V8 1973 VW Beetle Project by V8 Super Beetle

12 minute(s) of a 270 minute read

Finished up fabricating, for the most part, and now it's on to body work.

There were a couple rust holes I took care of. Out with the old and rusty.

In with the new. Ground and ready for filler.

I also reinforced the hood. It wasn't too bad before, but now it's much stronger. I basically cut out 1" strips of 22 gauge and lined the opening. I later sealed the underside of the seam with 3M seam sealer.

My hood hinges were screwed and I could get to them to fix them after welding in those panels. They worked OK before, but they've just gotten worse. So I just cut out the hinges and extended those panels all the way back.

I borrowed my old man's 33 gallon compressor and went and bought a DA sander. After a wipe down with some wax and grease remover, I went to town on the hood, deck lid, and front fenders with a 40 grit disk just to knock most of the primer and original paint off. I got most of it down to the previous body filler and metal.

I started to mask the car off to keep the dust from getting where I don't want it.

STILL waiting on my 4.5" wide fenders from VW Innovations. A month ago it was going to take 2 weeks. 2 weeks ago it was going to be here in a week. So far, I'm not impressed. I'm going to call and see what's up cause last time we spoke they were "just taken off of the mold". I know how that goes. Probably didn't even have them even made.

This week I'll be working on knocking most of the old paint down, which isn't in too bad a shape, and I'll be filling the low spots in hope to get some high build primer down soon.

6-1-2010

It's been a long week and a short four day weekend, but it was great nonetheless. Me and the wifey went to Galveston island for the four day weekend so I didn't get as much work done as I would've liked. It's also been getting up in the mid 90's so I limit how much work I do to early mornings and late evenings.

Some progress pics.

This section has been taking up a lot of time trying to get it nice and straight. It's almost there. I need to do another skim coat of filler around the right side of the gas door and I need to fix the area above the door.

The old fuel door location hasn't been too bad. It needs a skim coat to fill the dark low spot by the rain rail and it'll be ready.

This fender needed a skim coat of filler and some blocking to make perfect. It's ready to go.

This fender was good as is.

This side of the car is ready other than the b-pillar posts that need filling from me cutting them out and welding them back in.

I started filling and blocking the rear apron, but I got tired and hot so I called it a day.

I'm hoping to have the car ready for it's first coat of primer by this weekend. I still have a lot to do but it's moving a long fairly quick.

6-7-2010

Still plugging away on the bodywork. The area around the relocated gas tank door, the front passenger side quarter panel where the gas tank door was, and the roof has taken up quite a bit of time. Basically where ever I had to cut out some metal and weld it back in. Next time I weld on the body sheet metal, which wont be anytime soon, I'll be sure to take more precautions to keep distortion to a minimum.

These areas needed the most attention to get straight. The rest is cakewalk. It seems like just when I thought it was straight, they needed another skim coat to fill in a low spot. These sections are pretty much shaped / flat, but need to be skimmed over with some glaze putty to fill in pin holes, feathered a little more, then sanded with 100 and 150-180 grit to get ready for its first coat of primer.

This section here had the most distortion and it had a nice whisky dent next to it which required the bondo to be feather even further. PITA.

I still need to sand down the little bit of untouched filler you see. Other than that, it'll finally be nice and flat.

I can say this area has taken the most time. I still need to work on the area above the gas tank and around the door some more. It's almost there.

The rear clip is ready to go. Now I just need to smooth out the transition of the sheet metal around the "radiator shroud".

This area just needs to be sanded with finer and finer paper, glazed and repeated.

I have definitely missed my mark to get it in paint early this month. It's looking more like the middle to late next month it should be in paint. Body work is taking long then expected and I have to build one of these (the copper tubing which collects the moisture follow by an air filter / trap) to make sure I have no moisture in my lines when I go to put down any paint.

More soon.

6-9-2010

Yesterday I pulled the bug out of the garage to sweep up a little, knock some dust off the car and to drive her around a little cause she's been sitting for a few weeks. I decided to take some pics while the car was out cause I just mounted the new fenders and to take a look at overall progress.

The new fenders are pretty decent. They'll be perfect for when I upgrade my rear with a 8.8 explorer unit which is a direct bolt in upgrade for S10s (the rear is 3" wider). I think the car would look even better if I do about a 1.5-2" drop in the rear. So I'm going to look into some SOLID drop blocks from JTR.

The body and the fenders will need some work to make them fit right, but not too bad. There were some cracks in the center of the fenders and I'm guessing it's cause they flexed during shipping. They were just plastic wrapped / bagged and tagged. They seemed to do fine packaged that way for the most part.

Here are the cracks I was talking about, which I have already filled and blocked sanded after I took these pictures. Below you'll see some gaps that'll need work on both fenders.

Over all, they're decent fenders. I have nothing to really compare them too, but I would think they're a little on the thin side, but that's probably cause I have no paint on them yet.

Fitment was OK. I guess it could be worse. I drilled where they had dimples molded into the fenders for the bolt holes. They weren't exactly spot on, but close enough. I had to widen about half of the holes so the bolts would line up.

I'll have more after this weekend.

6-21-2010

Still doing body work. It's been tough lately cause of the heat. It's been 95-100º. So I try and do as much work in the morning and the evening as possible.

I have the hood just about ready to rock. There's one small low spot that needs taken care of.

The b-pillars are pretty much ready. Just need to glaze and sand up to 150-180 grit.

The doors had so holes drilled in them I'm sure for some accessory. Don't quite know what. So i had to weld the holes up, grid, and tap them down.

There was also a rusted corner on the driver's side door that needed fixing. So I cut out the rust, welded in new metal, ground the welds, and filled the low spot with bondo.

The doors are ready other than some glazing and to be sanded with finer paper.

Almost there. Thing left to do are:

1. Radiator area.
2. Engine bay.
3. Front clip.
4. Finish detail work around the gas tank filler door.
5. Finsh driver's side front quarter panel.


The whole, where body work has been done, still needs a paper thin layer of glaze to fill in pin holes. Then I need to sand the entire car with the DA working my way to 150-180 grit.

Then we can paint. That's not too much more to do, right? LOL