'74 Standard Resto-Custom

[Dustin]

Ok so this was my sisters Beetle, My parents bought it for her in 2001 or 2002. It had a really bad beam and other misc. things that took it off the road(previous owner was driving it daily ) My dad bought a new adjustable beam for it and we did some other things to it but it didnt get worked on alot. Unfortunatley she passed away before getting to drive it. She loved these cars and came to all the shows with us and drove "Splash" quite a bit so she did get to enjoy them just not heres. Now I am restoring this poor Beetle to the way she wanted it to be as close as I can since she wasnt 100% sure on all details. I know she wanted blue or silver so it will be blue and silver two tone. She also wanted it to be pretty quick. That will come at a later date. She also didnt want it to have bumpers so it wont. I have it all mapped out in my head what its going to be but its going to take alot of work to get it there. It will be a rolling tribute to her.





Here I have all 4 fenders off and some decent wheels and tires that hold air to roll it on. It had 14" western wheels but those werent going to cut it. I unfortunatley cant find any pics of the car before I started work on it I guess I was too anxious at the time.



Now that all that stupid previous owner installed undercoating is off I can see all the rust that was hiding in there. It might not have been so bad if they had washed the car before undercoating.

Rust!!!






The passenger rear fender was held on by 5 of the original bolts and multiple zip screws since the nuts were rusted out of the car. The fender is also aftermarket.

More bad PO bodywork!!!







A peice of wood zip screwed to an aluminum patch stuffed inside of whats left of the heaterchannel! Oh wow



Dont worry huge amounts of chunky bondo will fix anything! If that doesnt do it just put a peice of aluminum over it and pop rivet it all together.




I have the passenger side heater channel almost all the way out. Then will come the passenger side and all the other patch work. Then the body will be removed and both full pan halves done and the pan coated in por15 chassis black.

[Dustin]

BTW: Yes the car was originally yellow then pink then this maroon color the last owner painted it.

[Chris]

while POR15 is a great product, ZeroRust can be used at less then half the cost. My brother is using it on his resto, and I have used it in a few spots on my own. It works great.

Chris

[bren]

Chris:
I agree completely. I started off using POR 15 and then switched to Eastwoods rust encapsulator. To really do POR right you need to use many other of their products for proper prep. work. The prep. has to be perfect for POR to work properly. Rust encapsulator does not require the extra prep. products and is therefore cheaper and easier than POR. Zero Rust is alot like rust encapsulator but much cheaper. I don't think I will use anything else now.
-Bren

[Dustin]

Hmm I will have to look into those. I have POR15 and it is kind of a pain to use but the results with the Chassis Black are amazing



As long as my pan looks like that when Im done I dont care which I use

[TaylorMutts]

Bless you for taking this on, Dustin. I'm sure your sister would have been proud.

I don't know if this will help, but I am not going to use the fenders (or headlights, tail lights, etc) from my car. Don't know if fenders from a '70 will fit a '74, but they are original sheetmetal in rust-free condition. I'm sure we could come to some arrangement.

[Dustin]

Taylor,

Thank your very much,

Also thank you for offering up your fenders. They would work on this car though the rears would be wrong. So would the fronts for the bumper mounts but Im not worried about whats right for the year since Im doing a custom. I have early pre 67 fenders for the front to use and Im thinking I am going to use the stock 74 rears with the big elephant foot tails but changed to the flat kind. I have a few sets of them sitting around. Nothing is set in stone and Im far from needing them so I will let you know

[TaylorMutts]

OK....good luck on the resto. Can't wait to see your progress.

Bill

[Dustin]

Thanks,

I have the drivers side heater channel out but I need to get new floor pan bolts before I can weld in the new one. The old bolts had to be cut off since they were no longer attatched to the heater channel and couldnt be turned out. Besides I dont want to turn old used bolts into my new channels.

[Dustin]

I havent made much progress in the past week but I did go out yesterday to get the new heater channel in. But I realized I need a patch here


It will be much easier to replace this area with the channel out of the way. So I ordered both sides and some pan bolts from Wolfsburg West. Should be here by the 15th.

Here is a picture of the old heater channel next to the new one.

[bren]

Sure wasn't much left of that heater channel! When you get yours done want to come do mine?

[Dustin]

Sure wasnt, I wish I would have gotten those inner fender patches while I was at Randy's though I'll come help you with yours no problem. I like doing this stuff but I guess I better if I want to open my shop

[bren]

Dustin:
Been a long time since we have seen any updates on this project. What is going on? Are you working or something?
-Bren

[Dustin]

I had to put it on hold while I welded a new strut tower into my GTI then I decided to finish the Baja which just needs painted and put back together. I should have some updates on this car in the winter months. I did buy a set of lowback seats and Rossi headlights for it since I had a chance to buy them cheap. I will get pictures up soon as well as a new thread for the Baja.