Robbie Rocket - New Beetle Cup Car Replica

Shamrockez wrote:

No, but I teach in Yeovil!

Aahhh must of been you then. Cant be too many cars like yours with L plates on.
Looked coooolio!

dubberatlast wrote:

he looked a proper little barn find lol

I wonder how many people will be raving about a Newbie in a barn in 25 years time???

dubberatlast wrote:

he looked a proper little barn find lol

Does it count as a find if you left it there?

SimonABT wrote:

Shamrockez wrote:

No, but I teach in Yeovil!

Aahhh must of been you then. Cant be too many cars like yours with L plates on.
Looked coooolio!

Cheers! Nope there's no others like mine.... there better not be anyway!

Mr Scoops wrote:

I wonder how many people will be raving about a Newbie in a barn in 25 years time???

Woo hoo, I could set a trend!




Ok, so it'll probably be just me finding them and raving

give me a shout if you ever get tempted to part with your empis and front bumper. Lucys newbie could do with a makeover

Is the London Bus yours as well? love it very cool.

Wurz wrote:

give me a shout if you ever get tempted to part with your empis and front bumper. Lucys newbie could do with a makeover

I've got a list as long as my arm for the wheels and bumpers so I'm putting them on ebay - I'll let you know when I do.

ARCANE wrote:

Is the London Bus yours as well? love it very cool.

It belongs to my Dad. Fully restored

Wheels on ebay: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320595032247&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT

Spent an hour or so on Robbie today

Took the roof strip off the driver's side to have a look at the lovely rust! For those not familiar with Newbies, the earlier ones had a problem with the gutters bubbling slightly. Some people got the problem fixed under VW's 12yr anti corrosion warranty, but it was a bit hit an miss. I tried to do this with Robbie but got rejected a few years ago, and now he's out of the 12yr warranty anyway.

Rear of roof:


Front of roof:

Decided to poke the rear bit with a screwdriver:


Not too bad! Looked worse than it was. A bit of sanding later and it looked like this:




If that's the worst bit of rust I find on a 12yr old car, I'm not too worried!

I also got rid of the spoiler tape residue and started measuring for fitting the 'Ironing Board' rear spoiler.

that last photo brings it back, wurrzel dubbers, had the same in duie but with dubberatlast

Cant wait to see robbie take shape

I bet you put yours on straighter than mine though

Shamrockez wrote:

I bet you put yours on straighter than mine though

um yes

Nice to see some more progress Lucy.

My Dad came over to visit, so I put his superior mechanical/engineering knowledge to use and he and Steve fitted the Ironing Board for me whilst I tried not to look!

looking very nice, can wate to see it done!!!

Come on work a bit faster. I want to see some WIDE-ness. lol
Good to see some progress.

Hopefully I'll be able to trial fit the bumpers soon!

Armed with one of these:


I set out to the garage and to attack Robbie's gutters again. It did a very good job and made light work of what would be a long a boring job with a bit of sandpaper on the end of your finger!








All nice and shiny now!

Next up was some Kurust to treat the pitted bits:

Finished work a bit early today so primered the gutter. First I feathered the edges of the bare metal:


Carefully masked up:


Added some of this:


Et voila:

I've had the morning off, so I've been out to play with Robbie in the garage!

My old Beetle went yesterday but it means we now have the room in the garage to get on with Rocket.

I started by taking out a couple of bolts...


Which left me with this:


The wings had some interesting markings on them. Anyone know what they mean? And is the date the 11th Sept or 9th November?







Inner wings were nice and solid on both sides:



So with the wings and rear bumper off, I excitedly ran out to the shed and gathered parts of the new kit I could trial fit. A few minutes later the rear wings and bumper were on! so I stood back to look at how lovely he looked!


Er.... oh.... that doesn't look lovely! That looks all weird and out of shape! What's causing it?

A peek underneath revealed the impact protection bar was in the way:


4 13mm bolts later and voila:


Now, that looks better!


And with the boot down:




It's going to take a fair bit of jiggling about to make it all sit nicely, but we should get there in the end

Going to paint the red bit of body you can see behind the bumper matt black so that it's not so obvious.

I'm going to have to modify the rear bumper crash bar to fit right. Having been rear ended twice this year in my other Bug, I know just how important that bar is!

Spent a few hours today on Robbie.

Started off by getting the bumper to fit right. The problem was these blocks of foam:


They were also preventing one of the wings from sitting right:






and preventing the bumper from bending round in the right way:





Foam bits were cut, bumper offered up, cut a bit more, offered again, another cut, etc etc:




ah, now that's better!



Once it's actually bolted together the line will be flush:


Now for the other side... started off like this:


And ended up like this:


Then I loosely placed the grill where I want it to go:


Need to fit it properly. Obviously there will be the 2 big exhausts too to make room for.

Then I set about making a template for the brackety things to hold the wing and bumper together:


As you can see, the original one won't fit!


The top bit I can still use though:


Then, bored of that, I set about cleaning up the wheel arch. Started like this:


Looking better now!


All pretty much perfect:


Anyone know why the inner wings have a clear plastic strip stuck on them?


Not sure what to do about the inner wings. Do I paint over them? Waxoyl? Underseal? Or 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' and leave it as is?

I just like this shot... shows how much wider the new wings are:

the plastic films are to stop the wing chaffing against the body as they are plastic, which will cause the paint to rub through and then rust sets in.

they are quite important, i belive on the new beetle, as they wings flax quite a bit.

andy

Ah, I see - ta! I shall leave them there then

Steve and I have been playing with Robbie today!

Took the front wings and bumper off and was greated with this scary sight:


Not to worry - a few loosely placed panels and he looks all smiley again!





I dunno what this pipe is though? Seems a bit random!

power steering cooling pipe, stops the oil over heating and damaging the seals in steering rack.

andy