My 1969 VW beetle 1300

[vincentdci]

keep the updates coming vincent...

how are your welding skills changing as you do more work on the car? easier? faster?

Well imo it's about as good as it can get now, thing is welding sheet metal is soo much more harder than lets say welding 2 4mm profiles to each other.
Also there's the factor where you're welding on a car, welding upside down or in a tight corner isnt that handy and you also need to keep the torch in the right angle , but all in all there are only 2 ways to weld this stuff, one is welding patches of about 3-4 cm then cooling as fast as you can, or weld spot by spot.

Offcouse my weldings are better now as the first ones, but thats only because the welder's correctly adjusted now (wire feed, ampèrage, L/min gas output,...)

[vincentdci]

It's been way to long since i updated my bug thread, and with the piss poor weather here i decided on getting you guys up to speed, it's realy way too cold to work in an unheated garage, so i'm better off inside behind my computer

So it's been 8-9 months since the last update, and the bug is allmost finished now, tomorow i'll be getting the seals for the doors and door windows, and when those are installed the bug will be totally finished.

The original plan of just getting it roadworthy, quickly went out of the window, so now it has actually had a complete full body restauration.
All rust has been grinded out and replaced with new sheetmetal, it's at least 99.99% rust-free now.
With the welding done it has had a complete in/out respray in its original TogaweiB (L90C) color, new rubbers overall, tidy'd up the wiring and crammed in some more wiring for the tacho, foglights etc too much to mention.

Anyways pics say more than a thousand words

Raw welding finished






Underside red oxide primer'd to prevent rust and as base for the joint sealer




anti stone chip on



wet sanding the lot, bugger of a job



Fresh from the body shop








Re-attaching the headliner, again an arse of a job


I don't have much pics of the re-assemby, because that was too much fun, so i didn't stop for taking pics , here are the few i did take

tacho just installed


engine in (which is a 1600 i picked up for cheap)


Future plans are getting it MOT'd and taxed asap, then i'll start building a new engine probably a 2.1litre, install dropped spindles, disc brakes in front, and fuchs or mahle gasburner wheels.
The wheels won't be for the near future, as i need to find some in the correct offset and widh, the fuchs need to be 15x8 and 15x6, or gasburners in 15x5.5 and 15x6

Wee vid

Anyways it's good to see that you lot are still going strong here, i guess i'll have some catching-up to do. Greetz

[danidmas]

That's a pretty cool project, although I've never been a fan of the Beetle if I'm honest. But as said, it's qute remarkable that you've done almost all the job yourself! How many hp do you think a 2.1 engine can give? And how much does the bug weights? As for the wheels: FUCHS, FUCHS, FUCHS.