67 ragtop, quick project

[karl h]

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.

[karl h]

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:

[karl h]

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 ):

[Frenchy Dehoux]

    Karl

    Where are you located and how much for the car.

    Frenchy

[karl h]

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.

[thehanz DVK]

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

[karl h]

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 ), 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.

[karl h]

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

[karl h]

...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
 

[thehanz DVK]

i see the logic in it  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 

[Straight Time]

Good work and keep us posted.

Nice to see a driver being built.

[karl h]

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

[karl h]

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

[karl h]

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:

[fredy66]

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

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

[karl h]

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....

[karl h]

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

[karl h]

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: You are not allowed to view attachments ]

[karl h]

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

[Cornpanzer]

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 

[karl h]

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.

[Nostalgiavw67]

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

[karl h]

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

[karl h]

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
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

[Cornpanzer]

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

[karl h]

 
at least it doesnt require rubber straps to hold it together 

[karl h]

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 )
its now black and will get a set of dropped spindles with stock discs and some red konis

[karl h]

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

[Cornpanzer]

Thats not pink! 

 

[karl h]

sorry to disapoint you
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