Watch the video to see Sam's progress on this 1967 VW Beetle.

Our to do list is dwindling down and at this point our 1967 Sunroof Beetle is running, driving and stopping so now we can get to work on making it somewhat more comfortable and road worthy. Sam starts by installing new floor tarboards and some all-weather floor mats. Then he installs new front and rear window seals with aluminum trim and pop-out quarter window trim pieces. Then, (upon a nearly unanimous vote, on whether to install fender beading), he installs some running boards and new fender beading. Follow along and enjoy the process of getting this car truly ready for the road!

Video Transcript

And that is why I don't like coconut husk or horsehair seat pads. They just make a bloody mess. Yuck.

I got some of that tarboard cleaned up and scraped off in the back there. And I am going to go through and clean up all of our floors. I'm going to clean up the tunnel and clean up the back. And back there so that I can get some tarboards laid down here and there and there and there and there and there.

Just because I don't care if it looks like a piece of junk, I don't want it to sound like a piece of junk. I hate loud resonating interiors. I hate loud exhausts. I just hate the drone. It just drives me nuts. I don't know if it's because I suffer from vertigo or whatnot, but either way I just, that incessant just droning noise just drives me mad. So I'm going to go through and try to make this car a little bit more comfortable and quiet, plain and simple, to sit in and drive. So I'm going to get work on that.

All right you might look at these and go why do I have a right hand drive and a left hand drive tarboard? Well I don't. As these things come, this is the left side. And honestly, for some reason it's wider than that one and it's a little bit longer. So I actually trimmed the edge here and trimmed that edge there. This fabric covering, if you peel it back this tarboard is sticky. And now you could use this to stick your carpet to it. It'll give a nice, you know, sticky surface to stick your carpet to. Or you could do what I did. Take your passenger side which would be like that. Cut that notch out, flip your tarboard over, and now we've got sticky on the back side with a rectangle. And what was the passenger side is now the driver's side and it's got a sticky surface on the backside which I'll have to peel all off, but either way.

Why they're made this way, I don't know. We don't make these. They're made overseas somewhere and that's just the way they are. We'll get them test fit. That seems to fit well. I've already wiped the this floor pan down on this side, just some brake cleaner and paper towels. So it's nice and clean. I'm going to spread out some contact adhesive before I set this in place. Then we'll work on the rear floors, the back firewall, the back luggage shelf, and then I want to cover this tunnel as well. Let's get to work.

No open flames near that stuff. It's really flammable.

That's dry to the touch. It's ready to go. Awesome. Go do that side.

And that's what we end up with. Tardboards on both sides. Sticky side down, paper side up. And we got a little rectangle there. No big deal. It's going to go under floor mats or carpet or otherwise. Not the end of the world. If you don't like it flip it over the other way and put it sticky side up and put your carpet down on top of that.

Now I'm going to test fit our back area on both sides. And then we'll do the same thing, but I got to wipe this floor pan down first.

Same thing as before. Left side, right sides and we're going to put paper up in which case that piece looks absolutely perfect. Check that side, seems a bit weird and I don't know why that one's like so perfectly notched and notched. And this, they are identical, yeah. Maybe I got two of the same sides. Hold on because I do have two kits back here.

Since both sides are the same. And just to prove to you I'm not kidding, that's one, two, three, four all the same. So again, I don't care how it fits up underneath the seat. Where this one's cut square. I do care how it fits at the back of the seat. And since that one fits well that way. I want this straight line and this straight line up against our heater cable tube. Cut the paper side. Don't cut the other side. Kind of like cutting dry wall if you've ever done that. Score it there. We go left side, right side. Take a gander.

Want to keep about a half inch gap across the back here because that's where the rear kick panel would sit if we had them. So just leave a gap evenly across the back side there. Now I can pull off the paper, spread some glue, stick those down.

Go do that side. It's still a little wet. I'm going to get to doing some prep on that guy back there.

So this is a piece of uncut front, left side. As far as I'm concerned, it's not cut tarboard. I actually had this sitting outside in the sun so I could actually get it bent and shaped to fit over the tunnel. I'm going to use this to replace what we cut off and peeled off a lot of it. A, when we did the access plate and B, just because it was old and peeling off. So lengthwise, going come up right about like that. All the way up and over. I know I'm too long, but I'm going to have to get some heat. Either way I'll come in right about here to match our front floor. And then I'll just match the stock angle right there. Something like that. And then I'll work it from there.

And going have to cut somewhere in that arena, but we'll get there. Let's see how. There we go. That's better. Let's get those set in place.

