The Cal-look Lounge

even before i sold my oval ragtop (nut and bolt resto) this summer i was looking for a quick fixer upper to not be left without a drivable aircooled VW
all the hipo parts were removed from the 56 before it went to germany (porsche brakes and fivespeed, og burners etc...), so i have lots of parts to choose from
preferably i wanted a 67, but US-spec. since i just imported my ghia vert from california i wasnt going to go through the hassle to do this again and searched locally.
after some asking around with my buddys i managed to find a 67 1500, no engine, pretty decent rust wise for my latitudes (speak: salted roads half a year), one missing front fender, interior thats is pretty complete, no tears.
i will use front fenders from a later model with the upright headlights.

i have also gotten rid of my wifes 62 ghia (she wasnt driving it anyway), but promissed her a ragtop bug instead. so this one will have a rag crafted in (could be ordered on standard beetles till 67 in europe)
it will have fontana grey paint (the original colour, it has an unidentifiable white repaint), a set of repop BRMs and a 1600 engine i rebuilt for the ghia, but sold it without. shoud look something like this:

i will let some time go by and see if she is driving the car, if not the car gets the treatment (tbars, burners, M&Hs, 993 brembos front/944 rears and a 78x97 nickie engine i have the parts laying around for ;D):

    Karl

    Where are you located and how much for the car.

    Frenchy

huh? i´m in europe and the car isn´t for sale, sorry frenchy. i think you will able to find a much better car in the states.

nice choice off car year and color.... ;D  also the ragtop
 just before finisching it's gonna look like something like this

your build was certainly an inspiration for me, hans. mine will never be as nice as yours, workmanship is just perfect!
on mine i will try not to get carried away and this for a reason: i have done two nut-and-bolt restos on a 56 ragtop and a 65 deluxe bus. both were customized (everything reversible) and were multiple showwinners at local shows and featured in geman magazines. the problem was, i just didnt drive them. i just ddint feel like subjecting my painted and detailed undercarriages to all but the most perfect of weather conditions. so i ended up selling both cars as the prices were right. the idea for this 67 is to have a good looking car, but to leave the chassis alone (well for now ;D), to just get a driver.
sooooo.....
there were some "repairs" done earlier to the car, the patches in the front wheelwellls were rotted out again on both sides
the previous owner had installed a new front apron (the car had a major front end collosion in its past, but someone got it pretty straight again)
on the lower sides behind the doors some repairpanels were welded in, as were patches in the rear wells
the endpieces had some rustholes, but nothing too bad. i decided aginst replacing them and also aginst a removable rear apron.

for this project i will not have the body sandblasted. i had this done to my earlier cars, but again i feel this is not necessary here. i will use fertan for stabilizing surface rust, something i wanted to try for a long time.
the ragtop assembly was pieced togethter in the last couple of years: a friend gave me the mechanism, the metal cutout was from bugnet and the new rails from wolfsburg west. i also have all new hardware for installing it
i have crafted in a sunroof like this into my 56 too, so no guesswork here, but i was eager to try my new spotwelder to get it into position without warping
i like to make just a little cut in one of the edges with an airgrinder and then go slow using shears

...and we have a sunroof ::)
i carefully remove more and more material untill the fit is ok
positioning the cutout regarding the windshield was critical, only pre 63 cars (with the smaller windshield) have ragtops on deluxe cars, so i had to find a standard post 64 model with sunroof to get the exact measurement. a guy on the samba (thanx!) sent me a pic to get it right.
in the rear i like the weld to be inside the holes for attaching the sunroof cover, so these were marked and drilled/filed
 

i see the logic in it  ;D it's my intention to drive as much as possible but we will see, and for the rest keep the picture's coming ....nice project and probably finisched before mine  :P

Good work and keep us posted.

Nice to see a driver being built.

thanx for the comments, guys
i made some cardboard templates for the stiffening plates that attach to the underside of the sunroof frame (the stock ones were cut through and are all but uninstallable without opening up the roof pretty far towards the a-pillar and windshield), then cut them out of 1mm sheet metal and welded them in from the top.
i used a flange tool to prepare the roof for welding in the frame and cleaned off all paint, top and bottom to get good contact for the spotwelder

i wanted to try a sprayable primer that is supposed to be weld-through with the spotwelder, but the contact was pretty bad, so i just adjusted the position of the frame with spotwelds
using the migwelder i permanently attached it, welding with lots of space between the spots to keep warping to a minumum
next the reinforcements at the sides and in the middle were welded from the inside. i do know that the stock headliner cant be mounted here like it should, but i have done it before and have a method to make it work

some more welds until there were no more gaps, grond down with the angelgrinder
i used fiberglass reinforced putty first, then normal grade, filler out of the spraycan last, ending up with this:

nice work there have are you going to get the head liner on .

