Help! What's first on restoration?

in my opinion, fix rust *FIRST*....always....rust doesn't wait till you are ready to deal with it...it keeps on rotting....rust repair first....first....first....first.....first.......

What SHOULD have been done last, was the headliner and interior. So you don't end up ruining it with your greasy fingers while doing mechanical work, or staining it with smoke and fumes and sooty particles when welding, or ....

Be careful.

Mechanical, bodywork or pans? Does the car have to be movable during the restoration? Out in the elements without protection? If all that is irrelevant, then do it in any order you want. I'd do the dirtiest work first, then the stuff that requires a clean garage and hands.

Jan

Sheeeeshshs, Jan, _now_ you tell me about the headliner... :)

I agree with Chris: rust first but I am not beyond working on the rust yet, so don't know any better :) Seriously, I am in the middle of a body off. I opted to do the frame first.

Thanks for the insights. My choice would not have been the headliner first either. The previous owner did that. In seeing what he did do I'm thinking he was going for a quick fix and sell it to someone as restored. He did do a pretty decent job of putting it in and I hear they are a pain to do, so I'm not sure I want to take it out. On the other hand if I end up having it media blasted wouldn't I have to take it and the windows out anyway?

As for the placement during my work it is inside and does not have to be moveable. I think I like the getting the dirty work out of the way first!

H-S-F

I do think that you have to remove everything when you mediablast. Been debating whether to do that as well. It isn't so much the expense that is holding me back (a friend can do it for me for free) but the fact that you have to take everything out.

A while back on theSamba someone by accident found out a great way to remove old paint using a common household cleaner:

frame is nearly complete now so when I move on to the more seriousportions of the body (channels, firewall, rear crossmembers), that'swhat I'll most likely use. I might ask him to blast the hood, etc. Remco

I guess in a way you could say I'm lucky that mine came totally stripped out, or you could say I'm in trouble because I have to figure out how to put everything back not having the knowledge of where it came from! I'm the kind of person who will take pictures before and while I'm tearing something apart because I can't remember things like that if more than a few days pass. Lucky you on the friend who can do the job for free.

H-S-F

I hear ya - that's how I operate as well, taking pictures and labeling everything. Stripped my 75 engine totally down and rebuilt it, all without having a part left and the engine running. Could not have done that without manuals, DVD, pictures, ziplock baggies, tags and sharpie pens. (Usually, if I take things apart and put them back together enough times, eventually I have enough parts left to build two. :)

Yours is a 73 SB, mine is a 72 beetle. Not positive on this, but I think the major differences between SB and beetles is the front end. The frame heads are totally different but understand that anything in the back of the front firewall is the same. If there are detail pictures you need, let me know: My body and frame are separated so can take any picture you may need.

Remco

The way to restore anything is:

1) Mechanical/chassis 2) Body 3) Interior For a bug that would include body off of pan, & completely restore the pan, suspension, & drivetrain first. Then restore & paint the body in peices, & mount it all on the pan & put it together. Then do the interior. Possible exceptions could be if the body (or pan) was so bad rusted you have to have it on the pan to weld/align everything. If you have to do that make sure you wrap everything *tightly* in plastic that's been detailed. HTH, ~ Paul aka "Tha Driver"

I *thought* I was wrong once, but I was mistaken.

Wrap everything in plastic? You mean like the smaller parts, I take it?