SplitBoy

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.