Hi guys,

So after umming and aaaahing whilst collecting parts for my '59 rag over the last 6 months I found that I was lacking in some focus and drive.
I've owned over 35 cars in the 14 years i've had my licence, had cars in magazines, shows etc etc so when I get into a project, I get through it quick and there's no messing about, so I couldn't understand why I couldn't get really into my rag this year.

After much forum surving, 'The Day Of VW' last year and meeting up with a few of the Luft boys over the last few months I worked out that i've really been lusting over an early oval.

About 2 months ago I started doing some research and settled on a '54 model year and commenced my passive search. Finally I came across one with the right credentials on ebay, right location and 3 days of negotiating resulted in a trip to Geelong on Monday just past.

The vendors starting bid of $6500 was more than I wanted to spend but after he relisted it 3 times over 2 months without much luck and a few sale fall throughs I came along and nailed the seller to the boards with careful negotiating and I picked her up for a steal (with an old flat screen LCD TV that we no longer needed used as a bargaining chip) and sealed the deal around midday Monday.

Armed with a mates turbo diesel Navara we set off to pick her up before someone could bid from under me, because as you all know, no matter what is said verbally, it ain't yours till the keys are in your hand!

The pics below tell the story!
Saddled up and ready to head home:











Finally home, drove it from the street down the driveway to its new berth next to Berg the Rag '59:





Chillin'




The rag has been spoken for as of last night, and the new owner should be picking him up on Thursday.
As soon as I return from overseas in May, I will get straight into the oval with gusto!

Update time

So we have finally launched the Oval resto officially as of the weekend! We moved the car from its storage and sent it to my Dad's garage where we have a double garage of space for the next two months, so we have to work smooth and quick.

Saturday and I managed to spend 2 hours on the Oval, but I made sure that it was as productive.
Everything went pretty smoothly bar the door hinges, lots of rusty door hinge screws that even gentle manipulation with a impact driver can't seem to budge Fun times ahead no doubt!

Plenty of WD40 on all the pan bolts before I left to soak overnight, hopefully not too much drama to undo.


As he sits at 6pm today:








The pics tell the story


Lots of old sound deadening, fun times to be had there!









Finally, body off after what seemed like a long time judging by the pan seal and rusted condition of the pan bolts. Didn't break any though, but some came close:








Beam and front end removed:






Ye Olde 36HP anchor



All the bits and pieces




Bare pan







Body pushed out onto the driveway waiting for the towie








Loaded up and ready to head to the sand blasters







Finally dropped off at the blasters ready for paint stripping





Been a good couple of weekends but glad its finally well on its way. Once blasted, body and parts will be 2k etch primed and delivered to my panel beaters for rust repair and painting

Hopefully there will still be some metal left after blasting!

Now one interesting thing that I found when I removed the motor, was evidence of what I think could have been an exploding flywheel or clutch assembly at some point in its life.

These pics show circular shape scoring marks on the inside of the bellhousing and one piece actually has punched a hole through the metal of bellhousing leaving a small and jagged hole.

I've loaded fairly large pics to show detail, so i'll use thumbnails to make it friendlier (simply click on the thumbnail, then click it again when it loads on the imageshack page to view it in full size):







Car drove fine before I pulled it apart, so i'm assuming it happened previously. Is it something to worry about? I'm guessing it won't affect future operation of the clutch, and I could just get the hole welded, ground down and forget it ever happened, but I thought i'd mention it in case anyone had any other ideas or suggestions.

is that a 12volts starter motor ???
I would put a newer gear box in it to make it nicer to drive with out having to crunch in first all the time.

Looks a nice project base there. What are your plans - stock resto or other.......

Cheers, Ian

Yeah someone has clearanced your bell housing with a grinder.
12 volt ring gear may have been used at some point, (perhaps still)
and is larger in diameter than the original 6 Volt one.
Starter has to be changed too, and may still be a 12V one also.

Well have been busy with work so haven't had a chance to update this thread with new pics, but will keep them regular from now on

Body, hang on's, and pan have been blasted and 2k etched in January, some pics below.
The pan was almost perfect, no holes in the halves, slight pitted on them, but nothing major at all, very strange considering the lower inch of the Oval is rusted right round!

