Journey with me, back through the mists of time...

2003, an unsuspecting orange Beetle was purchased :)

As shiny as a shiny thing that's very shiny indeed!
Though orange really isn't my colour she seemed like a good purchase at the time, solid (or so I thought), 1600 engine, a GT (but I discovered later that the box had been swapped out!), adjustable front beam, disc brakes, zoom tube (which stayed on about a week, just long enough for me to change it for a different exhaust), and drove well...


By 2010 she was looking a bit the worse for wear :(

Used daily to get to and from a crap job that didn't pay enough for me to fix her up properly, or give me the time to do it as I needed transport (45 minute journey from home to work by car, 3 hours on 2 buses!!!), so I was just doing the bare necessities (plugs, pads, etc)
But I still hadn't found the nasty surprises waiting for me, that would be another 5 years later...

Happy Towel Day!

Shock! Horror! Consternation! Uproar!

Found a few pics of the wheel arches and heater channel before I started...

A brief detour...

I decided to do something totally not involved with the structural integrity of the car today!

The interior used to be black and furry (but I've ripped it all out now). When I did the interior I removed the vinyl dash (it was in a terrible state) and covered the metal with fur too...

Where the speaker grills were I made some crappy panels to hold various switches... it didn't matter how bad they looked as they were covered in black fur (the panels, not the switches)
See a panel in it's full magnificence!

I had some chequer (or is it checker?) plate left from when I panelled the rear quarter windows so I decided to make some new panels... and a glovebox lid!

I just have to find something better to fasten them on with, and make some holes for the switches...

I will be painting the panels black to contrast against the RED fur interior I'll be doing :)

I made a cockerel-up with the glovebox lid though and drilled the hinge holes in the wrong places!


Yes I did say I'd panelled the rear quarter windows :P

Channeling the spirits...

Trial fit of the new heater channel (I couldn't trial fit the old one of course as most of it had become
weetabix :P )

It's not quite ready for welding in yet, still a lot of cleaning up to do... plus I think I'm going to have to replace the rear crossmember as it's looking VERY bad, more welded on plates than member!

And while I was faffing around I tried the front wheel arch repair panel for size...

 There's a funny story about this panel...
I bought it in 2005 for a project that never happened, then as it wasn't needed anymore tried to sell it three times on eBay to no avail... lucky for me as I now need it myself!


Ok, so it wasn't that funny a story... or funny at all... look, if you don't like the jokes it's tough! Quite frankly I'm surprised you've made it this far, I'd have probably given up by now :P

Stop! Hammer time!

Another of Bodge's wonderful repair panels was discovered above the rear crossmember... it was so good that I put a hammer through it!

Napoleon would be pleased!

More fun at the front...

This is the end of the 'napoleon hat'...

It may need a touch of tlc :P
The rest of the hat seems ok, though I don't know what the other end is like yet, so I'm going to repair just the end. Now I don't want to spend £40 on a new one just to cut the ends off so, unless I can find a second hand one, I'll be making the end piece myself... but not in the manner of the infamous Bodge!

Who needs strengthening sills anyway?!

The remains of the heater channel was hanging on to the a post by a minuscule amount of metal, so I decided it was time it went...

It also means I can get in and out of the car easier... maybe I'll just leave it off ;)

Removing the channel revealed this little gem!

Now someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think that's supposed to be there... and it's very heavy duty and welded to the chassis :/

What fun!

Total Recall...

Remember that rear wheel arch I mentioned earlier? No? Go back and check, I'll wait... done? Right, I'll continue...

Taking the rear wing off did the same as the front, the captive nut came loose and ripped the arch open... also taking off yet another 'repair' plate!

Now you can see why the wiring is in the way :P
I needed to weld repair panels on the wheel arch but I can't do it with the wiring there, it'll just melt!
I have an ingenious solution, I will move the wiring from it's current position and take it through the back of the car and thence through the interior!
To perform this amazing task I cut the rest of the wheel arch, where the wing bolts on, off!

