I have decided to edit this post in order to update the plans for this build as originally it was expected to be a quick freshen up but with the condition of the car and the extent of the work needed to bring it back to life I have decided to go one step further and do a full ground up rebuild.

The car is a 66 type one that has undergone some work by a previous owner, it has a type 2 1500 engine and has been painted yellow, so far I have found rust in the pans, both doors, drivers side a pillar, hood, decklid, and both front guards.

so the plan at this stage is to try and do everything that requires cutting and/or welding within the next 2 months, fit a 4.5" narrowed front beam with shock towers, test fit the car for clearance on air shocks all round, just basicly make sure all the metalwork is tip top all over.

I'll be completly rewiring the car and upgrading the electrics anywhere I can as well as fitting more modern creature comforts.

Air conditioning
power windows
remote central locking
a decent but not over the top sound system
an autometer combination speedometer/tachometer originally designed to fit a harley (it has all the functions you could want for a beetle including warning lights and has a 4.5" mounting diameter so it should go in without too much fuss)
digital fuel guage
dual batteries as the missus and I go to the drive in theartre often and have run our battery down more than once

other mods planned at this stage include a safari windscreen, semaphores, and widening the smoothies on the rear, amongst other ideas that I have yet to investigate.

I don't plan on this car to be a show stopper, but stranger things have happened.

some photo's, first is the sacred signing of the bill of sale

Cool,..
Drive it for a while and enjoy it.
Work out what you want to do and get your budget together before you pull it apart.
Welcome to the bug club.

looks like a great score

Pick your "look" first
then pick the wheels you want

Build your car around that

Will save yourself a lot of grief at the end of a build

ok so it's been delivered thismorning, not quite as mint as i had hoped, the pan seems fine at the moment but the body needs some work.

the shell seems mostly fine tho i can see a few spots coming through in the roof seams and front quarter, but nothing major, most annoying bit is the top hinge of the drivers door.

the semi w deck lid has taken a hit and is a bit rusty, passenger door has a split right below the fold out window, both front guards have tears near the top, hood has some rust around the edges.

so it looks like with the planned cleanup and whatnot this might turn into a body off job, as i'd like to go over the pan with the wire wheel and get everything all shiny and properly coated.

the thing that annoys me the most is that the front seatbelt reels are welded in, now thats not gonna sit well with me, gotta fix that.

so, just found out that this beetle came out with diagonal sash belts not the 3 point retractable type.
so that explains why the retractors have been hard welded into a section of the chopped out floor. that does it, it's full body off rebuild from here, i mean if the builder was dodgey enough to do that, then what else is hiding?

everything is to be stripped bare now so i can inspect and repaint/rust proof the lot.

I've waited a long time to get my hands on one of these, I'm taking no chances.

ok so the plan thus far is as follows.

Tomorrow I'm RDO so I'll begin the teardown removing all bolt on panels and stripping the interior, with a little luck I'll have it ready to lift the body off by the afternoon.

Saturday morning it's off to bunnings to buy a pair of workhorses to sit the body on while I work on the chassis, find any rusty or mutilated bits for the chassis and order them.

while I'm waiting for those I'll source any repair panels needed for the body, only thing I know of on the main body is the upper drivers side hinge mount is fairly rusted so I'll need to find a cut, as it seems only lower hinge sections are available.

if the chassis is fine then it's out with the flap wheel on the grinder and strip the whole thing back for a nice fresh coat of por15.

if you take your time and do a lot of the work yourself $20k should pull it up

lol I plan on spending a lot less than $20k, but I've been building cars since I was 7 thanks to my dad and uncle being hot rodders, always liked to get me involved.

All I have planned at this time modification wise is to slam it on air (without removing torsion beams, car will not be scraping tarmac), satin black spray job, portawalls tyres with a pair of 7"wide smoothies on the rear.

I have a suspicion that the last person who rebuild it fitted an adjustable beam but I'm not sure, the nuts on the beam don't look like any from any set of adjusters I've seen before.

