MellowYellow1303 - Bernadette

Had a busy weekend of gigs over the bank holiday, but managed to get a
bit of work done. I fixed the rear window by replacing the lifter
which had rotted away, and have started patching up the hood. One
front corner is repaired by stiching and glueing a pocket into it.
Need to get a proper curved needle though so I can do the other corner
as my home made ones kept snapping!

Haven't made much progress in the last week, mainly as I had a busy
weekend of re-organising my spare bedrooms, and the rotten weather has
turned me off from venturing into the garage.

I have emptied out the remaining seats and stuff from the small
bedroom and turned it back into a study come guest room. I also
cleared out a load of junk from the second bedroom so that I have
space to work on the hood. From that I have removed the old seals and
am working out if I can salvage the aluminium strips which are used to
attach them to the frame. Another busy weekend this weekend too so
probably wont make a great deal of progress until next week now!

Well thanks to help from Dad (thanks Dad!) the front and rear bumpers are now fitted. The rear went on easier than I expected mostly down to Dad's dexterity and ability to get nuts on bolts in awkward places. Despite not having the correct mounts on the inner wings they fit and look pretty good and I didn't need to butcher the bumper hole trims.

We also replaced the nearside rear brake backing plate and cylinder etc so both rear brakes are now reconditioned. Nice to have adjusters that work!

Having obtained a machine tap set from Halfrauds, the running board bolts now screw into the holes properly. Unfortunately the fit of the running boards is terrible! The holes in the boards don't line up at all with the bolt holes in the heater channels, which I don't know if it's the fault of the boards or the heater channels. But I managed to fit them eventually after much swearing and throwing of tools out the the pram, although disappointingly I scratched the paint a bit on the offside wing at the bottom.

Next up is to have a look at the wiring I guess and put the new crimp set I bought to good use. And trying to decide whether to go for smoked or crystal style front indicators (have some second hand orange ones to fit in the mean time).

Have started to fit the late europa bumpers. The front went on quite easily with minimal modification to the holes in the irons, however the rear is more difficult as the mounts for the original bumper are in the wrong place. I have had to drill new holes in the inner wings to suit, and getting nuts on the end of the bolts is quite a challenge due to their inaccessibility. Also having trouble fitting the cheap repro running boards, as the bolts won't go into the captive nuts in the cheap repro heater channels easily. One nut has broken off leaving the half screwed in bolt dangling - hmmm. Maybe tapping out the nuts would improve things.

Got the new front struts fitted tonight. Quite pleased with the ride height at the front as the springs are fairly soft and so it will probably sit a bit lower once there is more weight in there. Having said that it is already quite low (although there is a reasonable gap between tyre and wing due to my metal bashing attempts). About an inch of adjustment down still and a couple back up if it turns out to be too low (if there is such a thing!).

More bits added last night. Door catches and rubber bits etc,
headlights and tail lights. Removed one of the coilover struts (that
are too short) and disassembled ready to start assembling the EMPI
struts. Not sure where to put the spring cup on the EMPIs so as to get
a sensible ride height, so playing safe and leaving it where it is in
the middle!

I have enabled comments on the blog, so come on folks lets have some
encouragement!

More work last night. Cleaned all the washing up liquid off the
windscreen and nearby bodywork (had to use plenty to get it in!), and
cleaned and fitted the sun visors and rear view mirror. Also sprayed
the windscreen wipers, decklid mounts and hood locating castings
black, and fitted the decklid. Managed to avoid chipping any paint!

Had quite a constructive weekend in the garage. Friday and Saturday saw the pedal cluster fitted back in, and I fitted the new accelerator pedal. I also fitted the gear shift rod bush, which has always needed fixing as the original one had disintegrated meaning there was about 5mm play where the rod passed through the mounting behind the gear stick in the tunnel. No wonder the gear change was always so sloppy!

I have now fitted the fuel tank, and also the windscreen which I bought on ebay (complete with frame!). I still ache from the effort of getting the screen in. What a pain of a job! Luckily Helen was able to lend some muscle to the operation; don't think I would have been able to do it by myself.

Next up are fitting the decklid properly (painting the mounting brackets), the EMPI front struts and the other rear brake backplate and cylinder (I did the other one before the body work was done). I'm a bit concerned that I cannot find the electric fuel pump, but there are various other bits that I know I removed and stored safely (such as the seat belts) which are in the loft somewhere so hopefully it will turn up!

Well first a bit of catching up. I have owned the car since May 1996, but took it off the road in June 2000. I was saving to buy a house and could not afford to get the work done to get it through the MOT. Failure was mostly down to rust, of which there turned out to be quite a lot!

I bought my house in Jan 2002, and Bernadette finally had somewhere warm and dry to live. Then I started the job of taking the car to bits and finding out how bad the rot was. Reduced to a rolling shell, she was taken up the road to Offmore Road Garage in November 2004 emerging again in May 2005 complete with new floor pans, heater channels, sill strengtheners, boot floor, valence and various other bits of repair work. I then started the job (assisted by my Dad) of prepping the shell for paint in my chosen colour - VW mellow yellow B3B3 (a new beetle cabriolet colour) - which I had chosen to spray myself (to keep costs down). Work ground to a bit of a halt in around November as the cold weather set in, with the shell in grey primer. I had already painted various panels such as the wings, boot and bonnet by this stage, as well as obtaining a NOS door, alloys (to be fitted during phase2), EMPI adjustable front struts and some other bits and bobs on ebay. Easter 2006 saw the next flurry of activity with a week off work, and the shell finally painted. The doors still need painting (and one needs repairs) and the front wings need touching up where I have flared them a bit to clear the tyres, but I will do those when I have bolted the other bits to the shell and reclaimed my spare bedrooms and loft!

There are photos of the shell before it was taken for repairs, along with various photos of work taking place in the workshop at http://uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/davux1303/my_photos and http://photobucket.com/albums/y171/mellowyellow03cab and some photos and info about Bernadette in her former life here

Hello there! I have started this blog to post news about my progress in completing the restoration of my Volkswagen Beetle 1303 Karmann cabriolet "Bernadette". Please visit again to keep track of my progress!

My original web site is still available at www.davux.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk