My 1975 late looker (late bugs can be just as cool)

[JoeHurley1892]

Hi cal look lounge  ,

I have been a member on here for quite a while and i thinks its about time i put my pride and joy up on here for you all to see.

It is a 1975 1200 bug in its orginal miami blue colour.

It has been well looked after its whole life, so no bad rust to bother me haha

I have owned it for almost 2 years and i am constantly doing things to it.

Anyways, here is how I got it day 1.

It had some nice added touches to it such as quickshift, dropped spindles disc brakes convertion and Revoultion RFX Wheels

[JoeHurley1892]

First thing i did was add a  rev counter, its about 30years old and used to be in my dad campers and beetles




These Door cards where put in by the previous owner in the 90's ( i think the style gives it away) So went and got some standard ones

[JoeHurley1892]

I never liked the wheels that came with car, they just didn't suit the style i was trying to give out of the car.

I was at a local vw show and saw a set of wheels which i liked.

They are Centerline copies (Smiths Wheels???)

As u can see they look abit horrid, and i thought... ah i little clean will get that all of.....how wrong was I.



Basically water has got under the lacquer, which gave it the snail trail apperance and the only thing to do is rub it down
I have no access to any air tools so it all had to be done by hand 

It started coming up by using 400wet/dry and this how they looked after that, as u can see a majority of is off


Now i went through the grades and when back up to 1200 to give a reasonable shine, I then hand polished it with Autosol.... seems to be getting there


I then gave them a machine polish and got them to this  . I personally don't think that is too bad for my first wheel refurbishment.


I then got some new Bridgestone  rubber for them, 195x65x15 at the back and 165x50x15 at the front

....a bit of a difference in size haha



[IMG]http://i1127.photobucket.com/albums/l640/JoeHurley/My%20Beetle/Photo2294.jpg[/IMG

[JoeHurley1892]

Next thing, was to add a few mod cons 

Installed a cigarette lighter, so i have a satnav


and an Alpine Headunit with ipod conneciton, to replace the tapedeck someone put in 15 years ago haha



A little bit of chrome can't hurt

[JoeHurley1892]

I was getting bored of the 35hp so it was time for abit power and noise 

I got  a 4into1 with glasspack exhaust

As the exhaust has just got protective paint for delivery on it, i had to get that all off and then put heat proof paint on it. Heres a few pics of it

Rubbed Down


First Coat of Paint


After loads of coats of paint, Gave it a quick coat of gloss black to make it shiny lol....even though u won't see it haha



Off with the old and on with new



With glasspack on, i was little dissapointed because it is not as loud as everyone says they are, but still gives a nice throaty roar. On the plus side it pops flames

[glenn]

Good job, you're making it your own.

[JoeHurley1892]

Heres this cheeky homemade stinger my dad had on his oval about 25 years ago  


So i had to bolt it on too see how loud it is  

Heres a video of it

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/gk7apW4oWNA" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/gk7apW4oWNA</a>

It doesn't do the stinger justice it was quite loud and very poppy


<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/dgTBdoWLQIQ" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/dgTBdoWLQIQ</a>

[JoeHurley1892]

It was now time to sort out its stance 

I first got shocks all round
KYB Gas adjusts for the back


KYB GR2 for the front


[SIZE="3"]The Build[/SIZE]
For people that know the car, they always mocked the silly arch gap it had, and also the poke which i disliked lol. So I thought it was about time it did something about it.....

I am not particularly a big fan of stupidily narrowed beams so I thought a 2inch Adjustable Narrowed Beam would be ideal as the wheels and disc brakes would keep it from being tooo narrow and give just another tuck I am after.








Heres the new beam with old

[JoeHurley1892]

With the Help of Danny Allen (Dubz-by-Dan) we first trial fitted putting the new beam together.

Firstly we checked to see where the leaves had to be cut




and where the new dimples need to be drilled



It also had to be converted to RHD which was simple enough to do


Heres the beam all built......now time to fit:D

[JoeHurley1892]

Before i fitted i painted the trailling arms, to freshen them up, I have also got lowered ball joints fitted as well.

Old


Fresh


After alot of fighting and swearing, it was on (that is waxoyl not rot lol)


Castor Shims were added


New Shocks


New Poly Urethane Coupling


All on, time to adjust the height

[JoeHurley1892]

For laughs we wound them down, so the car was as low as it could go and this is the result lol






This will stop people moaning at my arch gap, (you couldn't even fit a penny in that gap lol.... that is waxoyl again not rust lol)


Woooops (it was that low the stud on the adjuster was anchoring the ground




I think it did look awesome like that but a little impractical, Danny thought we should just cut the thread and it would be fine so it was jacked up and came across this

Just driving up and down the yard a few times had actually removed the inch or so thread we thought was there to cut and was gradually going through the nut at the same time lol

[JoeHurley1892]

We lifted it up abit and Danny wanted the arse down on it as well, so we did that as well lol

So we dropped the rear down one spline



and this was how it was when i took it home



Looked better then before, but was to impractical and wasn't really what I was going for.

[JoeHurley1892]

Just went for a little photo shoot of the car since having the suspension changed and sorted properly. I took these in the same place as how it was before the change as well.

Front:2inch narrowed adjustable beam, dropped spindles
Rear: +4 on the inner spline and -4 on the outer spline dropping it about 1inch.

