Blue Redo

[Randy]

This is the start of my 1970 Cobalt Blue Type 1 VW project Daily Driver.



Purchased off an airspeedparts.com member, I took possesion June 2008 after he had purchased, imported from Tacoma, Washington and it had passed British Columbia Provincial inspection.
Speedo indicated about 80,000 miles, but I doubt if that has not gone around. Looking at the amount of stone chips on the front apron and extra holes drilled here and there, I think it may have been towed behind a RV for quite a few miles. It had a recent rebuilt/repaired H block (non-orig 1500) now with 1600? and dual port heads. Dual Kadrons, 009 distributor, economy extractor. Overall a basically low rust vehicle (of course I will find a few surprises eventually). Every fender is dented, along with hood, trunk and wavy doors. It had been in an front-ender at least once and had been poorly repaired along with an overall poor repaint in original color. Pitted bumpers, poor front end collision repair and every piece of rubber dried and cracked (leaky windows). Interior was in poor shape, everything has to be stripped out, but at least the purchase came with a full set of boxed TMI black stock style seat covers, black door panels and a blue carpet kit. Rear floorpans had been patched recently (screwed & sealed).  It looked like a barn find that was recently started on the road to revival.



I basically used this a my Daily Driver for a full year with the exception of a few weeks. Before the end of the first year I had help from the PO (a big thanks) who tuned the Kadrons to pass our dreaded AIRCARE.



At this point I decided to take it off the road for several months and start being serious about fixing this car up to use as a fun, reliable, warm everyday vehicle. My goal is to have a vehicle that could eventually be eligible for Collector license plates if I so desired, but for the immediate future be able to switch it up with different wheels, bumpers and other basic bolt-on items. Keep in mind this is a car that I want to drive and not worry about correct details.
Randy

[Randy]

Pulled out the rubber mats and tar boards to find there were a few small rust holes under the passenger foot rest, I patched it up with POR15 and some fiberglass cloth. And then I almost fell through the rear package tray while stripping it down. The dried out and cracked rear window seal had been leaking, even though someone had smeared a tube of silicon sealer on it.



Cut out the bad, then took a piece of sheet metal and formed to to the basic package tray floor shape and size. Under the package tray floor I put a 3' piece of 3/4 x 1/4" steel, drilled and tapped to match the spot weld holes in the carpet hold-down strip. I could now sandwich the new floor between the hold-down strip and the steel underneath with SS machine screws and SS sheet metal screws around the rest of the perimeter.



Ran some beads in the new floor piece, POR15'd the old floor top and bottom. I put a double row of weatherstripping between the old and new and screwed it all down for now. I will probably weld it all in at a later date.



Randy

[steveo_32]

Gotta be the nicest patch job I have ever seen, I would have stopped at paperbags and toothpicks!!

Good project!

[orangecrush]

... looks good Randy, doing some nice work on the sheet metal ... 

Rob

[Randy]

Thanks for the encouragement!

Time to Drop & Stop
One of the first things I wanted to do right away was drop and disc the front end. I found a low mile adjustable (Avis style 2"up/2"down) stock width beam cheap, on Craigslist and ordered a drop spindle disc kit from CIP. The beam came complete, drum-to-drum, with almost everything except for a steering box and the right side tie rod. This allowed me to build up the front end without having to remove the old one. I cleaned and painted it and fitted the new spindles.



After taking out the gas tank, I removed the old front end, cleaned and POR15'd the top side of the framehead and surrounding sheet metal. The gas tank was in not too bad shape (wheel rim crease across the front), I cleaned it, then gave it a couple of coats of POR15, replaced the screen, and put a shut off valve and gas filter on the fuel line under the tank.



I installed the new front end, put on the discs and calipers, new front brake lines, caster shims. I set the top adjuster to the highest setting and the bottom one to about a 1/4" lower. Since this is a 2"up/2"down beam this setting will raise the front 1.5" but with the 2.5" drop spindles it will actually only be about a 1" drop overall. With this beam I can adjust it back to stock height if in the future I put collector plates on, or go lower. I adjusted the toe-in to 1/8" and set the eccentric adjusters with the notch to the front. The only real issue I had was that I had to rotate the angle of the steering box slightly to line up with the steering column (probably because of the addition of caster shims). This was done by grinding the notch a bit wider in the steering box clamp. I bolted the gas tank back in and took it out for a test drive. Stops great and there was no noticeable difference in the ride quality.



