Hello everyone.
I finally have a minute to get into this great site and introduce myself to you all. Name's Nick and I'm a full time tow truck driver in the great city of Saskatoon, SK, Canada. Havent seen too many other canucks on here, so if you live in the "Great White North" drop me a line.
I have been an avid VW enthusiast since I was 15 as a 1973 Super Beetle was my first ride. (Thank's Mom!)
I have also owned a Manx kit on a '69 chasis, a '64, a '71 and an '83 Rabbit. I bought another '73 super last september from a coworker and had started to do a little work on it.I promised myself I would do a body off rebuild starting this fall but I happened across a complete running 1974 standard bug for ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS! I mean who could say no, right? The car was in great shape, little rust, 78,000 original miles. But... What to build? I had restored or mildly customized all the previous bugs and I have the '73 for a daily... Have to build a Rod!
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"I used ta do drugs... I mean I still do drugs, but I used ta to." Ricky, Trailer Park Boys
Last edited by BugTower; March 10th, 2013 at 04:33 PM.
Reason: Update
Finally got some free time to sit down and post my build project!
I have always enjoyed the tear down part of the build, (who doesn't?) and at the same time have that deep down feeling of dread at what I am going to find underneath and how deep I have gotten myself in this time...
Surprisingly the rot factor was no too bad! The car had been sitting in a compound behind an RV lot for ten years. After removing the artifacts and OTHER leavings of what appeared to be an entire rodent civilization I found a few issues...
- Heater channels rotted with a little hillbilly patchwork applied in various sections. (have not identified the material or bonding agent as of yet... waiting to hear back from NASA)
- Front beam shock towers rotted through.
- A bad rear quarter panel replacement by a small town GM dealership?? Judging by the ultra chunky brass welds, performed sometime during the late '70s early '80s era...
- A few small patches of cancer on the quarters.
But all in all not too bad!
All that I had time for in 2011 was stripping the bug down and getting it stored for winter. Buying the house in 2012 so garage renos, including heat, will be coming in the future! Planning to start the chop come spring...
Planning a 4" hybrid Capella chop as I could not find a second roof to use, but I managed to find a second set of doors. I will keep all the body parts I strip off the bug and use as much as I can in the rebuild. Some kinda weird ocd compulsion to keep the car "original skin".
Oh yeah, cool fact... the one door I got was the driver side door of the old Saskatoon Volkswagon Restore race car... nice piece of local Veedub nostalgia!
Spring 2012... Ready to chop!
- A pillar losing 4"
- B pillar and door frame losing 3.5"
- C pillar losing whatever it needs to until the roof has the line I want! (NO RAKE!!!)
I also welded in a support bar of square tubing just under the front corners of the quarter windows and clipped the nose and tail off.
The first cut is the deepest! When I cut through the first A pillar I had that last snap of panic! "Sh*t! What am I doing?!"
No turning back now! I proceeded to have a few more rum and cokes and continued cutting.
I cut on the high line of each post and through the sides of the rear quarters and around the firewall.
That was it... she was topless.
T O P L E S S
I then cut the posts at the bottom line. I also cut the firewall off the roof.
I decided I did not want to relief cut and tweak the pillars so I figured I would just split the roof and line up the A pillars. Once the A pillars were lined up I clamped them in place, then measured and welded in supports. I then tacked the A and C pillars.
Time for a break!
BugTower Project "Ava"
I found a few issues... 
? Judging by the ultra chunky brass welds, performed sometime during the late '70s early '80s era... 
(NO RAKE!!!)
Hybrid Mode
