Nostalgic recycling...

The Volksstreaker was in need for an insert in the instrument panel. There are some knobs and the brake control light which have to be installed somewhere, so I dug deep into my parts stash and found the radio deletion plate from my very first car:

(already in the modification process)


My Porsche Indian red Volkswagen beetle which I built even before I got a drivers license, many moons ago, here is a really bad scan of an old picture:

a 1965 beetle with  4 1/2" original chromed Porsche rims, louvered stainless steel running boards, fake split window, red tail light lenses, the notorious late 80'ies "Streetmachine" sign and Monza exhaust pipes (which are bent in this picture) Vitaloni mirrors and rear glass tinting... What was I thinking back in those days...
Barely visible is the "Red Hot" vinyl signwriting which is an original BLMC (Mini Cooper) Special Edition spare part which did cost a fortune back then!


Anyhow, now the insert  is repainted with the excelent VHT Wrinkle finish paint and modified for the Streaker:

Instrument panel finished + some electric finesse

Finally, the dashboard is finished, besides the original speedometer I added a 80mm VDO tach on the left, a 52mm VDO oil pressure gauge and a 52mm VDO oil pressure temperature gauge on the right :

The grille inserts had to be repainted with wrinkle finish paint before installation, which came out great! As they were a freebie when my friend Ralf bought some stuff in Herford it was no big deal to invest some elbow grease!

Now, on the rear lights. As the fenders are made of plastic, there is no ground connection. So I modified the rear reflectors with an additional ground.
I removed one of the rivets which connects the upper and lower part of the reflector and replaced it with a 3mm screw: (left side: original rivet; right side M3 button head screw)

 
 

In the back I added a 6,3 mm spade connector for an extra ground connection:

A drop of loctite will safely secure the spade and nut from rattling loose.

 This should give trouble free lighting for the Streaker!

Light bucket challenge

In opposition to last year's ice bucket challenge, I face the light bucket challenge.
The front fenders of the Volksstreaker currently don't have any fixation for the lights. My plan is to graft some Beetle light buckets into the fenders. Unfortunately, those parts are Brazilian "quality", so the hole for the cable is different in size between left and right, the fixation tabs are bended and so on...

hole sizes are different:

fixation tab is bended

the other one as well

So, a lot of work ahead...