Long time, no blog!

It certainly has been a while since my last update. I wish that I had more news to impart about Gretch's progress, but alas nothing much has happened.

This is partly due to having my camera stolen at a festival a couple of months back (stupidly I had all the detailed photos of dismantling the car stored on the SD card and never download them, Ggrrr!). Without the means to accurately document I just seemed to lose my motivation.

Anyway, I am now feeling a renewed sense of inspiration and will be pressing on with the restoration without further delay. Regular progress updates to follow shortly :)

X-rated nudity!

After a lengthy and intensive Sunday I had Gretch pretty much stripped of everything that could I could get my spanners on!

As you can see the spaghetti has been removed after being carefully observed and concisely labeled.

The engine is out!

A few hours of leisurely tinkering

This weekend I found the time to remove more �bits n� bobs� off my now scantily clad Beetle, which in turn revealed more holes, gashes and copious amounts of unaesthetic rot! The funniest yet most frustrating moment occurred when I pressed down on the accelerator to loosen the throttle linkage and the pedal literally went through the floor and took a dinner plate size of rusty metal with it! Doh! I reckon at some point in Gretch�s hidden past she must have been repaired with cunningly disguised cream crackers! Oh well, looks like I need to add some new floor pan halves onto my parts list.

Anyway, all of the quarter panels have now been removed, as well as the bonnet and are ready to be stripped back to bare metal. The oil has been bled from the sump in preparation for the engine removal. Oh, and most of the wiring has now been detached (and labelled so that I know where everything is meant to during the rebuild).

My good friend Sandro helped me get all the bits back to base (aka - the spare room in my house) in the back of his Beemer. Making everything fit was quite a task and did not leave much room for me to catch a lift!

The 1st milestone of a 10,000 mile journey

As I hoped, the weather stayed dry long enough for me to get out of the house and finish sanding the deck lid. It is a long process to sand these panels back to bare metal. I reckon I spent at least 10 hours on this one alone and this is one of the smaller panels of the car! Right, I think I have earned a beer.

Until next time :)

Stripping back the deck lid

I woke up yesterday to the greatest news - I couldn't go to work because the office had flooded due to a burst pipe or something. Sweet! Determined not to waste the glorious day I had been granted, I headed down to my local DIY shop and purchased a new bundle of sanding discs for my orbital sander and set to work stripping off forty year old paint from the deck lid. 

Here is a nasty little blemish that was lurking beneath my number plate. I shall probably have to cut this section out and weld in a small repair patch (once I learn how to weld, gulp!)

The orbital sander did a good job taking off the paint and accumulated grime, but obviously was not great at getting into tricky places. If the weather improves today I shall get out with my nimble 'detail' sander and finish the lid. (Oh yes, I have another day off work!)

More rusty warts ...big 'uns!

The biggest problem I am going to confront in this rebuild will be the rotten heater channels! They run along each side of the car, between the floor pan and the shell and are an integral aspect of the car's structural strength - i'm guessing mine currently yield the strength of wet toilet paper!