PROJECTS                   

Welcome to the projects page,i made this page to showcase some of the project cars and

 parts im in the process of building,i will do my best to keep this page updated

1965 deluxe

Heres a 65 deluxe,this bus should be finished by spring,its a full restoration,but the interior

 will be a camper setup.  So this bus has been hit in a few spots and it LOOKED to have

very little rust.  My personal opinion on these bellypan buses is that at 40+ yrs of age the

bellypans have to be removed,there is always rust in them,no matter how "rustfree" the

bus looks.   This is more of a educated opinion than just a rant. This bus is a perfect

example of what i mean.  On first inspection of this bus i was very hopeful we wouldnt

 have to "open" it up at the bellypans,but i was wrong.  After a walnut shell blast there

were pinholes everywhere,i should mention that the bellypans could be tapped with a

hammer before blasting so i was pretty sure they were good.......theres no such thing

 folks.    When these bellypan buses are opened up 9 out of 10 of them have "potato

chip" scaling rust,its best to just open them up and know you have no rust than to just

assume theres none.  You save yourself having to re-restore prematurely=waste money.

Above is a pic of the poor thing on a rack,the bellypans look good right?

 WRONG!!!!

The paint on the long panel wasnt blasted because its filled with mud (plastic

 filler) from a poor repair attempt that stems from a former collision. This

section will be cut out and replaced. 

Keep in mind these were "rocksolid" bellypans before walnut shell blasting.

And the blasters didnt even get greedy on the blasting,look you can still see

some paint.

     Heres a pic of the chassis underside after the first prime. I will

do my best to keep progress pics of the various restorations going

on here,but as of now its a one man show.   What were looking at

is a hell of alot of panels replaced,floors,pillars,outriggers,partial

 doglegs,inner/outer rockers and so much more.  Many of the

areas welded/replaced were spotwelded as they were from the

factory,even the count,size and spacing was done as factory. 

Well were getting there

 1961 "G.I" beetle

Heres a car I used to own,great little rig. The new owner opted to bring it back to me

replace the panhalves. Most folks wouldnt have replaced them,but the fact was they

 were getting soft and beginning the "potato chip" type of rust.

Body up,chassis out

Body on the "Bodyscooter"

Heres the old pans,they were usable but they were craking and getting thin

So they had to come off,at the factory spotwelds so everything is nice and neat,no

overlapping or other "hodgepodgery"

And now refitted,looks great and the owner wanted to keep all the original tarboards

on the tunnel so I worked around them. These were plugwelded and a few beads to

replicate the original as much as possible

Body back on,just reverse order,was even able to reuse the original pan seal with

a new bead of sealer,the seal was still very pliable

1967 deluxe

This is a short project for us,it needs alot but we can knockout what we can while its here and budgets will holdout.

This bus suffers from the same rust we are used to on the west coast plus a few bits of madness sprinkled around.

The nose is a mess,normally I prefer to fix a nose if its at all possible,but after stripping there were more than "hints" at previous rough metalwork.

There was too much streched metal to warrant fixing/shrinking/stretching,luckily the owner had a spare nose.

Very typical stuff here.

After some cutting we can see more rust lurking all over,we will address those small sections with patches of new steel.

Floor and inner structure fitted as well as a better more correct (long story) heater flap.

Another inner panel fitted,also some small patches where necessary.

I opted to paint the inner structures that had fine surface rust,also over my welds,it will be difficult to access these panels later.

I painted the stripped inner on the donor panel as well.

Now fitted,it came out great,I used the factory spot welds and even used a spotwelder where it was possible.

The floor looks alot better now and several other gremlins were dealt with while it was all apart.

How could it get outta here without getting those unsightly wheel wells repaired?

It couldnt.   This where my work stopped,the owner is going to try his hand at the rest of the rustrepair before the project spins financially out of control.

1959 deluxe

  This is a customers 59 deluxe or

 samba,its a great basis for a restoration,its looking very rustfree,but what

brings it my shop is the metal work it needs,the previous owner musta loved

his drill bits and his sawsall,he did a great job of "customizing" tons of holes

 in the dash and of course the "opened" wheel wells front and rear and the

 cab wall has been cut out,oh and a real bummer the engine air vents have

also been cut,its actually looking like its gonna need a new nose skin

   rear wheel wells are done,they came out very

straight,almost no filler will be needed,next is the rear air vents(these are

 gonna suck to do)

heres what ive got to work with,a pic of the cool custom air vent scoop,and a

 pic of what was hiding underneath,no air vents!

And... thank god they are done,they came out very straight,again almost no

filler needed

On to the nose,we could tell there was alot of filler on the nose,when i had

 first looked at it i was confident it would be a fixable nose,needless to say i

got all the major bondo off and saw some pretty rough damage and rust!

