1968 VW Beetle Rebuild - Rusty

[Cedric Snr]

Howzit Gents

My eldest son (Cedric jnr) just bought himself a 1968 1500 VW Beetle project car and he asked me to help him with the restoration. I beleave a beetle needs a name so I've started to call this one Rusty (a fitting name I think if you look at the current condition), when we are done we will rechristen it.

I will update the post with pictures of the car in its current condition when we go to collect the car tomorrow afternoon and continue to post pictures of the build progress as we go along.

The plan is to do something like this.

[Tony Z]

Good luck with the project. Looking forward to seeing the updates!!!

[retrovan]

That Beetle looks to have a lot of personality,

Tell us more about the restoration, as addicts, we need more.......



Herman

[Cedric Snr]

Good Morning Guys

We received the car yesterday and as prommest here is some picture of Rusty in its current condition. as it turns out the rust damage is not as extensive as I previously thought so it seems we will have a pretty diesent canvas to work from.

[Cedric Snr]

... and here is what we've been doing so far, I just love hard work .. especially when I can watch someone els do it

[Tony Z]

pretty good progress for the first day...

[retrovan]

Thats still nice man, lets you do with it what ever you want, no restrictions.

Herman

[Cedric Snr]

Morning ALL

Just a quick update on the progress so far with Rusty. so far we have managed to stick to the original idea to not fully restore but just get everything neat, tidy, working and in a road worthy condition, in other words a very low Rad Rod (We have a very strict budget)

Friday (afternoon and night) - Completed tidying up the wiring and cleaning the nose area.

Saturday - Fixed the left window winder mechanism (had to dig in to the piggy bank for some replacement items we sourced from two very helpful gents - Charles and Johnny in Brakpan) and replaced both door panels, completed the wiring under the dash and under the back seat, We are changing to a Alternator with a built in regulator (also second hand sourced from Charles) so had to do some re-wiring to remove the current regulator under the back seat. Completed the installation of the carpets and cleaning and refitting the back seats, Oo and installed the battery.

Sunday - Put the car on bricks and removed the wheels and started stripping the suspension to lower it and to service the brakes. Completed the lowering on the back still left with the front to do (that's a bit more involved).

Monday (I had the day of) - Took the wheels to Super Quick Birchleigh (very helpful and friendly bunch of guys), they striped the old tires of and I took the rims back home used some elbow grease and cleaned them then painted them red and left them in the sun to dry. took them back to Super Quick in the afternoon and they fitted some new tires with white wall inserts for me (at one time there were about 5 guys working on my wheels). I am pretty chuffed with the results.

[Cedric Snr]

After connecting the battery Sunday I started to go through al the electrical stuff to see what is working and what not. and it appears there's a bug in this Bug.

We're gone need the services of an expert since with my experience in electrics I thing I will do more harm than good, so can anyone recommend a good auto electrician in the Kempton park area that do house calls??

[Tony Z]

Wow, you really are moving fast on this project. Nice one!

[Cyndi Kritzinger]

I AGREE WITH TONY!
AT THIS RATE YOU'LL NEED A NEW PROJECT EACH MONTH OF THE YEAR. HOPE YOU HAVE A LARGE PROPERTY!
LOOKS LIKE A GOOD BUG THOUGH.
GOOD LUCK.

MARK

[Cedric Snr]

Thanks Mark, Tony

Yes apart from my sons very tight budget there are some other factors that necessitates the speed of the build.

1. My son is riding a scooter to work at the moment and with the cold weather approaching its not as much fun for him as he thought it would be so the goal is to get it running and road worthy by 10 July.

2. I would very much like to prove MY dad wrong who looked at the car on fathers day and said that we will never get it running, it just pisses me of when someone tells me something CAN NOT be done.

3. This build is interfering with MY passion, RC Model Airplanes (I have about 30 of them) and that makes me cranky.

[Drusky]

2. I would very much like to prove MY dad wrong who looked at the car on fathers day and said that we will never get it running, it just pisses me of when someone tells me something CAN NOT be done.

3. This build is interfering with MY passion, RC Model Airplanes (I have about 30 of them) and that makes me cranky.

It's possible your Dad just knows how to push your buttons to attain maximum effort

I too have a RC plane addiction. I really enjoy slope soaring.

Anyway loving the build. Looking forward to seeing more!

[Cedric Snr]

2. I would very much like to prove MY dad wrong who looked at the car on fathers day and said that we will never get it running, it just pisses me of when someone tells me something CAN NOT be done.

3. This build is interfering with MY passion, RC Model Airplanes (I have about 30 of them) and that makes me cranky.

It's possible your Dad just knows how to push your buttons to attain maximum effort

I too have a RC plane addiction. I really enjoy slope soaring.

Anyway loving the build. Looking forward to seeing more!

You're probably right there Bud .. about the RC planes being an addiction and not a passion I mean and not about my dad his just a mean old fart.

[Piet]

Supa Quick in Birchleigh?
Dr watson I presume?