Bottom plate removal

Using a wire wheel attached to an angle grinder I cleaned off most of the dirt and surface rust from the frame head. This allowed me to see what I was really dealing with in terms of the metal work condition. Thankfully the frame head looked fairly solid despite being pitted in places. The same could not be said for the bottom plate which was in a sorry state. I agonised for a while as to whether I should try to patch it up or simply cut it out and replace with a repro panel. I choose to cut it out and replace as it was the more thorough option. The added advantage is that with it gone I will have better access to the front of the chassis tunnel. In the near future I intend to clean out all the accumulated rust flakes, dirt and grease from the inside the tunnel and then treat it with Waxoyl or similar to seal evering up. Anyway, I started by cutting around the spot welds:

I then switched to the angle grinder and ground down the seam welds along the front edge. It was quite a long process, but I was deliberately going slow to ensure that I did not damage any metal that I wanted to save:

 

 

For the smaller areas and tight corners I used a Dremmel, which I found to be surprising capable:

Here is the bottom plate starting to come free. Note the area at the top of the image that I separated by 'thinning' the metal of the unwanted bottom plate until it could easily be broken free:

So, after a few evenings of intensive cutting and grinding the bottom plate was off:

A comparison between the old panel and the repro one that will eventually be welded in:

I have heard other people mention that taking off the bottom plate is no easy task and they were certainly right! It takes a lot of persistence and at times I felt frustrated, but I resisted the urge to cut corners (both metaphorically and literally in this case!). I am feeling pretty good about the result as none of the metal that I am trying to save was damaged by the clumsy use of power tools. Slow and steady wins the race! 

Now I need to grind down the rough edges, clean everything up and straighten up those flanges.... 

Operation: Beetle relocation

A short documentary film about moving my dismantled VW Beetle to a new workshop via a small detour across the iconic Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol.

It is worth noting that the shell would have comfortably fitted inside the van, but that just wouldn’t have been as much fun or looked as awesome.

If it is worth doing, it’s worth doing in style!

Zertifikat

A little over a week ago I applied for Gretchen’s ‘birth certificate’ through the Volkswagen Auto Museum. I was delighted when I arrived back from work yesterday to find a large envelope from VW in my pigeon hole. Wasting no time I tore the envelope open (drum roll)…..

Probably the biggest surprise for me was that she was built in Belgium! This got me very curious because I had not come across this before and so I decided to do a quick search online, but I did not find any relevant information. So, if anyone reading this blog knows anything about Belgium built Beetles, please leave a comment and share your insight.  

Edit 05/12/12: I have found out a bit more about Belgium built beetles!

The Belgian company was called D'ieteren and the assembly plant was located in Vorst/Forest, which is an area in the south-western part of Brussels. D‘ieteren surrendered the plant at the end of 1970 after which full ownership transferred to Volkswagen and eventually became known as “Volkswagen Vosrt”. Between 1954 and 1975 the plant built 1,143,464 VW Beetles.

 
Here is an extract from an article on coachbuild.com:

“After WW II, Pierre D’ieteren managed to obtain the sales rights for VW and so they became the official Belgian distributor of that German manufacturer from 1948”. “D'ieteren bought a piece of land in 'Vorst' for the assembly of the Studebakers and soon this was followed by the assembly of Volkswagens”.

Today the factory is an Audi manufacturing plant and is known as “Audi Brussels”. More information can be found on the Audi Brussels wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audi_Brussels