The longest restoration?

 I'm sure there are longer, more epic restoration duration, but honestly, I thought this one would never get done...

But as you've seen in my posts, there's a definite advantage to the Covid lockdown helping to get some of these ignored projects finished.  BH&P Machine in London (the local machine shop) has been inundated with engines/heads and the like as guys went to the garage again during lockdown.

My dad is no exception, having parked his daily driver at the time, a 1973 VW bus in September 1989 when he purchased a 1984 VW diesel Rabbit to replace it as his daily. (wiser choice IMO) It was pretty rough for a 16 year old van, but VW's lack of undercoating was a deathnell for the aircooled VWs.

The A&W rootbeer van was parked....

It was supposed to be a quick turnaround, some new doglegs, a new slider track and body and paint.  But as you pick the scabs, things soon escalate.  Now 33 years later, it emerged from the garage finished!  Well kinda...

On thing that I've harped on before, and will repeat now, is that the restoration is monumentally more difficult to complete than the teardown.  Anyone can tear a car apart, but it takes major dedication to put it all back together.  It's about 98% done, and the 'twiddley bits' are what plague the project now;

Heater control knobs, coil bracket, radio surround, gaskets, switch knobs, clips and bumpers, etc etc etc.  These are the things, when not marked, bagged, or properly labelled in boxes, will plague the final push.  (If you can believe it, the original dashboard went missing and was never found...I think it was left in the attic of a former home) You can see it in many cars at car shows that were thrown together at this stage, cuz lets face it...VWs are more fun to drive than fix!