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I’ve been so busy lately with trying to get this project started and working on trying to recover some of the old build threads that I forgot to start a thread for my first VW in like 12 years…
Found this little 64 here in NE TN that has been sitting for 2.5 years. Managed to strike a deal with the owner and took her home. The car is pretty solid for the most part, running and driving but definitely needs some mechanical work to make it road worthy. Not really sure what my plan here is but I have ordered a 4″ beam that should be ready in about 5 weeks so whatever I do, I want to have it ready to roll by then.
The back half of the car from the rear of the doors back has been re-sprayed at some point with base/clear as you can see where the “blend” is chipping away near the top corners of the back window. The right front fender has some damage but not sure to what extent yet until I get it pulled off. The front bumper “appears” to be factory but the rear is for sure an aftermarket. It has those aftermarket headlights which Ive never been a big fan of so they are getting replaced. The interior was crusty. The door panels were shot, carpet ratty and the seats had some bad covers on them. The headliner has been replaced at some point and in decent shape.
After putting some gas in the tank and getting it started, and into the garage overnight, we awoke to a HORRIBLE gas smell in the garage.. 🙄 So we first pulled the tank and blew out the lines only to find 2 sections under the car that had original fuel line that was leaking onto the pan.
Here are few pics of it after we got it home.
Thanks Rustabus. Its in pretty good shape. Of course, as usual, the more you dig the more you uncover! It definitely needs more work than any of my other VW’s did but not going to complain! Just nice to have another one again.
Stripped all the interior out last night to get a better idea at what the chassis might need. Looks like the rear half of the passenger pan is going to have to be replaced. Starting to get a few small holes about 1/8″ to 1/4″ just in front of the battery. I can feel a soft spot about 4 inches long in the passenger side heater channel just forward of where the heater tube enters it under the rear seat.
I’ve already ordered new interior from Wolfsburg West so we started pulling the old covers off the seats and found what looks to be the original seat covers I think. The color charts show “Brown cord pattern/Brown” for this car so I guess its possible. They arent really usable, just cool to find hiding under the crappy ones that were on it.
Heres what was underneath:
First shipment of parts came in as well, so I have my tires, everything to completely rebuild the brakes, rear axle seals, fuel lines, new TRW steering box and a few other misc parts. The rest should be here Monday and Tuesday.
Wont get to work on it today, our Jeep club has a trail ride and doing some trash cleanup along the trail since people are still too lazy to take their crap home and throw it away. Sunday I have most of the day to spend on it so I plan to get the underside and the pan head area under the tank degreased and then start wire wheeling the pan to see just how much I need to cut out.
A long day continuing to strip things down to see what I can find. Unfortunately, more issues everytime I remove something… 😆
Definitely more rust repair needed than I expected. Ive never had to replace pans or repair rusted sections like this before. I have some experience with bodywork/paint but it was mostly the commercial stuff where they replace everything vs repairing it.
My biggest problem/question is about a section of the passenger side heater channel near the back of the door and and quarter panel. Theres a section where it started rusting through. I feel like the only way to fix that is going to be to remove the body to cut it out and weld in some new metal. Heres a few pics of the section. Would I be correct in that assumption?
The front section of the heater channel looks ok and doesnt seem to have any soft spots beyond that from what I can tell.
Also found something Ive never seen before. Both doors and inside the rear quarters behind the door panels were full of what looks like that Great Stuff expanding foam that comes in a can. Have no idea what thats in there for… 🙄
Found a few big ass holes cut in the rear firewall for some reason. I remember reading about some old gas heaters that required this, makes me wonder if thats what it was for.
The engine is pretty solid and is running well, but the wiring is a damn mess… even found masking tape, yes MASKING TAPE used on the headlight wires instead of electrical tape.
Taking the day off tomorrow so going to figure out what direction I want to go with it and keep making progress. Originally just planned to fix the battery section of the pan, restore the mechanicals and just roll it. But uncovering that rot is bugging me. Never been one to embrace rust, so thinking I may end up having to take the body off for the my first time ever.
Made more progress this weekend, and realized that taking @Franz ‘s advice to quit digging and do the bare minimum would’ve probably served me pretty well for a bit… but Im hardheaded.
Finished pulling the glass, and then got the body off the pan. We put the body in my woodshop building for now until I can get the pans and chassis work done.
While removing all the body bolts, we started running into more rot that seems to be mostly in the heater channels.
The drivers side bottom of the firewall was definitely hiding some rot. When I started removing the 2 large 17mm bolts that bolt through the front crossmember, it spun the threaded plate they run through completely through the front of the firewall and tore some holes.
The drivers side rear body mount is perforated around 70% the inside of the mount bracket.
Then spent a couple hours degreasing a pressure washing the chassis so I can start tearing the brakes, beam, etc down tonight.
Im picking up a new bottle of gas tomorrow and hope to start getting the new WW pans in by the end of the week.
Now its decision time on the body. Not sure if I want to tackle that much metal work myself. But since I have it at this point, I might as well take it the rest of the way and finish it out properly. No sense in putting $5k worth of new stuff on a car with the body in that shape.
Well, the more I tear down the more this car wants to hate me 🙄 Finished stripping the chassis and cutting out the pans, but while cutting the front section of the pans, I found some nasty rot inside the ends of the front frame chassis support. Its full of crud and figuring Im going to have to replace it.
After taking the front inspection plate off the frame head, I noticed some rust in the bottom plate. Looks like this is consistent with the bottom of the tunnel as well. Not sure what the moisture is. Its not water, seems to be some oily stuff similar brake fluid almost. Not sure how in the hell Im going to clean that stuff out of the tunnel or frame head though.
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