on my oval i made panels that were covered with headliner material for the front and the sides, worked pretty good. in this particular case i ahve to find a custom solution anyway because there is no headliner i know of made for a ragtop car that has the larger windshield. i know this is a compromise, but so are some other features on this pseudo-US 67, f.i. the fenders - after all there never was a US-spec ragtopcar made....

some less entertaining work in the fenderwells, all of the undercoating was scrapped off manually

some more done to the endpieces. i dont know for sure but the upper strenthening part is 67 only
the drivers side door hade some holes too.... (the passenger side is another story, i stll try to find a repalcement)
and i made my 67 astray without knob[attachment=1]

a european spec 67 has discbrakes, but just a single circuit master. this is going to change, so i made provisions for a later reservoir. i didnt feel like mounting it in the stock location, on a tray just under the hood, because i didnt want to run the lines down to the master and drill some holes for it. so i found another solution i have tried before: just drill a second hole and mount the larger reservoir (after cutting its mounting tabs off) in the stock location. after lenghtening the mounting strip it makes for a neat install and allows the use of the stock washerbottle and the spare wheel too.
some more cleanup work in the trunk - quick project....yeah right

Very cool!  Welcome to the '67 club Karl.

We need to find you some good US 67 fenders. The shape of a 68- fender is all wrong below the headlights.

BTW, your sunroof cover is on order....finally  ;)

thanx dave, especially for ordering my cover.
i do know the fenders are wrong, the grill is much further outward then on the us spec fenders. some even say the headlights are slightly higher up a tad too.....
but shipping from the us will be a bear, so i settled for these. if you have a good deal on a set though, let me know.

Another Way could be file the grill and put some Lucas turnsignal  ;D

good idea, i thought about moving the turnsignals too, but in the end i decided to keep it stock looking

i have been searching for a passenger door for a couple of months now, but to no avail.
so i bit the bullet and welded in a repair panel, something a hate to do because it is a lot of work to get it really straight.
it didnt help that some dummy had pop-riveted one in before and bondoed it over :P
i ordered a higher one and again used the spotwelder to keep it from warping. some profiled iron i had further kept it straight.
i first spotwelded through the holes in the iron, then took it off and made spots closer together, at last welded the ends with the mig.
bodyshop will still have to go over it with hammer and dolly

Looking good!
You still planning to paint this one pink?  :D

 :-*
at least it doesnt require rubber straps to hold it together  ;D

since the car is finally at the paintshop i started to pile up the parts i will use for the running gear
this is the beam i narrowed a couple of years ago (8cm). and yes its dark blue because the chassis of the black oval was that colour (dont you love the eighties :P)
its now black and will get a set of dropped spindles with stock discs and some red konis

got some parts back from the paintshop ;D
hope to get the car tonight

Thats not pink!  >:(

 :P

sorry to disapoint you ;D
i did some assembly work on the weekend, electric system was first, then some brushed aluminum on the firewall
dissassembled the speedo because the glass had some imperfections, changed the bulbs to 12V. i will have to recreate the front part of the wiring (to the headlights) because of a real bad earlier hack-job
i love assembling clean painted parts :)

dash is finished
had some fun wiring a two speed 12V wiper with switch to the stock actuators, but managed with the help of some colourfull words :-X
i mounted the stereo into the glovebox (remember, this is a driver), so its completely hidden. the tweeters will be mounted under the headliner, just adjacent to the sonroof, the woofers (also hidden) in the doors. i just dont like the looks of speakers cut into the doorpanels, it just doesnt look period correct

an old sun tach will get mounted under the dash, i think the monster tach looks a little bid stupid combined with a stock 1600 :P

good progress looks nice , like the idea for the tweeter out off sight

Hmmm those tack welds on the sunroof corner braces are going to make the headliner installation tricky!

thanx hans. i do know i cant install the headliner like on a sunroof that came stock, but i have a solution i have tried before. stay tuned

due to real life issues i have not been able to work on the 67 as much as i wanted
some work got done though, the front beam is assembled, i just have to rebuild the calippers. i used my sprintstars to get the car rolling again because there are tires on them (155/70 michelins)

temporary engine is in (1600 with homemade 30hp shroud, type 4 doghouse cooler)

getting nearer  keep up the work

i will try ;D
front fenders temorarily fitted to reconstruct front wiring harness

i finally found the time to do the headliner
i constructed a custom middle part [attachment=2]to be able to cover the part above the windshield

Where did you get the 155/70's?

aren't those available in the US, zach? they're a 135r15 but 2cm wider, pretty cool tyre i think.

bought them off ebay some time ago, merceds A-class had these stock

next i started on the sunroof assembly. my colour choice was a medium grey TMI cover (thanx to dave conklin for ordering it for me). since the runningboards are supposed to be lead grey on fontana grey cars this should fit nicely. i may cover these in a similar material. all of the sunroof mechanics were disassembled, cleaned and the missing rolers replaced. the headliner piece is tricky to mount, if you do it be sure to keep the original one for measurements, even if only fragments of it are there

Good question. If I understand correctly, Michelin makes a batch from time to time and the last one was probably something like two years ago. I need to replace mine, because they are old, and I cant find any. I have contacted several companies that lists them on their pages, only to be replied that they are out of stock.
A pity, because it is a very convenient size for a cal-looker IMO.