With the stock wheels or Sport wheels and 165 tires there were no rubbing issues. I did try a Sprintstar on the front and found that it would need a 1/4" spacer to clear the calipers comfortably. I also tried a 2L Fuch and it cleared everything except the Drivers side lower ball joint, which rubbed slightly on hard right turns. This was resolved after checking and tightening the wheel bearings.

Original height
New height

Randy

[owdlvr]

Love the ride! The shut-off valve at the tank is a smart idea. Might have to add one in to my '75 when I do the front beam.

What do you have your front beam set at for height? Looking at your photos I'm thinking your front suspension hasn't settled yet, as I'm running a stock beam with CIP drop spindles and mine is way lower. You might want to give a few cycles of the front suspension to see how it settles out.

Here's my car with drum drop spindles:



And here's a shot with the disc drop spindles...basically the same, but the upper image shows the drop better.



-Dave

[Randy]

Since this is a 2"up/2"down beam this setting will raise the front 1.5" but with the 2.5" drop spindles it will actually only be about a 1" drop overall. With this beam I can adjust it back to stock height if in the future I put collector plates on, or go lower. Basically I can go from 0.5" drop to 4.5" drop.

The shut off valve came in handy later when I had to remove the tank again.

[owdlvr]

Since this is a 2"up/2"down beam this setting will raise the front 1.5" but with the 2.5" drop spindles it will actually only be about a 1" drop overall. With this beam I can adjust it back to stock height if in the future I put collector plates on, or go lower. Basically I can go from 0.5" drop to 4.5" drop.

The shut off valve came in handy later when I had to remove the tank again.

THAT explains it. I hadn't realized you adjusted for just an inch drop.

-Dave

[Randy]

Well for most of the previous year I’ve been plodding along doing body work.

Replaced both doors, found a pair on the airspeedparts.com forum with good hinges, minimal dents and almost zero rust.

All four fenders were full of dents, but found a set of new repros on craigslist for about half list price.


The rear apron was up to 1/4” thick in some areas with bondo and after removing that I found several holes where someone tried to pull out the dent with little success. Since I was going to replace the apron anyway I thought this would be an good time to make it removable. I drilled out the spot welds using a 3/8 bit in a slow drill, going slow allowed me to only drill through one layer of metal, in most cases. Then I fabricated up a crossbar to tie the fenders together, that unbolts with the rear apron. I added a couple more holes for bolting through the fenders and apron, but may only need to use the original fender bolts to secure it all together. I purchased a new rear apron from Cip1.ca without the cutouts and considering it is a fairly cheap repro I didn’t need to massage it much  for fit and finish. Since then I found a new one on craigslist, cheap, with cutouts, so if I want to go back to stock I can just unbolt and switch aprons.





The decklid looked fairly good but I found it had a fair bit of bondo and the latch area was pushed in. Found another one, correct year with only a small dent, also on the airspeedparts.com forum. Decided to run without the Volkswagen script so I welded up the three holes.


Front hood was cracked at the front edge and pretty wavy, but another craigslist find netted me a decent one that only need a small repair at the very front bottom. While I was patching this up I also welded in a strip of metal to stiffen it up the front edge, since this area tends to crack.



Only real major body damage was to the driver’s front quarter panel. Looks like it had been hit once, fixed (poorly) then hit again. It was pushed in about an inch along the fender bead. I removed the brake reservoir holder and cut an access panel inside to be able to get at the backside of the panel to knock it out. After a fair bit of massaging it’s pretty straight now. I welded a bolt to the inside to reattached the brake reservoir, made a patch panel to cover the access hole on the interior and hit all the rusty areas with a coat POR-15. That access panel worked great for reattaching the heat defrost tubes running up inside.

Hammered out a few small dents here and there. Only found a couple of rust areas on the body, rear running board areas on both sides and a couple of small areas on the pass heater channel. Basically made patches to weld and/or screw in place. Coated any rusty areas with POR-15.

