360
Days Later
Sam
Mebane and his future father in law,
Pat, picked up this 1974 VW Thing in
late March of 2003 from a customer of
Sam's. Sam's day job for the last 17
years has been at California Pacific
/ JBugs so he is no stranger to the
VW world. He first started working on
VWs at 13 when his older brother got
his first car, a 1964 Baja Bug and soon
had a 1974 Standard Beetle of his own.
Sam and a number of his friends all
had VWs at the time so he became very
familiar with the ins and outs of the
VW, learning more and more along the
way.
Back
to the Thing at hand, when it first
arrived home Pat had modest intentions
of doing a simple restoration and enjoying
the car as a weekend cruiser in his
home town of Oceanside, California.
The Thing was immediately disassembled
and the following weekend the body was
on jack stands and the chassis was rolled
into the garage. The factory floor pans
had seen better days as the car had
spent time in Northwest Coastal Oregon.
Sam and Pat did some minor patch work,
grinding and spray paint soon had the
chassis clean enough to call "done".
The
bodywork began with stripping every
single nut, bolt, bracket, switch and
wire. With that done, sanding the body
began. Minor dings and dents were massaged
out, the bumper tabs on the fenders
were removed and smoothed. The original
threaded mirror bosses on the front
cowl had long been torn out so those
holes were filled as well. With the
major body work out of the way, block
sanding began on every panel, prepping
the car for paint.
Once the body work was complete and
Sam enlisted his friend and local VW
restoration specialist Jimmy Braxmeyer
to spray the Plymouth Prowler Orange
Pearl Metallic paint that Pat and Sam
had picked out. Jimmy painted the car
inside and out, barely. It turns out
that although a Thing doesn't have a
roof, it still has a whole lot of surface
area! A gallon of paint, before mixing
the hardener, etc., netted just enough
to cover the car, the 4 shock absorbers,
the speaker grills and left a nail polish
bottle for touch ups. Sam towed the
body and panels and pieces home and
after a quick crash course in color
sanding and polishing, proceeded to
sand the body down one last time. This
time a show car smooth paint finish
was the result.
Remember
that once "done" chassis mentioned
earlier? Well, turns out that with the
body looking as good as it did, the
chassis just seemed to look out of place.
So Sam completely disassembled and welded
in new floor pans. Then the trips to
ElectroTech Powder Coating in San Marcos,
California began. The chassis, and every
other piece of it from the suspension,
trailing arms, spindles and even the
brake drums were coated gloss black.
Sam welded in adjusters to the front
beam and sent it along with the chassis
components the seat frames, rear seat
springs and other interior accessories
for powder coating as well. Once the
parts were cooled off and back from
powder coating assembly began. New ball
joints were installed and the front
end was reassembled and fitted and sat
about 4" lower than stock. The
rear trailing arms were installed and
set to match the lowered front. Flat
4 BRM wheels, 15x5 in the front and
15x6.5 in the rear were wrapped in Yokohama
low profile tires and completed the
lowered look. The
transmission, which was rebuilt by the
now since passed Mike Watson at Stuff
Transmissions, was installed and bolted
up to new CV Joints to the now cadmium
plated stub axles. Speaking of cadmium
plating, every door latch mechanism,
bracket, nut, bolt and lock plate or
washer was sand blasted by Sam before
being sent out for the plating. He estimates
that no less than 12 hours was spent
in front of the blasting cabinet getting
them ready. All new German brake components
were installed from the master cylinder
to the steel lines and brake hoses to
the new wheel cylinders and drums.
Since
they had gone off the deep end at this
point and this Thing was going to be
a fully restored show car, they had
an appropriate 1914cc long block built
with all new parts by local VW engine
builder Doug Platt. Sam had all of the
engine tin and some other engine parts
were powder coated to match the chassis.
Then he installed the engine and Dual
Weer 44IDF carburetors were fitted along
with a CB Performance Serpentine Belt
Kit, MSD6AL ignition, stainless steel
braided fuel hoses, a 90 amp polished
alternator and other items. Sam
then started the stereo and interior
installation which began with a Blaupunkt
head stereo with 7" flip out monitor
sending signals to 3 Hifonics amplifiers
which were mounted in the trunk. Those
3 amplifiers sent signals to 4 Polk/Momo
Audio component speakers, 1 Polk/Momo
Audio Subwoofer and a Kenwood center
channel speaker. Two of the components
were mounted in front custom made kick
panels and two in the rear deck custom
speaker box and enclosure. The rear
enclosure housed the 10" Polk Audio
subwoofer and the 10 disc CD changer.
The Kenwood center channel speaker was
mounted in the dash to the left of the
head unit. All of the kick panels, amp
rack and rear speaker deck were wrapped
in black tweed to match the soon to
be installed interior.
Re-wiring
the car completely from headlight to
tail light began along with installing
New Beetle style tail lights, re-chromed
original front turn signals and Hella
H4 headlights. New switches were installed
along with a rebuilt wiper motor, turn
signal and wiper switches. The steering
column was capped off with a Momo Jet
steering wheel to tie into the Polk/Momo
series speakers. Black Tweed seat upholstery
with black vinyl sides were installed
with new padding on to the freshly powder
coated seat frames. Black cut pile carpet
was installed after being custom made
by local interior guru, Jose Rodriguez.
Jose also installed the Black Stayfast
Canvas convertible top to the new top
frame.
After
360 days of working on the car virtually
every night after work and through every
weekend, the car was complete and ready
for a road test. After topping off the
fluids and one last inspection Sam drove
down to his friend Gary Haugley's shop
where Gary tuned the carburetors and
checked the timing. The following weekend
Sam, his fiancée Lisa and Pat
all attended a Thing Car Show in Vista,
California where the car took home a
first place trophy. That evening when
they arrived home Pat gave the car to
his daughter Lisa and Sam as a wedding
present. Lisa and Sam showed the car
a bit more winning a few "Best
ofs" and other trophies before
finally selling the Thing to pay for
their wedding and honey moon.