63 Ragtop Dad and Lad project.

[FredH17]

Very cool dash buddy! Looks nice and racy😎

The young guy is good with tools as pics can tell.
Keep moving guys!

[BossHogg76]

Thanks Fred, he's learning as we're going along and so am I on things like Fusion 360.

Double update this weekend as i managed to get a couple of hours yesterday afternoon (13 July 2024), the plan was to get the fire wall stripped and in chassis black which i got done. Also managed to test fit the new deck lid before i remove it and start having it modified, enjoy the pics

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[BossHogg76]

The updates are a small at the moment as i work through the following areas of the project

1) Re-paint the fire wall body colour. I need to re-strip and prep the metal correctly so we can get a decent finish 
2) The fuel tank has been powder coated, i now need to seal the inside with Frost tank sealant
3) I've removed the main wiring loom to send to VW Looms to get a new one made up. Need to also strip the front right and left looks out. This should be a this weekend job (3/07/2024)
4) New interior panels have been ordered from Dorothe Patriache, can't wait to see them and due to pick them up at the end of August when on the family holiday.
5) Mr Cross AKA Dennis Kruis is making up the vents for the decklid again pick up during the family holiday.
6) Richie Webb has sent through the engine parts list, and the order for the heads has gone in today (30/07/2024)

So you ask apart from project managing and simple jobs 3 or 4 times what have you done?

Well the glove box has been stripped and is now in primer, done by my able assistant

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Some filling and rubbing to do and hopefully in white over the weekend and re-fitted.

The little adaptor plate we made for the rear view mirror came through, many thanks to KevD for the original rear view mirror, greatly appreciated. Now fitted but don't like the repo sun visor that keeps falling down so on the look out for an OG item. The original plan was to fit a carbon sheet in place of the original plastic, will see what happens with that.

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Finally, i had another look underneath and spotted the gearbox was solid mounted. Will look to replace those mounts with CB Rhino mounts.

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[tpb_karl]

Nice seeing this build in detail outside of instagram! Great work!

[BossHogg76]

Family holidays and not having enough free time has slowed progress down a little, but where we can we are keeping things moving forward.

The trip to the Netherlands on holiday gave us the chance to pick up the early OG rear pop outs i've been wanting. Once home it was time to strip the old seals out and fit new, then take a deeo breath and paint the frames black. Sacrilege for many, but i wanted to keep the black and white theme we have going. In addition to that Daniel helped to fit the new rear trim panels. These were made by Dorothee Patriarche and really are the business. once i get the door looks sorted we'll look to fit those and the door items.

Other work that's going on in the background, is steel EMPI vents being fitted to the desk lid, and the speedometer cable has been changed for a one with a built in Hall effect sensor to interface with the electronic Autometer speedometer. Thats it for now, hopefully the pop outs will be fitted next weekend (14th Sept)

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[BossHogg76]

Who would have thought that fitting Popouts would be such a pain in the neck. Seals snapping, screws the wrong length in the fitting kits, but anyway this weekend we got one fitted to the drivers side. We also managed to get an external door handle to work on the passenger side, it required some drilling tapping and adding a bolt to lengthen the striker and allow it to operate the latch mechanism (I'll add a pic later.) Getting that done meant that the new interior door panel could be mocked up on the passenger side. We will look to fit it permanently next weekend, along with the door furniture.

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[karl h]

i can feel your pain, aftermarket popouts are the worst. i used a BFH to fit mine!

[tpb_karl]

Did you get the US ones or BBT?
Looking good thou!

[BossHogg76]

i can feel your pain, aftermarket popouts are the worst. i used a BFH to fit mine!

Did you get the US ones or BBT?
Looking good thou!

Hi Karl...and Karl.... these are original VW ones, the pain has been the aftermarket rubber seals. I had BBT first i think. the second set were from Custom and Commerical, a lot softer, but not quite as tall so might not seal as well

Pic of VW sign on the window:

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[FredH17]

Very cool doorpanels, i love the black and white theme!

So these popouts where/are a pain in the ass 😏
But with a little struggling you’re getting there.

Great project!!!

[BossHogg76]

Very cool doorpanels, i love the black and white theme!

So these popouts where/are a pain in the ass 😏
But with a little struggling you’re getting there.

Great project!!!

Thanks Fred, just some patience and they fit.

So this weeks update, after Daniels football game it was up to the workshop to get the other popout fitted. As this had already been fitted a few weeks ago and hand to come off for painting this was a little easier. Plus having Daniel hold the window in place was a great help. A half hour of faffing about and we had it fitted, the latches will be done next week. The next on the list was the passenger door handle, as there appear to be so many versions of the same handle and none of them actuated the striker, I needed to alter the one we had. So a drill a tap and a bolt later and we had extended the striker and we had a working door handle. Daniel fitted and locked of the bolt in place and got it back on the door.

