Stripping the chassis

Most beetles are pretty crusty after 40 years. Even though this was one of the last produced in '73 it had quite a lot of rust. I decided to replace the floor pans completely and cut out any other rust.

 

Before any repairs I stripped the chassis, cut out the floor pans and sent it to the local shotblaster.

 

This highlighted quite a few holes I would have otherwise missed.

The front end didn't look too bad from the top, unfortunately it was a lot worse underneath. I cut out the lower frame head/nelsons hat and replaced with a pattern part.