Video Transcript

Hi guys, I'm Sam. And I'm Nate.

We have a mission—not from God, but a mission from Nathan and myself. We want to have this chassis ready for paint by the end of the day. We don't have a whole lot to do. We need to get some washer tabs welded in for the seats and for the roll cage that we put in last video.Yep—or, I'm sorry, show cage. Four-point show cage. Maybe weld in some seat belt mounting tabs because we want to at least be slightly safe. Yeah, safety second.

So yeah, we're going to get on that, make that seat up in there. I think I have that seat right about where it wants to go. Yeah, see, these seats are a wee bit lighter than Grandma's. Fancy. Yeah, those are fancy. Ridiculous. I had that one lined up on the center of that tab and then out as far as possible with those things still in there. Yeah, that one this way should be good there.

The thingy things are lined up front to back. Both of them. Legroom? Oh yeah. See, it wasn't all the way back. There you go. That goes way back. Good enough for you to drive? Yeah, I mean, someone will drive, and we're still right up on the roll cage. Yeah, I'm sorry—show cage.

I mean, the little piping thing is barely touching. That's fine. I mean, whoever sits in the back ain't got no legroom, but yeah, that's their problem. Hopefully, they got small legs.

All right, so I think—I mean, I can probably sit back there and still have enough to get the parking brake. Thing is, making sure that we can get these guys—see, no problem on that side. Issue? Let's see—you can squeeze your legs in there, no problem.

Yeah, I think we're going to use this for the center marking point on there. Oh yeah, one second. I need to get out. Yeah, we threw a tilt seat in that side too.

It's a bit heavy.

We threw a tilt mechanism on top for the sliders on that seat—or rather, we threw a tilt mechanism under the sliders on that mechanism. So now you can get out. We're just going to go through and get these things drilled and marked.

We got all of our mounting points for our seats marked. What happened here, Dad? Um, run-off. Nathan center punching before he drills. Smart. Just pick the center. That's why it's called a center punch.

Yeah. Apparently. Apparently, it's somewhere around there. Yeah.

Nathan, seats are all bolted in. Yep. In the cage. To the under there. Down under there.

Okay, so down below, this plate is cut in half because we'll have another one to come in right there. All four of these plates for the seats on both sides—I'll weld those in. I'll buzz this guy in. And then once we get the body off, we can put the cage back in. We can drill this back mounting hole, which we can't right now because the heater channel duct is in the way.

We gotta decide where we're going to mount our seat belt mechanism over here. Ideally, I think I want to mount it kind of close to factory—like so, maybe down low, off the bottom as much as possible. I think that's going to be in the way of our passenger feet. If we get it out there as far as possible, that's going to be ideal.

Uh, is the seat all the way back? No, it's not. There we go. Now the seat's all the way back. Seat's all the way back. Still plenty of room for the retractable mechanism, so that's good. The only other thing I'm concerned about really is our seat belt inside buckle. Yeah, that seat belt mounting bolt hole right there is a bit far back. It's kind of far back. I mean, do—um, you guys—wait. Could we just put like the ‘67 kind of seat belts, like with the straps, the chrome lift latch, just kind of fall all over the place? Could we? Yes.

And maybe— Do you like those belts? Yeah, they're pretty cool, and plus, I'm going for a little bit more of a classic kind of— All right, so I guess maybe we'll swap over to those. And those actually have adjustable inside lengths, so you could actually run them through your seat belts here. Is a ‘67 a lap belt? We're going to go three-point belts, buddy. Sorry, that's not an option. You are doing a three-point belt. But we do have three-point chrome lift latch retractables. Okay, good. You like that?

Yeah. All right, we'll go with that route. Yeah, well, I mean, it's just easier having an adjustable intersection. Yeah, yeah. Just so, like, you can have it over the front right here, so it's a little bit more secure. Not to mention the fact that it's not a giant thing flapping around. Kind of just— Yeah, okay, that sounds good. We'll do that.

So at this point, then, we can pull off the body. Yay! All right, yank the seats out. Yeah, actually, no. At this point, I need to weld all the washers on the bottom. Yeah, that might be— That's my job. I'll do that.

Okay. So you can see our plates are all welded in. I did have a casualty here on my wiring harness. I did not have it tucked up out of the way, so chances are I'm going to have to rerun a new wiring harness. I'll cut this sheath away and see if the damage is major or if it's just superficial. But oh well. Fortunately, I know a place that has new wiring harnesses.

A little bit right there as well. But all of our plates are welded in. Got tabs welded in for our seat belt brackets. So we just kind of hang out— Both sides. So all of our retractable belts will go in place. Nathan is just pulling off the front end. At this point we've got to pull the roll cage out, and I'm going to continue to call it a roll cage. It's a show cage. It is what it is. You guys know the difference. If, um, you roll, it's still going to be cast. It doesn't do nothing. Maybe it's part of the car.

You want to grab the 16? Start unbolting that. And then, uh, I guess I can start unbolting up here too. Oh yeah, you got to pull those out. And then we can pull off the bumper, pull out the engine, and then we can pull the body up and do all that stuff. So hang tight.

