but in good condition apart form the obligatory C-pillar rust.
The basic plan is to build a nice street Beetle with a German Look theme and hopefully a few custom touches that will make it a bit different.
Some of the grunt work has been completed and I'll provide some updates of what has happened to date over the next couple of weeks.
In the mean time any (more) advice and guidance is greatfully appreciated.
1916baja ·
Tidy!
cam070 ·
That's what it did look like. Bodykit and wheels now gone and it will be going back to steel guards and deck lid.
Craig S ·
Photos of what it looks like now please.
What's the suspension and brake plans?
What's the engine going to be?
cam070 ·
Craig S wrote:Photos of what it looks like now please.
What's the suspension and brake plans?
What's the engine going to be?
I will put some more pics and progress up over the weekend.
As for suspension, it will be lowered a little bit, but needs to be practical as I would like to be able to drive it often. I have a front beam with avus style adjusters to go into it. Just need to paint the arms, change the seals and install new ball joints.
As I understand it the front discs are not a bad set up so they will probably stay after an overhaul. But the rear end will get discs. I'm not sure which way to go on those yet.
The plans for the engine are a streetable 1916 with cb performance quicktune efi. But that's a fair way down the track.
It's paint and panel first.....and dealing with rust.
cam070 ·
OK as promised some more progress pic.
I have limited spce to work and store parts, ptherwise would hav taken the body off and wrking on the pa would have been som much more easy. But unfortunately that not the case, so I do what I can, where I can, when I can.
The inside floor was pretty good,so I just stripped it back an gave it the POR15 treatment. These are pics after metal ready prep stage and before painting.
cam070 ·
And here are some pics after painting. The POR15 paint went on and produces a flattering finish.
cam070 ·
And while I was at it, the pedal cluster go the treatment as well. Top pic is the slightly tired looking original state and the bottom is after a clean up and lick of paint.
cam070 ·
Next was the underside of the pan. There wasn't really any rust to speak of, just 30-odd years of dirt and road grime to clean off, as well as thick layer of what seemed to be factory epoxy.
This took quite a lot of time to strip workinh under the car and many nights with a sore neck.
Top is a before pic and below is after paint. Again the POR15 makes me look good!
Ollie ·
Nice work Cam! Great to see a thread on this!
cam070 ·
Ollie wrote:Nice work Cam! Great to see a thread on this!
Cheers Ollie, I thought it was about time to share now that I have made some progress.
cam070 ·
The petrol yank was the next up for some love. The first pic is what it was like when I removed it. The following pics are adter stripping it right back.
cam070 ·
And here is the petrol tank after some POR15 treatment
annosL ·
great work Cam, prepping is the key! appreciate the pics
thebullfrog ·
Nice work, that tank coated in POR looks awesome, will you leave it black?
cam070 ·
thebullfrog wrote:Nice work, that tank coated in POR looks awesome, will you leave it black?
Thanks. Yes tank will remain black and probably be covered by a carpet kit. As will the interior floor.
thebullfrog ·
Nice, very nice. i shall follow this build. was the floor pan and tank the only area's you POR 15 treated. I love how smooth and glossy POR drys (as with KBS).
Jeremy
cam070 ·
thebullfrog wrote:Nice, very nice. i shall follow this build. was the floor pan and tank the only area's you POR 15 treated. I love how smooth and glossy POR drys (as with KBS).
Jeremy
No, plenty more being POR15'ed. Will upload more pics shortly.
david-syd ·
I did the same thing with POR15 in my floor pan. excellent work. I will probably copy your fuel tank
treatment as well.
cam070 ·
david-syd wrote:I did the same thing with POR15 in my floor pan. excellent work. I will probably copy your fuel tank
treatment as well.
Thanks David. More por15 progress to report soon
cam070 ·
OK, this thread is well overdue for an update. While the updates have stalled progress hasn't.
The rear suspension has now been given the POR15 treatment. The first pic shows the rear suspension with possibly 35 years of dirt etc on it and the second, the same section stripped back and ready for paint. These are of the drivers side.
cam070 ·
And here are some pics of the rear suspension all prettied up.
New inner and outer bushes installed and suspension reset 1 outer spline lower. This may change at a later date, but for now, while I'm still likely to be working under the car, a bit of height could be useful,
cam070 ·
And even though I plan to upgrade the rear brakes from drums to discs at a later date, I couldn't bear to reinstall the dirty old drum brake assembly, so that also got a clean and detail.
The first pic is the as-received state and the second the newly detailed state.
cam070 ·
And here is the passenger side rear suspension before shots
cam070 ·
And here are the after shots of the rear suspension painted and detailed rear drum brakes.
Again, innner and outer bushed replaces and reset 1 outer spline lower.
.......and yes, I forgot to put the boots back on the slave cylinder. They will go back on shortly, but no major rush as the car isn't goin to be driven for a while yet.
Craig S ·
Nice work Cam,
I'll have to pay you to paint my pan inside and out 🙂
cam070 ·
Craig S wrote:Nice work Cam,
I'll have to pay you to paint my pan inside and out 🙂
Lol the painting is the easy part. It's the prep that sends you crazy.
Pumba ·
Hey cam is the por15 painted on with a brush,what size can to do floor pan top and bottm ???
cam070 ·
Pumba wrote:Hey cam is the por15 painted on with a brush,what size can to do floor pan top and bottm ???
I would say a 1 litre can would get you by if you just do the floor alone.
After having done the job, I would separate the floor pan and strip whole lot before painting if I was to do it again.
I had some of the internal floor bubble up a bit. I have now re-stripped and and am just waiting for some good weather so I can start the painting process.
And yes, it has all been applied with a brush. I just get cheap brushes from bunnings and toss them after I paint a section.
