Restoration of an Autostick VW beetle..A fathers gift

[nmshaikh]

The car has been passed on to the painter who is preparing the surface for the first treatment. Work came to a standstill due to Eid holidays but hopefully will resume tomorrow. The car had original seats (front) replaced with Japanese seats but I decided against that when the restoration was discussed with the car owner. A set of seats was sourced in Karachi and is on its way to Islamabad. The maestro - Ustaad Zaheer is going to restore the seats and also do the headliner, door cards and carpeting. I am hoping that I will be able to update the thread regularly from here on. I have not exactly been sitting on my backside but working on another project for a client who insisted on anonymity and declined permission to share the restoration story till the car is on its way to New Zealand. Respecting his privacy I am taking pictures but will share them in a few months time. Stay tuned

[umar.shadab]

any pictorial description

Sent from my GT-I9300 using PW Forums mobile app

[nmshaikh]

any pictorial description

Sent from my GT-I9300 using PW Forums mobile app

I did take a few pictures of the body shell being scrubbed to remove any traces of rust etc. I will share once the work restarts.

[AQRaza]

Looking for the plastic washer bottle for my 70 VW. A fantastic project with photos and detailed comments. Am excited to visit u in Pindi and see this project myself. Best wishes

[nmshaikh]

Looking for the plastic washer bottle for my 70 VW. A fantastic project with photos and detailed comments. Am excited to visit u in Pindi and see this project myself. Best wishes

I may have one in my stash. Whenever I visit the VW shows in the US I am always on the lookout for such parts. The locally available ones are almost always covered in overspray. The one in my convertible is actually a NOS part that I bought off the samba.

[lazeez]

Oh how I abhor those oversprays. Ruins the finish of the plastic when removed.

[nmshaikh]

Eid Mubarak to everyone who has waited patiently for updates here. I realize its been almost a year !. The car, meanwhile, has been undergoing restoration and is finally back at my house in Islamabad. It just needs a few final touches and then she can be re-united with its owners. Going thru my folder of pictures I notice that some of the pictures are missing. It may be that they got placed in a wrong folder and I will get to them one day when I am looking for something else.

Lets start the story from where we left it.

[capsat]

@nmshaikh sabr ka paymana about to be cracked janab baas bhi karayn start posting please

[nmshaikh]

I appreciate your patience

...so the donor body was separated from its pan and placed on the refurbished pan. The heater channels are usually rusted so had those fabricated in thicker gauge steel and welded to the body and the heater channel bottoms fabricated in the previous step. Once the body was ready it was unbolted once again and a new body to chassis seal was sandwiched between the body and chassis. Liberal amounts of polyurethane sealant were used to ensure that no moisture gets between the two surfaces and play havoc in the years to come. The body was then tightened and the body work started.

[nmshaikh]

The donor body shell had some rust in the usual spots so it was patched up. The car had been painted over several times so the body was stripped clean down to bare metal using paint remover. Once the sheet metal is exposed the panel beating can be done to a higher grade.

[nmshaikh]

Work on the body shell was interrupted several times due to rains and for want of clean rear fenders. The fenders off the donor body were in reasonable shape but needed some patch work. When none could be found that were better than the ones on the car I decided to have those stripped clean and repaired. Arshad worked his magic and the rear fenders are now solid and the wheel arches conforming to the wheel curve.

[nmshaikh]

As is customary I insist on all parts to be test fitted prior to car been passed on to the painter. The bumpers were test fitted too even though they are not in the best of nicks. These bumpers are from the donor car and have relatively less abuse and rust. The bumpers off the original car were too far gone to even consider and were dispatched to the scrap heap.

[nmshaikh]

same consideration for the rear of the car.