Waiting for the BIG push back there?

When I (Oval57) was working in the garage last weekend I couldn`t help for shooting this picture of Knechtens Zwitter.
Is he thinking of a BIG engine back there? TELL us!

My early years

We all have to start somewhere, and for me the interrest for motored things came with the moped years. Long before I reached the age of getting a license for a moped, the customizing was already started. Most of my buddies were in to the same thing, and the "hot" thing in the late eighties were Malossi equipped Suzukis. There were a lot of "battles" on the roads at the contryside were I grew up. 11 HP mopeds and speed up to and above 100 km/h was exciting for a 15 year old =)

Now being twice the age, I still remember the good times with the moped gang. Some of my buddies back then still keep the spirit alive, and are rocking hard in a band called Malossi. And most of the lyrics are related to the good old moped racing days. Go visit them and listen to some of the mp3 songs available: http://www.malossi.cc/, a nostalgia trip to the teenage years.

The music works very well with VW cruising as well =)

6V ironman contest

Last night Fürsten and Oval 57 helped me out putting the body back on the pan. As you can see in the movie, these three men are working in an office all day long. Heavy lifting does not come natural to us, but we managed anyway. For those who understand norwegian, there is quite a lot of "jabbskjit" in the background. We are sorry.

A small step for mankind...

.. but a huge step for me =) Last night I finally got the body placed on top of the pan. Most of the heaterchannels have been replaced, and it was interresting to see how they would match up. The meassuring during the welding seems to be pretty accurate. The holes in the pan and body aligned well. It was a heavy lift, but with good help from Oval 57 and Fürsten, we managed to drag the body onto the pan.

This was a critical milestone for me personally, as I had set a goal to complete the welding during 2007. With two small kids and not to much spare time, it was satisfying to come this far during 2007. It has been a long jurney of welding and sheet metal work, but it has been worth it. Now starts the funny part of the project, bolting all the parts together and to give the car the correct stance.

To day is also my birthday, and I could not wish for a better present =)

Peace and harmony

The floor pan made it's way into the garage again. It has been 20 years since the body and pan were together the last time. The time has now come to join them again in harmony =) The pan was sandblasted and painted in 87 and has been stored indoors since then. It has a few scratches in the paint from transportaition, but I will do a touch up of the paint after they are joined. The body has been stripped to bare metal in all four inner wings, and got a layer of etch primer.

There is still a little welding job to complete at the rear bumpermounts and some small repairs in the front as well. This will be completed when I finnish the new rear apron. The last thing I managed last night was to glue the rubber gasket to the floor pan with sikaflex. Next operation is to place the body ontop of the pan, this will give some needed space in the garage right now.

1750ccm Kvikk Motor

I have moved the Kvikk engine build up to our new blog, "Memory Lane". There I have added part 2 of the build up as well.

http://6vmemorylane.blogspot.com

On my back

Not having a barbeque stand for my zwitter body, a lot of work has to be done lying on my back. Last night I finished grinding all the welds after changing the bottom of the heater channels. Found two small holes that needs to be taken care of as well. Then it's time for painting the bottom of the body, and bring the floor pan into the garage. Everything takes time, but I will not have to worry about rust anymore... And the car is now solid enough to be driven HARD =)

Toxic juice

Picked up some chemicals on the way home from work today. If they work half as good as it smells, it will stick on the car for at least fifty more years. It will be interresting to se how it turns out. Epoxy primer first and then a topcoat of black filler-primer.

Speed welding

Knechten's 52 zwitter is rapidly coming togehter. With a welding-speed like the devil himself were chasing right behind that splitted rear window, welding of the car is nearly completed. Last night saw the rear left chassismount to be worked on, here under careful supervision from Brezelfürsten.

Preparing parts

From the first day I purchased this car, I have tried to follow the wise word of those who have done it before. "Everyone can restore a chassie, but God knows how many who left their half-finnished projects there". I have therefore consentrated on the timeconsuming rustwelding insted. But seeing the light in the tunnel, it's time to look a little ahead. The floor pan was sandblasted and painted when I got the car, so all it needs is a good cleaning after 20 years storage. But everything else is not ready and stored in a LOT of different small boxes. To make things ready for assembling the car, I have started some small preparations. First thing out is the pedal assembly, sandblasted, painted and adjusted. The nice throttle pedal got a good cleaning and new grease... Ready to floor it =)

New update

Last night after cleaning out some scrap from the garage, I could not resist the temptaition of picking up the welder. A couple of weeks ago we ran out of gas for the welder, but with a fresh bottle at hand, I fired it up again. I used two nights a while ago making all the pieces to be welded, and the welding therfore went pretty easy. Some adjustments had to be made, but the corner was almost completed in two hours. One year of practise with the welder makes a hell of a difference in speed. Every step brings the zwitter closer to road legal again =)

Knechten`s cal-look

This pic shows Knechtens 65 cal-look which he sold (how is it possible to sell such a pearl?).

It is only minutes before we are heading for BugRun 2006.

