Walter's 1969 Beetle
September 16, 2009
Final assembly is underway and will most likely be pretty much completed by next week. There is still some tweaking to do in order to get everything working and fitted as well as possible. The biggest aggravations have been dealing with aftermarket stuff that simply doesn't fit as it should. There are no new German VW Beetle parts available so we are forced to use original parts as much as possible and aftermarket pieces when necessary. There is a huge aftermarket but the quality of the parts can vary all over the map, nearly always inferior to OEM parts. Time is required to fit, trim, fit, trim in order to get the car looking right. The slightly open driver's door is a good example. The running board (one of the best available versions) had to be modified in order to bolt onto the car, now it is interfering with the door seal. So the door seal will have to be modified in order to get the door to shut properly. The fact the hinges are worn out on that door is compounding the issue so they need to be shimmed as well. The front hood is not playing nice because the latch plate was knocked out of alignment when the car was damaged in a front-end collision thirty years ago. I thought we had a real mess on our hands today when the hood latched down and refused to unlock. The only way to release a jammed Beetle hood is to cut off the hood latch handle with a hacksaw! Fortunately after a lot of wrestling and an earnest discussion with the Beetle using somewhat frank language the hood released. It still remains to be seen how the latch can be made to work properly. The hood wouldn't lock when the car arrived and I suspect it has been unlockable for three decades. But.....we are putting forty-year-old toothpaste back in the tube with non-original parts and these things are to be expected. If restoring old cars was easy everyone would be doing it............. I love to hear this car run! The new exhaust system is as close to stock as possible--the muffler and heat exchangers are German and Danish. The Beetle is remarkably quiet and sports the trademark Beetle "WHIIIIFFFFFTTTTT" sound. You rarely hear the stock VW exhaust note anymore since nearly all Bugs now have non-stock header exhaust systems.
In spite of the occasional aggravations, the whole package is turning out to be quite impressive. The guys at the paint shop said the car got a lot of attention from people who stated they had never seen such an immaculate Bug. Toga White is a very attractive color for this car and it's great to see the Beetle back in its original color.
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The
Beetle is back in the shop after spending a couple of weeks at the paint shop. The paint
looks fantastic, especially for a car that didn't receive show-car body prep. The flaws
that remain are very minor and the finish guy at the paint shop spent a lot of time
sanding and buffing the paint to a mirror finish. It is much slicker than the factory
paint on a new vehicle.