A heat gun or a nice warm day, some sunlight and this stuff shapes really well. Obviously in our shop we don't have much sunlight, but we do have a heat gun so probably end up using that in a little bit here. All right, I think I’ll get a measurement from here up and over to there and use that kind of as a baseline for trimming that.

And I got to get some more fresh air because whoo. That's stinky in there. Get that glue out of there for now.

Oh also, I need to make note of my access plate. Right about there and there for that. And there and there for that. And then I'll need to get a measurement up over the tunnel. Let's work on that.

I might try a sawzall on this because now without being able to push this thing down it's going to be a little bit more hard to trim. Oh I also need to cut this back edge to length right there. So, let me see I can work on for cutting this thing.

Well it was messy. Ain’t no doubt about that. But sawzall actually worked really well.

Got the notch for the access plate, trimmed it to length, and cut out the top of the tunnel for next to the pedal assembly. That worked out well. Now I just need to get a measurement over the tunnel because this is sitting too high and not allowing this to sit flat. So let me work on that.

Inside measurement about 13 and 1/2 inches. And another inside measurement about 13 and 1/2 inches cut with the sawsall straight as I could. It ain't perfect, but neither is this car. But anyway again, in the future this would be under floor mats, rubber floor mats or carpeting, so this is just for sound deadening and resonation. Not a big deal. The hardest part now is going to be a cutout for the shifter which that's going to be a little bit difficult, but I'm going to see what I can come up with.

Overall that worked out really, really well. Flat against the floor on this side. I need to come back a little bit further for my access plate going to have to trim this piece right there back. Well never mind, I can just apparently do it with my fingers. That works out relatively well. Shifter is going to be the fun one.

All right, center of the shifter is right here. We can see our old tarboard cutout was right there. If nothing else, hammer time. Give me a good indication of where the shifter hole is, hopefully. Not as well as I'd hoped. Let's try this one more time without that paper. There we go. That's better. Now I got a good indication of where our shifter is and hopefully I can use that to reference and cutting that guy out. Which is going to be easier said than done, but I'll figure out something. I always do.

Banging, I was able to crack the tarboard then I just took my knife and went in here and cut where it's going to sit and then I will give this as my shifter template. And then looking at that, I'll trace this pattern out a little bit. That'll kind of match that original line right there. If I planned this right, we will see.

More hacking with the sawzall. Well you know, it ain't perfect, but it's pretty dark good. I'm going to try to take a razor blade and clean up this edge a little bit. Little foam sanding block actually works pretty well for trimming that out. I guess now I'm going to work on, I'm going to glue the tunnel up and then get the heat gun out and go to it.

I'm okay with this. That turned out well. I’ll put my shifter back in place, vacuum up this mess here, vacuum up a little mess here. And then I'm going to go work on the back.

Seeing as I forgot to hit record when I was getting all these pieces cut and trimmed and measured stuff, but anyway, here we are.

We got this guy to sit right, like so. And I have this guy. That to take up the rest of that. Couple of hours on a nice hot day and those will all melt down and smooth out ish. And then this guy there. Let's be careful on that edge right there. All right.

Now I got tarboard, tarboard, tarboard. I'm going to shim up this battery with some spare pieces, but there ain't nothing fancy to that. That's about as much interior as this car is going to get, short of the seat upholstery and the door panels, but I do have a little something, something for the front. Let me show you those.

Revolutionary non-pollutionary all-weather floor mats to sit like so and like so. A little something, something right. Nothing particularly fancy, but they'll do the job. Like I said a little something, something for this relatively spartan interior.

I got some leftover tarboard scraps underneath the battery. Battery's not going anywhere. On that note, I'm going to call it a day. Window trim, window seals tomorrow maybe. See what you guys are saying on today's video about whether or not to put in fender beading. Once you guys let me know which we're going to do there, put in some fender beading or not put in some fender beating. Then I can get to work on the bumpers. Put the bumpers in, some running boards, and we'll go from there. We're almost ready to go for the show, assuming we get registration. Let's pray to the Lord on that one.

It's Thursday, October 26^th. Today I want to work on windows seals, quarter window screw plates because these things aren't actually held in very well, and the trim on the inside sides rear window seal. The video about the where I asked you guys about fender beading, looks like we're definitely putting in some fender beading. Well that fender's already got one, but it's going to come out. This fender doesn't have any fender beading so I need to put some fender beading in there. After I get that done I'll probably put on some running boards. That's the plan for today. We'll see how it goes.

