pics? 

nice one!! 

looks cool, good luck with it. I did a 75 Karmann, probably 10 years ago, and it was knackered! At some point in the past someone had replaced the floor pans with some dodgy repro panels, and welded them to the sills/ strengtheners on both sides. That would be bad news on a normal bug, but very bad news on a Karmann. In the end me and my old man chopped it from the windscreen, and the c panel and lifted the front and back off separately to get under neath it and weld it up. I think it had about 40 new panels in it in the end, and was a money pit. It was quite fun when it was finished though. I think I only kept a few pictures of the build, not the finished car - it was white, had genuine 8 spokes, and a retrimmed porsche interior....

Si.

Looks like a cool project Neil! And I bet the weather over the past few days has you fired up to get on it....

Change of plan! They always happen!

That peru green '68 is going to be used a a bigger chunk of donor panels that I previously thought! Rather than swapping the dash, then chopping bits of the bulkhead about, then doing the channels, then build it up on the new pan, I've decided on a new plan of action - I'm not even going to use the pan I'd put aside for it. Instead I've bought the complete pan, heater channels and front end of the '68 sedan, and I'll graft on the back end, windscreen frame and front quarter strengtheners from the Karmann, then bolt up the doors and wings! The '68 had been Volks-rodded, so I need to let in a new spare wheel well - fortunately the wheel well in the Karmann has been replaced with a good genuine one, so that should help. Sounds easy when you say it quickly! Not going to touch the Karmann until the '68 pan has been painted and has the beam and gearbox in place, ready to receive the cabrio bits. Get both rolling then chop away at the Karmann, welding in bits to one as they come off the other!

Still no pictures though - it's pretty hard to take photos of phone calls...

We've been checking out colours too - the seats are black and white dogtooth cloth with black vinyl, looks like they're out of a '71 'vert according to thesamba. The hood is toast, so that'll need recovering, so we'll get another black one. All that will go nicely with the colour my better half has chosen, which is VW Tornado Red, off the New Beetle Cabriolet. Kind of keeps it in the family! 

Just need to stop spending quite so much...

Jamie, I've always wanted a cabrio, but didn't think I'd ever be able to afford it! Sharing the cost with my girlfriend is an easier way of doing things, but I can't do everything I want, like dechroming the body! She has agreed to the cookie cutters and painted headlamp rings, she quite likes the empi eyebrow lid, and she was determined that the elephants feet would be replaced with the proper tombstones, so it's not all bad...

Well, she wanted a project we could do together! I think it may be her way of saying "how come they cost so much? Show me where the money goes!" rather than stop spending! I've got another five weeks at school then six weeks off - I should get a big chunk of it done then!

Lucky git! I could really do with six months at the moment!

Anyway, pictures - I took the padded dash off - ugly thing that it is, and found a nice clean uncut metal dash - pity it's not going to be used!

So I got a donor section... one original 82,000 mile Peru green '68 1500 that had been volksrodded and abandoned! To be fair to Ben, the previous owner, though, he did spend a fair bit of time and money on getting it solid, before finding yet more poor repairs and just losing heart. It's scary how much had been spent by other previous owners on patches that Ben basically had to have cut out and fixed properly. It amounts to several hundred pounds for virtually every MOT! 

It's now had the doors taken off, and the back end cut down to just a pair of heater channels and crossmembers, in readiness for the back end of the vert being welded on. Before all that happens we'll repair the rest of the front end (tidy up the A-post bottoms, front flitch repairs, re-do the bulkhead patches) and get the pan painted and re-piped for the brakes and fuel. I've got my short axle gearbox and a front beam to go on so it'll be rolling soon, which means it'll be a damn sight easier to move around...
Forgot to take any photos after I'd trimmed it down though!

Cheers Jamie, I may well be calling on you during the summer holidays! Got it mobile(ish!) for now though!

Last night got the pan (still with heater channels and front end!) off the table and onto a pallet that we've screwed some big castors onto, and tucked nicely into a corner of our yard. I rent a small industrial unit with a friend, but no matte how much room you've got, you always want more! Weather permitting, I'd like to get the sharp bits of the rear end trimmed off, and the rest of the donor well stripped tonight. I've also come into posession of three buckets of VW bolts! A friends brother was having a clear out so I bought some parts, including wheels studs, bearing caps, pan bolts and washers, all sorts! might have a sort out of those tonight too!

