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Restoration Begins!
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| On November 1st, 2003 Schnitzel was removed from daily use, insurance and plates discontinued and his restoration officially began. Here he is with out his tail lights, trim, interior, running boards and headlights. |
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It's sad to throw away original parts, but sometimes they just can't be saved. The running boards and trim on them were original, but far too damaged and beat up to bother with. So in the trash they went, along with the carpet, headliner bits, seat upholstery, padding, body trim and old seals.
Then the areas needed to be welded or straightened at the body are marked with masking tape.
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The rear apron has a few cracks in the metal on the lower right corner that will be welded and fixed. Also there are two broken off tabs in the left side of the engine compartment for holding the firewall in place. Those will be replaced.
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| Damage to repair on the right side: The rear bumper bracket mount has a few small rust holes and a tiny bent in it, the rocker panel has a broken running board bold left in by a previous owner, the the jack point on this side is bent backwards a bit and under the car the pan edge is bent in a way that blocks a chassis bolt head. I will need to get to for body removal. |
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With a puff of diesel smoke on a very cold morning in November 2003, Schnitzel is off to the body shop! You can see his brother Piet trying to get into the shot also. Kids. |
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| My husband is Project Manager, Financial Systems (fancy title for computer programmer) at a very large publishing company in Trenton. He wears a suit everyday and works in a very fancy building. For some odd reason he also drives an 18-wheeler to the as a second job on Saturdays. He finds this "fun". Ok, well its handy for me since the company provided the pickup truck and trailer seen in the above photo. |
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| Clinton Auto Body is in Lebanon, New Jersey on Route 22.
This is where Schnitzel will spend the next few months while I restore all the parts I took off of him before he left. I removed a lot of parts, not as many as I should have but still a LOT. Everything was separated into boxes first labeled "interior to be cleaned" or "exterior to be cleaned" or the sad box of "to be replaced". Not too many parts landed in the to be replaced box, but it is always best to save the parts until the restoration is over. You never know just which part you may not find and have to reuse your old one or you need a reference for installing the new part.
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The cleaned and new parts are stacked in a series of wooden shelves.
Those are my authentic 1950s coveralls hanging on the shelves, Admiral Magic Mirror Television Repair coveralls. My father used to keep them in his car long before I was born in case he had to work on the car. He passed away in May 2003 and my mother sent me the coveralls and a few dead moths. :o)
The convertible New Beetle keeping an eye on my parts is a very large inflatable promotional piece from a Safeway grocery store New Beetle contest.
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| Schnitzel's seat frames were completely restored while he was away. The springs were removed from all frames and cleaned. The frames were then all hand sanded to metal (except for the seat bottoms, which I used chemical stripper), primered and then painted with spray paint from Wolfsburg West in the correct color, L471 Stone Beige. A roll around clothes rack makes an excellent painting spot for such parts.
Also painted with the same spray were the hand brake handle, steering column, turn signal arm housing, steering column bracket and shifter.
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| Here are the two front seat frames hanging from the clothes rack drying. The back are primered awaiting the coat of paint and the bottoms have been painted and are drying. |
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| The pedal assembly was also disassembled. I always thought this would be more difficult that it was. I have the original VW Bentley Manual for my 1958 Beetle, and it has an excellent section on taking apart the pedal assembly. Next I painted it with satin black paint and let it dry for long time before I reassembled it and greased it. |
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| Above is a close-up of the assembly after restoration, and to the right is the complete assembly painted in satin black. |
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| Meanwhile back at the shop, Schnitzel was getting wrinkles body pulled out. If only it was so easy on a human with wrinkles! |
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