I'm going to cut out this windshield so I can put in a new seal, along with some aluminum trim.

Our windshield is free.

Now that we've got our windshield out, intact. We'll pull off the remnants of the old seal and I can see exactly why I've pulled it out. Yeah, rubber normally flexes, but not when it's old and dried out. And we'll give it a good cleaning and although a bug windshield might look flat, starting in ‘65 they're actually curved.

Some new window trim and a new Deluxe or American style if you are prefer that vernacular. I prefer Deluxe because this is a deluxe model Beetle as were most, if not every car, that was intended for sale in the USA. And this is our seal. We have these made specifically for us to our specifications. We made them a little bit longer than some of the other seals out there so that they're less prone to curling in the corners.

Note that I put the seam the bottom center. Another thing that causes window seals to curl, in the corners especially, is if they're stretched super tight. So whenever possible try to keep your seals loose at these corners to alleviate some of the tension and that will help them to not curl. Rubber stretches. It also compresses. If you're going to stretch it anywhere, stretch it along a long drawn out area, not in a tight corner. You actually want to put some sag, or looseness, in the corners if possible.

All right, that's a prime example I wanted to show you. You can see we actually have some gap right there, but as the seal wraps around this corner it's pulled tight. So what I'm going to do is stretch some of the rubber towards the corner. Towards the corner to make it tighter along our flatter sections and a little bit looser in our corners.

Now the fun part, I got to put the trim in. I say fun part because most people really, really, really dislike doing this. And I can't say that I like doing this, but I don't have a problem doing this and I love the way it looks on the right car. My Super Beetle, that wasn't the right car for aluminum trim so I just did all blacked out on that car. Color matched on that car.

Using the line and the seals as kind of a reference for a starting point in that corner. Then coming back to one end and starting. I'm going get a plastic trim tool, something like that.

I prefer putting in trim dry, no lube. Because anything that helps this trim slide in would also help this trim slide out. So once it's in, it's usually in. And if it's not in, it will pop out. And that's how you know whether or not it's in or not.

I used to actually have a couple of shops that would do minor restorations. I wouldn't say full restorations, but they do like paint and body work. And anytime they had a car where the customer wanted the chrome trim, they would actually bring all the rubber and trim and seals into me. And then on my lunch break, at work, I would go through and put it in and then they would take it back to their shop later and install it in the cars.

All right, we got half side in. One thing to look for is where that seal is folded in right there. Just come in with a plastic pry tool and get it out. And if nothing else, you can start all the way back at the beginning and work your pry tool to get that lip out all the way around.

Just like that. We've got our trim halfway installed.

With that we've got our next piece of trim in place. And be cautious when you're, if you have to pick the rubber out, definitely make certain to use a plastic tool. These marks will go away in time, but you can see some indications from where we were prying that lip out. So just be cautious. Make sure to use a plastic tool, not a metal screwdriver or knife or otherwise, because you're going to end up cutting and damaging your seal.

But now we'll put the clips in place here and here. Then we'll flip our glass over and run our wire through. And then we'll put it in the car.

Have a look at that. We've got one edge with a rolled over lip and then one edge without. Hook that in here and underneath and then basically roll that back into place. And then carefully pry the rubber out from behind it just like that. Now do the same thing over there.

Just like that, this is ready to install. So, I'll run my drawstring through and get that in the car.

Put those wires on the inside. Get the windshield set in place. Now that we've got our wire hanging towards the inside, we're going to hold the window in place on the outside and pull this wire which pulls that rubber lip into place. We got one side. We'll come over the other. Pull the windshield in place again. Pull that wire up and over. Once you get up the a pillars a little bit go on the outside and try and press the windshield in place a little bit more. You just come in right here. You guys probably can't see this, but the same process of pulling that lip over right there. What we did there. Again, push the windshield in and pull that rubber down.

Like so. All right, perfect.

Let me show you what we're going to do now. You can see how you’ve got that little gap right there. It's because the windshield's not fully set in place on the outside. So, we'll come on the outside and give it a couple good taps, or slaps realistically. That was a good one. Flat handed. No palms, no fists, no knuckles. And now that rubber seal is perfectly in place all the way around. Now we'll go double check the outside.

Now where the rubber is curled under, trim tool. There we go. Got that side done. We’ll go check the other side. There we go. We've got fresh window rubber. Much, much better.

Well that does it for the front. Now I get a ground and go do the back. Same process. I'm not even going to bother bringing the camera along. I'm just going to get it done.

