Pedal reinforcement plate

I needed to recreate the pedal reinforcement plate the I absent mindedly cut though thinking that it was part of an old crusty patch repair. Using a piece of 5mm flat bar I transferred the dimensions from the drawing I created and used the remains of the original to double check accuracy. After some trimming and grinding I had the basic shape sorted:

Once I had located the exact position of the mount holes I began drilling them out on the pillar drill, firstly with a pilot hole:

I then moved up to the 6.80mm tapping bit that I ordered online specifically for this task:

Then added the treads using an M8 x 1.25 tap to match the original. It really pays to go slow here and use tapping compound:

I needed to add more material to the top of the naps hat flange so that the overall thickness approached that of the pedal reinforcement plate (wish I would have thought of this at the time I was repairing this section). To do this I clamped some copper underneath the section and progressively added weld to the top, which I later ground flush:

To assist with getting good weld penetration I chaffered the edges of the pedal reinforcement plate and set a 1mm root gap at the bottom (with corresponding 1mm root face):

Offered up, fitting finessed and ready for welding:

I practiced on some scraps first as I have never welded steel this thick and I really only had one shot of getting it right. Welder settings needed to be cranked up and I also fitted my welder with thicker 0.8mm wire. Blew a couple of fuses whilst experimenting with the setup! This is the finished product after a wire brush and zinc priming:

Top side sanded flush along the weld seams and ready for final fitting of the floor pan half. Fitted a couple of new M8 8.8 bolts for good measure:

Happy with that!

Drivers side outrigger now in place

On the last update I mentioned that I was frustrated by the fit of my passenger side pan. I have since asked around for advice and got some really helpful feedback. Most agreed that the pan fitment looked fine, but cautioned that I should really double check my dimensions before plug welding them into place. I have now added a few technical diagrams to the 'useful resto info' page of this blog following extensive online research. In order to check the accuracy of my dimensions I decided to plough on and fit the other outrigger which would allow me to assess how everything was looking:

I then flipped the chassis over and welded the u-shaped torsion bar bracket to the support foot I previous fabricated:

Cleaned up and zinc primed:

Spent a great deal of time the tape measure assessing the distance between the two outermost holes in the outrigger sections. Made some notes to compare against the technical diagrams that I sourced and concluded that I was 4mm in total (i.e; 2mm on either side). However, the tape measure had to go over a slight hump (centre of the chassis tunnel) and would probably account for the extra width I was detecting:

It made me consider whether the diagrams had been drawn up with this aspect in mind or not. That would make them open to interpretation and so my findings will remain inconclusive for the time being I guess. Ultimately I would have preferred the gap to have been a couple of mm smaller so that the pans butt against the tunnel tighter, but I can live with what I have and make it work 

....I hope this doesn't become a statement that I haunts me further down the line!

One step forward (or possibly two back!)

Got the first of the rear pan outriggers welded into position recently:

However, not all is well in the garage of Los Rhysos! When I offered up the floor pan it did not fit snugly into the lip as I would have liked:

I used some red primer to mark where the pan sits and removed the pan to assess how much overlap I was getting:

The gap is about 4/5mm in the widest places, which is enough to really bother me! With this narrow overlap it will be difficult (not impossible) to make suitable plug welds. It is far from ideal, but then I have high expectations. At this point I really don't know if the perfectionist in me is clouding my judgement! After all, if I get hung-up about the fit about every little part then the resto could stall and never get done. At the end of the day I would rather have a car that I could drive and enjoy, but that is a little 'off' in discrete places, than a car that remains unfinished because my vision outstrips the reality of an amateur DIY restoration. Food for thought, but I digress....  

Essentially I am not sure whether to leave this outrigger as it is and hope for the best or grind it off and start from scratch. I think I need to take a step back and conduct some research and ask around on vw forums for advice before welding the pans into place.

Cup of tea time! 

Safer Motoring

Thanks to a well known online auction site I managed to get my grubby mitts on a collection of old British VW 'Safer Motoring' magazines from 1965!

It has been fascinating to flick through the pages and see what was going on at the time my bug was born, such as the prestigious award for Miss VW: 

Then of course are all of the vintage adverts for accessories for me to droll over. With this accurate reference material I now have a wish list of accessories to fit the period of my car. Just got to keep my beady eye out now:

Even in '65 they understood that if you wanted to market a set of boring foot well mats, then you can always rely on the fact that sex sells:

I want to wrap this post up by wishing you all a Happy New Year! My sincere thanks to you for your continued interest in this resto journey. 2016 should see some big leaps forward...

