Still Patching Holes

I know, I know...it's been almost a month since I last posted. I'm sorry. It's not that we haven't been working on the Bug...it's just that we're still doing just the same thing as always...patching holes. I find it very exciting, thrilling to watch Steve transform a really awful-looking spot on the car into a shiny new patch.

But I gotta admit...likely no one else cares to hear the play by play of the repair of the common rust hole.



Still, occasionally someone stops by and takes an interest in what we're doing. A man down the street from us (he has a restored Corsair) stopped by to chat with us. He had some old VW tools he had from when he had a Beetle years ago...he gave them to us! Just blew us away, we were so surprised by his generosity.

But we lost some things too. The guy that used to live across the street from the shop stopped by and picked up his big jack. The one we used to put the car up on the saw horses. He let us use the tools while he was building his house and he finally got it built so he came and got them. We sure hated to see them go...he was the guy that helped us finally get that nut off that gave us so much grief and he often had good advice.

Also, a guy from our church stopped by and visited with us for a long time. He just got his son a '74 Super Beetle and he and Steve had a good time visiting. Here they are checking out how the chassis is gonna look with a floor pan in place...



So don't give up on us...we're still working and I'll report when something exciting happens. We're close! Just a few more rusty spots!

One more picture...I think this is a great snapshot! I am sitting under the front of the car...right under where it would sit down onto the front crossmember. It's out of the picture, but the steering wheel is just up there to the right...

Happy Birthday!

Well, yesterday was the Bug's 37th birthday. We celebrated by patching a few more rust holes. We are well on our way to finishing the areas that need to be repaired on the driver's side. Once we get these parts finished, we'll be able to replace the heater channel.

See this rusty area?



This is the firewall area in the front of the car, near where the driver's left foot would be. It is completely gone.

This is sort of what it should look like.



I took a piece of aluminum foil and made a template of the passenger side. Steve flipped the template and cut out a patch for the driver's side. Here is the patch, held in place with a C clamp.



Here it is, welded into place. Doesn't that look much better??!!



Now, we went around to the same area, just on the other side of the firewall. This will need a nice patch too.



Steve, preparing the patch...waving at a neighbor.



Here's the rusty part, being cut away...



And now the patch is welded into place.



Here it is, all finished. Nice!



Steve welded another piece into place in the back near where the heater channel attaches to the luggage shelf at the bottom. I didn't get any good pictures of that.

Now he just needs to seal the welded areas with seam sealer.

We only have one more place to repair...in the driver's side front wheel well, before we can replace that heater channel and lower it back down onto the chassis.

I cleaned up.



I also had to place duct tape over the fender bolt holes. Apparently some kind of bee, I think a miner bee was trying to make a home in my car's insulation!