1956 Beetle Detail
More than you ever wanted to know about my ’56 VW Beetle…
I bought this car after seeing it for sale on EBay. I had found an oval window ragtop in New Hampshire off of the Internet, and when searching to compare prices I found this car I now own. It was located in Concord, California and came with Flat 4 BRM wheels, a 1776 cc dual Dellorto engine and Sewfine interior. As I said, it was advertised on E-Bay and did not hit reserve. I spoke with the owner via e-mail and phone calls before a deal was struck in late 2003. By November of that year it was in my garage in Brampton, Ontario. The carrier dropped it off, I took it for a 2 minute drive around the block, parked it in the garage, then started taking it apart that winter. In June of 2004 the body was brought in to be acid dipped along with the doors, fenders, and hood. I was planning on a fibreglass deck lid so I did not get it dipped at this time. At the end of June the body was delivered to Fabian Venier in Caledon, Ontario. He did not expect the previous repairs to be done so poorly and was sorry he had accepted this project. It turns out the car was not a true California car and was brought there from North Carolina at some point in it’s past. So the bottom 6” had already been replaced once and Fabian needed to do it again to correct the poor welds and misaligned panels. The doors were unusable for this project and were sold while NOS doors were located and purchased. 4 new fenders were bought along with a new rear apron and various other repair panels. A period correct 4-tab hood was found in Alberta and shipped out with one of my customer’s exhaust orders. It was shrink wrapped to the top of an oversize (height-wise) pallet and subsequently stuffed into a trailer. When I got it, it was folded like an accordion from being rammed into the trailer. The only thing we salvaged was the 4-tab emblem section. This was then grafted into my later model hood which is a stronger hood and not prone to flexing with the single hood support like the earlier hoods. Fabian worked on the car at his home shop part time until I got it back in February of 2005. During this time the ’66 pan was sandblasted and any rust holes were fixed before being painted with a tan urethane. Although there are no major body modifications noticeable, the “H” section was cut and removed from the original apron and grafted into the new one, the exhaust cut outs were filled and the inner engine compartment panels were cut and welded to allow for the movement of the engine ¼” to the passenger side- a result of using the 091 transaxle. Also, we welded new bullet turn signal housings into the front fenders, and reworked some fenders for a better fit to the body and the running boards. The radio hole in the dash, which was cut out for a bigger head unit, was also filled in along with any other unnecessary holes, and a section under the rear seat was cut out and modified for the nose cone of the 091 transaxle. Finally, the inner front fenders were cut, bent in, and a filler piece added to each side to allow the 3.75” narrowed beam to fit. The beam is a ball joint since the pan is from a ’66 Beetle, so it fits quite nice with the minor modification we did. Plans changed and I decided to use the original “W” deck lid so it was then acid dipped, prepped, and painted.
While Fabian was working on the body I was in the garage getting the chassis ready to roll. I installed a new pan gasket, all new stainless hardware, all wheel CB Performance wide 5 disc brakes, Sway-A-Way adjustable spring plates, 28 mm Sway-A-Way torsion bars, the 091 transaxle from Rancho Performance Transaxles, and MWS BRM replica 5.5” wheels with Yokohama 205/65/15 tires in the back and Yokohama 185/55/15 tires in the front. I should mention that before sandblasting the pan my friend Doug Dalgleish helped me weld in the solid mid-mount for the transaxle, ran 2- 3/8” hard lines through the pan for fuel feed and return, and also made custom brackets to reinforce the clutch cable tube.
Sometime in the spring of 2005 the body and pan were reunited. Unfortunately the body needed to be repainted due to a lack of coverage and we switched from Dupont Chroma Base to Chroma Premier. This made all the difference and the Ford Coral colour looked fabulous.
I used stainless Allen head bolts and chrome stock washers to join the body and the pan, then installed the dual circuit Master cylinder and began bending brake lines. Once the lines were completed I began the task of wiring the car. I bought the Painless universal kit but it was not conducive to the VW way of wiring so I sold it and bought the Watson’s Streetworks kit. I wanted the fuse panel under the back seat and this kit allowed this while providing excellent installation instructions. The task of wiring took several months to conclude, but in the end it looked good. I used “crimp and shrink” connectors every spot I needed a connector or terminal so the job was done right. I ran the wires from the fuse block up into the heater channel and to the front or rear of the car as needed for a clean appearance. I also epoxied the relays for the brake lights/turn signals to the inside of the cover of the heater duct. In between the night and weekends of working on the wiring I bolted up the fenders using the same stainless Allen head bolts from Totally Stainless in Pennsylvania that I had been using for everything else. They provided me with a complete kit and ordering extra bits and pieces was quick and easy. A new shop I found in St. Catharines, Ontario called Chris’s Custom Collision, first repainted the front fenders. Chris Larouche colour matched the fenders well to the rest of the car. I cut my own notches in the fender beading, and using special clamps to hold the ends of the beading in place where they wrap around the fenders. Headlights were easily fitted, while the taillights were a bit trickier. I had the holes filled in the rear fenders so that I could locate the ’56 taillights in precisely the exact spot they were designed to be. I drilled the holes after carefully measuring them out and got the lights mounted securely. After the fenders were on I installed the Craig Parks custom polished aluminum T-bars front and rear. I found a Volvo master cylinder reservoir to fit my master cylinder and installed that along with the line-lock and Wilwood proportioning valve. Once the front brakes were completely plumbed I moved onto installing the CB Performance fuel pump on the firewall and running the braided line from it to the Barry Grant fuel filter and to the fuel lines running through the frame tunnel. A vent line was fabbed up for the gas tank and it runs to a K&N filter mounted under the lip of the tank. The fuel tank was then installed along with a new foam gasket and billet aluminum hold-downs from Tim Tesnow. Now the front hood could be bolted on and secured using the chrome hood latch and catch. Flames under the front hood add to the detail.
