November Y2K

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Last edited 02/12/2000

Dates of work November work.

	3rd Cleaned out the garage, completed some minor work on the drivers door
	4th Started and nearly finished the resto of the NS passenger door
	15th Rubbed down the off side of the bug, getting ready for spraying....
	17th Continued with the rubbing down of the body and wings
	20th Areeeeee started on the priming spraying of the body work
	21st Went to see Andy, the previous own... got more history and photo's
	23rd Continued with the priming and rubbing down of the driver side
	28th More priming and sanding. Also filled the some holes with stopper
	29th Even more time stopping tiny marks in the primer
	30th Top coat going on.... at last

30th Nov 00

Today was the big day, the top coat went on, a how well it looks too. After all that preparation the the colour was applied and what a treat it looks too. At first the appearance was were green in colour, that was because of the primer showing through. A few more coats were added and the green slowly turned into Bahama Bleu... just as it did when it left Wolfsburg in 1966.

So far I have given the bug 4 coats of colour. The shine is starting to come out... one of the wings looks like glass. Unfortunately there were a few runs in the paint, nothing a small piece of cloth could not take care of. A quick wipe and they were gone. Tomorrow will see some sanding with 1200 wet and dry and then the application of the final coats.

29th Nov 00

Rubbed down the passenger side and then sprayed another coat of primer. More stopper was applied to those tiny marks and scratches in the primer. Then the passenger side had its final coat of grey primer. The bug is nearly ready for the base coats of colour...... at last. This seems like the slowest part of the restoration so far.. Here are a couple of photos of the passenger side... when you have seen one bug in primer, you have seen them all.

28th Nov 00

The whole bug is now in grey primer, it is looking really nice. Boy, no one told me that it would be this hard to get a nice finish. I have nearly rubbed my hands away with the amount of sanding that I have done.

Today I finished the sanding of the passenger side and then sprayed the passenger side in primer... once that was done I went over the drivers side again. So far the bug has taken 2 litres of grey primer and 4 litres of thiners. Its worth it, getting a nice thick finish on the primer will support the top coat nicely.

23rd Nov00

I continued the rubbing down and priming of the drivers side of the bug. This is harder than I thought. It takes so long to get the body work smooth and remove all the imperfections. I started work today at 1030am and was still in the garage at 8pm... a full days work.. this is going to kill me. The bad thing about this part of the resto is that you don't seem to get anywhere.

20th Nov 00

Today was the start of the body spraying. The intention is to give the bug the same treatment as it got in Wolfsburg, 4 coats of undercoat and the same amount of top coats.

First off it was the masking up of all the removed window apertures. Newspaper and masking tape.

Tip If you live in the UK get your masking tape from a pound shop... I got 4 rolls for £1

I started with the drivers door, this I removed from the bug then gave it 4 coats of primer spray. Following the door it was the turn of the wings, all four were removed and sprayed. Once undercoated they were returned to the body... it was then the turn of the body.

As my garage is small, and the bug is close to the wall, only the driver side got the benefit of the paint, the passenger side will be completed during the week.

As usual here are the pictures.

Before placing the engine lid on, I sprayed around the engine bay	A nice pic of the front	All the inner door masked up
Here the rear again, still have not got that wing on yet!	I like this shot	What do you think of the roof, I removed the ariel fitted by Andy.

Started work at 10am, finished a 4 pm....about 5 hours, including tea!!!

17th Nov 00

I managed to get into the garage again today and continued the rubbing down of the body work and the wings. Things are starting to take shape now. It don't look like there will be long to go before the bug is on the road.... only another few years.....

Lots of rubbing down of the paint work with wet and dry paper, plenty of water and elbow grease. If you look at the pictures you will be able to see the smooth finish. My intentions are to spray the bug in primer within the next week or so... stay tuned.

Here are some nice pictures of the bug coming together. Door and wings back on.
I have rubbed down all those primer spots with wet and dry sand paper, getting it nice and smooth.

4th Nov 00

Got to go to work this afternoon, so I decided to start work early today. Got into the garage at 9am and worked on the nearside passenger door until 1pm. I managed to get quite a bit of work completed.

First of all I took the door off, this was that hard as I had already removed it for the rain channel repairs. Once of it was time to strip it down. This door was not as bad as the driver side, so less cutting and welding required.

Here are a few pictures of the door before the work commenced

The door bottom

The outer skin

Another

Then came the removal of parts

	1st off is the door open and window winder handles. These are removed by knocking out the retaining pins
	then the inner door panel was removed with a screwdriver. The door has an inner handle, so once all the push in holders have been released the panel is lifted up toward the top of the door.. easy.
	next was the removal of the plastic sheet, then lay the door down on its front
	remove the soundproofing
	undo all the 10m bolts and window out time, I removed the window before the winder mechanism
	Once the window is out, get the winder mechanism out, mine was held in place by tape at the top near the quarter light windows. Hand up inside and pull, being careful.
	next the quarter light, a small screw at the top is removed then its lifted out. See the picture
	then comes the felt window track, remove it pulling carefully
	finally is the aluminum surround. This is held in place by small clips. Separate away from the door with a screwdriver.

There is the pin in the middle		Under the door panel if a plastic sheet, this was ripped out	Remove all the 10m bolts, here they are in red
Lift up the wider gear and slide the window out		Quarter light removal

The next step was to cut out all that rust on the bottom of the door and replace it with a new panel. So again with the angle grinder I cut right across the bottom of the door. This was slightly different to the drivers door, As there was much less rust I reduced the size of the area removed. Have a look at the pictures.

Once this was removed and new section was mig welded in. Then followed some sanding down of the surface rust. Rust eater was then painted everywhere, and finally the door was spot primed.

Here is the bottom of the door, not that bad.

A clean cut right across the bottom

Removed the offending rusted out metal, clean it all up with a wire brush

Then plate in a new bottom panel, followed by a small amount of filler

So that was the near side passenger door, not to hard was it!!

Last edited 02/12/2000