So, not much to report really, been grinding and hacking away at the '68 donor car to get it ready to accept the bits of '70 Karmann shell! I've got nearly seven weeks off school starting at 2pm today, so once I've got my Passat ready for MOT re-test I'll be back on the 'vert project! Ok, my g/f has two weeks off as well during that time, but still, it's going to be almost 5 weeks of 8.30 til 4pm working on it!

I need to do a little bit more trimming to free the right hand channel off the back of the pan, but otherwise that side is ground smooth and ready. I'll have to repeat the grinding on the other side channel, to get rid of the old welds holding the channel to the body, but on the plus side, I don't think it's welded to the pan there. Up front I've cut out the right hand front inner wing repair that wasn't up to standard, made up a couple of repair patches for the bulkhead and I'm getting the rest of that side ready for the new inner wing panel. Once that's done, turn round and repeat for the left hand side... Hope to get all that done by the end of week one, including painting the pan in POR-15.

Week two I'd like to spend putting the new nose section on (probably a couple of days getting it off the '70 and onto the '68) and getting the Karmann doors swapped over - trickiest bit here is going to be re-making the captive plates as most of the hinge screws had to be drilled out on the '68 and I've not managed to loosen any of the Karmann ones! The left hand door needs a bottom repair too. If there's time I'll also cut out the Karmann strengtheners from the footwells and under bonnet.

Week three should see the strengtheners all in, and the big chunk - the back end - cut off the '70 pan and mounted onto the '68. I'm not going to attempt any more than that!

Week four will concentrate on the windscreen frame and general welding, and I'd like to think that by the time I go back to school at the end of the fifth week that I'll be ready to start putting some lead and plastic fillers on it. I'd like to get it painted during October half term!

By putting my plan on here I'm hoping that it'll keep me motivated to work and stick to it! Feel free to hurl abuse if you think I'm slacking, and I'll try to get everything photographed too!

Day two - uncovered more bodges. Some b*st*rd has decided that they knew better than VW and instead of using floorpan bolts has welded the body to the pan around the bolt holes! That's a serious kick in the plums!

Did a bit more grinding and removing old repairs - at least pidgeon shit welds are easy to snap off!

Anyway, pictures!
First is the car as a volksrod - lucky escape!
Second is the "quality" repair panel welded directly over the original inner wing.
Third is the nice modification the tit who repaired the car before did to the rear pan supports!

One day, I'll find a car no-one has messed with...

Some of those pictures are all too familiar Neil. 

Not done much on mine this week, as just have a new choc brown labrador and she is a real time-waster!

Did get the wire brush out and chip off a whole load of filler and bodged repairs, looking a right mess as you would expect.

Keep up the good work!

Blimey, I've not been on here for a few weeks! Working hard at the unit on the car and also keeping my GF happy by spending some time with her when she has had time off! I'll be on here loads more when I'm back at school!

So, I've done a fair bit since last time I updated the thread - apologies for the length of this!

Front end is on and welded in place - bonnet (VW Mexico one) fits perfectly on the right but not so well on the left - the seal should take that up. Could be because the front clip we used had also had a valance fitted, so it could be the valance that is out rather than the clip we used! Note that we used a piece of 22mm copper plumbing pipe to line the two sections up through the indicator holes!

Bought a load of Karmann metalwork off ebay a while back, including a windscreen frame. Dad and I made a hardboard template of the screen opening, then I started to drill out the spotwelds and generally cut apart the frame. It seems that there is more Karmann-made metalwork that I thought! The whole scuttle is Karmann, as are the demister vent tubes, which double up as strengtheners, but we cut enough away to get the windscreen frame to fit, and we've made up strengtheners to fit inside the pillars, same as if we were to do a roof chop, so it should be strong enough! We've got it screwed in place until the rest of the car is sorted to make sure the angle is ok.

Also did other bits like front flitch repair and door post on the right hand side! You know what those look like though...

Sounds like you're having an uphill struggle at the moment Neil! Nice work though.