Down to the Frame at Last

Bolting it to the dolly

Me, Steve, Dan, Tom, Richard, Chis & Henry

Three weeks ago we lifted the body off the frame.  I have to say it went much smoother than I imagined it might.  My seven helpers, Dan, Richard, Henry, Chris, Steve, Tom and Valery and I lifted it off in just two tries.  The only thing I forgot to disconnect was the speedometer cable so that's why we had to lift it twice.  No matter, the muscle was sufficient to the task, as was the giant wooden dolly that I created from a picture on the internet.  It worked, far better than I expected.

Rotten floor pans

Cutting out the rust

Two weekends ago I cut the one of the rusty floor panels off the frame.  It was much easier than I expected, mostly because whoever welded the last set of floor pans in was either so lazy or unskilled that only half the pan was actually welded and that was shitty, to say the least.  You can read about some of the experience in my account (Tools Make the Man) of using the cutting tool in my journal.

Passenger side is next

Both pans are out

The second floor pan came off the frame last weekend, and the story was much same.  I can only hope that whoever cuts the body panels out the next time will have slightly higher regard for my welds than I do for the quality of the previous owner's work on this car.  They get some points for trying, I guess.  In the end, it's a fortunate fail for me.  The frame is free of rotten sheet metal at last.

Off to the scrap heap

Ready for teardown

Now, I can finally attack the frame, suspension, tires, transmission and engine.  No small list, I know, but consider this.  My plan is not to restore but to refurbish this car.  I want to get it running and actually drive it, so my task of cleaning and replacing worn parts will begin this week.

Next week I will remove the wheels and tires, put the remaining frame up on jack stands and give it a good power wash.  Next to a sand-blasting this is the best way to really get down to the bare metal that I can think of.  It will be easier than using chemicals or hand-grinding, to be sure.

Then, it will be time to tackle the front suspension.  I love this work.

Four Months in Four Minutes

Liftoff!

Body Braces

The doors are off

Into storage for a while

After spending at least six weeks--or roughly half of the time that I have had the Ghia--designing and building a dolly to hold the body separate from the chassis while I work on the two halves in essentially the same space in my driveway, the day for the actually removing the body is getting close.

While building the wooden dolly basically turned me into a carpenter for a month or more, I've really been building up the urge to bang around on some metal.  And, although the last step in the process involved metal, it was not 'good' metal (of the rusty and/or automotive type) that had my attention, but a few strategically placed lengths of angle-iron to brace the body and keep it from collapsing like a fortune cookie when it is lifted up off the frame without the doors.

Bolted to the body

Steel angle iron braces

Of course, I first had to remove the doors, which proved to be less difficult than I imagined, but not so easy as it ought to have been.  This was not because the the big bolts holding the doors had become a little rusty (which they had), but because a tricky little hinge pin hidden inside the door required more finesse than force requiring me to think rather than simply wrench and remove.  With Richard's patient help and few brain cells later, I had the doors off and the car ready for the braces.

Ready for liftoff

The frame locks it together

I had originally thought I would have to weld in these braces, but fortunately after the doors came out I found a couple of perfectly placed openings in the body both fore and aft that permitted me to bolt them in instead of welding.

Eight bolts later, we're braced for liftoff.

Hello Dolly

One of the hardest things to pull off in this little project has little to do with metal and nothing to do with the car itself, but considering my available space and the time frame (however unrealistic) I figured that building this little dolly would be worth the time, effort and expense.  Whether or not that proves to be true remains to be seen, but now at least one month after making the decision, the dolly is built and ready to go.

I have no idea if it will actually work, since I built it by looking at a couple of pictures that I found on the internet, but if those pictures are true--and what, on the internet is not?--it ought to do the trick.  The trick is to to separate the body from the frame but store the two halves in the same space.

At first, I had planned to simply pull the body off and set it down on a plywood platform in the side yard, but besides seeming unnecessarily crude and predictably South Austin, it just didn't seem like a good idea, leaving it over there to rot, essentially.  Now, to be fair, having it on the dolly doesn't make it more likely that I will restore that body or even that it will be done in a timely manner, but it does ensure that the neighbors will not be offended by much more than the sight to which they are already comfortably--based on their reactions (none so far)--accustomed, or resigned, as the case may be.  It also means that I can look at the body as I work on the frame, which may or may not be an asset.

Now, it would be just delightful if I could call a few friends and make the move, but nothing is ever that easy, is it?  No, of course not.  I have all the body bolts out, as both Readers know, and the body is ready to move, but I have at long last resolved that other burning question: remove the doors and weld in supports?  The answer to this question is, of course,yes,but the obviousness of the answer didn't occur to me till I had built the dolly.

I was considering moving the body to the dolly without removing the doors, reasoning that leaving them in would not only be simpler and quicker (toward the goal of removing the body) than taking the time and trouble to remove them and weld in steel supports between the rear and front halves of the body.  Simpler and quicker, of course, but not better.  Looking at the dolly I realized that if I don't do that support welding first, when I do remove the doors, the body will fold up like a fortune cookie.  Not something I want.  This is a German car, not an Asian one, after all.


