1965 356C Coupe

[Alex Parmenter]

Hi thought I would finally post up a few photos of my project. It's a 1965 C I purchased about 3 months ago. It's a driver and in pretty good shape, apart from a poor paint job that is showing some issues. I bought the car as its original engine/trans etc and after a close inspection seemed to be largely rust free. I think it was caught just in time before the rust became an issue. I'm doing a rolling resto at home, some pics below.

Initially the floors looked pretty rough under the original horse hair sound pads, lots of rust, but once cleaned up back to bare metal there were no holes.

Floor pans

Treated floor with Ospho and primed and top coated. All other areas of the car look amazingly solid, so very pleased so far

painted

[Alex Parmenter]

The original underseal under the fenders and the floor pans was just staring to lift in a few areas, and surface rust also starting to set in. The original seam sealer had also shrunk and cracked, so have been removing this to clean up and re-coat. I found soaking the underseal in WD40 for a few days really helped to soften it up, then used a paint scrapper to remove, this is what I have so far. Plan to clean up fully and then epoxy, re apply seam sealer and topcoat.

[Alex Parmenter]

Passenger side

[Alex Parmenter]

Fuel tank came out for a clean up, some surface rust outside and signs of earlier repaint. I got lucky here, when I cleaned up the underside an earlier soldered plug holed immediately, was only the thickness of tin foil keeping the fuel in. Soldered back up properly and then cleaned back to bare metal. Have used the full Por15 fuel tank system to clean and reseal the inside. I've used this before on other tanks and been very pleased with results (I'm not a fan of Por15 on chassis though, as I've had rust creep under the Por15 unseen).

[Alex Parmenter]

The worse job so far was removing the underseal from the floor pans. I used a paint scrapper to remove the top layer (this was 95% original factory underseal, but starting to come loose and a few spots of rust starting). Then I used knotted wire brush on angle grinder to clean back to bare metal.

[Alex Parmenter]

Cleaned floorpan back to bare metal, again very pleased no rust issues, just 100% German steel as it left the factory. Original floor pan drain plugs all in place. Once all cleaned back I sealed with epoxy primer and then topcoated 2k gloss black (gloss black photos don't come out well becasuse of lack of light, but looks nice, if not 100% factory. I'm undecided yet if I'll topcoat with Wurth underseal?

Not been a great job doing this on axle stands! A car ramp would be nice!

[Scott Loraas]

Nice one Alex. It'll be back on the road in no time.

[Alex Parmenter]

Forward plan is to get all the chassis repainted etc, renew fuel hoses, usual service etc and get back on the road in the next month or so. I have been going through the electrics etc cleaning up contacts and lights now 100% brighter.
The body was resprayed in original color some time ago, and is in need of redoing. The hood has micro blisters and several patches where paint has lifted and both rear quarters show patches that look like a solvent pop type wrinkle and cracking. It looks better in the pictures than in the flesh. Under that though its an incredibly solid car.
I was going to try and get back to the original paint by carefully stripping back the repaint. It seems to have been sprayed over the original paint in some areas, others may have been bare metaled, but we will see. If there is not enough original paint left, will be a respray on the cards.

There is a good thread on removing paint back to OG paint on the Samba with some pretty amazing results in some cases:
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=76072

[Alex Parmenter]

Thanks Scott, it's been a pleasant surprise so far, I'm more used to unearthing more and more rust on the cars I've restored in the past. So far so good, got a better pic of the floor pans now they're painted, still needs I more coat to finish, but very tempted to leave like this as seems a shame to cover up. I can always re-coat in underseal at a later date.

[Alex Parmenter]

The car belonged to Larry Hassard, a registry member, in the early 2000s. Does anyone know Larry, or if he'd still involved?

thanks
Alex

[Alex Parmenter]

I'm assuming that the light grey paint that was under the wheel arches is from the factory? Or would this have been body color? It just looks factory and original so want to confirm before I re-paint the area.

thanks
Alex

[Scott Loraas]

Thanks Scott, it's been a pleasant surprise so far, I'm more used to unearthing more and more rust on the cars I've restored in the past. So far so good, got a better pic of the floor pans now they're painted, still needs I more coat to finish, but very tempted to leave like this as seems a shame to cover up. I can always re-coat in underseal at a later date.

I'd undercoat it now if you're ever going to do it. Nobody is going to be able to appreciate the look of it when the car is on the ground and the underbody is dirty.

Plus, how much time will it take in the future to get the car back up and the underside cleaned to undercoat it. 3-4 hours? You've got the pictures of the metal at it's best. The coolness factor is documented. Cover it up.

[Alex Parmenter]

Scott,

In my heart I know your right, I have a few other jobs to do, so for now I will leave it until the magic of the shiny paint has worn off me . I have some Wurth underseal already so plan to use this.

Alex

[Paul Hatfield]

Alex-
Can you please explain your process of "soaking the undercoating in WD-40" for a few days.
In those wheel wells, how did you do that?????
Thanks,
Paul

[Alex Parmenter]

Paul,

I did a bit of trial and error here, but had good results in the end. First I washed down the areas with 'simple green' degreaser (Ace Hardware) to remove all the road grime etc.

Once it dried I tried to remove some underseal with a metal 2 inch paint scraper but it was too hard. I then sprayed the area in WD40 to wet the underseal and let it soak in overnight. After 24 hours it was noticeably softer, so I repeated the wd40 treatment over the next few days and it really softened up (about 4days of wetting with Wd40) I then used the paint scraper and was able to remove 90% of the underseal. The thin film that was left I then sprayed on wd40 again and left overnight and could then wipe off with a rag.

In a couple of stubborn spots I tried carb cleaner, which worked, but not much better than WD40 really.

It was a slow, messy process, and patience was the key, let the WD40 do it's work over time. Also I was amazed the amount of underseal that came off. Good luck.