Bug Restoration.

Well here she is and a sorry state as well, I found here on her roof in a scrap yard whilst looking for parts for my kit car. It was in the farthest corner of the yard the only reason she hadn't been destroyed was she wasn't worth the effort, better to leave her rotting than spend time on something that wouldn't make money( then I came along).

We had to tow her home for obvious reasons, it was while towing her home along country lanes that some idiot decided that he owned the road and refused to stop. My mate had to brake hard and with the brakes not being 100% I had a vision of the back of his truck looming up on me rather quickly. I swerved into the hedge smashing one of the remaining good indicator pods and riding over the tow rope, this decided to rap itself around the front wheel ripping the brake pipes off. Now we were in a state, good job that bloke kept going talk about road rage, I'd have swung for him. Now how do we get home ? We lifted the front of the Bug onto the pick up and tied it there and I sat on the back of the truck with my feet on the front wheel trying to stop the bug from careering forward when the brakes were applied. It worked but luck was with us that the Police weren't around.

After removing the engine and gearbox I started on the roof, I split the two layers and found the tube which  runs around the door to give it strength had rusted away which is why the roof had collapsed. The remains were removed and a double tube was fibre glassed in its place. The two halves were then fitted together and glassed (easy !!! I don't think).

Next the car was lifted so the underside could be fibre glassed repairing the fracture damage to the front.

 It was while removing the front suspension that I discovered that the swinging arm was bent, this I managed to straighten with an oxy acetylene gas torch and a rather large length of scaffold pole.

This side damage was from a previous accident which had cracked open, a Ford car had driven into the side (I found the remains of the headlight still embedded in the fibre glass). This had been a bad repair so I removed all the old repair and straightened the metal seat belt bracket to its proper position and glassed it back to original. The outer skin was removed to gain access and to repair as it fell into three pieces when cut out. So it was just as well I cut it out.

See that repair to the engine that dollop of pudding was supposed to stop the core plug leaking. Guess what, it didn't work. The engine was scraped as it was full of water and beyond economical repair. it was at this time I realised that the car was not going to be original so I proceeded to change the look to a custom style. An engine from a 850cc Robin Reliant was procured with gearbox. I decide to paint the car white with a flash interior. When I later visited the Reliant factory I think this annoyed the new owner as it was the same as the new limited edition Robin.

New grey vinyl leatherette was used to cover the seat restraints and the seat covers.

A tow bar was fitted to tow my camping trailer, this is removable. Here you can see the loops fitted to the roof, this is to fit the canvas zip doors so the roof can be raised to work on the engine without having to take the doors off, works quite well. I prefer to leave the roof down and just unzip the doors. The doors are only needed when its raining and the last thing you want to do is lift the roof when it raining, so I left off the gas strut that aids the roof lifting thereby allowing me to fit a row of gauges instead. The roof lifting is to gain access because on the Bug the bottom half of the doorway has a panel across it. Mine doesn't have this panel so access is easy.

Fitting the windscreen and rear window and the vinyl roof. Measuring for the engine cover which I had to make as the original was lost.

Nearly done, Its amazing how long the final little things take to finish, that's why so many kit cars and classic cars are ruined because by this time your desperate to get the car on the road.

All done not bad for eighteen months of  hard work, off to the M.O.T station.