We've got the body off. Nate is going to go through and center punch and drill these. I haven't eaten anything since breakfast, and it's now 4:15. So I'm kind of hungry. Not hangry yet. But anyway, I'm going to leave him to that. And then when he's done with that, we can bolt those pieces in, those pieces in. And then we can literally start pulling everything apart down to the bare chassis again and then paint it. And then get it ready for paint.

Although, we do need to run in a 5/16 fuel line for fuel injection because over here, I have a whole bunch of fuel injection stuff that I've been collecting for the last three years. Never mind my 3D printed base plate—just testing my bolt pattern for the face plate with a built-in velocity stack. Thirty-six-millimeter individual throttle bodies—I’ve got two here, I’ve got two more in there. Center mount linkage, Microsquirt computer, wideband sensor, etc., etc.

Anyway, I’ve got just about all the pieces, I just gotta put them all together. But Nathan’s car comes first. But then again, this is going to go on Nathan’s car. Maybe. Eventually. But it's still my fuel injection.

Not quite an hour later—it’s 5:08, and it’s still here. Gotta touch that little weld up there—burnt through on the plates on the bottom side. Top side, we're all just about there. We gotta drill a hole back there and up front to run a 5/16 fuel line through for the fuel injection.

And I guess we gotta pull that grommet out. I don’t want to paint over a grommet with that. We should be able to get this chassis all prepped up, ready to paint tomorrow. Hopefully. Oh, ready to paint tonight, but painted— Yeah, well, ready for paint tomorrow. Yeah.

Um, transmission—ready to come out? Depends on if it wants to or not. Transmission—heavy boy. Yeah, if you can get that out by yourself, I will put $20 in your account. Okay, easy. Oh, well, I guess I’m putting $20 in your account. Dang it. Oh well, that backfired. But at least I didn’t— Hey, it’s not all the way out. I need to open the doors. I guess so.

Don’t threaten me with $20. Okay, now it’s all the way out. All right, $20—you win.

Um, there’s a grommet at the front end of the fuel line in the front on this side that needs to come out. Oh yeah, that guy. 11-189 Alpha, for all of you at home. Alpha. Or just an 11-189.

Hey, got it! All right. No $20 back? Nope.

Uh, I don’t know why I had the camera stopped recording, but you guys completely missed us struggling and fighting to put in our 5/16 fuel line, which is this guy right here. It actually wasn’t that bad.

And also, the 3D print finished. Yeah, miniature velocity stack for fuel injection.

That’s plenty clear on there. You're not going anywhere. Want to put a grommet on you? You're good to go.

I wonder if we could create a turbo—like, not a legit turbo, but like a little— A spinny boy?

Yeah, a little miniature spinny boy. Yeah, like a desk spinny boy. I mean, could you? Would it actually spin? Probably not.

Okay. Um, well, I guess fuel line here, fuel in that way, pull it out this way.

Zip tie it along the old fuel line in there to keep it separate from everything else, and it fits right over. And that is good to go. Oh, it fits on the throttle body? Yep, perfect.

I think until tomorrow, we’re just about done. I’ve got steaks to grill up tonight on the grill, so I am going to chill on this. Uh, 5:52—I don’t even know what time we started at. Hours of work today—probably, uh, maybe six. But anyway, we are ready, or just about ready, for paint. See you tomorrow.

That’s four bolts. Not a big deal. Right now, it’s holding it up. Tomorrow, we’re going to paint. And, uh, then after the paint’s dry, we can start doing an assembly on this chassis. Wow. Although we gotta paint the trailing arms and everything else on the backside too. So I think we’ve got a couple of days of painting to do. Yeah.

But yeah, I’m going to do that with some, uh, Rust-Oleum and some paint hardener and some acetone. Not from spray cans—the actual legit— I mean, it’s all the same paint. It’s all enamel paint. But we’re actually going to spray it out of the gun and with hardener and stuff, so it’s like— Yeah, so it actually cures. And it actually—it works pretty well. Um, so yeah.

Oh, I see some more holes I gotta weld too. Dang nab it. Yeah, it’s just welding, right? I’ll take care of those. And then, uh, we’ll be back tomorrow to do some more. Later, guys.

So, it’s early Sunday morning. And by early Sunday morning, I mean it’s 11:30 Sunday morning. And when you have a teenager, that’s early. Let's just say I’ve been out here working already. I got everything cleaned up on the bottom side. Welding these plates upside down—thick metal plate to thin sheet metal. Not all the welds are awesome, but I’ve got them cleaned up.

I’m going to come back through now and take some sealant and seal up all the edges, just to make certain that we don’t have any moisture get in between these plates and the pan.

Other than that, I’m just going to give it a quick wipe-down, and then once Nathan decides to wake up, we’re going to roll this thing outside and spray some paint on it.

For paint, we’re going to do a combination of probably, uh, three-quarters to a quarter. I don’t like doing black because black will hide cracks. If you have a lighter gray, that will make any cracks much more visible if they ever do appear. Again, this isn’t a race car. We’re not going crazy off-roading. But black will hide a crack, whereas gray—it’s much more prone to show up.

So, all the suspension bits are going to get a pure smoke gray. The chassis—we’re going to make it a little bit darker, so it gets some contrast. We’re going to mix these up along with some acetone to reduce it. And the most important part, to actually make this stuff durable—catalyst hardener. This will actually make this cure hard. This is oil-based enamel hardener. And these are oil-based enamels, so it works out perfect. So that’s the plan for today—once Nathan ever gets up.

All right, now that Nathan’s finally here, we’re going to take some grease and wax remover and wipe down the chassis. Again, this is just glorified spray cans or rattle cans. It’s not—we’re not going for powder-coated looks. We’re not going for show car quality. We’re just going for good 20-foot looks. And if nothing else, it’s underneath the car anyway. And it’s going to be covered by the body and the carpet and whatnot. But it’ll get everything coated and everything protected. And it’s a cured paint, so it’s going to be a hard paint.

So, I mean, the only thing you’re really going to see is this part— Kind of—

All right, I’m going to try to put you guys outside, see how this works. Bring me the gun, Nate.

And we’re out. That was quick. Yeah, it looks so nice. I think it really came out good. We’ll bring you guys in for a closer look when we’re done. We got to go just over eight ounces on both sides. Rock it a little bit more.

All right, I'm not a painter by any means, but that's painted now. Gotta go clean out our gun, wait for this to really dry, and then we’ll flip the chassis over and do the same thing on the top side.

Start in that corner, more to the left.

Wow, awesome! Hit the other side, buddy.

Yeah, all right, gotta wait for that to cure, and then we can move that all inside. I think we’re going to start painting the trailing arms and spring plates, some of the other bits that are going to be gray in the back. I think that's about it, and then assembly can really begin.

Last bits for the day—we’re going to do some smoke gray.

Wow, that looks so good. I definitely need a little bit more. Yeah, get that coat. It's going to be awesome, huh? Yeah. Yeah, with the covers going over that in the other color, it's going to look so nice.

How you liking everything so far? It's awesome. We're finally getting to the restoration part, not just the "make everything fit together" part. This is the part that he likes—cleaning and painting and assembling. Yeah, so hopefully he'll have some improved spirits on this. Yeah.

Well, that was one long weekend, but we got a lot accomplished, Nathan. Yeah, I mean, we're sitting on a painted chassis—a painted, pretty much complete chassis.

Yeah, now we can start doing a final assembly, which means the transmission can go in, all the stuff on the backside, we can put all the stuff in the tunnel, run a new clutch cable, accelerator cable, get all that stuff hooked up, paint the pedals. We gotta pull apart the pedal assembly and get that detailed so we can get that in. We do have a 5/16 fuel line now for fuel injection, which is going to be very nice. Which is nice because when it comes to fuel injection, we're one step closer.

We just spent some time 3D printing a base plate, which honestly looks awesome. Without the cleaner. Yeah, even without the air cleaner, it looks really cool. Yeah, and our air cleaner fits in there ever so perfectly, so we don't get anything in there, so we have clean air. Yeah.

Fuel injection hopefully coming soon on this Beetle—stay tuned for that.

Something that is out now is Nathan’s engine block-off plates.

Yeah, available in dual port and single port—distributor drive plug, exhaust ports, intake manifolds, oil cooler, generator/alternator stand, fuel pump.

Keep all the debris from falling into your engine when you're building it, or if you've got the intake manifold off for some reason during some sort of maintenance or otherwise, you can put those on and be certain that nothing is going to fall in.

So these are ready to go. If you're interested in purchasing a set, email me directly—sam@jbugs.com—and we'll get you set. $30 shipped per set out to you, any U.S. zip code.

So, 3D printing aside, fuel injection aside, we’ve got our rear trailing arms and spring plates all painted up so those can go on. I mean, they just look really nice. It looks like a side-by-side arm or something.

The floor pan—I'm not too concerned about the overall look. It's got some flash drying and whatnot. It's a really big piece, and I wasn't concerned about making it look really good like I was with our trailing arms. Which, I mean, they look good. The main thing is just so it doesn’t— It’s a matted finish. Those have a much more smooth gloss finish. Yeah.

And spoiler alert—that same paint in a different color, however, the orange up above, that’s what we’re going to paint Nathan’s car with. We’re going to just use Rust-Oleum farm and implement paint, and that’s what we’re going to paint the body with. That’s going to be a couple of months from now because our goal right now is to get this thing running and driving with a complete chassis and everything and suspension.

Yeah, we want to get the chassis complete—complete. And we want to drive this thing to a couple of shows coming up here at the end of March locally. So we want to have it driving again. It's not going to look a whole lot different than the last time we took it out last year. Yeah. But underneath, it's going to be completely different.

It's been one great weekend with a lot of—a lot of work, a lot of finished work, and a lot of paint. Yeah, and the paint ended up really nice. Really nice. I'm very happy with the paint.

So with that, I'm Sam. And I'm Nate. And life's full of good people—if you can't find one, be one. Later, guys.

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