Somehow the bar that splits the windshields had been hit,hard too,and the

nose had been stretched pretty far,it was concluded the nose had to come

 off,either to be fixed or replaced,thank god i had a 58 nose

skin layin around,the pics above show how thick the bondo was,and below a

pic of the pile of bondo easily a gallon,also a pic of the skin removed

The damage had gone as far as the heater vents/flap,were going to replace

those also,heres pics of the damage,pics of the donors and the donors

mocked up,also a pic of the molested dash

 Heres pics of the nose skin removed,and the new heater flap/vent

installed,unfortunately the lower wndw frames need replaced too,the dash is

 pretty thrashed too,tons of holes,also the radio section is cut

   The old nose meets its donor nose,and a donor cabwall  

And...new nose installed also the lower wndw frames,im real happy how this

turned out,all seams/panel fit really turned out well.

Wheel wells before and after,were gettin close to being done!

Pictured above the repaired dash and the fabbed decklid prop mounting tab

Pictured below,the corners had been cut for reverse lights,that wasnt gonna

 work for the present owner so we fabbed a piece and filled the void.

 Heres a pic of the old beast getting

loaded for its next stop(paint and interior) I'll try and keep contact with the

 owner and get progress pics

 Heres a few pics after a trip to the

 stripper (paint/bondo) and the new filler work completed,the owner is

going the "mirror straight" route,next comes the paintwork

  Here pictured above is the 59 after paint and some reassembly.  This will be

a great bus when finished. I'll be posting more pics later and in spring we will do some

glamour shots when its truly finished.  At this point we are doing suspension

 and engine work.

 1965 micro

This is another customers bus its a 65 micro,it only has 106,000 orig miles,its

 got super sweet orig paint,and its dent free,unfortunately the bus sat in a

field for the past 30+years,and that damn grass caused a little rust,the plan

is to just repair the rusty areas saving the orig paint and "fading" in the touch

 up to give the unrestored look,this is a cool old orig micro,matching#

motor,trans,and if anyone is interested the current owner will have to sell it

 after it comes out of the shop(new baby girl forces sale)SOLD

heres a couple pics of the bus,1 with the doors removed and 1 on the

 rottisserie,pics of the rocker work beginning,the rear most piece of the inner

 rocker needed replacing,also had fab a small piece of the "tophat",and replace

the outrigger/jackpoint

This bus is just about ready for the touch up paint,i will include pics soon,the

pic above shows that the inner rocker has been acid treated and painted

with heavy duty anti rust paint(not por-15)

Pictured above the 65 after its rockers replaced and proper paint fade,it

 came out great,a really nice original paint bus preserved,not restored

1966 doublecab

Pictured below is the 66 doublecab i have on my "for sale" page,the current

owner is having a complete restoration done here at our shop

Heres a pic of it on the rack

There was a bit of rust on all the

jackpoints/tophats/outriggers/crossmembers,honestly it didnt look that bad

when you looked underneath,but the owner plans to use the truck,so were

making sure its rock solid,i use a combonation of mig welder and spot welder

 just as the factory did

D pillar fab,of course this will get some finishing,and i'll actually be adding a

 bit more material to it,all of the lower pillars needed fabricated on this

truck,notice the rusty outer rocker and no inner to speeak of! Also there was

 a ton of fiberglass repair from previous "bodywork",needless to say there

 will be no fiberglass on the truck after it leaves this place 

Heres the repro floor i'll be using to replace the old spotty and now removed

 rear floor,i had to do several mods to make these fit right. First i

transplanted the orig gas tank opening,then added a lip and extra cutouts for

the C and D pillars,i also removed the seat mounting tabs/plate

The closeout panels (the panels that the frnt wheels kick dirt/moisture at)

were of course rusty,its kind of hard to tell from the after pic,but i want it to

be clear that i used 2 different panels to fix this,it has the correct factory

seams intact,this goes for both right and left

 Pictured above the right side floor has been fitted and welded,to the right is the

 cab floor heater tube. These are special to doublecabs in that the doublecab has

a vent that feeds the rear cab via a hole in the cabwall,this one is wasted,the

 donor is a bus one which we will modify pictured below

 The left rear floor fitted/welded,also

the jackpoints,outer rockers,battery tray,outer front floors,right lower inner

 dogleg and all pillars fixed,we stripped and painted all formerly rusty/welded

 areas with a heavy duty anticorrosive paint

 The undercarraige was completely

sealed with sealing primer,this is a pic of it on the rack,it was painted several

more times at different angles

     Heres a couple shots of the ole beast while it was baremetal

   Heres a pic of the owner Joe and the dirty fella on the right is yours truly. 

We were only able to get to the primer stage,there were unnamed difficulties

that put a hold on going further.    Its come a long way and im hopeful it will

see paint soon

      1963 beetle

      This bug was a pretty simple and short project,just minor bodywork and

 a decent paint job.

     This beetle turned out great,the owner actually ended up buying the 61

euro next to it as well.