Aircooled VW South Africa

Took the ol' girl to Fern Cliff for a cool afternoon drive. Ah...the beauty of a beetle suspension

Great advice Coop re cutting steel!! Depends on the make/quality of Cut Off saw you bought but these are generally not precision machines as they are "jobbing/site machines and can be a bit out which is "worsened" the bigger the cut. The type of wheel used is also important as there are different composites etc. The blades also tend to flex when pressure is exerted on the handle and should too much pressure be exerted then naturally the blade will flex more and tend to cut to the right.
For more perfect cuts then I would suggest using what we call a "cold cut" machine which has a TCT tipped blade ie a steel blade with tungsten carbide tips that will give much more accurate and cleaner cut and cuts much quicker!
Hope this helps

@ #$%^&^&^%$%#&^%^$#$%

Sorted the Ghia's wiring, well so I thought. I moved the car to its own garage after cleaning up, only to find I have no lights.

All I did was remove all the loose wires.

@#$%%^^^^$$##@

Tried to fit the door handle finger guards on the 58, saw that I needed to drill holes in unblemished 50 year old paint, no way. Btw, I have a pair of door handle guards for sale
Fitted the old "Restored" spotlight, had all these complicated plans for the bracket, when I remembered that on these "spare" bumpers, the front right overrider is missing, and, when I checked, turns out the spotlight bolt fits exactly between the overrider bar and its mount. Bingo, no more complicated bracket, 5 minutes and it's done. Also replaced the missing horn grill on the left.

Resto Rat is getting ready to roll

Cleaned, sanded and sprayed Christn's tin work.

Coop - been following your project - am completely gobsmacked by the sheer size of your bollocks for tacking on a project like that. I think it's brilliant. Had just finished typing my post and thought 'here I'm stressing over welding in a couple of pressings and here's this dude welding two buses together...!!'.

Yep, I think you're right - less pushing, but the blade just seems to stop if i don't. Shall be gentler tho.

Thanks for the kind words, it's a long and lonely project and "her indoors" thinks I'm mad so the only motivation that I have is this forum.

When cutting metal I sometimes manage to find a point where the metal seems to be melting away from the tip of the blade. Then it just seems to ease through without a lot of pressure. The real key (for me) is to get some scrap or offcut bits and practise different cutting techniques until one works for you. If all else fails then take it all to your local steel shop for cutting - they only charge a buck or two per cut.

Petrus slept in the workshop on the weekend and on Monday morning showed his disapproval with a miss on startup.

The miss would not disappear as the engine warmed up, so I did not use him on Monday and Tuesday. Yesterday I put him on the ramps and quickly set the valve clearances.

Found the clearances a bit loose (maybe from the hard running on the Greytown trip). Also found the left side rocker assembly bolts required some tightening.

Started with no miss after that and a run into Pretoria (to render unto Ceasar what is Ceasar's) proved that all is well again.

Found a set of Type 4 rockers and shafts at a scrapyard late yesterday, just by chance. They were all full of grease and some rust. Took them home, dumped them in some paraffin that I had lying here, this morning I had a quick look and most of the rust seems to be surface. So will clean them up nicely and everything should be good

Purchased some eyelids and a bush from Rui, the past weekend. Saw the awesome beetle in the metal. Damn its perrdy.

So my suspensions being complete tie rod ends, steering rack etc, also got the push rod bush for the gears, hope that makes it all nice again.

Can't wait to get the bug up to Pta to roll around with.

CooP wrote:If all else fails then take it all to your local steel shop for cutting - they only charge a buck or two per cut.

D'oh - I didn't even think of that. Or get it ready cut from local steel shop - email order through with cutting instructions and then pick it up a day or two later. The local timber place does that, I'll have to find a steel place that does.

bugspray wrote:Purchased some eyelids and a bush from Rui

What!! Rui's opened a garden centre!? I thought this was a car forum...

Did more cleaning, did more spray painting on tin.

Man... I'm fed up with cleaning!

Dirk wrote:Did more cleaning, did more spray painting on tin.

Man... I'm fed up with cleaning!

Got a quote this morning.

Sandblasting all engine tin = R50-00
Having it painted by local painter = R100-00

And this includes the exhaust branch and any other small bits and pieces...

hitlers revenge wrote:@ #$%^&^&^%$%#&^%^$#$%

Sorted the Ghia's wiring, well so I thought. I moved the car to its own garage after cleaning up, only to find I have no lights.

All I did was remove all the loose wires.

@#$%%^^^^$$##@

Not only is my son a self taught motor overhauler, he's now an auto lecky. I got home tonight and all my Ghia wiring is sorted. According to my son it all was a complete mess. Now things are all working and all working on independant circuits. And not lights, wipers and indicators off one circuit.

Thanks SOETIE.(even though I told you not to touch it)