Lower firewall area on body, heater channels, under seat supports, rear apron, front tyre well and front right inner guard. The front right inner guard was the worst, and have had a dodgy repair from a previous accidents, as was some filler in the rear drivers quarter.
Upper half is great, with slight pin holes in oval window area and lower windscreen corners.

All in all i'm fairly happy with what was under the paint, but now the fun (and $$$) begins!



When we arrived to pick him up:






Locked and loaded:






In transit:




Landed at my panel shop:

Fast forward to the end of Jan and work has well and truly started on sorting the body, as the pan won't require much at all.

First off, tackling the front inner driver side guard which was going to prove a lot of work straightening out the creases, folds and hits.








The decision was made to try and find some clean straight OG metal in the form of a donor oval front clip, which was kindly supplied by Rick, thanks mate

Front clip was sent to the blasters and seems to be fairly good, especially in the wheel well area that we needed with no previous accident damage and minimal rust in the required area.

New rear apron, front apron, spare wheel well, rear quarters, under seat supports and j-tubes were sourced from Woffe at http://wolfparts.com/ who was absolutely stellar to deal with, and whilst not the cheapest of repro metal available, certainly from all accounts the best repro quality from the extensive research I did both on The Samba and also speaking to other Aussies who had used him metal. Even my panel beater was impressed with how solid and well formed the pieces were.

New rear apron and quarters fitted, inner side engine trays from Autocraft and you can just see the KlassicFab early Oval heater channels on the ground ready to fit:








My panel beaters sense of humour:





Dodgy front drivers quarter removed ready for straight OG metal donor:





Door/shell supports were welded in place before heater channels were replaced:

wow great work!
keep going

Damn thats a serious resto! that "ye old 36 hp motor" looks like a "ye new 36 hp motor"....

Looking good D!!

Cant wait to see the next round of updates.

That looks familiar
A rotisserie just makes all the difference
Cheers
D

woa, when i first saw this car i thought "damn wish mine was as good as that". it goes to show what a blast will do to a car!

Nice project Dino. I know exactly where your at with yours. I have just bought quarters, Jtubes and rear apron from wolf also. Just waiting for them to arrive.
When removing my rear clip I uncovered bad repairs and a vast amount of filler in a very bashed apron.
Glad to see the panels are good quality, they cost enough!
Keep it moving.
T54

Good to see the progress is continuing Dinesh, glad to see the Klassic Fab heater channels got there okay.
Give us a call when you are back in town
Cheers
Al (DAS Resto Parts)

Update time:

So all this time I thought I had a late 36HP engine going off the small nut pulley and a couple of minor details and had been keeping an eye out for a decent early big nut 36HP in the matching date range of my Sept '54 built Oval.

One thing i'd never done is actually check my engine number to see what year the block was (just figured small nut = late model motor) and did so today.

Engine number is: -1-0846355

Now according to this reference:
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/archives/info/bugchassisdating.php 

It turns out that my motor is actually a late-ish August 1954 engine (numbers are last build in the month) in my September '54 body!
You can imagine how happy I was to learn that the engine I have could very well be the original motor as it is period correct

Some detail pics:













Thanks to a few of the Melburg Luft fellas, they have pieced together the good and the bad with what items i'll need to make it perfectly period correct.

These include:
Generator pulley & nut (54/55 pulleys haven't got those two tabs that stick through)
Round voltage regulator
Air filter (could be some discussion here: I think the type I have are for the 56 year model & maybe 57 year model)
Coil and coil bracket
Oil filler should be the slip on type with a hold down clip.

Hey Dino, good news with the engine number. I have one of he 54 oil breathers that I am using on my turbo motor for a bit of period fun. I don't have the spring clip that holds it down. If you hear of someone making them or someone who has a spare please let me know. I will have a look through my spares, I think I have a 54 filter somewhere.
T54

Some more progress pics of the body with various repairs done using new sheet metal from Wolf Parts in Sweden and KlassicFab early heater channels:















Still a long way to go but great to see progress nonetheless!

