Hello from England

[Gbdw]

Hello my name's Grant I have been lurking on this site for a while now. I have been building all sorts of vee dubs for many years.

My lastest project is a beetle that I had already roof chopped years ago but have now started to convert it to a coupe.

Here is a quick overview of what I have been up to.

This is how i Bought it



Here it is after I roof chopped it by 4", fitted a flip front, 4" narrowed beam, Ladder bar rear suspension, 3 " raised gearbox, full race cage,



this is where I am with it at the moment.

[Gbdw]

I will put up a build thread here to show how I got to this point and any further progress as time goes on.

[Gbdw]

OK as promised i will be updating over the next few weeks till I get up to where I am.

As I got straight in to the coupe conversion I forgot to take any picture so this first picture is where I started taking them.. Sorry for some of the fuzziness of them.

First up I cut the back of the roof off up to the b pillar. then trial fitted the scuttle and bonnet of a 1303 and trimmed and placed the roof back on to see how things lined up.






The roof had to be sliced and widened slightly to make it line up with the sides

[Gbdw]

Once I was happy with the general shape I started the project properly using a 1957 big window roof.

The next few pictures are showing the 57 roof rear section being lined up and tacked together to try and get the gutter correct.



This picture you just about see how much the roof was widened

[Gbdw]

The base car is a 1971, the next part was to make the car have small windows to match the earlier roof that was going to be fitted.
In this picture I was trying to get the side window curve correct.



with the back roughly lined up the next bit was to cut the old chopped roof scuttle and dash off and fit a 1955 oval dash and roof section.




The 55 roof was still standard height when first fitted

[Gbdw]

With the front roof section in the correct place it was time to give it a 4" chop
The roof is only layed on top at the moment to see if 4"'s will be enough.

[Gbdw]

From here on I was back and forth working on the front section and b posts.

Here you can see I have put the B post in at an angle because I thought the side window looked awful from the side. I have also reworked to lower section to the thickness of the an early car



http://i1146.photobucket.com/albums/...e/IMG_0185.jpg
http://i1146.photobucket.com/albums/...e/IMG_0204.jpg

[Gbdw]

With the B post in the right place it was time to get the rest of the roof all lined up together.




The rear grill from the 55 roof was cut off as it wasn't need



The roof was then laid on top for trial fitting



The yellow roof was trimmed up to the swage line, In this picture it gives you an idea of how much the rear section has been widened by.




The gutters are coming together



Then once I was happy it was tacked together

[Gbdw]

Once the rear was all tack in the right place I welded it all together



With the roof welded it was time to shape the scuttle to match the swage of the back of the roof




In this last one it still had the ariel hole in it

[Gbdw]

From here I went back to the front end

Here is how much the roof mismatched on the front pillars



Instead of the upper pillar grant brought the bottom corner out to match




Finished

[Gbdw]

With the right side done I made a template to get the same shape for the other side





Both sides finished



With most the roof finished this is how it was looking

[Gbdw]

On the inside the inner vent was removed to stop air and crap coming up when driving in the wet.




Now on to the doors. I chose new Mexican doors because there lighter and fitted 1957 tops to make it look earlier.

[Gbdw]

As I chopped the b pillar away from the top to keep the semaphore intact it meant the door frame needed to be widened.



With the winder channel matched up the outer skins needed to be narrowed slightly






I did think about radiusing the corners of the door but have changed my mind.

[Gbdw]

Moving on to the chassis, The car had been converted to linkpin when built the first time round. The old beam was narrowed 4" but has now been narrowed 9". due to it being narrowed this much the steering became a problem the box wouldn't fit.

Because the frame head was going to be a problem to fit the steering box I started work on extending the cage to the beam to get rid of the framehead.