56 beetle, a long build

[jbginger]

So much yes.

[rice4life]

It's going to sound incredible with that setup!

Love the color of it too

[Z33_Taxi]

Mmmm hmmm sub'd

[Paulpooted]

Very nice!

[blowbackjack]

I **** you for having a white garage floor that is so immaculately clean!

Totally dig the Oval, can't wait to see how it turns out.

[Evil Panda]

This is awesome.

[thatbeetleguy]

Alright ive been pretty lazy with updates but frankly all that's been goin on is the boring stuff no one wants to see. When the car got back from paint i had to align the body which can prove to be a real pain in the ass but it eventually got done. really no pictures to show nothing interesting about it.

Then i got more into wheel polishing for a little bit again and the fuch's are really starting to shine up nicely. now theyre kinda at a stand still because i have alot more less aggravating and more fun things to do but here is how the prettiest wheel is sitting now.

the ring between the lip and the face still needs alot of work but the rest of the wheel is looking damn good imo.

i refurbished the old rusty headlights, grinding down with a 3m light rust wheel and cleaning it up with sand paper. threw a few coats of paint on threw the still fresh looking original euro fluted lenses back on some new chrome rings and new bulbs and they're looking good as new.

left is before sanding right is after

all put together and lookin classy

Next i started putting some of the door stuff in. First of all most of you bug guys will know sagging scraping doors are a pain in the ass to fix but after a whole day of body and hinge adjustment my doors finally close smoothly so thats an achievement in itself. but other wise the things ive put in are: exterior scrapers, new seals, ext. door handles, and wing windows . Im waiting on new division bars (idrk what theyre called but the thing between the wing window and roll up window) to come in to be able to put in the rest of the stuff but they're lookin pretty good anyway.


Over the last week or so ive been wiring the car the pictures were taken last weekend so theyre not completely recent but most of the electrical is wired now. (these cars are pretty simple in terms of eletrical and wiring is pretty easy). i just have a couple things still on their way to bolt in and wire but for the most part everything is hooked up now.

shows most but not all the goodies but still fun to see pics (headlights and a couple other switches wires now).


dash area barely starting to come to life (wiper switch also in now though).

http://i1275.photobucket.com/albums/y443/Decker_Ellis/223_zps9ac2d18e.jpg

also this is before the headlights were wired but they still look good sitting in the buckets and the chrome trim is looking nice too here.

and ill try to start doing much more frequent detailed, but less major updates as the quality of this thread could use some improvement but i think the bug is lookin good and there should be more soon to come.

[Z33_Taxi]

more more more

[AKToyotaluv]

56 is quite old and you made it look quite fantastic with the fresh grey, good job and all that bullshit. Nah just keep it comin man, STANCE ON!!

[alexmarkclark]

this beetle is going to be perfect and very classy, and that 911 in your garage is killer too!
good man

[Queef|Chief]

Dang great progress, looks good!

[aprophet13]

great work man! can't wait to see more progress

[thatbeetleguy]

Alright so alot has happened on the bug ans alot of nothing has been posted on my build thread, so i hoping to fix that by a massive dump of progress over the next week or so.

so kicking things off where i left off


i put the blinkers in after finally finding the 56-57 bulb holders.The previous owner was a damn genius and decided to weld the old bulb holder in place on the passenger side rather than using the nut located on the back to tighten it down, considering it looked like it had been dragged out of the bottom of a lake i had to grid it out and put the new one in the less than perfect hole. the hardest part of these was getting them to line up the right way and actually have the seal touching the fender all the way around but i made it work and i think they look good.



so when i bought the car it had this d plate screwed on the decklid. the car had apparently been taken over to germany by a service man and taken back when returning home (atleast thats what i was told) and he didnt mount it on a brackt on the bumper like most of these plates you see he just fucking screwed it on the decklid so i thought that was cool. i had the D painted bodycolor with kind of a creme eggshell white background. my iphone pictures dont do any of this justice.



put the rear blinkers/ break lights after battling to get a little clip into a couple slots on the back if that chrome ring, hours were spent knuckles were busted and wrenched were thrown but all in all it turned out okay.



converted the wiper motor to 12 volt as i am converting the whole car to 12 volt (wiring is all the same this is the biggest thing to change). pretty much everything else was boring but this dropped right in then went in the car.



sound dampened ,is that what its called?, the car so it wont sound like the tin can that it is




My dad took some initiative and got going on the headliner. I love the color. this is a practice of patience and im fine with saying its the thing in the car i didnt do. also theres a little preview of the carpet in there.




put in my beautiful original speedo, (restored of course) along with the wiper switch and light switch

Following this was the restoration of the front ashtray complete with pitted ass old chrome.



so i decided to polish out this old knob before sanding it down to realize what i shouldve before i began sanding it. it was chrome plated over copper. so i was all pissy that i was gonna have to send it off to get rechromed and spend an assload for one knob but i decided to sand off all the chrome and eventually ended up sanding through the copper aswell only to find some kind of metal (dont know what dont care) that polished up real nicely



heres the completed ashtray





then i threw on the speaker grill and my mount for my autometer monster tach (rice, race, old school vw). to complete my dash and make it look pretty good at that



sorry that is the most potato quality picture on stanceworks but you work with what you work with

here is the carpet by the way if you guys didnt get the jist from the other pictures. and i also have a shiny go-go pedal so thats cool. And the shifter is a vintage speed classic 13 1/2" shifter (35% throw reduction) and it looks like a 56 shifter for the most part unlike a stock shifter for my chassis (1969) which would be straight and boring. i plan on painting it the same beige as the rest of the interior parts before the car is finished i just havent got around to it.



oh and remember that steering wheel built on jb weld, harbor freight epoxy, sandpaper, and love? here it is now



and one day i decded to throw on the rear wheels for a little inspiration. 7's look wide on a beetle right? right??



and thats enough for 1 night but upcoming is the seats, the ragtop, other bullshit like windows and.... the motor is almost ready to go into the car ( alot already done to show) and it will be MUCH ore in depth than the rest of this build because thats the fun part, who wouldnt love a 180hp beetle?

[thatbeetleguy]

i got to working on the ragtop to realize that the front bow piece only to realize it was supposed to have grippers (claw looking things) to hold in the front piece. so i made a bracket out of some ace hardare brass and and also contact cemented the fucker down. it ended up being a bit of overkill but it looks good in the car now.


i ended up over killing it with the screws but it holds together well.



it ended up pulling across the bow nicely though and the headliner went in well





the ragtop is looking awesome and the read end looks great now, and yes the decklid is gonna stay propped like that for extra airflow to those carbs.


also found this interesting little thing when putting in the windshield before cracking it when putting it in

considering i live in atlanta now its kind of cool to me that the car traveled this far, fun to have a car with a story. more updates to come.

[Reuvers]

very nice!
I love the attention to detail, and the finish on the steering wheel and carpet.