Part 3:
Once I started looking critically at the car it was obvious, I was going to have to do a complete repaint, new interior, and do something about the ugly-ass engine. I was lucky enough to find a shop only 10 miles from here that does restorations. When I drove in with the VW they were thrilled. Their usual jobs were American muscle cars, but every one of the guys working there had owned a VW at some time and they were excited about working on mine. Every time I went to the shop to check on progress I got to listen to another, "My old VW" story.
The car was fairly sad, but some areas were just plain ugly.
Before sending it to the paint shop I removed the hood, engine lid, the fuel tank, engine, glass, and the interior.
When I bought the car I inspected all the usual places these cars rust out and those areas weren’t too bad. It’s not all that common for a car to have good door pillars and rocker panels and battery box, and have a rear floor pan rusted out, but unfortunately, I discovered that mine did.
New floor pans and pieces of floor pans are readily available and fairly cheap. I bought a right side rear quarter floor pan patch, stitch welded it in, and finished it off with seam sealer. The patch panel included the area under the battery, so I replaced it even though the original was relatively solid. I bought a lot of sound deadening mat to use on the floor, doors, and roof to try to make the car sound less "tinny" on the road.
They said it would take about a month to do the car. I planned on two months because this isn't my first car restoration rodeo.
I was happily amazed when it was finished in five weeks.