Laminating the light bowls

To finalize the work on the headlights, today I laminated the bowls onto the front fenders:

Maybe one more layer and then the fenders can be painted!

Let there be light!

I finally took the challenge of installing the light buckets into the front fenders!
The pre-owner installed them in a funny way, they were not protected from the inner side of the fender and the chrome rings were riveted onto the fender!
I tried to do better, so I cut out chunks of the fender to make the repro VW light buckets fit:

This is the old hack job:

The outer line marks the contour of the chrome ring, the inner line is a rough estimate how much material had to go.

Mock-up of the light bucket and chrome ring:

Chrome ring fitment is good enough for a Streaker:

Light bucket in the final position:

For the first time in years: Headlights!

Bumper installation continued...

Here is the final picture with the bumper mounted, now you can see why the bump had to go!

Bumper installation

A real Baja / Streaker needs a set of tubular bumpers! So, I started to install the rear bumper. After a few seconds it became obvious that there is a problem:...
 

The bump for the rear balancer was in the way, so it had to go: Removing the underseal to reveal the raw metal was the first step.

snip snip and gone.

Now this hole had to be filled:

A piece of sheet metal, a little welding and some seam sealer later the bump was history!

Now, the bumper could be mounted:

I think the exhaust pipe is a little too long?!

Tomorrow I will show the front bumper installation!

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...