Tyres:
Fronts 165x50x15 (Need to get slighly higher profile)             
Rears 195x65x15

[JoeHurley1892]

Just before the first show of the season i spent 4 days solid on getting it ready.
First thing was to sort the tracking and all that coz it defnatley needed sorted after fitting the new beam. So went down to my dads work and used his special machine





A little out lol

[JoeHurley1892]

All the window realted stuff was getting tired so it need freshing up. First was the window rubbers.

I got a cal look window rubber kit.

Old ones


...


Next was the chome surrounds

Old





Next was the quater lights

Old


New


All Done

[JoeHurley1892]

Next was the wingbeading. The person who resprayed this obviosuly couldn't be bothed to take the wings off, so i have blue beading.

Old


New


Next on the neverending list was the running boards. Again these were getting tired and out of shape. Suprising none of the bolts were seized, which was a relief.


So fresh GERMAN quality ones were ordered. I ditched the chrome trim. ( I got rid of the stone guards as well)

[JoeHurley1892]

The glasspack wasn't loud enough for me, and also wanted something slightly different.

So got myself a stainless bike can for £5 and fitted it to abit of Landrover 3inch fat exhaust pipe lol. Makes people think i have a monster engine in there hehe





It has abit more of a roar to it lol (Probably one of the cheapest stainless exhaust around as well haha)

[JoeHurley1892]

Next on the neverending list was the interior

First was the seats

I came across these bucket seats on ebay. They are called Atech and are very comfortable.

They were a mission to fit as they sat to high on the original seat runners and i didn't want to bolt them to the floor. So the frame were cut by 2inch in height and the big hump thing on the floor pan was cut out and a new one fabricated.... but they are in and slide.
Stripped


New "hump thing"


In...phewww


.

While they were going in a carpet was put in, but i don't have a photo of that.

Last but not least was the steering wheel. Its just a mountey one
I also made a new storage place where the radio used to be. It used to be a cd holder from some other car (which you can see in the picture below as well).

.

[JoeHurley1892]

I took part in the Cannonball 89 Run from Lakeside to Southend.

What a bonkers cruise, there was dubs all over the place driving in all directions, so I followed one and just hoped it was the right way lol.

Luckily it was and the photographer snapped this shot of my car, it is now my desktop picture lol



We stopped for a mini show and shine and grabed something to eat at Karmann Konnection. It was packed by the time I had got there followed the wrong VW this time, so there was little parking space.  (Just my luck to follow the peach car which got an award for being the most lost)
I then got held up in the middle of the road and told to leave it there..... so I did and we blocked the road off....Sorry Saaffend

[JoeHurley1892]

I popped over to Dubz-by-Dan to give danny a paint code. I then left with my car now running t-bars and indicators relocated.
Work that one out lol

I am amazed how doing a little change makes a big difference.





Fancy Shot (through a Cadburys purple bay window)lol


Having the indicators in the bumper, the intention was if I was going to run t-bars I would have put lucas lights on. I placed them in various places but they just never looked right. The wings always seemed abit cluttered imo. 

So I suggested to Danny, how about we put them in the headlights. With abit of fiddling they were in.

[JoeHurley1892]

Also got it into Ultra VW

and discovered this on the battlesbridge show review

Awesome!!!!!



Also went to players 6.0 back in Spetember.

What an awesome show, worth going to, even got a spot in the hanger.

(For you who don't know what players show, it is one of the biggest modifed car shows in the UK held on an airbase and in 2 hangers.)

Scrolling through the thousands of photos taken at the show, I came across these of mine, which i think look really cool.

Enjoy!!!!

[JoeHurley1892]

I took part in the Volksworld 25th Party at Brands Hatch, where they were attempting to get as many aircooled VWs on the track for a massive photo.
I am not sure how many were there but it was easily in the hundreds.

And also found a picture of my car going round Brands Hatch

[JoeHurley1892]

The show season is done for another year, so it is now time to start buying more stuff for the bug.

I havn't done much to it, I changed the fornt tyres to 155x60x15 so I can now have passengers in it.

Also got myself some 3inch  4point Willians harness, can't wait to fit them

.

I am hoping to have a little mouse motor  in it for the next show season. so hopefully update you when it is getting built up 

[VWGlassee]

Looks great with those t-bars! 

[Critter1]

Yes.. You brought it a long way! Looks great.

[beetletom]

love it! 

[rspsteve]

Nice one....colour code the headlight trims i think that would look good..

[JoeHurley1892]

Its been too long, since i updated.
Since the weather has finally decided go above 0 it is time to fit these harness's.

First was to strip the rear.



As i don't have a rollcage yet, I had to fit the harness with a bit of modification.

I made a bar which would bolt where the rear seatbelt would bolt too. This would be storng to take the load.




Eye bolts fitted with correct spacing

[JoeHurley1892]

Fitted,

I am not intending to fit rear seats anyways, so a bit of wood and carpet will do for now. Until i can get a proper carpet kit fitted.



Seats back in



From the rear screen




Harness's in

[JoeHurley1892]

Got me some Ali T-bars at a bargin price



Before and After Polish



Weight of the Old cheap Chrome ones



Weight of New ones



Saved me around 3kg in Weight