Oh.....this is big. We had a breakthrough on the beetle. There have only been a handful of hurdles on this project that put me in mental prison. The one that has been holding me up is the heater channel holes not lining up to the holes in the floor pan. You see, when heater channels are replaced, they are often not a match to the original pan. They have to match up or you can't put the bolts through to secure it. I don't know why but this one kicked me in the groin.
I finally fought back. I pulled Nick (now 13...ugh) out to help me lift the front so I could shine light and see where the holes need some cutting. I marked the the floor pan with some chalk and decided it would be best to pull off the body and get to work. So we have some new neighbors and I was able to rope the Mom, Dad, and kids into coming over and lifting up the beetle to get it off the chassis. Apparently, it's not the first car body they've lifted???
We get the body off and I proceeded to drill-baby-drill. I used a step drill bit to round out the holes to allow for some forgiveness. Once I knocked those out, I pulled out the body-pan gasket seal. I used applied the seal across the pan with painter's tape so I could mark where the holes are. I then took the seal and used a center hole punch to knock out some of the rubber where the bolts will go through. Was't too bad....just tap with the hammer twice and repeat about 25 more times. I then used some seam sealer and applied it all along the pan and around the holes. I applied the seal and held it down with painters tape again to keep it in place over night.
While that sets, I decided to go ahead and start adding some gaskets. I added the engine deck lid and engine compartment gasket. Ok....glad I did this but I just realized that I'm missing tins to the engine!!! The front breast plate and engine firewall. Add to the darned "must buy" list. ugh. If I don't find some, the engine will likely overheat.
Next morning arrives and I remove all the painters tape. All is good with the seal! Except....I'm called to do some chores so vacuum, mop, bathroom cleaning, and grocery shop. Keep momma happy ;)
After supper, I call on the neighbors (Race Team Peterson) to come back over and lower the body. We all circled the the car....scratched our chins....grunted a few times and pointed at a few things. Lift!! I scooched the rubbernecked pads under all the critical joints and then we lowered it back down. We adjusted the body a little forward and backward to align up the holes and bazinga...ready to put the bolts on!
[Tip to those lifting the body up and down. It's wise to loosen the shock nuts and back out the bolt so that the body will clear past the bolt without scraping. just tighten back when you get the body on for good]
So I proceeded to get the rear wheelhouse bolts on (although realized I needed square plates to put on. Still have them, but didn't show up in the picture). Front two beam bolts, and eight bolts across the back seat. It got late so I haven't done the 9 bolts along each heater channel and two at each front corner. I expect there will be some shifting, cursing, and sweating to get those done. I'm not 100% confident that I got the rubber holes perfectly lined up so there could be some persuasion.
I'm really surprised how well this all came together. If the Resto is like this to the finish, I think I could really move fast.
She is now ONE car.
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