My other advice is do as they say. Pour the paint into a container rather then painting direct from the can and cover with glad wrap before putting the lid back on. FYI I use cheap aluminium trays to paint from.
The only thing I did differently with the internal floor or top was to wash after marine clean and metal ready prep with a wet rag as the body was on still. All the other sections were hosed off.
Pumba ·
No worrys,my body will be off the pan so should be straight forward.
cheers shane.
cam070 ·
Pumba wrote:No worrys,my body will be off the pan so should be straight forward.
cheers shane.
Shane, FYI I found a radial twisted wire brush tool on an angle grinder to be quite effective for removing dirt and paint.
cam070 ·
As mentioned in previous posts I replaced the inner and outer bushes. Pictured below are the old (left) and new (right) bushes. As you can see the outer bush is somewhat distorted after many years of use.
The new ones were purchased from a popular local retailer. Should the inner bush be non-concentric?
Craig S ·
cam070 wrote:The new ones were purchased from a popular local retailer.
How facetious are you being?
If I know what I'm looking for, I sometimes shop with confidence at one place in Sydney. If I need any help at all, or aren't sure exactly what I'm after, I shop at another, where I know they will sell me the right part for the right job, even though it might cost a little more.
Pumba ·
cam070 wrote:
Pumba wrote:No worrys,my body will be off the pan so should be straight forward.
cheers shane.
Shane, FYI I found a radial twisted wire brush tool on an angle grinder to be quite effective for removing dirt and paint.
Yep got one of them👍
cam070 ·
Craig S wrote:
cam070 wrote:The new ones were purchased from a popular local retailer.
How facetious are you being?
If I know what I'm looking for, I sometimes shop with confidence at one place in Sydney. If I need any help at all, or aren't sure exactly what I'm after, I shop at another, where I know they will sell me the right part for the right job, even though it might cost a little more.
Not trying to be facetious at all. Just trying to say I didn't buy some random parts off e-bay and not wanting to publicly slag off any retailer, especially if these are the correct parts.
1303Steve ·
Hi
The inner stock knobbly rubbers are left and right handed ??? ??? 245 is left and ??? ??? 246 is right.
Looks like the bushes you have are meant for left and right fitments. Are there any markings on them?
Steve
cam070 ·
1303Steve wrote:Hi
The inner stock knobbly rubbers are left and right handed ??? ??? 245 is left and ??? ??? 246 is right.
Looks like the bushes you have are meant for left and right fitments. Are there any markings on them?
Steve
Correct. The nobby bushes only fit right or left. They have a slight taper so will only fit one side.
There were no markings on them to identify them, so it was a quick trial and error scenario.
But my main issue was that the nobby bushes seem to be non-concentric, while the original ones and the outer ones are concentric.
1303Steve ·
Hi
On every car I've fitted new bushes to I only fit one pair of urethane bushes, either inner or outer.
With most lowered cars your always fighting excessive negative camber, so maybe fitting your knobbly bushes with the fat side down would help this.
Steve
Aussie Dubbin ·
Do yourself a favour and grease all the bolts before they go back together. I used graphite grease and it makes life a dream when pulling down in future. Looks great
cam070 ·
1303Steve wrote:Hi
On every car I've fitted new bushes to I only fit one pair of urethane bushes, either inner or outer.
With most lowered cars your always fighting excessive negative camber, so maybe fitting your knobbly bushes with the fat side down would help this.
Steve
Thanks for the tip Steve but they only seem to go in 1 way so I'll just have to see how camber comes out. But with IRS, should camber be an issue?
cam070 ·
Just before Christmas, I got to work on the bits of the pan that i could not access while the body was on and with drive train in place. These have now been removed so I can gain access to the frame horns.
I also wasn't happy with how the inside floor turned out so stripped it back and painted it again.
With a lack of space in my garage I moved operations to the foot path outside my house and made use of a council object which allowed better all round access.
cam070 ·
With regards to the inner floor sections I wasn't happy with, I think the problem was that I did these with the body on (note to self if I ever do this again, take the body off, it's so much easier). In doing so I was not able to hose it all off when doing the POR15 degrease and rust converter steps. While they recommend using wet rags to clean surfaces, I think some residue may have remained, resulting in some bubbling.
Anyway, all has now been re-painted, and I can finally start re-assembling some stuff.
cam070 ·
This section is a bit out of order.
At the end of Nov, we separated the body from the pan so it could be sent to be soda blasted.
This allowed me access to the framehead section and the areas where the body mates to the floor.
Here are some progress pics of that sections, first a before, then stripped and then POR15'ed.
cam070 ·
And here is the body, all strapped up and ready to go to be blasted.
It was a miserable night
cam070 ·
The body is back from the soda blaster. It's all now in etch primer and you can see the guards in some of the prrevious pics.
The body however has been covered ever since returning home and we had to build an emergency "blue room" at the back of the garage as the weather has been so bad.
So we now have kind of a double/tandem garage. Not sure if this will add to our real estate value......
cam070 ·
Updates on this build thread are well overdue. Work has been progressing and parts gathering on overseas trips has also been taking place to minimize transport costs.
The pan is basically done, with new hard brake lines all installed.
The following pics are way out of sequence, but work on nthe body has commenced. The body was soda blasted but sat for a few months, so we dicided to rub it all back just in case. There were a few small dents to smotth out, but the front and roof are now ecth primed and ready for primer.
cam070 ·
Here are my 36 year old Girling calipers after pulling them off. 2 of the pistons were seaized, maybe from having sat for so long idle.
They look a bit sorry and neglected.
cam070 ·
Here's how they look now, complete with fresh piston seals and dust caps.