Fitting the rear chassis outriggers

To ensure correct alignment of the rear outrigger/pan supports, I needed to drop the shell back on the chassis. This enabled me to match up the bolt holes with the shell and provided me with essential datum points. I enlisted the help of my generous pal 'Chimps' to assist with the heavy lifting. He is no stranger to shifting this lump of rust around and was previously involved with 'Operation: Beetle Relocation'. My thanks goes out to him for devoting most of his evening helping me out on a cold wet December night. We attempted reunite the shell and chassis in several ways, but to cut a long story short, we ended up opting for 'plan B' following strained back muscles and colourful bruising to my forearms (don't ask!). 'Plan B' involved removing the shell from the wooden supports and taking it briefly out of the garage. Then we removed the chassis from the wooden rotisserie and laid it flat on the floor of the garage on top of some wooden beams just so that it was slightly raised. We then brought the shell back in the garage and dropped it over the top. Then bolted on the front beam and loosely bolted the shell and chassis together. I was then able to position the rear outriggers and offer up the new floor pans:

It was obvious that I would need to rework the profile that joins onto spine section to get an optimum fit. The better the outriggers fit, the better the bolt holes under the rear seat would match up and the tighter the pans would fit to the lip.


Out came the outriggers for a bit of prepping. First up was to drill a few holes on the outter edge of the dirvers side ready for plug welding. I then positioned my fabricated support bracket (remember that little beauty from the last post?!) underneath using a couple of small G clamps. Utilising a reference photo on my laptop I was able to visually fine-tune the angle of the bracket to ensure it was in the correct position. VW never put them on totally square it would seem):

I then plug welded the bracket into place from the topside through the holes I had previously drilled:

Good signs of penetration on the bottom is what I like to see:

 Dressed the top edge and gave it a lick of primer:

The outriggers also needed minor adaptions to make them correct for a RHD car. Time for a quick round of 'spot the difference'...

Having manipulated the profiles to roughly match up with the spine of the chassis, I bare metalled all the areas to be welded, offered up the outriggers and added the first initial tack welds with the shell lifted up for better access:

Then dropped the shell back down to check the fit:

There we have. A lot of repeated lifting, but time saved down the road as I know the chassis matches up with the shell like a glove! All thats needed now are the final bead welds to fix these pieces into position ...but that will just have to wait for another time as I have family festive business to attend to!

Fabrication of a support bracket

I thought this topic deserved a dedicated 'in depth' post as I could not find anything definitive on the interweb about these support brackets.

You may recall that my rear floor pan outriggers were completely shot and so I removed them (see original post here). I was left with these little support brackets/feet that attach to the u-shaped mounts that come off the torsion bar housings:

The problem was that both sides were slightly different lengths, so I assumed that they had been arbitrarily hacked about at some point in the past. This meant that I had no reliable point of reference to work from. I wanted these brackets to be factory correct (if it is a job worth doing, its worth doing right, right?!), so I spent several evenings scouring VW forums for images of other peoples floor pans and amassed a small library of reference photos that revealed glimpses of these elusive brackets. I eventually concluded that there were two distinct types of these support bracket. For all VW Beetle's up to 1967 a short bracket was used and later models had a much longer type.

So, my '65 should have the short type. This was the answer I was hoping for because I was now fairly confident that the bracket on the passengers side of my chassis was correct and unmolested. Unfortunately the other side had not faired so well over the years; it had evidently been trimmed too short and the metal was alarmingly thin in places with pinholes beginning to appear in the corner edges (see pic above). The only course of action was to remove the old crusty bracket and fabricate a replacement using measurements from the good one. Started by grinding off the remains of the old bracket on the drivers side:

Took some initial measurements from the passengers side and devised a plan of action:

Then made a card mock-up of the good bracket:

I transferred the dimensions of the card template to 2mm sheet steel (template was flipped over on to the reverse side of course) then bent, cut and began shaping. Made a series of pie cuts to get the upward curve:

Once I had finessed the gaps to ensure they were forming the correct incline, I filled the spaces using weld. Once again I utilised the copper plate which acted as a backer:

Those welds were then ground off flush. A little welding was required to close up the other curved edge:

Finally the bottom edge was shaped, all welds dressed and given a lick of zinc primer:

It is a difficult shape to show in photos, so I produced a short video clip of the finished article (grab your popcorn!):

The finished bracket looks pretty good and is very close to the original. Shame the only person who will ever see it will be the MOT inspector! Still I think it was beneficial to spend the time making a faithful reproduction as I am still learning and developing my fabrication skills. Might as well perfect these metal working techniques on the unseen areas of the car so that I am semi-pro when I move onto the visible areas of the shell.

The difficulty I am facing now is deciding how best to weld this bracket to the torsion bar housing without negatively affecting the alignment of the new outrigger which fits over the top. I think the best option is to drop the shell back on the chassis to ensure correct alignment of the outriggers, as I can use the bolt holes in the shell for reference. Once am happy that everything fits up nicely, I will weld the support bracket onto the torsion bar housing and then plug weld the outrigger onto the support bracket. This may sound convoluted and vague, but all will become clearer once I start doing it (I hope!)...