I'll keep the build log up to date tho, however I have to divide my time between this and the missus's TD gemini which we are also in the process of restoring.

Hmm, not really that much to add except to advise on Bunnings workhorses, don't get the elcheapo fold ups, I can tell you from personal experience that they won't support a bug bodey, well not for long , by luck only there was no serious damage when mine colapsed.

ok well it's all bad news, there is MUCH more rust than I had originally found, the pan is not too bad but the body is in pretty poor shape, and not just from rust, it's been chopped and bashed and closed and poorly welded all over the place.

Have decided to just focus on the pan first, when I get paid I'll put a pair of pan halves on backorder with just kampers and continue with the teardown, make a list of everything that's crap and order the pieces in batches when they are needed.

I want this car to last me a long time, so everything needs to be tip top, unfortunatly we were planning on moving, early next year, so I really need to get cracking.

just priced up my first order with just kampers, just over $400 for the first set of repair sections including both floors and lower a pillars. not so bad I suppose.
The missus has been trying to convince me that this is an opportunity to clean it up from top to bottom and get it looking exactly how I want before it hits the streets, she's so smart :P

This is pretty much the plan for it, but throw in some 7" wide smoothies on the rear and some stainless guard trims, and a small air shock system to help with clearance over speed bumps and steep driveways.

Are you planning on puting semaphores in it ???

I would if I could, but I don't think the adr's allow me to use them in a vehicle originally equiped with electronic indicators.

Been done plenty of times before,i have the pillar cuts if your interested let me know.

Awesome

Just so everyone knows, yes, I'm buying the semaphores

so this is as far as I got today before I was atacked by a swarm of hornets, there was a nest of them hanging from the horn that I didn't notice until I went to disconnect the cabling, anyway I had to wait almost an hour before they had calmed down enough to return to the nest so I could dispose of them, I now have to get up early to try and finish removing the passenger side panels and the lids and remove the body bolts so it can be lifted off in the morning.

A group of very helpful forum members came over this morning and helped me remove the body from the pan. with the 2 seperated I can now see the extent of the work needed to get it all repaired.

both pans need replacing as do both the heater channels, both lower a pillars, drivers side upper hinge mount, the front cowling, both lower inner front wheel arches, drivers side rear quarter and the rear apron all need replacing.

both doors also need attention with the passenger side needing a complete reskin, the hood is cracled near the hinges on both sides, the deck lid looks like it might be salvagable with a little bodywork.

so yeah a lot of work, but nothing I wasn't prepared for.

I wan't to fit 3 point seatbelts properly as the previous owner simply chopped out large pieces of the heater channel and b pillar and welded the reels to the floor.

my standing order with justkampers is now over $900 just for the rust repair sections, I also need to take a gander at some later bugs and see if I can use some cuts to repair the lower b pillars while incorporating ptoper seat belt anchorages.

Don't forget to put the filter back on top of the carb as well to stop anything building a nest in there and to help keep water out.

Yogie

What a good effort from the crew that helped DungBeetle, on his slide down the slippery-slope.

ah yeah I'll chuck the filter back on now

Ok Xmas is over and so is the holiday, Finally ready to put the pans on order, so hopefully within the next couple of weeks the pan will be repaired/painted and ready for the slow task of reassembly.

Still trying to find the cheapest place for the pans lol.

cool as build thread. the first pics remind me when i got mine home.

And what is it with the antenna in the roofs lol mikne had that too

Awesome, love your direction with it! Glad you got the semaphores too!

Sigh, unfortunately this is not going to happen, after getting some bad news from work and having another vehicle in need of repair I can't scrape together the finances right now to get this underway.

So it looks like I'm going to have to part it out, as I can't see enyone being interested in the car as a whole with all the work that's required, sucks balls man.

Sad to hear.

All the best mate.

Bugger Allen,
Sorry to hear that mate. You were so excited when we pulled the shell off.
Hope all sorts itself out work wise.