Because of all this surface rust all the way around I'm going to actually apply a layer of corroseal just to treat all this rust before I put that new seal in. So, I'll be back in a moment.

All right while that's doing its thing, I'm going to get to work on the quarter windows putting on the trim, the screw plates, the covers. And all that while that corroseal converts all that rust.

We've got our rear window lip is all sealed up. Ready to go. I've got the quarter window trim in place. It's all ready to go on both sides. I'm going to get the back window in and then we'll take it from there.

I'm probably going to get to work on some fender beading. After some fender beading I'll put on some running boards. After which, I don't have all the brackets for the bumpers. I'll have to locate those. I guess I'll be putting seals in as well because if I'm putting new fender beading in I might as well put new seals in. Yeah, there's still more to do. Let's keep on going.

It's a little bit easier with two people, but I'm going to try and do it solo. Easy solo if your quarter windows are out.

Nice.

All right, here's a little quick tip on using the hubcap remover as Volkswagen intended. With this little pry bar you pop it up like that. Brace it on the tire, that way you're not pulling on your finger. And the reason why I did that is cause I finally remembered to bring this speedometer cable clip. Fortunately ours didn't go anywhere, but now we've got a clip and I can put this guy back on.

Well, I didn't realize how popular fender beading was. But apparently, out of the roughly I'm going to say about 10 to 15 votes we've gotten so far only one person has said no fender beading. So, I guess I'm putting fender beating in which means I'm going to loosen up all these fender bolts here. While the fender bolts are loose, I'm going to get our running boards bolted in. That way I can get our front and back bolts lined up on a running board. Then I will throw the fender beading in and get everything bolted on. So, sit back, relax, enjoy the show guys.

Fender beading wrapped and rolled all the way up and over. That fender bolt is, the actual bolt, is broken off in the body nut and I'm not going to bother welding in a new body nut for one fender bolt, especially considering the running board just bolts into the fender.

So this is where I actually shaped the running board out with a hammer a little bit to get the fender to line up a little bit better and now it's much better. And obviously, I trimmed this mat. I haven't trimmed the back mat yet, but we'll get there.

Underneath the door, because the door is sagging, I took a hammer and just flattened that out ever so slightly right in that edge. But you can see the gap on the body. There's plenty of gap. That's not the fault of the running board. That's the fault of the door jambs, or the door hinges.

At the back, that can be trimmed up a little bit better so I'll work on that.

And then we've got the fender beading all the way in place. And I just cut it off flush right there.

So that's one side done. Let's just hope the other side goes easier. Because between that nut being broken out, that bolt missing over there, I think we even had another bolt missing on this one somewhere. Perhaps in the same area I think right there as well and just wasn't fun. But, it's done.

To wrap up, we've got running boards installed both sides. Fender beading installed on both sides.

Running boards, do they bolt on as well as the German boards? No, they take about twice as much work, but they're less than half the cost. If you want something that's going to be easier to install, buy the German boards. For less than half the price, you're going to get less than half the quality which means you're going to have to make up the difference in getting those fit on. The biggest thing I found is trimming back that rubber lip on these rubber mats that rolls over the back edge and it's tucked underneath the bottom. With that rubber lip in place, the running board is too tall to sit in the groove underneath the body. So once that mat is trimmed, the running boards sit down just fine. I did have to again hammer this piece down because this door is sagging, but that's not the fault of the running board. Also even the German boards are not trimmed at front and rear. That's something you have to do on both boards. Shape wise, the Mexican boards I did have to hammer this out to get this to fit the curvature of the fender a little bit. Not a big deal. But again, less than half the price, less than half the quality. And that's just the way it is.

Going forward, I did find that our original bumpers actually have the lower brackets attached to them so we're good to go there. I've got most of the hardware to put on to the nose. I'll also be putting on, since I'm putting in fender beading since apparently people want all the seals at least fender beading on a patina car, I'm going to put in a hood seal and a deck wood seal. And we'll get those in the next video.

Speaking of videos, this is a much more drawn out video. Which I'm going to ask you guys, do you like the long longer videos where I get a little bit more in depth like this one, showing you actually how to put the trim in, how to cut out the seal, going into that whole process? Or do you like the I'm going to put a new seal in and the next shot is a new seal? Let me know in the comments below. I'm doing this for you guys. So let me know what you want to see and I'm going to build these videos to suit. Because at the end of the day, I'm not doing this for me. I'm doing this for you. And on that note the world's full of good people. If you can't find one, be one.

Take care guys.

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