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..