Life Begins at Forty

Well, it's forty years after my car left VW as a beetle, fifteen years since it was turned into a speedster, nine years since I bought it, and one year since I was degreasing the underside with the body off...... it's finally MOT'd and back on the road again.Ta Da

Magic Carpet

I think the carpet looks magic! .. and the footwell nolonger screams beetle...

Daylight Rubbery

An aftermarket rubber mat for a real porsche 356 costs over 250 squid. With 20 quids worth of rubber mat roll and the dremmel I think Ive done a good enough job.

Tea and Biscuits

It's much more fun fitting carpet than turning spanners! - but I'm not looking forward to sewing the edge trim. I went with biscuit colour square weave carpet for a more authentic look.

I made a sloping ledge from aluminium sheet to relocate my main speakers behind the seats, and moved the smaller door speakers to the footwells.

Beat It, Beat It, Beat It, Beat It

I finally made a start on the sills to cover the heating plumbing...

Beaming

Leaking gearbox oil - I took the rear disc off and everything looked fine but I made an extra o ring as oil had clearly gotten out somewhere before.

Weak Handbrake - The essential tool for taking the handbrake off is a magnet on telescopic rod - for when it all falls apart and drops into the chassis tunnel!
The manual says not to press the button when dismantling - and I swear I didn't!

Ball Joints and Steering - Out with the old : Worn Ball Joints and Sloppy steering gone!

In with the new : Double Wishbone and rack&pinion steering thanks to Red9Design.

Balls! MOT Failed...

Well ball joints actually, excessive play? they should have seen the use I got out of the last set!

Lowered beetles are going to go through standard ball joints, there are longer aftermarket ones which are meant to improve their wear.

Its a nasty job replacing them, I felt they were good enough to pass - I could go to another MOT place and they pass, yet I really should have done them whilst the body was off.

Although the top torsion arm on oneside also has alot of play in/out I'll see whats going on there when I take the arms off.

It also failed on the handbrake being too weak, I had such a mare fitting the shortened cables for the new aftermarket discs that I ended up with no adjustment (not realising the handbrakes pivot is held withan E clip). Ill take the handbrake off this time and leave full adjustment after shortening the cables some more.

That wasnt it though, the short journey to the MOT and theres gearbox oil on the rear disc!

Its come from the paper gasket in the mount at the wheel end of the axle - so Im hoping Ive just not torqued the 4 bolts enough when I converted to discs (the other side has a tiny bit of gearbox oil showing on the gasket but not enough to drip - So Ill tighten both sides to be safe.)

A couple of advisory notices were play in the steering and headlights are LHD? So some tape was required. I bought the US spec sloping headlights as a unit in the past as they are alot cheaper, and transfered my uk lenses. When rebuilding them with the new chrome rings I used the shiny new looking lenses I found in the garage - not thinking about them being US spec!

It was threatening to rain when I went for the test so I wasnt very bothered that I wasnt on the road yet....well not much!

I've since cracked on with the heating, whilst it looks like Ive ram raided a plumbers shop at present! It will be sweet when I've covered the pipes with fake sills and fitted the sliding heater vents in the footwell....

My main aim was to prevent rain water which puddles on the windsill and flows down the window vents from getting into the sills. My old rusted subframe had this problem and rusted from the inside out.

Oh and the doors... the doors fit flush at the front now, but still arent quite right. I'll worry about them when everything else is sorted though.