While I was at it I also cleared out the foam that VW decided was a good idea :P
A good idea if you want something to set fire to whilst welding a wheel arch... except it wouldn't have set on fire as it was rather on the soggy side :/

Looking in through my new gap I found this crack in the time vortex... my mistake, it's just leading to the interior of the car :P

Moving lower down the wheel arch there's a multitude of panels on top of each other...

It doesn't show too well in that photo but trust me, there's quite a few!

The inside isn't too good either, this 'repair' panel may need replacing...

And I've removed most of the bottom of the rear quarter as it had no bottom edge, so it wasn't really connected to the heater channel, and contained another Bodge special panel that was probably superglued on...

Now for some crusty bits...

I found the end of the heater channel hidden away inside the front bulkhead!

This all used to be attached to the car...

Filled a crate so far...

So, back to the door hinge...

The repair panel trial fitted.

 It still needs a small amount of the door pillar removing, but it's almost there. And it's better to remove too little than too much!
From the other side you can see how it forms part of the inner wheel arch, though I'll have to make a piece to complete that.

I forgot to show off Bodge's handywork! They decided to make their own a post repair panel, rather than spend less than a tenner on a proper one :P

See how with their expertise you can hardly tell the difference from the real thing!

I better mention here that I've worked out that the entire front of the car sits about half an inch or so lower on the chassis than it should! Hence the cracked bulkhead and the door bolt access hole that isn't quite as high up the door pillar as it should be... and it's not the same height loss on both sides!

And, CUT!

Now the eagle eyed amongst you (yes, you there!) may have noticed the wiring, that big grey thing with the cut ends sticking out... yes, I cut the main wiring loom malarkey! It was in the way :P
Also it's split in a couple of places, frayed where it exits through the rear quarter panel into the wheel arch and right in the sodding (sorry for the language, Steve Rogers wouldn't be happy) way of the repairs I need to do to the rear wheel arch!
Ah, the rear wheel arch... yet another cornucopia of repair panels, of which more later.

Meanwhile I've left the poor old door hinge hanging around!

 Don't worry, every time the door is open I rest the outer end on a jack... I'm going to try and get away without taking the door off, I'll be using it to place the a post repair panel and keep the door gap correct!

It gets better...

Instead of doing the proper repairs, which would probably have taken less time, Bodge (as they shall now be known) had gone to the trouble of making a nice triangular bracket (complete with folded lip) right where the heater pipe is meant to go up the front!

And Bodge had also decided to construct a wonderful plate with welded on nuts for the bottom door hinge, thus rendering it non adjustable!
I had to cut the bolts off at the back as they were completely solid and twisted the end of my T40 socket :(

 This is what I'm left with...

Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to bodge we go!

I'll take this opportunity to say I'm no expert restorer, I have done my share of bodges, but my idea of a bodge is to cut the rusty section out and weld a plate in instead of getting a repair panel...

This post has many layers...

After a little inspection I've discovered it's not ok, not in the slightest!

 And this is where the 'fun' begins!
The previous 'repairer' must have been from the school of 'Don't Bother Taking The Rusty Stuff Off, Just Weld A Patch Over It'!!! The single skin wheel arch had at least FOUR layers in place! Some of which had the original paint, or even better UNDERSEAL, tween them!!!

By this point I was a little chuffed off... removing several layers with heavy duty welding (they'd gone overboard on that) is going to take longer than just removing rusty bits...

Holey rusted metal Batman!

Removing the wing also removed part of the wheel arch as the captive nut had come loose... the reason why it was loose is quite obvious!

Lower down the arch doesn't look in the best of health either, I hope it's ok...

I'll backtrack just a little...

The top of the heater channel in the front footwell didn't take much cutting off, it was very helpful in that respect

The cracked (and collapsing!) bulkhead has to come out too! There's been a hole in the outside section for some time, that I've been ignoring, and there's been such a lovely creaking noise whilst driving as the two pieces either side of the crack vie for attention.

I discovered the doorway to the magical kingdom of Rustia!

One side at a time...

Oh, what is that I spy now the seat is out, could it be a hole?

Yep, that's definitely a hole...

And there's another...

I hope it doesn't get any worse... oops, it did :P