Melburg Luft

I've been meaning to start a thread with some photos of what we've been up to for ages.....so without too much more rambling here is what the DAS Resto Haus crew (Steve, Rob, Barry and newcomer Brad (and myself)) have been working on.

This thread will probably jump around a bit initially with some previous work pics....and some current work mixed in that I'll update routinely.
Al

To kick things off is Jack's bus - he had a thread going on ask for quite a while - he has the bus and using it regularly, it will come back down soon to raise it up a little to get a bit more ground clearance for regular use:







Have to get some better "completed" pics when it comes back down!

We've been doing a few rat resto's recently including Mick's bus which had seen a hard life of rust and a slide down the road on its side at some stage.




The idea was to preserve as much patina as possible and invest more heavily in the underpinnings.




Whilst I didn't want to spend a whole week on the patina matching, the layering and latex peel made the lower 8 inches of the bus look close to original

Then for something non splitty related - we were enlisted to help resurrect the famous Peter Keegan drag car of the 70s most prominently known as the "Camel Car" due to its Camel Cigarette sponsorship around that time. Whilst the yanks (ost vs west coast) argue about who was the first to get a VW into the 10s on the quarter, Peter beat them by around 2 weeks (my chat with the Schleys in the US earlier this year didn't result in any admission though!).

Most recently Darryl Yates who used to own Volksmod here on the Gold Coast ran the car in Volksmod guise.

The new owner Rod Richardson is bringing it back to its Camel livery and Dave Butler is building the supercharged flat four. We got it to preliminary paint stage (Silver and weiss) and later we'll get it back to do the orange, then the graphics will be outsourced.





Rod found the original guards (previously on his ex Volksrestore chop top drag beetle which I painted when DRH just opened up)


New rear end had to be grafted on


Original paint rear apron was uncovered


Original style scoop was recreated from photos and some video



Myself, Peter Keegan and Dave Butler discussing the silver and weiss colour samples at Warwick


The silver/weiss fade line was again laid out using photos as a guide




Fortunately forgot to remove Steve before it departed the workshop...




Back in the day:


Peter Keegan was inducted as one of Australia's drag racing pioneers at an awards ceremony in sydney last year:

Solid work as always Al, keep them coming!

awesome stuff!

Stuff AL

Love it Al!!

Going to be a cool thread this one!

Great stuff Al.

Wow it's like our own KCW

But better

Cheers guys, going back quite a few years (pre DAS Resto Haus days)....built this thing in my garage including painting in my old man's shed





And I can't forget our tribute to the 80s in the form of the "Rad Bug" built for the Warwick VW drag meet several years ago

Jumping forwards to last year was my old 56 oval that now resides in sydney and is nearing the end of its reassembly. It was a really solid car so I just gave it a quick make over and a fresh coat of custom colour paint.










I just left it off the gun, if the new owner cut and buffed it the paint would really come to life....not sure if he will or not.




Fortunately new owner has put a 2in beam under it and lowered it down and added some vintage speed goodies....should be good to see it finished some day.

the 63 build was and still is very inspiring to me. it really raised the bar (IMHO) of both quality and internet build threads in australia.

whatnow wrote:the 63 build was and still is very inspiring to me. it really raised the bar (IMHO) of both quality and internet build threads in australia.

Cheers mate


Now for something we are working on currently. Phil's barny SC "Grover" is in for some welding on the underside, but rest easy, the patina is staying as is on the outside

Rolling out of the truck on arrival:




Phil's got some pretty big plans for the SC horsepower wise but staying sympathetic to the overall character of the ute. I fell in love with the SC when I saw pics of it a couple years back at a show in NSW - loved the stance and concept so its an honour to work on such a beast.

Firstly we had to knock up a barny specific blasting frame which allows our blaster to tip it up to 45 degrees to get to the underside and inside treasure chest/engine bay.

Time to dissect the underside - cargo floor was removed along with all top hats (to be replaced), I-beams (to be reused) and all other surrounding sills, pillars and outriggers etc.



Steve's fail at humour







Now you can see why we have a full box frame for blasting to keep the alignment of the chassis during repairs



Off to the blaster


Back from the blaster







Hence why its always hard to quote on jobs until you get them blasted

Now for the rebuild

















That brings us pretty much up to date so the rest of the SC work will be in real time now. So I'll post up a few other previous resto's in the midst of the progress.
Cheers
Al

Few more pics of Grover:

Tell me he's not fixing the dents on the inside of the gates?
Did you keep the old bulkhead? That bit was awesome, would look good on a rat...

No repairs to gates Bruce. We did keep the separation panel - will have to do some faux patina down the track on the new panel though. As you know there is a fair bit o faux patina on the outside already so hopefully should match okay.

Another current project to get Rhett a little hot under the collar....temporarily on hold while Luke gets his gearbox sorted (not your standard IRS beetle box!).











Hopefully will get back into it towards the end of the year

AL