DDK - Die Deutschen Klassiker

On my 73 car, originally LHD there are a small set of louvres where your patch is to vent the 'smuggler's box' where a petrol fueled Espachier (sp) heater was an option on LHD cars. I think the RHD cars, no box, has those vents removed and plated over. STAND TO BE CORRECTED! :shock: I’ll check the ...

The heater pipes were also toast as expected, some delays in getting some parts at the moment, so a big thanks to Matt at Karmann Konnection for helping me out with these and lots of other parts I’ve been chasing too. 8) https://www.thesamba.com/vw/gallery/pix/2344810.jpg I’m told that getting these...

Something I thought I’d mention- circled in the pic is a rectangle of metal welded on to the inner wing. Kind of looks like an odd repair plate, however it’s factory. It blanks off the smugglers box vents that are normal for lhd cars that presumably exist to vent the petrol heater that lived in ther...

The next stage of this dance was pushing and pulling the metal around to get the dash back to where it should be. It had been bent down/in/out to varying degrees by some animal in the past. These pics were sent to me by Mark saying it’s about 95% there now. The screen template lines up well at the b...

Next is an example of how we chat while he’s cracking on. While the front panel was being fitted we were sending pics back and forth on WhatsApp with scribbles on them to reference what we are talking about. It works well 8) https://www.thesamba.com/vw/gallery/pix/2344804.jpg In this instance we wer...

I’ve been pretty slack at updates… sorry :lol: Anyways, a lot of ordering, waiting, measuring, pulling, pushing, and Mark has also had to spend some time on other peoples vehicles.. (how dare he!!!)😂 More work has gone on at the front with repairs to the inner wings. Carefully cut back and butt weld...

Remember the buckled and twisted rear panel? https://www.thesamba.com/vw/gallery/pix/2339692.jpg It’s not rusty, so I said it’s shame to replace metal that’s not rusty. That’s all the encouragement Mark needed to get the hammers out 8) https://www.thesamba.com/vw/gallery/pix/2339691.jpg This is as f...

Mark has been busy on the rear shelf today. 2 rear shelf’s later we decided that none of them were any good, so the base one of a Dansk was used as it had better ribs than the RD one. The outer edges on both were pretty poor so the shape was restamped to get the proper recess for the rear air vent p...

The ignition barrel was still in the dash when I got the car so I thought I’d try my luck and get a key cut to the cardex code from Sierra Madre… it arrived and it fits! Good result 8) https://www.thesamba.com/vw/gallery/pix/2339669.jpg I’ve also been raiding the barns a bit and am stacking up some ...

Your Mark is good! Love seeing the skill to cut the holes out much larger than the rust holes and filled/dressed invisibly, admirable skill. Press on! More!! Yep, there’s no filler at all on here, just a bit of etch primer sprayed after dressing the butt welds back. It’s the only way he’s worked fo...

Finally time to get some metal inside the rear end. 2 rear shelves later, we settled on modifying one of them to be correct as none of them seem to be particularly accurate. The edges of the firewall were toast but the middle was sound, so Mark let in sections of the replacement panel https://www.th...

It turns out that the white blobby stuff was actually brazing, it just took on that white look after the treatment post blasting! Very odd. Anyways, old weird brazed speaker hole mess is now banished from this inner wing. Also note that the mess of a seatbelt mount has been replaced. https://www.the...

There have also been a lot of small localised repairs to otherwise sound panels going in, this is one example on the rear inner wing. Probably where the underbody coating got damaged then water sat against the metal decades ago resulting. In an odd rust hole. https://www.thesamba.com/vw/gallery/pix/...

We found the same issue with the inner sills. It seems that they are all listed as 66 onwards, the pressings are different on earlier cars. Even though once it’s together it’ll never be seen, the inner sills were modified by Mark to be 100% correct again. https://www.thesamba.com/vw/gallery/pix/2339...

Well it’s been a while, quite a lot of back and forth with panel suppliers, incomplete orders I didn’t know I had to verify etc etc etc, I’m sure you all know the score :lol: Mark has been busy again noticing things. One of them was that the 1965 scuttle is different to later ones, or any of the rep...