There is a Vredestein kind of winter tire many european stock cars have. But the profile isnt really pretty.

http://www.oldtimerreifen24.de/shop/produkt-ansehen/reifen-kaufen/155R15_Q_Vredestein_Snow_Plus.html?cHash=0dfae2631b

It's 155-15 , not 155/70-15

And this is a strictly winter tire.

the ragtop is on and the headliner pretty much finished
since the original cardboard was rotted on the lower edges, i cut some doorpanels from hardfoam material. the speakers were cut into them, but will not be seen once the original vinyl will be glued on.

Update pls?

look here: http://www.fritzreifen.de/pkw/sommer/155/70/15/2874/energy-xt1?sPartner=googleFR

i have assembled the doors and put in the carpet.  a lot of time was spent hunting down a zillion little pieces that are either missing or in too bad of a condition to be used.
only crappy cellphone pic, sorry (this will be my last blackberry)

good progress Karl, this will be on the road this summer i think, looking good, the quicker version off my bug, so needles to say i like it  ;D

hey hans, you can only mean finished earlier, this thing wont be quicker than anything with its stock 1600 ;D
some progress i made this weekend:
mounted the rear fenders. the 5.5 sprintstars with 195/65 are too wide, so i will stick with the plan to use BRMs and 165/80s in the rear
kinda like the ansa endpieces i made out of an old dual endpiece, they look fast at least :P
and no - i´m not going to use the crappy airfilter, its just on there to keep junk out of the carb

well its been a while, got sidetracked with construction work on the garage, so nothing happened for all of summer
i did a kind of rollout today to dust it off. i still have ti find the electrical bug, the cluth pedal is much too soft  ??? and there is all kinds of little stuff. i have to find rear tires for the BRMs that will go on and the front hood doestn fit right. maybe i can modify the hinges, but may have to cut the front apron off and reposition it >:(. its a replacemant panel that came on the car and i was too stupid to ckeck the fit. havent adjusted the ride height yet either....
i know it will be finished when theres half a meter snow outside :P
cant upload pics, its says the upload folder is full

some pics

looking good Karl....

this car needs a dual quiet pack, this exhaust doesn"t do right to the car, but good progres  ;)

thanx! funny that you mention it, i also thought about a quiet pack...

looking really good!'

Nice work.. 8)

long time no progress, but now the wiring is done, BRMs are on and its lowered in the front
difficult to take pics in the garage and outside there is lots of snow :P

Looking good , when the sun comes out it Will be ready  ;D

had it inspected saturday, drove around a little bit and adjusted the front ride height (tires were rubbing when braking in sharp turns). a quick relocation of the brackets that hold the front brake lines had to be done too.
will drive it like this when the weather gets better (gues what, i was awakened by the snowplow this morning :P)
will take some better pics when the weather allows....

cool car!!

thanx

I see it's going well with one off the twins  ;D
I am a little behind on you but June it schould work...

And needles to say i like the car because mine is the Same....you have good taste sir

i am shooting for may 1st, a local show
glad you like it, but dont look under it, i didnt do anything to the pan.....

finally i had a chance to snap some pics

this is a very cool car well done mate.

Good to see it on the road....happy with it ?

thanx guys
yes, i´m pretty happy (short of the regulator taking a dump on maiden voyage). i have not driven an aircooled VW fore quite some time and have nearly forgot how much fun these are to drive, even only with a stock (but rebuilt) 1600 and a short trans. some little bugs to work out, but i may put on the kads and 1.25s then ;D

Karl,
Your 67 has really turned out great! Every 67 bug should be saved. It was nice to talk about  US- spec beetles at Eggenburg  on May 1st!
Became a member of this forum recently and found your thread by chance. Upon viewing  the early photos I recognized that this car looks somehow familiar to me  -- I have shot some pictures of a fontana grey  67 1500 with black coated US bumpers back then in 2007 ,when it sat half-abandoned in the side yard of a local repair shop.
When interested please send me an email…..
Alfred  (asal67)

nice talking to you too
the pics are interresting,  will send you a PM

Car looks great. Nice window stickers.   :)

thanx dave