After years of tooling around in the bug and doing all the mechanical work, I figured this summer, my last free one, was the time to do the paint and aesthetic work that I want to complete. I stripped it down during the last few days and now it looks like this:
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A week ago it looked like this:
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No surprises during the body removal, except that those 4 M10 bolts holding the chassis up front were a real bear to remove, and this car is from California. A bear, that is, until I went to the store:
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impact wrench is great because it has torque settings for reverse,something I needed to make sure I didn't strip anything out. By far the besttool I have ever purchased. I monkeyed around with a few body bolts for anhour or two, then buzzed them all out in about 5 minutes when I came home withthat thing. Didn't strip a single one. The chisel is great too, made removalof those pans really simple. Went all over the place looking for a #4 phillipsand couldn't find just the bit, so I bought the one you see there. Doors cameoff with no problem. The only rust hole I found in the entire body looks like this:
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'll cut out a patch panel for that and weld it in soon. Soon meaning rightafter I learn how to weld properly. Next on the agenda is to replace the floorpans I cut out. I couldn't decide whether or not to replace them, but the oldones had pinholes, I already had a pair of Wolfburg West pans from a differentproject, and the body was going to be off anyway. The fit is great, I willonly have to do some slight bending to make them a perfect fit. I decided tocut out the whole pans and not leave that rear crossmember like a lot of peopledo. I think it will look cleaner this way, and the old ones came out withlittle difficulty thanks to the air chisel. An HVLP gun is on its way, and as soon as it arrives and I learn how to use it, I'll be taking the body to be blasted and then I'll prime it and start sanding/bodyworking/painting. Thankfully a friend has a forced air respirator I can spray without killing myself. I'll probably be spraying single stage urethane, though I was initially leaning towards acrylic enamel. I know a lot of people recommend bc/cc for first-timers, but I don't want to be forced to spray the clear within a time window after spraying the base since my schedule is weird. Any thoughts?
Also, does anyone know what font might be a good match for the original paint code sticker? I'm going to try to make one up to replace the crumbled one I have and was wondering if there's a font that would be close. Here's what the original looks like:
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Sorry this is a bit long, I'm just excited to be making progress and finally doing what I had put off for a while. I'll post some more photos as the project progresses, and I'm sure I'll be here with more than a few questions. Adios,
-Chip
'56 ghia, '66 bug