Body welding.

The restauration began on August 5, 2008. I planned everything since March 2008 (sand blasting, paintjob, welding, new parts ...). I scheduled the finish in December 2008 - which I can't hold now. Why is another question (I'm in a barn with no heating and the huminity hinders the fast drying :( ...) I have to sand the body wet after the primer is dry and the body has to be dry like a dessert for the paintjob and with this huminity it will be last longer...

Nevertheless, what was made so far ?

Day 0 - This is my working place for the next months

August 5 / 6, 2008 - First of all I had to dismantle the whole car because I wanted to sand blast ED . The first four hours were spent to disassemble the beetle
 

August 9 , 2008 - No electric, no glasses. Ready to take the body off from the chassis
 

September 5 , 2008 - The body is off the chassis. It's friday and I have an appointment at the sand blaster. The last picture before ED get's 'naked'

And here is the result 5 hours later:

The rust is good to see after the sand blasting. Here some details

The rear wheelhouses and side panels

The heating channel and traverse frame under the rear bench seat

September 6 - 9 , 2008 - Nothing happend at all because I'm a soldier, I had to do some practice on a training area...

September 10 - 17 , 2008 - I started the welding at the front. Exactly on the left front side panel. The first steps are always the hardest and lasting longer than the next steps. I got a drill for the welding spots. It was the first time ever, I welded a car  myself. My brother did it the last time. I drilled out each welding spot at the front. I think there were app. 60 each side and it turned to hard work. On that evening I had no more strenght in my arms. In combination with the drill I had to work with the angle gridder and hammer and chisel to remove the rest of the metal sheet because after all the work is done, the new side panels have to fit perfect. The result is acceptable:

September 20 , 2008 - October 28 , 2008 - Looks like a Beetle again !

All the cleaning of the old (rest) parts and fitting of the new parts are done. It was necessary that the hood closes perfect. The welding can start.

One more month and ED looks like a Beetle again. The side panels and spare wheel pan is done. The next step is the front panel. The main job is, that the fenders fixing perfekt. For me it's fundamental, that the visual appearence is perfekt. It's easier to correct the shutter of the front hood than to adjust the fenders to the side panels. So I mounted the fenders before I welded in the front panel between the side panels. So everything fits fine and looks perfekt - like a Beetle ;)

Hey, that's me !

Some disapprovals: the plate where the tank sits. You can see the different holes in it. The (minimum) right hole is necessary because through that hole it's possible to adjust the steering play on the steering gear. The left hole is for right hand drived Beetles and one, I could abstain from. The second point to change the hole is, that there is no lid for the square hole but for the half round one. I changed that after the front was ready.

October 29 - 31 , 2008 - The rear is next. I cutted off the complete rear behind the back window. Then cutted off the wheel houses on both sides to weld in the new side panels and closing panel.

Me again - how dirty I was every evening after app. 4-6 hours welding (I had two weeks off to apply myself to the Beetle) "Good job, dirty boy ! "

And some pics of the result:

And so it comes, that ED looks like a car also from the back.

Again I had to modulate the new parts with parts of the old one. Here to see: above the old part and at the bottom the new one. The connection from the heat exchanging device of the 1968 Beetle is made of steel and built in into the traverse frame (under the back bench seat) and at the newer Beetles it's screwed and made of plastic. So this was to correct. And: where the hell are the holes for the bolts ? There are two holes missing each side which it makes possible, to bolt the chassis together with the body !? Great stuff...

October 31 , 2008 - November 04 , 2008 - In addition to all the welding, I had to fit the Beetles semi-automatic speciallities. There are different holes to modify or mountings to add. The semi-automatic has the canister for vacuum (for shifting) and for hydraulic fluid (torque converter) under the rear fenders. Therefor the side panels have different openings into the engine compartment. They had to be made.

The mounting for the controller of the half-coupling clutch and hole to the vacuum canister

Left side panel / wheelhouse: the red paint ist the 'how it should be'. In the left picture: don't know, for what the new parts have such a big hole. In the right picture: this is the correct place for the vacuum canister. The little hole by the way is for the wiring of the back lights. Where is it in the left picture ?? Nowhere.