Building a cardboard-car

Some of the welding parts are quite difficult to make without having a cardboard model. The trickiest part is the one in the corner of the backseat, around the heaterchannel. I pray for this part to be reproduced by someone very soon, because it's a pain in the ass to make. For now I have made it, but for the next(?) project it would help a lot. Drawing, cutting and taping... Kindergarden for grownups =)

Rear apron

I removed the rear apron as well, because I will change it for a H-type and make it removable. This is toget easy access to the engine, and make removal and fitting easier. Removing the apron revealed more rust. Both end pieces with the bumperbrackets will be replaced. More parts to order from Woffe =)

Keep on struggeling

Last night I cut out a pile of rust again. The heaterchannels doesn't stand a chance when someone put insulation materials in them many years ago. It had soked up a lot of moisture, and of course rusted like hell. I manage to remove all of the rust and started making new welding parts... Not to forget removing the old undercarriage material on the innerwing, that took half the night... But now it's gone forever =)

Weld through spray

I use a weld through spray made of zink as protective layer before I weld the double layer metal together. I dont know how effective this is, but I intend to use some sort of undercarriage spray to penetrate between the metal sheets after painting the car. But I cant understand anything else that this is a rust trap how you do it, if it's supposed to look factory stock. Next time I will weld the NOS support metal for the rear bodymount.

Closing the rear end

The rear end of the heater channel has a distinctive profile. Luckily the outer panel was intact so I had to make the inner part. This was also timeconsuming, and had to be made in three pieces. I was looking to get good solid welds, because this is a very exposed area on the car. It all turned out Ok at last. Final grinding is still necessary to make it lokk satisfying. I also remebered in the last second to add the new mounting nut for the running board before closing the channel.

Closing the corner

It's always a little tricky to make ends meet (not only economical) and make things look right. To remove all evidence of rust and make fresh metal meet in every corner, I hade to make som new small pieces in the intersection between the heaterchannel and the inner wheel well. This proved to be difficult as the piece had double curves. It would have been nice to have a leather bag to punch against, but with some improvisation it fit at the end. It's both good and bad to know there is just a similar corner left =) I know how it's done, but also how much work there is behind it.

Veng? Who??

The next step was to fabricate a new piece of inside channel with the correct profile. Fürsten had a sample laying in the work shop, so I used this to find the shape. And it turned out perfect =) Now the alignment was close to perfect, but the corner was far from solid. Making the rounded piece around the heater tube was no easy task. But after a little trimming and adjusting, the pieces fell together. After welding everything up, it felt more solid and looks straight. It's probably forgivving to weld on a VW T1, as many of the lines on the lower body can be meassured out from straightlines, and nearly everything has the flat bottom of the car as a reference point.

I decided after starting the welding that the Veng part was no option in this corner. The shape was not anything near the OG shape. So I wnt for a total fabrication of the pieces myself. And it turned out better than expected. I had to skip the dimpeled part with the two holes for the bodymount, but in my eyes this is a small detail missed compared to welding in the Veng part with totally wrong shape. Maybe I can fabricate the the correct profile after everything is welded in place?

Puzzle with alignment

With so much metal removed, it is a challenge getting the corner in the right position again. It was no way around cutting away all this metal, to have solid material to weld into. I started with fabricating the outer channel side, and made sure to keep the draining holes intact, and got the height of the channel sitting right. The next step was cutting a Wolfpart bottom to fit, and tack it togheter carefully. Then I extended the last piece of the cross member, and meassured the hight to be as good as it could be at this time...

More rust

The rear end of the riht heaterchannel is a sad story... Quite much of this corner has to be removed, and there will be a problem finding the reference points again. After making the nessecary cuts, it became quite spacious back there =)

Trial fitting

Then it was time to try fitting the NOS part.. and wow, it "fit like a glove". The quality of the metal and the accurate fit is amazing... far from the repro pieces you buy today. Now it's just grinding down the weld underneath and rustprime the first layer of sheet metal. And then spotweld the new panel in place. I must admit it feels good to know how solid this corner of the car is becoming =)

Making a new part

The new innerwing plate was made out of sheet metal and cut to fit... The curved area had originally a nicely rounded edge. I hammered that out and it looked quite like the original panel. In the picture a little adjustment of the curve is still needed. The sheet metal was butt welded, and after changing from 0,6 to 0,8 mm thread in the welder, it went a lot easier.

Removing the rot

The rotted area was almost as big as the new welding plate, so I decided to make the cut in a way that most of the welding are covered by the outer plate when finnished. The edge of the rear compartment area was all good...

Re-using the bracket

Luckily the bracket was pretty good, and I think sandblasting it and remake the reinforcement will make it good as new. There are pretty much work to recreate all these details... Always a little more than you think...

Rear bodymount

After visiting Bad Camberg, the spirit to finnish the zwitter was back again. Sourcing som good NOS welding parts made the job more greatful. I started to drill out the spotwelds on the existing bodymount with the backplate, because some rust was showing through. After removing the 3 layer plate, a LOT of rust came foreward....