So, after all, even with the dolly built, I am another month away from liftoff.  Now the question becomes whether or not it's time to buy the welder.  A new toy?

Steering Out! Body Ready for Liftoff!

Sunday came this week with a threat of rain, but this is Austin.  The day dawned cloudy but by the time Henry stopped by to help me pull the steering column out, the sun was high in the sky and it was a perfect day for a couple of car guys to go play.

The steering wheel had been vexing me because I knew it had to come out but I just could not figure out how.  I thought it would be as easy as removing the two bolts under the dash and just slipping it out of the hole, but that was before I had a good look at it.  I could see that it also had to be disconnected from the steering box, which was no problem, just a couple of bolts holding a clamp on the spline, but it was the retaining clip at the top of the crushable cage where the steering column fit through the body that was giving me the trouble.

It looked like even if I pulled that clip off, it was going to hinder the easy passage of the column (especially that cagey bit) through the hole.  I pondered this as I detached everything else, but by this Sunday, that list was down to just a couple of things, and one of them was the damn steering column.  Fortunately I had Henry to assign this task to, and he delivered the goods.

Of course, it turns out that the retaining clip actually came off, so the problem wasn't as vexing as I'd made it out to be, but then, what problem is unlike this?  So, with no beer to slow him down, Henry had that thing out of the car in less than half an hour.  He also removed the broken-down plastic p-o-s steering wheel, which I am looking forward to replacing with an older more elegant version.

While Henry was working on the steering column I was drinking beer and working on freeing the last sticky spots between the body and the frame.  This meant I had to pull out the cutting wheel to zap a sloppy little weld right up at the front on the passenger side, but once that cut was made and we gave it the old heave-ho, lo and behold, the body lifted right up off the frame!

Success!  Well, sort of.

Not only didn't we have the strength to lift that sucker up right then and there, I didn't have the platform ready for it either, so back down it went.  I have most of the platform built (missing a sheet of plywood) so we can hopefully pull this thing next Sunday!

Gas Tank, Master Cylinder and Bumper Brackets

The body is still on the frame, but I found what I think/hope are the last two body bolts and removed them yesterday.  These were underneath the gas tank in the front of the car, so I removed the four bolts holding down the tank.  Part of this process involved removing about five feet of black canvas hose that was folded up underneath the dash.  This hose comes out of the gas tank and is attached to some kind of moisture condenser mounted up to the left of the gas tank, but why it is so long, I do not know.  It looks to me like one of those 'innovations' that was required for emissions systems sold in the U.S. market in the mid-seventies, but then again, I suppose it could have a genuine function.  I never saw a hose that long on a Beetle though.

One thing I did see on my Beetles that I had not discovered on my Ghia until I pulled out the gas tank was the brake master cylinder.  I might not have seen it on my Ghia at first because it was so completely covered with dirt that it was only the protruding brake lines and wires that marked its existence.  In spite of being so buried, once cleaned off, it looked like the actual thing was in pretty good shape.  It's made of cast iron, but it really hadn't gotten much rust.  Whew!

The brake lines, though thankfully nearly empty of fluid, appeared to be in pretty good shape as well.  These will have to be replaced, along with the master cylinder, but it's nice to see that the car didn't suffer from too much mechanical neglect prior to being laid up.  The condition of the master cylinder is indicative of the overall mechanical condition of the car: dirty but functional.  Up under the hood, where I removed the brake fluid reservoir, years of spilt fluid had caused the paint to come off, but overall this area is relatively rust-free.  

Not so the lower edges of the body, of course, but at least the nose and headlight buckets are in good shape.  In the interest of lightening the load for the body removal, I took off the front bumper brackets but even though they weighed a lot, I don't think that will make much of a difference.  Though it supposedly only weighs a few hundred pounds, that body is still a heavy thing, and it doesn't help that it is stuck to the frame.  It's not actually welded in place, but the combined forces of thirty-five years have bonded the two halves together pretty good.  Once all the bolts were out, with some wiggling, I managed to 'crack' the body at the frame so I can see it is moving, but even Valery and I lifting together couldn't make it budge more than a millimeter or so.  

It looks like it will take at least four people, maybe six to lift it up and off the frame.  I am still considering removing the hood and trunk lid to reduce the weight, but I don't want to take things off that I will just have to store somewhere.

My thought is to keep as much as possible where it belongs just so I don't have to keep track of it or remember where and how it goes on the car.  That includes the doors, which I really do not want to take off until it is absolutely necessary because once they are off, it is hard to get them back on just perfectly.  The same is true of the trunk and hood.  If I do have to remove the doors, I will also have to weld in some supports so that the body doesn't twist and get distorted when it is moved.  Since I haven't bought a welder yet, that bit is still in the realm of the abstract, not the real.

Next: Body off!