Super Beetle Project Car Part 2

Now, let's pull out the seats, as it is probably one of the easier things to remove. For our '71, unhook the coil spring, pull up on the adjustment lever and slide out toward the front. Easy as pie. If you have a 1972, you'll have to unplug the seat belt warning buzzer wire and depress the leaf-spring stop before sliding it out, and if you have a '73-and-later, you'll have to contend with the adjusting lever, the plastic covers on the seat runners and a leaf-spring stop in the seat's bracket. Don't forget that 1973-and-later seats pull out to the rear.

The rear seat bottom easily lifts out, as it does the same for every year VW made prior to January 1972. After that date, there's a hook on the seat frame and a cleat on the floor that secures the two together. The rear seat back rest comes out with a 12mm socket and some contortionist body moves. The package tray carpet is attached to the rear seat back rest and can be cut at the base with a utility knife. Leave on the seat covers and set the four items aside. For now, we penned a big "D" on the driver's seat to keep them straight (even though the seats themselves are identical), and we'll revisit them later in the series. Now back to the car.

Let's turn our attention to the carpet and the sound deadening materials underneath. Simply put: If you've got it, remove it by whatever means you find most fun. I let my dog help, as she likes to chew stuff. For the front main and threshold carpets (and pillar headliner pieces), you'll have to first unscrew the Phillips head screws that retains the front footwell heating outlets, remove the rear seat locating rail and kick panels with a 10mm socket and unbolt all seatbelt attachment points. This aside, the carpets simply tear out. Good dog.

Under the front carpet hid the ever resilient tar boards. These are a three-ply board made up of Styrofoam sandwiched between two layers of a tar-like substance. Of course, the bottom layer had fused itself to the pan and would only come up with the persistent scraping of a putty knife, which took about three hours to get it all removed. The silver lining is that, underneath all of this was a pristine, smooth floor that just needed a coat of Por-15 to shine like new.

Behind the rear seat was another story, however, a very depressing one. This is where we ran into our first major problem. Rust, rust in a big way, and like rats in a bakery, if you see one, you know there's hundreds scrambling behind the walls. The more carpet we uncovered, the more rust we found. So much so, if it had an engine under there, we could have almost adjusted the carb through the holes. In England, they call this problem "teabag," and you can see why. What rusted parts of the package tray that didn't pull up with the carpet was easily pushed through with slight finger pressure. The cardboard backing (the tan part that looks like a dried lake bed) was fused to the rear of the package tray and had to be sanded off, while most of the tar paper was still solidly glued to the remains of the metal. We employed a putty knife, 60-grit sandpaper and a wire brush to remove the surface rust, tar paper and glue. Make sure to spray all exposed bare metal with a rust-inhibiting primer so the problem doesn't continue. Be careful with the sanding and scraping around the joint sealer you find in the corners, a soft, malleable glue-like material that is there to keep moisture out of the body's joints. As for the rest of the rusted package tray, we'll have to cut it out and welded in a new one. I'm not looking forward to this, but again, Hobart 135 to the rescue! Removing most of the car's features is a straight-forward ordeal and can be done with the simplest of tools.

With everything torn out of the Super, we were left with boxes of dirty parts and an empty shell, aside from the steering wheel, pedals and door and vent windows which remained in the car. As well, we decided to leave the door handles and striker plates so we could still secure the door and not have to worry about tying them down each time. We'll show you the R&R of these before we begin to paint. The next day, we towed the Super Project 71 down to John Chabot at Topline, the best Super-Beetle-only shop in Southern California, a very logical place to go.

We'll pick it up there next month, as John takes a look at what we have to work with, recommends a few modifications and tests the reliability of our suspension and steering systems. Then we'll rip it all out and start from scratch.

Until then, stay Super.