Day 8 - Body Removal

First of all I want to thank my restoration partner, part-time photographer and son Andrew for spending six hours with me and never complaining. When I was a kid it seemed I got to hold a flashlight for hours and get yelled at for handing the wrong tool. This kid is a natural in the shop!

Today was a very busy Sunday but lucky for me I had my best helper at my side to aide with some major tasks. We started the day running some errands and getting the new compressor up and running - a tool that is going to play a large roll not only on this rebuild, but with the shop overall. Once we had that in place we took to removing the remainder of the items prior to splitting the chassis.

We removed:

• The gas tank and fuel sender unit


• The steering column


• Brake fluid reservoir


• The shifter


• Some other miscellaneous bits and parts

We then set up the makeshift Gantry to lift the body off the chassis. For those of you unfamiliar with VW Beetles they are basically a shell on top of a rolling chassis that has the floor pans and all mechanical items on it. That is why so many kit cars are made off of VW chassis - the top is mainly the cosmetic (yet structural) element.

With four 1,600lb straps wrapped at multiple points to each pillar section I used two puller straps to hoise both the front and rear positions. Removal of the body, I'm told, requires the removal of some 18 bolts from the underside. This car had about seven in place - lovely.

Sometime in the next week we'll be rolling the chassis out into the other bay and begin stripping the suspension components and inspecting the components. We will most likely will get these items sandblasted and powdercoated for a rugged finish. As you can tell by the photos the underside is hmmm.... manky. Lots of cleaning, blasting and sheet metal replacement is in the future for this car. As you can see this will be a full nut/bolt restoration with no corners cut (hopefully).

Stay Tuned....