Hackin' on Herbie
Posted: Wed May 11, 2005 9:42 pm
Well I finally got bored with looking at Herbie, and so got the balls to actually mod him. I'll tell ya, he fought me every step of the way.
Lowering this body is nearly impossible. It's molded of extra thick plastic, that seems to comform to the inside of the chassis. Compounded by the inherant shape of the VW, there is no room in the back.
In order to make room, I devised a plan to raise the deck lid. That's a common mod you see here in AZ, with all the heat an all. But just raising it wan't enough. I had to shave the inside of the deck paper thin. I actually started to go through in the license plate area. then I dremeled the motor screw down at an angle. (yes, it is still removable)
Here's a glimpse with the deck off, so you get an idea of what went on there.
And here the deck lid is glued on, but the body id just resting on the chassis.
After I test fitted, and knew it was gonna fit, I glued some new tabs on the chassis. Then my next nightmare began. I shaved and shaved at the wheel wells, to allow the wheels room to turn. The shape of the fender made it really tricky, and extra thick.
Then I had problems painting. It would have gone smoothly, if I had stuck to a single color, like I originally planned, but then I saw this as a 2-tone. I should have spent more time trying to sand the numbers off the door, but I was afraid I'd deform the shape of the door. Anyways, I had to lay 6 coats of the white to cover the numbers. So all my masking had a thin white line around it. After hours of touching up, and then retouching up where I messed up when I was touching up, I gave up, and said, "Close enough", and really after seeing the photos, its is probably good enough. I still dig the over all look.
So here it is...
The sun was setting, the lighting looks a bit too harsh, I think I really need to reshoot these.
Lowering this body is nearly impossible. It's molded of extra thick plastic, that seems to comform to the inside of the chassis. Compounded by the inherant shape of the VW, there is no room in the back.
In order to make room, I devised a plan to raise the deck lid. That's a common mod you see here in AZ, with all the heat an all. But just raising it wan't enough. I had to shave the inside of the deck paper thin. I actually started to go through in the license plate area. then I dremeled the motor screw down at an angle. (yes, it is still removable)
Here's a glimpse with the deck off, so you get an idea of what went on there.
And here the deck lid is glued on, but the body id just resting on the chassis.
After I test fitted, and knew it was gonna fit, I glued some new tabs on the chassis. Then my next nightmare began. I shaved and shaved at the wheel wells, to allow the wheels room to turn. The shape of the fender made it really tricky, and extra thick.
Then I had problems painting. It would have gone smoothly, if I had stuck to a single color, like I originally planned, but then I saw this as a 2-tone. I should have spent more time trying to sand the numbers off the door, but I was afraid I'd deform the shape of the door. Anyways, I had to lay 6 coats of the white to cover the numbers. So all my masking had a thin white line around it. After hours of touching up, and then retouching up where I messed up when I was touching up, I gave up, and said, "Close enough", and really after seeing the photos, its is probably good enough. I still dig the over all look.
So here it is...
The sun was setting, the lighting looks a bit too harsh, I think I really need to reshoot these.