Beetle chassis strip down

Now the body is off to paint, I've been busy on the chassis

Here is the Bug chassis of the '61 Ragtop. This is the start of the stripdown

I thought it would take a lot longer than it did, but stripping the chassis was the easiest part of this project so far.
Now that it is 100% bare of all parts I can safely say that not a single bolt, nut or screw has seized on this car - an absolute first for me!

In under a day I had everything off - front axle, engine, gearbox, pedals, brake system, rear spring plates... the lot!
I've even taken the top side back to metal and have started stripping the underside of under-seal and road grime.
At this rate I will be done in no time - fingers crossed that the weather holds out eh?

As far as the rebuild is concerned, well, there will be new additions such as beam, gearbox, engine and maybe wheels - you will just have to wait and see.

The pan itself is solid. As you may recall, I had to repair the rear corners of both pans but other than that the rest is all original. I'm not going to have time to get it all powder coated but seeing as this is not a show car it really doesn't bother me. Besides I rather like using POR15 and a top coat of high gloss chassis paint.