The right side: the mounting hole for the hydraulic fluid canister. There was also a bigger hole like in the left picture above and also missing the little hole for the wiring. One hour later it's correct.

November 3 , 2008 - ED fell over !

No, of cause not. I flipt the body on each side to weld the rocker panel. This holes are the result of the former owner. They welded the lifting-point for the car-jack of the chassis onto the body - stupid guys. No, I didn't see it when I took the body off the chassis but after a hartly pull, it was disconnected. Great. Two holes more to fix...

Another construction area on both side was the space between the two new parts. There exists no such a little metal sheet so I had to fix it by myself. The left picture shows the gap and the right picture the result - of cause

The same procedure on the left side

I could had filled this gap, if I welded the whole rocker panels - what's the plan sheduled. But it comes different as you can plan. Again: the 'perfect' new parts. Here: the rocker panels:

That are the worst  spare parts I've ever seen. The design at the front is totally different (a Beetle has no edges there !) and on the inside too. Looks cheaper as chead. Horrible. You can compare the original with the new (neu) one for yourself. Even the exhaust of the warm air isn't correct. No word will describe it.

November 3 , 2008 - Still the 3rd. The fact, I've not changend the rocker panel, I had to fix the left rocker panel too (Remark: the hole near the a-post was missing in the new part - another factor to repair the old parts. The hole is necessary because the complete wiring from the back goes through to the instrument panel and lights etc - see left picture ) I repaired it as good as I could ;)

November 4/5 , 2008 - It's time to seal the welding seam. To guarantee that all the welding seams are waterproof ED had to turn over again. Here it's done on the pictures. For example the back luggage compartment behind the back seats and under the trunk

After the welding seams are sealed the welding is done. It's time to coat the under body with stoneguard underbody compound. Looks pretty, doesn't it ? A great step forward !

Also the wheel houses and fenders are coated

November 4-14 , 2008 - The next step is the priming of the welding seams at the body's outside. Ten days sanding, priming, sanding... 6 times i primerd. After all, I'm very satisfied with the result. I think, the panels are waveless and smooth. It feels good.

Because of a lot of stone-chipping, I had to sand the most of the trunk blank

November 22 , 2008 - Another flaw of the new parts . The fuel filler neck. The same problem like the traverse frame: the 1968 Beetle has a tube made of metal as a connection to the fuel tank and the Beetles up from 1970 have a hose sticked through the hole like it was in the front panel (1). Once again, I had to modulate it. So I took a smaller part, welded the socket on it (2), cut the new one out (3) and welded the (now) correct fuel filler neck into the front panel (4).

1 2

3 4

November 26 - 28 , 2008 - Once more I had to clean the mess in the barn. The fact, that I use the barn together with to other guys makes it not easier to use my part of the barn like I want. The two guys made a lot of changes in the barn (light and power) during the last weeks. But now I got MY part of the barn and I put away my parts into (now) my rack. That's much better than the box-system I still used.

I sanded the whole body and parts to prepare the surface for the filler. It's inalienable to have a smooth surface so I haven't to much work afterwords with sanding before the paint's coated. It was unbelievable how much dust there was. So it was necessary to get all the dust out of the body. Thanks God, I have the old vacuum cleaner in the barn, so I could remove the dust and dirt. Look at the first picture ! There you can see the different: left in the picture the dirty part and the right side is cleaned.

And: ED and it's parts still waiting for the filler. But next week ED's look will be changed allover.

By the way: this week I got the filler too so I can start the paint system. Hurra !

That's the end of the body work.

Page 1 - overview; who or what is ED?
Page 2 - why the restoration?
Page 3 - what parts did I buy? - finished
Page 4 - body welding - finished
Page 5 - chassiswork - finished
Page 6 - engine and transmission - finished
Page 7 - paintjob - finished
Page 8 - assembling - finished
Page 9 - first ride and engine blow up
Page 10 - the new ED!

or click here to get to my 'start page' with all my cars in an overview