And fun was had by all. Jackie’s was going on for days about her birthday party but she really didn’t know she was getting one.

Thanks to her mother, Barbara for setting up the distraction and her sister Lynette for her intuitive understanding of her own sister’s impatience.

I knew the things that would tip her off that something was going on, so I avoided doing those things til the last minute. Rest assured the bathroom was cleaned just minutes before anyone arrived.

Thanks all for making it a success.

Carl

This VW bug requires quite a few things to be done before considered driveable. First I’m going to cover the body side molding replacement because I can do that quickly.

This VW Beetle was missing the rear quarter panel side moldings on both sides and the door, front fender and hood moldings were dinged, bent, scratched and generally dull. We don’t know if they were the originals but they needed to go. The new replacement set was made in Germany and came from West Coast Metric.

Removing the old body side moldings wasn’t rocket science. They all came off simply by prying with my fingers. The body side molding clips were all old, dry rotted and brittle, and needed to be replaced. They would not hold the new body side moldings and we didn’t want to risk loosing the body side moldings due to re-using bad molding retainer clips. Besides, new clips are not expensive. Even the 7 piece body side molding was only $28. You couldn’t justify the work required for straightening and buffing out the existing body side moldings when you can buy new for that price.

Removing the molding clips wasn’t difficult either. I used a good pair of vise grips. You wouldn’t want to do this with an old worn out pair. The pair I have are only about 6 months old and the serated tips are nice and sharp so I know they will grip the body side molding clips well with minimal pressure. If you don’t have such a good pair you could drive the center pin through the clip using a fine blunt tip punch. Without the center pin, the molding clip retainer will shrink and the body molding clip will likely just fall out. I didn’t need to use such precision though. The vise grips worked real well.

Before inserting the new molding retainer clips you need to be sure the holes are clean and free of any rust scale, body filler, or built up dried paint. You can use a drill bit, run it in and out by hand or a sharp pointed knife to clean the inside edges of the holes. If the holes are not clean the center pin might not sink into the molding clip correctly when tapped because the expansion collar on the backside of the molding clip can’t open properly. I had a couple that did not sink in properly dues to the panel being too thick where there was body filler. I tapped the molding clip center pins down as far as they would go and then cut off the remainder with a carpet knife.

Be carefull not to use anything too heavy when tapping down the molding clip center pins. You can deliver a fair amount of force with something like a hammer and dent the body panel, or crack or chip any body filler. I used a 1/2 inch pipe plug which weighs only a couple of ounces.

Once the body molding clips are in, you can simply snap the body side molding in place. The same procedure goes for the hood/trunk center molding as well.

In the next article I’ll cover the replacement of the wiper switch.

BW has a replacement fender for his 67 Buick that he picked up for $50. It needs some body work before it can be installed though. He had some rust repair patches welded in, and the guy that welded them in did a pretty good job. The panel warp from the heat of welding the sheet metal is minimal.

We decided to spend our Saturday night working on the rear fender skirt. The front fender skirt is in reasonable shape and it doesn’t need to be perfect since it will be covered in chrome molding.

Now, BW has already taken a stab at the body work, but I think we are still a ways away from completion. There are some high spots that need to be tapped down and we will fill the lows with some bondo. Here you see me taking out some of the frustration I’ve aquired from working on routers and switches during the week.

Doing the body work on this fender was a good test for my new air sander that I picked up at Harbor Freight for $20 about a year ago. It’s a standard body shop style air sander with a 16″ x 3″ flat sanding surface. We cut a 4″ x 36″ sandpaper belt into 2 pieces to get the right size sandpaper. This will put BW’s air compressor to the test as well since air sanders are notorious for being hard on air compressors.

Several beers, an hour or so of sanding later and we are finally ready to slap some bondo on. The old paint and years of wax were difficult to get the glaze off of the fender, even with a 60 grit sandpaper. The job was certainly easier with an air sander though, and beats sanding by hand. The first layer goes on and takes about 40 minutes to cure since it is so cold. It wasn’t really all that cold but bondo doesn’t cure too quickly at 40 some degrees. The flat air sander does a nice job of taking down the high spots and revealing the remaining lows where we will put our second layer of bondo.

The second layer goes on and takes even longer to cure enough to sand. This provides us with a 2-3 beer break and time to bull$#i¥ a while. If I may segway for a moment, apparently BW is secretly yearning to replace himself. Starting discussions about my son brought it out of him after a few Guinness. I think this is the part where the available young altruistic eligible women abandon this article and start scouring the website looking for an email address to track him down and selflessly offer their reproductive parts. Anyway, back to the story…Sanding this coat turns out well and leaves us with a few linguring blemishes in the bondo. We can take care of them with some body glaze.

Overall I’m impressed with how level the fender turned out using the air sander. The 16 inch length works great for sanding without creating the ruts that hand sanding leaves behind. At 12:30AM it’s time to call it quits for the night. Between now and the next automotive day, BW is going to sand down the shine on the paint so we can get a good bite with the primer. There are a few other problems with the fender but we’ll get to those on the next episode of automotive day.