John Harper of DerCarolinaPanzers.com was very kind to open his doors for all, his collection of VW’s and others is something to behold.

The snowmobile is a 40hp driven vehicle and right next to it is the pig bus which was used at Carrowinds I believe, a sweet low mileage Scirocco, a Rabbit, a couple of early Mercedes being the rare water coolers in the collection.

The primo vehicle has to be the 23w barnddor deluxe showing its original paint mostly – reportedly running for the weekend open Haus. This is an extremely rare vehicle and a real treat to have it on show in Charlotte.

An open frame VW bug presumably for a dealer display would have looked stunning in its day, not that anyone dares to do the same today but VW were proud of their simplicity and form enough to show their cars bare and all.

To the album of pictures

Front bumper on, hood up and sealed, new wheels and tires on, painted rechromed hubcaps, and with an NC title. NOS front lights too.

And now near complete with rear bumper, Union Jack front tag, detailed engine bay..

Accessory time.

Engine all wired up and fuel lines connected.

Fitting grey rubber mats from WW, grey handbrake boot from Ebay, gear lever and heater knobs with logos ‘cos they look cool, painted steering column tube seat frames and handbrake lever correct silver beige. We started off with a rubber top battery from WW in a vain attempt to use the powder coated battery cover but this battery had trouble holding charge and was changed out for an Optima red top. Much better.

Flushed and resealed the original tank, powder coated this too, fitted with new seals and floats. All electricals finished, trunk liner fitted, wiring cover and powder coated inspection covers fitted. Hood adjusted to shut perfect.

Interior panels fitted with plastic membrane to seal against moisture. New ivory handle buffers.

Could not resist a cheeky drive round the block.

Building the doors up took some time, each one took adjustment to get it to sit right. All new seals, door rubbers and wedges used, which presented a small challenge in the assembly around the quarter light. Stripped, refurbished and POR painted pedals.

All new brakes, including German master cylinder.

Engine about to go in, correct stale air rebuilt, we later added the cooling ring to the rear of the housing for correct warm up operation.

Painting the wheel inner colour, the wheels were painted pearl white with the car and then we masked off and painted the inner sections beige. All five wheels, each one mounted and tested for run out, we then purchased Nangkang 165R15′s from Serrano through the Samba.

Got the powder coated hood frame back, remounted the wood and sent all this off to the trim shop. The trimmer we used has been in business over 45 years and has done a few bugs before. None the less we still got them a detailed instruction manual from Chucks convertibles here on the East coast. They trimmed the whole hood, front and rear seats and put in the German square weave carpet kit. We also used lots of sound insulation from Bequiet – excellent products.

This took some considerable time but the wait (c. 9 months) was worth it. After:

Some components being worked on during the repair

Undersealing in progress – this is to be a daily driver..

Overall panel fit superb – tweaked by Luke.

Pics show Luke waiting on us to supply wing beading – we went for a bugpack beige sourced through the excellent VZI forum;

http://www.volkszone.com/VZi/

Floors look as they should now, all solid seam welds and ground flat

Box of parts are the ashtray, light pods, number plate light

Both sides of dash excellent

All good stuff. L97 Pearl White was a good choice and above all else it was the original colour. All areas painted, under hoods, wings, body, bonnet, drip tray etc etc. The floor was masked throughout and then paintwork was masked and the floor painted chassis black. Final touches were sound deadening to the new floors.

Shiny happy people.

Off home to go to the fitting up stage and the list grows..

A decision had to be made on colour now. So we thought we could get either a;

• Brunswick would have been blue roof and grey or water blue seats. (clash of blues)

• Gulf blue would have been grey roof and grey seats. (dark body light hood thing)

• Pearl white with a burgundy canvas roof or black roof with grey seats. (ok)

• Ruby red would have been black roof and grey sets too (had a ruby car).

• Finally Beryl green would have been green roof (custom big money job and 2 green cars) and green seats.

So we settled on Pearl White – after all it was the original colour.

At Terry’s Luke spent a long time preparing the bodywork as this is where a good finish is found. Pics below was before any of the painting had begun but shows the extent of preparation.

Much straightening of the rear bumper hangers

Interior all stripped back – all glue stains removed, holes filled etc

Bonnet fit now very good

Repair to lower quarter panel, doors rehung

Orignal wings confirmed by Luke, spray booth in the background

The welding and preparation job list extended to;

• New rear 1/4 floors – apparently they are thicker than the 1/2 floors

• New front clip – original was bent and distorted

• Straighten front clip – previous accident damage

• Weld up aerial hole – no radio req’d here

• Repair hinges on engine cover – stress cracks

• Straighten rear clip – cracks and bumper mounts weak

• Repair lower rear 1/4 panel – small hole evident

• Weld up access holes drilled under dash

• Straighten carpet retaining lips in door wells

And so the list went on..

But then there was paint.

http://www.thebusstation.co.uk

Good service – we also bought another 5 or 6 tins of paint to find the right blue. This included Horizon blue, Arktis blue, Gulf Blue, Turkis blue and a tin of the original Pearl white. We ended painting pieces of paper and then choosing a colour combo. Bright colour and possibly a bit too late 60′s early 70′s lary colour?

The rest of the body worts and all;

And finally its on its way to Terry’s beetles -hurrah

The gearbox was removed complete with driveshafts for rebuild by Cogbox. Removing it was fun and without the right bearing puller for the driveshaft bearings the axle tubes had to come out with the box. All a bit unweildly to move around and transport. Thank goodness for company cars. Pics show complete box from car and a rarely seen Peter E from Cogbox early one Saturday morning. Scary sight – yep.

Took a week to do and the rebuild was not cheap at 500+ quid but I’m sure a worthwhile investment. Cogbox ended up replacing the driveshafts, diff assembly, all synchro’s, 4th gear, all bearings including driveshaft, one piece original boots and even the case. I chose to leave it at 6V 180mm spec instead of machining out to accept a 12V in the future. Perhaps short sighted.

Box back in the bug before being taken to Terry’s. Also fitted new gearbox mounts on the nose and rear carrier. You can also see that the first batch of powder coating came through for the gearbox carrier.

Returning to original ride height was fun too. In retrospect I think this would have been easier if all the parts had been in the car making it easier to slip the plates onto the splines and all the way home. I chose to rasie the ride height by one turn on the outer splines. According to the Volksworld magazine this would increase by about 3 cm. We’ll only see if that was right at the end with everything on it.

After refit gearbox kept leaking from the bearing carriers all over the garage floor. Realising where this was coming from took a little while and after several attempts at flatting the bearing carrier with sand paper on a workbench top I ended up powder coating the rear brake back plates – this seemed to form all the right amount of sealing faces and I’m now oil tight.