Priming =)

After several hours of sanding and filling, the car was ready for priming. 2K primer was sprayed on the car out in the driveway a windless sunday evening.

A whole new appearance - and this was only the beginning... =)

Prepping for primer...

The summer of '09 was rather sh*t as the weather goes, but I managed to squeeze in some evenings filling, sanding and prepping for primer.

Let the sun shine in

A few years back I bought a rusty ragtop beetle. The car was a "gonner", but the ragtop was complete and salvageable. The ragtop was placed in the sechs volt barn, and the car recycled.
One sunny afternoon in August, I left work early and headed for the sechs volt barn. I thought; "I could start filling, grinding and priming for paint....but I would never be satisfied with the car if I didn't end up with a large hole in the roof..."

I had discussed the topic with Knechten the week before, and he showed me a "how to - welding in a ragtop" article in Volksworld....

The decision was made - no leaving of the premises before the ragtop was in. It took 10 hours from start to finish....didn't find my bed until 0330 that evening/morning...


The ragtop is an original "Golde" sunroof.

After the recipe from Volksworld, the ragtop clip was cut just outside the pressings, this will make the ragtop hide the welding seams when finished.

I measured once, twice, thrice....and then measured again....lost complete count of how many times I checked my measurements....

As when it came to mating the angle grinder to the car...don't think I have ever been that nervous....I cut the hole a little to small on purpose, and repeated the procedure until the car matched the ragtop clip perfectly, with about half a cm overlap.

Let the sun shine in part II

Used a special kind of wrench, I lowered the outer sheet metal on the roof 1 mm, so that the ragtop would flush smoothly with the roof of the car.



Again, measuring all was right, it was time to do some welding. I clamped the ragtop onto the roof, and fired up the MIG.

Nearly finished welding, I was quite happy with the result… =)

Welding of rust completed

Last but not least, the door hinges and the seam below the A-pillar on the drivers side of the car needed some serious work. I had avoided the place ever since I started to weld on the car.. I was fortunate enough to get help from a professional; Solberg Sr. took a day off and made the area nice and rock solid again =)

One night, I gathered some of the rusty sheetmetal which had been cut from the car...it was quite a few pieces....and in addition there was the front fenders, the pan halves...++
Very happy to have reached this milestone =)