The Overdraft
(Mates cars)
Here
I then chole to slide under the car and have a look see. A whole 24 bolts were attached and all neaded removal! (DOH) Once this was acheived I let out a sigh of releif and went to lift the body with my Dad. Yet the body still didn't move!! As the search continues I found more bots and undid them. On about the fifth day of working away at the bolts, the body was liftable, but two men couldn't lift the body alone... 5 men were needed for this to be accomplished and the result... a body in a pre-prepared shed and a chassis.
The chassis was completely covered in surface rust and was in a bad state. It still had all its wheels, suspension, gearbox, accelerator, brake, clutch... it was all still attached except for the body. The first job was to remove all grease from the entire car. I scraped the bulk of it followed closely by jet hosing the whole chassis removing any leftover grease. The jobs ahead would now be cleaner, and easier to access.
The next job would be to remove all the driveline, accelerator, brake ect. This was acheived by removing multiple bolts from on the floorpan allowing the padals to move freely. The cables were taken out, mast heads and many other accesories. Once all was done, I moved on to the trires. All of them were taken off with ease and stored away.
Next was the axle and gearbox. The gearbox on a beetle is at the rear end of the car, and with it attaches the axle, which then attaches to the back suspension!
getting confused?
Well the entire gearbox had only six bolts attaching it to the floorpan, and even though these needed to be removed. They unfortunately were very stiff and alot of CRC had to be applied to remove them. The gearbox should then have fallen straight out but instead it hung, attached bt the handbrake cables. The drum lid was removed and despite all the grease. The cables were removed and the gearbox sucsessfully fell.
Next on the agenda was the front suspention. well put it this was... four bolts, no worries!
I was now left with a bare floorpan. And it was completely covered in surface rust. This job was going to be huge.!!.!! I used a wire buff on an electric angle grinder and began stripping the surface rust off the pan. As easy as it sounds this was the longest, tiring job I have ever taken on. It took a period of three months to acheive the best possible job I could acheive on the pan. And it was worth it all.
And to see the end result you'll have to go to the next page!!!!
He he
