Tires and Wheels

I picked up the tires and wheels today. I decided to go with an MB Five-X wheel from Discount Tire. The tires are Falken Sincera 205/65R-15 on the back and 185/65R-15 on the front. It's not a super performance tire, but it should give a good quiet ride and the price was great.

Rear Suspension

While removing the spring plate retaining cap, one of the bolts broke. I should have fixed this before I painted the pan, but I forgot until I was in the process of applying the Rust Bullet.

I started by cutting off the portion of the stud that was sticking out. Then I drilled a small pilot hole all the way through the center of the broken off bolt. Next I reamed out the hole to the correct size for the tap. Finally I tapped it out and test fit the cap. Everything works perfectly.

Rear Suspension

After letting the undercoating on the trailing arms dry for nearly 2 weeks, I packed and installed the new rear wheel bearings. You can see the new bracket that will be used to hold the caliper once the rotor has been installed. I would defiantly do this assembly on the bench again, it was much easier than with the arm on the car.

Brakes

I got to spend quite a bit of time in the shop today. I started by painting and installing the emergency brake handle and cables. The cables of course are not adjusted as there are no rear brakes yet. But I hope to get that done in the next week or so. Because the e-brake handle gets abused, I used a self etching primer and an epoxy paint to help avoid chipping.

Once I was finished with the e-brake handle, I moved on to preparing the rear disk brakes. I don't like the look of rusty brake parts so I wanted to paint everything before installation. I used a semi-flat black on the rotor and caliper bracket. When it came to the calipers, I decided I wanted a little more pop so I used a red brake parts paint.

The other thing I did was get the rear trailing arms torn apart so I can take them down to Hook's Automotive and get them cleaned and blasted before painting them. Hook has also ordered the wheel bearings, seals and all the bushings for the rear end. They should be in on Wednesday, then I can get the rear-end put back together.

Brakes

Today I got the master cylinder installed and all the hard brake lines run. I still have the 2 hard lines that run along the rear trailing arms to bend, but I want to get the arms installed first.

Coating the Pan

Today I was able to get all the seams sealed and the entire pan undercoated both top and bottom. The rotisserie made spraying the pan so much easier. I still need to clean and coat the spring plates and trailing arms before I can put the rear end back together. But the rear brakes come tomorrow, so I'll be getting the suspension ready very soon.

Coating the Pan

Today, after Gunking the entire pan, I washed it with dish soap to remove all the Gunk residue that was leftover. Then I took some lacquer thinner to all the paint that was left to soften it up a bit before spraying the pan, top and bottom, with Rust Bullet. This stuff is thick and sticky! Make sure to use a heavy plastic on the floor since your shoes will stick to it.

Pan Halves

I finally got the pan on the rotisserie today. The pan halves have been welded in place but I still need to grind down the welds. I also need to remove the seat tracks since I will be building new ones for my custom seats. Once that is done and the pan has been degreased, it will be ready for a bath in Rust Bullet. Hopefully that will be done by this weekend.

Pan Half Replacement

I've decided it's time to get going on the pan. The rusty floors we starting to bother me. I wound up using the halves off the 59 pan that was under the car when I bought it. They did not have a rust pit anywhere on them and they are original VW sheet metal. Next up was to cut the rusty pans off so they could be replaced. Once I cut them off, I had to grind down the remaining spot welds and spray the area with a weld through primer.

The new pans have been tacked in place. I need to get some help setting the body back on top to make sure everything lines up before I weld it all up. It's not every day you see a 69 pan with 59 pan halves in it. But at the same time, you can't buy pan halves like this either. They are thick and fit perfectly. There was no shaping or pounding of any kind to get them to fit.

Rear Apron Reconstruction

The skin of the apron is done and the seal retaining strip is welded back on. If I was to do this again, I would start by marking the center of the strip and the center of the curve at the bottom of the apron. Match up the 2 marks and work my way back up from there. Starting on one end worked too but I ran the risk of running short on one end and long on the other.

The decklid is mounted but has not been fit yet. It does not look too bad, but the curve of the lid is not right. Next up is to remove the hinge strip so I can do some clean-up and remount it so the curve of the lid matches the curve below the back window. You would think for $500 they could get it right!