The final part of the session was to fit the rear side panels. again some patience with the clips and some gentle adjustments had them in place. They really look great and i'm so pleased with how they're turning out.  The list is slowly getting shorter, but there is still a long way to go over the next few weeks we'll look at getting the following done.

1) Pop out latches fitted
2) Rollcage back in place
3) Change gearbox mounts to CB Performance Yellow Mounts
4) Fit the new wiring loom and sort out the electrics.
5) Fit the decklid after the EMPI vents have been done.

For now things are ticking along nicely enjoy the pics

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[Neil Davies]

Looking good Rob, a very cool car and nice to see you putting a different spin on it, especially as the original is back.
The popouts in my car are painted black too, it really makes them blend in so much better with trimless window rubbers.
I agree on the Instagram thing, I got it because a lot of car builds seemed to be migrating over there, but glad to see some good stuff going on here still!

[BossHogg76]

Looking good Rob, a very cool car and nice to see you putting a different spin on it, especially as the original is back.
The popouts in my car are painted black too, it really makes them blend in so much better with trimless window rubbers.
I agree on the Instagram thing, I got it because a lot of car builds seemed to be migrating over there, but glad to see some good stuff going on here still!

Thanks Neil, glad people are liking an old school build thread  

So this weekend was onto the rollcage, Daniel is building up his hand skills and got to grip with how to line up bolts, using a ratchet and keeping spanners on nuts as they're tightened. All sounds simple stuff, but they're skills that need to be learnt. We didn't get the drivers side in as bolts needed to be swapped for new metric ones, and Daniel ran out of a little strength to stop the bolt turning as we tried to plough through the rusted threads. I can sort that out next week with a mate.

We also took up the 67 to meet it's new stable mate and keep the Cal Look vibes rolling through into the autumn.

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[FredH17]

That last pics is pretty damn cool Rob!
The little guy snacking something admiring the callook cars!

Keep the forum alive buddy.

[tpb_karl]

I agree with FredH17. Thank you for keeping us updated with posts on this project and keeping the forum alive.

[BossHogg76]

I agree with FredH17. Thank you for keeping us updated with posts on this project and keeping the forum alive.

That last pics is pretty damn cool Rob!
The little guy snacking something admiring the callook cars!

Keep the forum alive buddy.

Thankyou guys your comments are greatly appreciated.

This week the deck lid got it's vents put in. The scoops were made by Dennis Kruis with the prep and welding done in the Uk by Jay Parker and Mike Hill

[BossHogg76]

So Saturday rolled around (12th October) and Daniel took the weekend off helping, he had a football match in the morning in which he played really well and wanted a chilled afternoon. So i headed up to the bug as i couldn't wait to see what the modified deck lid looked like fitted. Plus i had the rollcage fit to complete.

Jay was around working on his own project for a swimming gala, but was kind enough to help me get the old imperial bolts out and replace them with some nice new M10 cap heads. This process also allowed us to line up the interface between the main hoop and the rear support and bolt that up. Then it was onto the deck lid, which bolted right up and even in it's unpainted form looks great, Jay found the metal to be a little thin as some in the past has attacked it with an angle grinder to remove the paint   so that will need careful handling. Other than that i got a new fuel pump mounted and that rounded off an industrious afternoon.

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The other great revelation of the day, after months of working in the pitch black of a black on black interior i remembered it hard a ragtop,....one slide later, and let there day light   oh and it's a Golde sunroof, very groovy.


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[BossHogg76]

So things are slowly ticking away in the background. I had been wondering what seats to fit, going between half back buckets and Kirkey Race Seats. In the end i went with the Kirkeys, and as luck would have it a brand new one came up for sale for less than half price, and it was my size. So that was bagged, the next bit was finding something to mount the seats to, and by pure luck once again a pair of seats in tatty condition came up for sale an hour from my hour for the princely sum of £70. A couple of hours later i had them back home and stripped them down to turn into the bases for the seats. So the next job is get some cross members welded in place. I have an idea to continue the carbon theme, but will see how that goes.

Hopefully the wiring loom is done in the next few weeks and Daniel and I can get that put in.

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[BossHogg76]

Another quick update to keep this moving along.

We decided to keep the carbon theme going and made some rear kick panels out of carbon. It wasn't until after we fitted them that we realised that once the seats are in no one will see them  Oh well at least they worked out cheaper than buying TMI ones and at least we will know they're there.