Next stage primer!

[Randy]

OK, now, sanding, sanding, sanding, spot prime, more sanding. I forgot how much sanding is needed for prepping for paint.
I set up a temporary paint booth in my garage. I hung a tarp along each side hooked onto aircraft cable at the ceiling. Another tarp hung at one end, sheet plastic at the other end and on the ceiling. Covered the floor with some reject rolls of artist canvas. One filtered fan for intake air and another fan and a row of furnace filters for exhaust air.

Body panels are pretty straight now and ready for final primer and guide coat.

Next step - COLOR!

[Randy]

Way overdue posting but here's more.
Well it's painted now, but not without a few issues.
I ended up with a bit of orange peel, so had to color sand. Unfortunately the paint seems thin in a couple of areas requiring some respray. My wish list now includes better lights for painting!



Cleaned up the wiring and re-connected the gas tank.


Pulled the engine to clean up and paint. Checked and adjusted the valve train geometry while it was out and replaced a few seals etc. Made up a new sheet metal firewall just for kicks and painted the rest of the under hood area.


Will try and get this thread more up to date!

[Chris E.]

Looks great Randy! Keep up the good work.

[buggy1]

You,ve been busy keep up the good work it looks awesome!

[Geoff]

Looking super nice!

[Randy]

Thanks for the kudos guys!

Started installing the interior. I glued in some Kwik Roof I had laying around, for a bit of sound deadening on the parcel tray area. I picked up some foil covered insulation for the roof and interior quarter panels and glued that in also. 


Resprayed the stern column and bought a new dash pad and installed it. It did take some fiddling to get the glove box door to open and close properly but I'm happy with the fit. Found a used steering wheel on ebay and mounted it up.


Found a unused headliner on craigslist, just needed a little soap & water. I laid out the headliner inside the car and using tons of bulldog clips to position it. I put a quartz light inside for at least a day to help heat it up & stretch the wrinkles out. 


Slowly started at the front gluing the perimeter of the headliner to the body, gradually proceeding to the back. Most of the wrinkles disappeared with a little help from the wife's hair dryer. Cut out for the rear window and saved that piece for below the rear window.

Car came with a set of new seat black covers so I cleaned up the old frames and re-welded where needed, sprayed rattle can black and started to recover them. The rear back was about 6" short on each side for a proper wrap around, I think this kit was actually a slip-on style so I added a strip of naugahyde on each side. I covered the back of the rear seat with a piece of black tweed and fitted a new hold-down strap.


I wanted the rear sear back to fold down almost flat so I can actually use the area for carrying something. I came across a pair of low back seat back covers at a swap a while back so I cut plywood for seat bases, added 4" foam, then I slipped the covers over and stapled the on. Next I made a seat base frame to set these into and voila new rear seat bases that are low enough to fold the back down almost flat. Probably not the softest seats but hey, I ain't sittin' back there.


I built a speaker enclosure for behind the rear seat out of MDF. For the top I added a cog wheel symbol to the padding before covering it with naugahyde.


To be cont'd.

[70's Looker]

i like those additions, very well done hope you have fun with this car

[Randy]

Thanks, So far I've had a great time just working on it.

Here's more...

Installed the windshield with a little help from the wife. Picked up a good used rear window with working defrost. Replaced all rubber for the windows with new chrome trim. Installed the pop outs with all new gaskets & trim. Added club logo to the rear window.


Re-installed visors, mirror, hang straps, pedal covers and a complete set of new seat belts.


The car also came with a new blue carpet kit. I purchased a pair of speaker kick panels and glued the carpet to them before attaching them, speakers and stereo will be installed at a later date. With some tweaking, a little extra stitching and adjusting, the carpet kit fits quite well now. I wasn't sure how well I liked the blue colour at first but after installing, I like it. Cleaned and refurbished heater vents, then stitched up a new cover for the shifter and put in a new e-brake boot.



Cleaned up the existing rubber floor mats for use in poor weather. Re-installed the front seats. Interior is now pretty much completed except for the doors.



Randy

[DarrenE]

Great job Randy!  You got them mad skills people speak of.