The Restoration

Click on the thumbnails for larger pics

August '98 - Stripping Down

Spent a day stripping out the interior. Luckily I found no nasty shocks - floor pans are fairly solid but the back quarters on each side will need replacing (under the back seat areas). Front wheel well was made up of a filler/'glass/material/metal plate mix and fell out with a good kick. The panel that it attaches to is solid which is good and behind all the mess was the original VIN tag. Took the d/s/f wing off, or rather pulled it off with one hand. Nearly all the bolt holes ripped out with it, but I was expecting that from previous experiences with SYC 275L.
The wings were mad - they weighed twice as much as new ones due to the two inch (!) layer of filler that was on the underside of each one. With the amount of time and money the previous owner would have spent doing this they'd have been better off getting new ones. The sills have had a thin plate riveted over the rotten original - I'm surprised the shell hasn't sagged. It'll also need front and rear inner wings, bumper mounts, rear door to wing panels etc.
These should give you some idea of condition - bit of a rotter :-):
   

September / October - Welding Begins

I decided to start at the front, then work back down the sides. Everything in front of the petrol tank support/ cross-brace bit was replaced - wheel well, front valance and both sides.
See the how to section if you want to do this. It's not hard as long as you take time and make sure all the panels are aligned properly before welding them in properly. In my opinion don't get a veng panel for the bumper mounts as they are modified '70's and don't fit well  and look terrible from the inside (although they rest of the panels that I've used - all veng - have fitted ok with some modification).

The wing bolt holes were also repaired by making up panels out of sheet metal and welding them in. The wings were held in place and the bolt holes marked then drilled. Original wing mounting nuts were welded in.
Underneath where the boot sealing strip used to be was rotten most of the way round and was repaired by again making up my own panels (see last pic above).

Pics: Front end rebuild & a "hold the wings on to see what it looks like" shot.

November/ Early December - Drivers side

Heater channel, door post, front inner wing, bulkhead repairs & door to wing panel
I found Volksworlds Keeping Your Legend Alive 4 section on doing heater channels very helpful
(a link to their site is on my links page). Many people are a bit apprehensive (read: terrified) about doing the job themselves - I was no different. Having done them now though it's a pretty straightforward job and any competent welder should be able to do it. All you have to do is make sure you only do one side at a time and use bracing to stop the shell from going out of line. This is especially important when you see the amount of metal cut out (see pics). The heater channel panels were not a bad fit, but the position of the heater inlet under the rear seat did cause a few problems trying to fit under the rear panel. The body-pan gasket was fitted and the channel bolted on with stainless bolts.

As you can see from the above, the door post had died although the inner skin could be repaired (just as well, the repro panels only have 3 bolt holes instead of 4). The last one shows the work needed in the rear corners and the rear part of the floor (replacement floor quarter panel).

Door-Wing Panel  
This needed a lot of time and careful measuring to get right as it is one of those repairs that will stand out a mile if not 100%. The repair panel was marked up and the line carefully cut. Repairs were made to the rear door post base and the panel was welded in from behind (where possible) very slowly to avoid distortion. I'm not going to put filler over it at present - something I'm leaving to last (I hate sanding).


Here are some more pics:

Complete Rear Quarter

At this time I got my first post-uni job which was near Birmingham. This meant the '62 was going to be sitting around at the time as the house I was sharing only had one garage which I needed to put the '72 in to make the insurance premium affordable. Having a job & not wanting to go through replacing 5 or so panels as I'd done on the d/s, I got a complete rear quarter panel from VW Heritage. They only had the ones for the later model with the bigger windows and different lock mechanism. This meant joining the panel on underneath where the chrome will sit and leaving the original lock section in place. Got the job done in a weekend, so a lot quicker and easier than replacing load of panels. This way also means little filler will have to be used.

Using one of these late panels also means you need to replace the body to chassis mount area and the rear bumper mounts with the correct early ones.

After sitting there for  nearly a couple of years the folks wanted their garage back so the car came down here. In the past couple of years since then all that's been done to it is getting a rust free door for £20 from stanford hall & a slightly earlier rust free front end (I'm going to use the complete quarters, scuttle panel and bulkhead lower panel) from fbivw in Wales. After sitting around in a lockup covered in dust from lack of time for many years I have off-loaded the rest of the bodywork to a mate so at least there'll be some progress whilst I'm concentrating on other things

 
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