Collecting pieces

The choice of VW happenings to visit this summer was Bug Run in Sweden and Bad Camberg in Germany. They both have a swap meet, and the the best in each division. Bug Run swaps are the best in Scandinavia, and the BC is world class. Even on a limited budget, due to house building, I managed to track down some items for the zwitter that I have been looking for.

In the "pile of shit" are for example a KDF fanhouse plate, a NOS vdo fuelgauge with sender, a Störk temperature gauge, OG brakefuel reservoir w/floater, NOS welding parts, OG zwitter bonnet handle, and some split rubber "hard to find".... And some other "juggel" that may be used for the car...

A new assistent

It has been a couple of months with little progression on the Zwitter. Most due to other projects as the Kvikk engine for the "Rallye-bug" and other tasks in the workshop. Some of the time is used to collect and sort out parts as well. Some of the things purchased this spring, was a new assistent for the shop. This will be very helpful when all the pieces of the car is going back together. It's great to be organized. The Hazet assisten is from the late 60ies as far as I can sort out. It's in great condition, and of course it will stay with it's original paint and patina =)

Hopefully this assistent will help speeding up my project.... (Before and after pictures)

A lot of air

This picture helps to make the decision of using danish steel even easier =)

Rear right corner

This is far whorse than the left rear corner. Nothing is left of the rear corner, and heavy surgery is needed. To get to the rusted area, the heater tube under the rear seat had to be removed. I cut it in a way that the top cover will hide the welding when finnished. The job now is to find out where to cut and replace with fresh metal. Here I see no other way than to use some danish metal to replace the rusted area. It's to huge for me to create, as there are few ends to meassure from.

Starting out back

Some exitement was certainly present when it came to removing the rear fender. After struggeling with both the front fenders, I expected nothing less here. But surprisingly it seemed that all the bolts and the fender had been removed at some point before, and the bolts could be removed by hand.

Right front corner

Some progression is visible on my project, but not as much as hoped. But the timewindow for this car is wide, and I'm in no hurry. Bulding piece by piece, the front end is becomming more solid each day. The regulator on the welder broke last nigt, so I didn't finish welding the last two pieces of the corner. But there is only filling of spotwelds and grinding left before anti-rust treatment and painting.

Backside of the medallion

After inspecting the backside of the H-apron, it seemes to be quite some work needed to make this baby shine again =)

Nice ass

A well formed rear end is never wrong in any way. The rear apron of a classic beetle is no exeption. As seen in the pictures posted on the zwitter, the car had a modern rear apron mounted at some point. This will of course be changed for the well known H-apron. These are not easy to come by, and to find an uncut example is almost impossible. Repro versions are on the marked, but there is always something about the real thing. After a tip from Fürsten, I collected a H-apron last night, although in a cut version. Having no experience in restoring this piece, it looks possible to reverse it back to a solid apron. Some pictures of the operation will follow.

Inside right side

On this side I did a little twist to the welding of the ouside channel. Because it was more solid than the other side, I made a more solid overlap weld. As you see in the pictures, there are still some pices to make.

Repeating procedures

To get the corner aligned again, I used measuring points from the other corner to get the pieces right. I started with the outer channel, and the cut the bottom part and tack welded it in place.

Corner nr. 2

The right side corner of the front heaterchannel, was even worse than the left. After cutting out the rusted pieces, there was not a lot of intersection points left. On this side the front wall was rotten on the underside all the way up.

And wholaaa...

Sometimes it's better to act than think to much... In this case the result came out better than expected. Porsche sparewheel wide 5? Formel-Vee? Classic racing? E-bay?

Struggling through

It's surprisingly not the funniest job at all times to weld, weld and weld... To get inspiration to start again, day after day on removing rust, it's important to have some visions of the project.

And a very important issue of a project is the wheels. I have many ideas in my head, and one of them is spinning around the wheel shown in the picture. This is a 911/912 Porsche wheel, and would fit an outlavws car quite nice... keep on dreaming =)

The outside corner

Here is the result of the outside corner. It may not be professional, but with some sealing of the welding and grinding of the surfaces, the result will be good enough to last another generation. I think the most important procedure will be the rustproofing inside the channels. This frontpiece welded in, will be exposed for hard conditions, and therefore I painted it with "weld through" paint on the inside of the channel.

The next corner

Hopefully the tricky parts will be easier to make on the next corner. Can you spot the intersection point on this corner? It's not easy to make these parts without measuring from a other car. Buying the channel bottoms from Wolfparts has been great help. Just three more corners to go.....

The first complete corner

The extention of the front wall and bottom piece, was a tricky part to make. But after several cardboard models and testing, the pieces seemed to fit. Of course it's easier to make the cardboard models when you have two splits to compare it to. After adjusting a little bit, the final piece was welded in. And then we have the first corner of the car rock solid. A little more welding and grinding needed to get the paint-ready finnish.

Towards a personal milestone

It has proven to take some time and skill to weld up the heaterchannels to look as good as stock. After fitting the heaterchannel bottom last time, the contour of the corner came back. First step was to extend the front side of the front wall, and to make and weld in the inner channel.