2004 Tear down

The photo that you see in the very first post was taken in November 2003. I had bought the car in 2000 and eventhought it was in bad but running condition i just fell in love with it on the spot(i ignored all advice that i read in the Bug Shop website). The only thing i did to the car after i bought it was a new paint job and new tyres. Wish i had a picture of it when i bought it. I changed the absorbers a few months later and also changed the tie rods and steering damper a year later.

The car was in terrible shape, badly rusting (I have seen worst) and the engine needed a complete overhaul, but as usual, money was a deterrent. The floor was barely holding on to the main shell of the car. If you looked down you could see the road and if it rained very heavily, water would start flooding into the car. When that happened, a small wave of water will come splashing onto the front passenger's feet whenever i braked. I know i love the beach and waves and all, but hey... this was too much.

I would wave my hand out the window when i turned right because only the rear left side signal light was working. I would flash my headlights when i wanted to turn left. Talking about head lights, they were only there so that people could see the car coming down the road, otherwise it was useless. I could not see anything with it... its amazing how i used to drive at night and in those days i used to do alot of night driving. Another nice feature was the left door, ....it would open on its own, even when it was locked whenever i made a sharp right turn because the left door was hanging on only one hinge (Each door had two).. the bottom part of the door where the second hinge were was rotten with rust.

The pickup from standstill was pretty good though... i used to cream those kelisa fellows at the traffic lights... kekeke... then they would beat me at the straight... the car never could get past 60 miles/h (about 90km/h), but i would then overtake them at sharp corners. The car cornered like a dream. I would over take atleast a dozen cars left and right when coming down the sharp curve at Jalan Dato Abu Bakar, Section 16/1 (the road that leads to phileo damansara). But a drive to Klang would take a toll on the engine and i would have to stop at the side of the road for a little while.

So in November 2004 i decided to start restoring the car. Since budget was a concern i told myself that i would take my time restoring it. The first thing that i wanted to do was get a new floor pan into the car and attack a few rust spots.

My mum wanted me to sell the car and discouraged me from restoring it... under pressure from my mum and my sister i almost did. At that point i did what i thought was a good idea. I tore the car apart to prep it for body work. In my haste i yanked out all the wiring from the front. Dont get me wrong... the wiring was shit and everything was shorting, but i think i should not have messed with the wiring so that i would not have had to tow the car everywhere now.......... Here is the carnage;

(First to come off was the bonnet and the signal lights ; I had to rip out the running boards which were welded on the fenders and side)

(Removing the front and back fenders which took some time and i broke a few of the nuts and the treading at the body... oops!)

(The Petrol Tank , Wipers and Wiper Motor was easily removed)

(Removed all electricals from the car the speedo, petrol gauge and front main wiring loom; The wires looked like that even before i took it out of the car)

(The non vw seats removed, note the modified seat brackets arrggghhh!!)

(The batery area was badly rusted, you can see the road, found this pen stuck between the metal; The steering wheel and steering rod removed)

(You can see that the floor pan was hardly connected to the body; a little hard to see in the photo)

(The signal switch was cut in halve to accomedate the so called sports steering wheel arrrgg!! so sad; The floor looks good in this shot but as you can see below.......)

(underneath you can see that the floor was a bad patch job...so sad so sad..)

(more modifications from the former owner, a secret compartment; there must have been some clutch problems and the mechanic did not know how to tackle it the proper way)

(a closeup of the secret compartment; yet another modification which i never came around fixing. The wire would sometimes get stuck and the pedal would stay down when i was driving. I would have to reach down and yank it loose... used to scary my passenger when this happened...kekeke)

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In all it took me about two weeks to reach this stage. By that time i had scouted a few body metal shops to get quotes on putting in the new floor. i wanted to put in new floor pans (german metal replicas) but i only found that they sold brazillian one here which were notorious for being low quality and very thin. I settled on a shop in Subang Jaya near Giant who would fabricate the floor out of thick metal. There where two beetles there getting new floors done so i got to see how they did it. I liked it and the price was good so i struck a deal with him and set a date to bring the car.

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Next - Body Shop!