April news

The car passed its' roadworthy test (MOT) at the end of the week. Just waiting for the birth certificate from VW to be able to submit the registration papers for road use in the UK.
I have a few mechanical adjustments to make following the ride back from the testing station, adjust the clutch cable conduit and tweak up the rear brakes amongst them. Additionally I have some remaining trim pieces to work on, but more of them as they take place.

Final March updates

In the lead up to finishing the car for the show I received the part carpet set from Newton Commercial. fantastic fit and great quality. I prepared templates for them as in a previous post and they than scanned them and laser cut the material. the only small problem was they can't reproduce the correct sill heater outlet grommet but are looking at reattaching my old ones.

meantime I received the templates for the tunnel and cros bulkhead pieces from Joel in the Us and handed them to newton at the Volksworld show, so should have the carpets back soon.

other work was mainly around fit up of the interior panels, I have a problem to resolve on one of the door cards as it is too large but other wise everything fits really well.

As mentioned the electrics were a challenge, we still have to get the foglights to work at the correct time and the indicator lights on the dash to work correctly, this is because I don't have a functioning early flasher unit and later ones are slightly different. My local auto electrician has a cunning plan to get around this though.

Things left to do are mostly to rectify the above and then get the car roadworthy tested and registered.

Volksworld show 2009

Here is the short video clip of my 62 at the show - enjoy!

March, and what an update

Well, March has been all go, trying to get the car finished for the Volksworld show - did i manage it, well of course! It was a close run thing and the car ended up going down on a trailer, late night oil was burned with a local auto electrician resolving various electrical gremlins but unfortunately the new battery I had ordered for the 62 didn't arrive and the one on the 65 chose this moment to die. In any case the car wasn't registered for road use in the UK so couldn't be driven.

So it entered the show under human power but left with its new battery connected under its own power, was driven around the outside of the show ground and back home on its trailer - a great feeling after 6 years of hard work.

Here are some shots of it inside the show, I have a short video to post as well shortly and an update on some of the final work undertaken, plus some small remedial actions still needed.

February update 3

Here are a couple of shots of the car. I have fitted out the drivers door and fixed it to the car, still need to adjust the window etc.

Also fixed the problem with the passenger side rear vent window. The car goes into the body shop this week for some minor work while i am away so hopefully when I get back all paint\body issues will be sorted.

I have installed the scratched rear window for the time being but Mark Poulton has kindly donated one to the project - thanks Mark!

Once I get back it will be the final push to finish the car before the end of March.

February update 2

Well I haven't had time to blog because I have been rebuilding frantically. I am working hard to get the show finished and present at the Volksworld show here in the UK at the end of March.

So what have I been doing?

• Revisiting the wiring loom and sorting a few issues
• Rebuilding the rear drivers side hub seal and brakes
• Fitting fuel lines and heater cables
• Replacing the oil filler neck which turned out to be bent and wouldn't allow me to insert the dip stick
• Refitting the gear lever & steering wheel & headlights
• Fitting the fronts screen and wipers
• Trying to fit the rear screen only to find it was very badly scratched and too poor to use - I am on the search for one in the UK and if you have a good quality none heated rear window then post a comment
• Fitting and finishing trimming of the passenger door and A & B posts
• Making templates for a new set of 62 specific carpets, some pieces have rough estimates of where exact location of items are, I am waiting for some templates to arrive from Joel in the US to help resolve, thanks Joel. Meanwhile the templates have gone off to Newton Commercial who alreadfy manufacture carpets for various VWs that include original style grommets for all appropriate appertures - I'll let you know how they turn out
• Taking advice from Paul at Brackley Paint on how to tackle a few minor body issues (some self inflicted during the rebuild) the car goes back to them in a weeks time whilst I am working abroad so that will be excellent timing

Sounds so easy but it has been hard work and loads left to do, so posts will be a bit sporadic while I press on.

Here are some pics of the car and the carpet templates - only items on the passenger side and centre are shown as the drivers side are of course mirror images and the templates can be reversed.

February update 1

I have been struggling to fit the upright chromed pillar that the rear vent window hinges off. There has been much swearing and gentle, and not so gentle, bashing, removing of excess chrome plating, paint and thickness of rubber in the new rear vent seal.
I think I am about there with it now but needed then to remove it all to trim the B post edge.
I have also fitted the rubber\aluminium strip that goes from the rear roof pillar base to base of the front roof pillar, including using the new rubber base strips that I picked up at the VW Classic in the US during 2004.
Finally the passenger door has ben fitted and just needs a little tweaking to get the gaps perfect. So next is finish off a few small things on the passenger side then turn the car around and start on the other side. I need to push on with this as I am hoping that during a week's vacation in the middle of Feb I can finish the majority of the fit out and get the car MOTd (road worthy test) ready for display at the Volksworld show at the end of March.

Roof lining finished

I managed to finish the roof lining at the weekend and have also installed the NOS sun visors bought individually from Paul Colbert and BerT3 at a far more reasonable price than currently advertised by Lars Neuffer whose prices simply reflect the ever escalating price of NOS parts.

I have also installed the correct aluminium stemmed early rear view mirror extracted out of my stash of parts as the one that came on the car was from a 6o's beetle.

Further interior trim progress

I have now finished fitting the trim to the rear parcel shelf area and rear shoulders\B pillars in the original style for a 62 model.

I have also retrimmed the front screen pillars and fitted the NOS front screen pillar aluminium trims.

Next for completion is the head lining which I hope to complete during the week.

Rear parcel shelf

I have been working on the rear parcel shelf area and have used the material kindly supplied by Lee Hedges when he sources the materials for the interior from TMI and had the seat covers made up.

A stiff card under liner was made and attached to the underneath of the lining to prevent the corrugations in the rear parcel shelf showing through.

I have also had to spend a lot of time making a shaped material cover for the small rear shoulder area in front of the parcel shelf. On the early models these were covered with material, later ones had a seperate black plastic cover or it was an intergrated part of the cover that goes below the opening rear quarter light.

I have glued the rear parcel shelf in place and fitted the resprayed rear vent but have yet to glue the shoulder covers on or glue down the front edge of the shelf as it is -5C and the material isn't pliable enough even with heat applied to it to get a good fit.

A head lining for the New Year

I have started work on installing the head lining. It is a bit of a jig saw because you need to put the A & B post trims on first, plus the B posts needed new card liners making beforehand.

Additionally covers need to be made for the small shoulder areas on the 62 models in matching vinyl to the rear parcel shelf as they weren't fitted with plastic covers of any description. More on this in the next post.

I made a new insulation felt liner for the roof and stuck it firmly in place and have put the new liner in just by its 3 fixing bars (longest at rear) whilst I do the other trim.