Post by Volktales on Oct 18, 2014 15:13:39 GMT -8
Ok, I have made my mind up about the next step forward in my project... As previously mentioned I have three 1970 Beetles, of which I should be able to make two decent cars from the parts. While stripping the "parts" car I decided the chassis was salvageable and only needs floorpans to be good.
Because of this, my first part of the '70 resurrection will be to brush up on my welding skills and install new floor pans (the heaviest gauge available).
This car has been off the road for 18 years and looks it!
I had hoped it was posible to sneak the floor pans in without separating the body from the chassis but this turned out to be impossible. The pans are spot welded to the centre tunnel on a thick metal flange and are easy to access. There is a sneaky seam weld located at the front of the pan at the outer edge under the body. Also the rear part of the body covers a short section of weld at the tunnel edge too. So there was no choice but to remove the body! For a car with heavily corroded heater channels, the bolts all undid without drama. Only the two rear mount bolts located by the rear shocks broke (not surprising as they marinate in mud for years) . The car was already missing the complete interior, glass, fenders/bumpers, etc, so stripping the remains didn't take too long. Dont forget to undo the steering column coupler and speedo cable at the wheel end. I chose to remove the doors to make it lighter to lift the body and not surprisingly the bolts were siezed solid. Eventually seven of them gave in to the borrowed impact driver, but I had to drill out the remainaing five of the damn things before the doors would part from the car. The body is now ready for lift off!
Oops! Alloy was amazingly corroded.
This car had all the "M" codes written by a factory worker under the hood. My other two cars of the same year and model don't have these listed.
For those of you who may not know (or care), "M" codes are Volkswagen internal codes for extra factory installed equipment over the "basic" beetle. These are not really like options, but more like required equipment for different markets. For this example "M23" refers to sealed beam headlights, turn signals with side marker lights, red tailights, padded dashboard, safety armrests, dual circuit brake warning light, integrated backup lights, warning buzzer for key in ignition, no headlamp flasher or park light indicator. "M89" is laminated windshield. "M102" is heated rear window. "M206" is anti-dazzle rear view mirror. "M157" is engine equipped with emission controls. No one seems to know what "M90" is. The "M20" off by itself indicates speedometer in miles. All these codes indicate a basic beetle bound for the Canadian/USA market, and all cars sold here would feature this mandatory equipment. The one exception is "M60", the Eberspacher gasoline heater. These were featured in all Canadian spec cars of the time but are rare in other markets. These heaters require the drilling of several holes in the body to install them and were performed at the factory. Few remain in working condition today.... There don't you feel better knowing all this useless information?
Anyway the body will be lifted off tomorrow and the chassis project will continue..
The body is now off and this occured without much drama. Between myself, Matt, and Terry, lifting the body into the back of my old pick-up took seconds to do. This is what remained...
The next step is to strip everything else off the chassis including lots of spider farms and accumulated ick. I did lay out my new "top quality" Brazilian made floorpan to check for fit and discovered that as usual, things will be more complex. The seat track and strengthening pressings in the sheet metal are not even close to lining up with eachother. This could be the track is welded wrong, or the pressings are in the wrong place, or a combination of both. Why can't these companys get stuff like this right? Is it really that hard to do? This is frustrating with yet another reproduction part problem that is so common in the vintage VW scene. This has pissed me off once again.......
Ok, continuing on... To remove the remains of the floorpans, I elected to borrow my Dad's ancient torch and cut away the rusty metal. As the floopan steel is thin and spotwelded to a thick flange on the chassis, it is easy to use the torch for this.
Note the angle the torch head is held at to "wash"off the remains of the floor edge. Also note the shiny metal, this was an experiment using a rust remover commonly known as navel jelly. It actually works if you are patient.
After the cutting, any remains of spotwelds were knocked off with a sharp chisel and hammer. My trusty old angle grinder was used for smoothing.
No more floor remains on the passenger side now. I probably spent more time thinking about this then it actually took to do it. Noisy and smelly though, waited until wifey was out of the house! The only tricky part was the mount near the jacking point. The reproduction pan is different in design here and I would have perfered to use the original design. This wasn't practical as this part of the original driver's side pan is completely rotten anyway. The repro design will work.