In other news the decklid was whipped back off and the paint stripped, perfect way to keep the panel cool is to do it outside in the North East Uk, plenty cooling wind to stop warpage. It got treated to a coat of etch primer to protect it for the nexst stage which is the whole disappearing for a few weeks to sort out the pain issues.

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[Steve67]

very nice build, looking forward for updates. My son is also 9 years old, he is very keen on helping on my 84 when it's back from the body shop

[MrIcka]

Super cool build, keep up the good work! Its hard to keep them kids interested, I have tryied and failed with two =\ so I wish you good luck!

Been following you, and this build on Instagram for a long time.
But a build is more fun to follow this way so keep the updates coming.

[BossHogg76]

very nice build, looking forward for updates. My son is also 9 years old, he is very keen on helping on my 84 when it's back from the body shop

Thanks Steve, hopefully the Daniel keeps his interest.... he'd better as he's getting a trip to the Airmighty show 

Super cool build, keep up the good work! Its hard to keep them kids interested, I have tryied and failed with two =\ so I wish you good luck!

Been following you, and this build on Instagram for a long time.
But a build is more fun to follow this way so keep the updates coming.

Thanks I have to keep things short and sharp or he gets bored.

I prefer doing this old skool type threads as it gives a record of what we did.

[Steve67]

sounds good :-)
I am going to be there as well, it's a really nice show and only a one hour drive from my hometown.

[BossHogg76]

sounds good :-)
I am going to be there as well, it's a really nice show and only a one hour drive from my hometown.

Ahh brilliant hopefully i can meet you there. I went to the first one just after Covid, went with Dennis Kruis and Han Van Hegel. Had a really chilled time. I hear the last one was a lot bigger and more people turned up.

[BossHogg76]

The few weeks has been quite busy, so i will update this over a couple of posts. The first update was to upgrade the safety factor of the car. The master cylinder was swapped for a dual circuit one, rather than having the usual master cylinder mounted or trunk mounted. I thought that using a 1967 reservoir in the spare wheel well would be a better option. So Jay set to work and got that sorted.

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Next on the list was the seat frame, in a previous post you'll see i found some cheap seats, and stripped them down. It was then over to Mike to make some mods to allow the seats to be mounted. I do realise that for any racing series these would not be legal, but for RWYB and the street they will be fine. Georg Schmundt-Thomas also contacted me to tell me about the CSP solid mounts. I've never met and he messaged me out of the blue with that information, you've got to love the Cal Look community for looking out for each other and helping spread the information and  Cal Look love.

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Final bit of seat related update and proof that Daniel is still involved. We had a little chat on how to make the seats fit into the theme of the car and decided that some carbon fibre closure plates in the seat frames would look good. So after a bit of CAD (Cardboard Aided Design) he marked it out and i whipped out the jigsaw and cut them out. Think they will look good when i get the frames powdercoated, that's a this week job.

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[MrIcka]

Nice to see some work still going on 

[BossHogg76]

Nice to see some work still going on 

Oh i try to keep things moving forward even if it's just slowly.

The next round of updates will be over a couple of posts. I had an early rise on the 17th November to drive up to DTH in Scotland and drop the Ragtop for paint. My wingman declined the 5:30 am start so I had a few quiet hours up and down the road to drop it off.

Donald and I had a good chat on what needed to be done, a slightly deformed rear wing was found, which resulted in 48hours of scratting around to find a pair of replacements. Handily once removed Donald was able to massage it into shape, which saved my wallet some pain. Amongst the other work was removing the battered hump which had been beaten into the rear seat area to fit a berg 5spd box, a clean new box was welded in should i ever suddenly find myself flush enough to buy one. Carbs access windows were also cut into the rear wings. The panels are a DTH design and are a really clean simple solution. After this it is was off to to the paint shop so sort to paint the decklid, engine bay and sort out some scratches etc. Anyway onto the pics

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[BossHogg76]

By the end of the week (22 Nov 2024) Donald had aligned the deck lid properly, made sure things lined up before starting on the body work. The bonnet had some surface rust in the seams which was treated and the underside of both the decklid and the bonnet were coated in a lightly textured black paint. Some practicing was done to see how the paint would blend in, there are a few whites in the car already so this should be fun to sort out.
 
Anyway more pics

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[BossHogg76]

and finally for this round of updates, and just to prove that Daniel and I haven't been sat around doing nothing I got the seat frames powder coated. We made up some carbon in fill panels to match that rest of the cars theme and got to work with bolting them all together. We think they've turned out pretty well, and Daniel learned how to use a Rivnut tool, so that's all good.

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It'll be a couple of weeks before pick up , hopefully by that time the wiring loom will have arrived, and we can get fired straight into that.