The car was brought down to “Auto Interiors by John” in the summer of 2005 for the installation of the Wolfsburg West headliner. John did a great job with the installation, even fabricating his own clips to hold the front corners in place. Once the car was back home the brand new windshield was installed along with rebuilt pop-out quarter windows and the oval rear window. Attention then moved to the interior where the Gene Berg shifter (a newer model with an old handle) was installed and the holes for the gauges were drilled with the new Stewart Warner gauges being fit. The ashtray has been chromed and the outside of the glove box (visible from under the front hood) was colour matched to the car. The new custom tach mount was put in place and the bracket holding the tach to the mount was colour matched to the interior. Bob Richards in Thorold, Ontario, fabricated seat frames using original frames and square tubing. Again, the frames were colour matched to the interior and the seats were temporarily bolted in place. With the interior together (minus back seat) I could see if a Ron Lummus Racing (RLR) Kafer Cup roll bar would fit my application. It was determined it would so I bought one complete with passenger door bar and rear frame horn braces and had it modified for the best possible fit by Chris’s Custom Collision before it got powder coated at Performance Powdercoating in St.Catharines, Ontario. After it came back, Chris bolted it in and then proceeded to wet sand and buff the car. Soon after this my 2387cc, turbo charged, fuel injected motor arrived from CB Performance and along with Pat Dormady at Tune-Rite Auto Service in Oakville, we got to work fitting this very big engine into the very tight confines of the ’56 engine compartment. Right around this time (June of 2006) my daughter Alexandra was born. So my schedule became help out at home until about 10pm, head to the shop for 11 and work until 3am every night until the engine was in and back together. I had to plumb the oil lines, mount the oil cooler, run the rear fuel lines plumbed into the boost sensitive fuel pressure regulator, fit the tin, the manifolds and the throttle bodies, connect the wiring, and make it look good. Tripp Cycle machined a hair off the bottom of the passenger side manifold tilting it in a bit so that I did not have to clearance the body for the pressure hat. John Tripp also cut, turned, and re-tigged the exhaust pipe for clearance. I mounted the computer under the driver’s side of the back seat, and the Optima Red top battery under the passenger side in a stainless steel battery box by Rob Skim in Utah. Pat bled the brakes and finished up some odds and ends for me before we fired it up for the first time June 23rd at 6pm. My first showing of the car was the next Day at Toronto Motorsports Park in Cayuga, Ontario for one of my sponsors- KC Auto Parts in St.Catharines. The next day was the first VW show- the June Jitterbug. At this time I still did not have the back seat in or the carpet fitted. The seat was recovered to match the front buckets at “Auto Interiors by John”, and when it was back I finished the interior by installing the Sewfine door and rear panels, the Sewfine carpet kit, and the back seat. Soon it was time to make a visit to Bugout 21 in Milan, Michigan where I ran the car in the 1/8th mile races and showed it as well. It placed 2nd in it’s class and I made it to the 3rd round of eliminations in the race portion. Not bad for the first time driving it down the track! The next show was Volksbash in Indianapolis, Indiana and I won Best of Show, made it to the 3rd round of eliminations again, and got a photo shoot by R.K. Smith of Hot VWs magazine out of California. I also ran my best ¼ mile time of 12.28 at 105.22MPH.
But why “NITEMAIR”???
My current license plates are from my old 1968 VW that I had for 16 years. TOBUGU. My new personalized plates for my ’56 are “NITEMAIR”. You would have to know me and the car to understand why I got these plates.
First, the car has been a nightmare from the time I saw it on E-Bay. I did not have the finances to buy it yet I did. My wife was not happy about that at all. Then the seller did not send the ownership to customs on time and my car had to sit in a warehouse in Detroit until the carrier had room to bring it across after the ownership showed up. Then I got the car and although it was advertised as having “no bondo” it did and it was cracking. So my future bodyman said acid dip it so we have a solid foundation. I did and he was not ready for what he saw. It was a mess and what was to take about 2 months to complete took 7. He painted the body over a black base and it should have been grey so the paint looked blotchy and it had to be redone. The fenders I paid $100 each to have dipped were garbage and I had to buy new ones. My 4-tab hood from Alberta that was in mint condition when it left was folded up so bad when I got it that all it was good for was scrap. We broke the windshield putting it in. I tore up the window rubber on the next one. I used windshield urethane to hold the pan seal to the pan but the urethane does not adhere to rubber. But it does adhere to steel really well and I had to scrape it all off and use 3M trim adhesive the 2nd time. I bled the brakes but the bleeder screws on the front calipers are not at the top and Tune-Rite had to take them off the car to re-bleed them. I got a carpet kit for a ’66 since that is the year of the pan and Sewfine sent me ’66 door panels as well but they are smaller than ’56 door panels so I had to re-order ’56 door panels. The “bolt in” RLR cage was so far out it took Chris 8 hours to modify it to fit my car. I hit the drivers side window with the cage putting it in a scratched the glass beyond repair. I got the rear seat reupholstered to match the fronts but it was way off and I had to get it redone. The Volvo master cylinder reservoir did not fit my new Raybestos master cylinder so I had to get another one- this time from Varga. I could not get the window frames back together as tight as they were on the pop outs after installing new rubber around the glass (1/8” gap now). The engine was so tight in the bay that we had to pull off the rocker arm on the passenger side to get it to fit. That’s all I can remember right now, but I’m sure there’s more…..