I was pleasantly surprised that the new floor fit very well. Only some minor tweaking of the fit at the rear will be necessary. Still not happy with the poorly positioned seat track (just visible in this photo
This corner needs some tweaking to sit flush, but overall the fit is good
Because of this, my first part of the '70 resurrection will be to brush up on my welding skills and install new floor pans (the heaviest gauge available).
This car has been off the road for 18 years and looks it!
I had hoped it was posible to sneak the floor pans in without separating the body from the chassis but this turned out to be impossible. The pans are spot welded to the centre tunnel on a thick metal flange and are easy to access. There is a sneaky seam weld located at the front of the pan at the outer edge under the body. Also the rear part of the body covers a short section of weld at the tunnel edge too. So there was no choice but to remove the body! For a car with heavily corroded heater channels, the bolts all undid without drama. Only the two rear mount bolts located by the rear shocks broke (not surprising as they marinate in mud for years) . The car was already missing the complete interior, glass, fenders/bumpers, etc, so stripping the remains didn't take too long. Dont forget to undo the steering column coupler and speedo cable at the wheel end. I chose to remove the doors to make it lighter to lift the body and not surprisingly the bolts were siezed solid. Eventually seven of them gave in to the borrowed impact driver, but I had to drill out the remainaing five of the damn things before the doors would part from the car. The body is now ready for lift off!
Oops! Alloy was amazingly corroded.
This car had all the "M" codes written by a factory worker under the hood. My other two cars of the same year and model don't have these listed.
For those of you who may not know (or care), "M" codes are Volkswagen internal codes for extra factory installed equipment over the "basic" beetle. These are not really like options, but more like required equipment for different markets. For this example "M23" refers to sealed beam headlights, turn signals with side marker lights, red tailights, padded dashboard, safety armrests, dual circuit brake warning light, integrated backup lights, warning buzzer for key in ignition, no headlamp flasher or park light indicator. "M89" is laminated windshield. "M102" is heated rear window. "M206" is anti-dazzle rear view mirror. "M157" is engine equipped with emission controls. No one seems to know what "M90" is. The "M20" off by itself indicates speedometer in miles. All these codes indicate a basic beetle bound for the Canadian/USA market, and all cars sold here would feature this mandatory equipment. The one exception is "M60", the Eberspacher gasoline heater. These were featured in all Canadian spec cars of the time but are rare in other markets. These heaters require the drilling of several holes in the body to install them and were performed at the factory. Few remain in working condition today.... There don't you feel better knowing all this useless information?
Anyway the body will be lifted off tomorrow and the chassis project will continue..The body is now off and this occured without much drama. Between myself, Matt, and Terry, lifting the body into the back of my old pick-up took seconds to do. This is what remained...
The next step is to strip everything else off the chassis including lots of spider farms and accumulated ick. I did lay out my new "top quality" Brazilian made floorpan to check for fit and discovered that as usual, things will be more complex. The seat track and strengthening pressings in the sheet metal are not even close to lining up with eachother. This could be the track is welded wrong, or the pressings are in the wrong place, or a combination of both. Why can't these companys get stuff like this right? Is it really that hard to do? This is frustrating with yet another reproduction part problem that is so common in the vintage VW scene. This has pissed me off once again.......
Ok, continuing on... To remove the remains of the floorpans, I elected to borrow my Dad's ancient torch and cut away the rusty metal. As the floopan steel is thin and spotwelded to a thick flange on the chassis, it is easy to use the torch for this.
Note the angle the torch head is held at to "wash"off the remains of the floor edge. Also note the shiny metal, this was an experiment using a rust remover commonly known as navel jelly. It actually works if you are patient.
After the cutting, any remains of spotwelds were knocked off with a sharp chisel and hammer. My trusty old angle grinder was used for smoothing.
No more floor remains on the passenger side now. I probably spent more time thinking about this then it actually took to do it. Noisy and smelly though, waited until wifey was out of the house! The only tricky part was the mount near the jacking point. The reproduction pan is different in design here and I would have perfered to use the original design. This wasn't practical as this part of the original driver's side pan is completely rotten anyway. The repro design will work.
I was pleasantly surprised that the new floor fit very well. Only some minor tweaking of the fit at the rear will be necessary. Still not happy with the poorly positioned seat track (just visible in this photo
This corner needs some tweaking to sit flush, but overall the fit is good