Some pics of the floor pan progress from April, which brings us up to date finally

So whilst enduring my long and painful wait for my body work to be completed I thought i'd treat myself
to something i've wanted for quite a while, after long negotiations on price and handing over some folding,
this arrived today!




Specs on my kit:

- Fully rebuilt Compressor with new George Folchi Vanes
- New top and Bottom Pulley as well as cover plate
- New Air Cleaner
- New High Pressure spring for the std fuel pump
- New main jet
- Fully rebuilt as new 28pict carby with Accelerator Cable linkage for Judson
- As New Judson Magneto
- New Old Stock Marvel Oiler and feeder line
- New Belts
- New Badge

To say i'm excited is an understatement

Very cool!

I am looking forward to seeing this one come together

Hi Dino, love the car mate. Looks like it will be a great build. I bought Calcools 55, wish I could have taken the Judson too but the wallet didn't stretch that far. Good luck with the progress.

Cheers,

John.

Mmmmmhmmmmmmm, loving this

Crack that whip mate get those boys sanding. Looks like its coming along nicely.

Small update for July 2012:


Picked up this NOS Fram F3-P with box from Oliver in EU.
Will have to organise Judson friendly oil lines and cooler from Stephane.

Small update

Both heater channels are done, so lower 2 inches of the car all sports fresh metal courtesy of KlassicFab & Wolf parts.
No filler anywhere yet and all the metal is pretty damn smooth and in shape nicely, so should only be skim coats used before paint.

One thing i've always lusted after were a set of the original Airevo 17" radars I saw on the Samba, but the price was always too much for the pocket at around 950Euro a set, NOT including postage from Belgium where the manufacturer is.

Fast forward to a month ago, and 3 weeks of emails back and forth between Mr Airevo himself, Leslie Aerts the last two new sets of polished Airevo 17" radars in his stockpile left Begium on a ship.
I was stoked as they are not going to produce them anymore, and grabbed the last sets at an amazing price I couldn't refuse.
He also mentioned they are the only sets he's ever sent to Australia, so its nice to have something that isn't common (which has always been a bit of an obsession for me) and will fit nicely.

The quality of them is amazing, and I compared them to a friends CIP style radars and they are like chalk and cheese.
17" x 7" ET20 which allows Oval fitment without spacers/or axle extensions in the rear seals the deal!







Same wheels:


A quest for perfection has pushed me to really try and make this Oval something special that I can be proud of and do it once, and do it right Starting to get a little excited now!

Another update for the followers of my build thread.

I have ordered a new 3-fold rag top kit from John Alba at www.vwsunroofs.com for my '54 after plenty of research, looking forward to its arrival in November to complete my build! Pics to come!

So it's been a while between drinks and a lot has happened in the last 3 months.
In short, I went overseas for a few weeks, got engaged and bought a new house with the lady.
We settled on Nov 2nd, and I have been working on the house ever since painting, patching, etc etc.

But, I have been keeping an eye on progress and also collecting more parts for the assembly stage


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It's coming together very nicely and there is a light at the end of the tunnel which is great.
Some goodies i've collected in anticipation:


- CB Performance 2.5" dropped front disc kit (wide 5)
- CB Performance wide 5 rear disc kit
- Wolfsburg West triple chrome blade bumpers front and rear:

RHD Cruiser pedal (thanks D-train!):




Also a fully restored September '54 VDO speedo from Thorsten @ vw-museum (http://120kph.twoday.net/) who i've dealt with previously and does amazing work.


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My 3-fold sunroof is also finished and will be shipping shortly. Owner, John Alba of Grumpy's Metal has been fantastic to deal with over the last 3 months -(www.vwsunroofs.com) and i'm looking forward to seeing it in the metal!


The colour will be L227 Strato Silver and i've ordered a blue stayfast canvas sunroof top, with gray headliner inside.

I'd really like to find a set of OG early Oval pop-outs, but they are rare as hens teeth and just as expensive!
The difference between split/early oval pop-outs, and later pops are:


Split and early oval Beetle (pre mid 55) is the rare flat frame as pictured here:






The ribbed frame came later, which is the more common one to see and find:

That is a great colour you have chosen.