Alright, so I've wanted a Volkswagen beetle since I was 12 years old. I'm not really sure why I have never bought one until now. But I woke up one day not long ago and said to myself "now's the time". So I scoured craigslist until I had found a decent standard beetle (no so-called superbeetles, thanks) for a decent price. So I packed up my tie-down gear, hooked up my car trailer, and headed out for a three hour one way to Ohio to pick it up. I was so excited. I brought her home and my two boys and my wife were very excited!
However my excitement started to fade as I began to realize the car was not as nice as it appeared. They never are. So, realizing that I have also always wanted to do a "frame-off" restoration of a car, I jumped right in! I began by reading everything I could find about beetle restoration. I read
blogs & websites. I ordered books. I ordered bug specific how-to videos. And I began to study them all. Pretty soon I had an idea of what needed to be done and where to start. So, I began the teardown. Out came the carpet & battery. Then the hood. The gas tank, the front bumper, the front 
fenders. The deeper I dug, the worse she was. At first glance the heater channels appear to be in great shape. But look closer. They're actually "repaired" with a strip of sheetmetal & lots of bondo. Sigh.I removed the engine & doors. I then attempted to un-bolt the chassis from th
e body. All but a few of the welded in nuts spun within the heater channel. So I had a fun time cutting into the channel & holding them with vise grips while I used the impact wrench on them to break them free of the rust-weld that held them tightly in place. One by one they came loose. I had to use a cut-off wheel to cut the rivets that held the steering column to the "rag joint". Finally, everything was loose. The body was ready to separate. But I had seen that the strips of metal that had been used to "repair" the heater channel were welded to both the chassis & the car. Inside and out. The entire length of the car! Sigh.. So, after I fired up my brand new body saw I cut the sheet metal right along the chassis line. Finally the moment had arrived- I firmly grasped the front apron and gave it a pull. I almost threw it up in the air! The body was free!! Next, I need to construct some heavy duty saw horses in order to hold the body while I cut the old floor pans out & completely restore the chassis. I'm actually ahead of schedule because I wasn't going to start until it warmed up above freezing. But all this d*mn snow has got me crazy so I braved my un-heated garage in the teens & twenties. Not too bad, actually.
