Do you know when to stop?
As the DougD VW Beetle project crawls toward the finish line, I have to ask myself this question again and again. It may be just my particular personality (or personality disorder) but I am a sucker for the “if I do just a BIT more work here this will be SO much nicer” way of thinking, which inevitably leads me into a tightening spiral of OCD perfectionism and I make no measurable progress. This has turned a repaint of my driver-quality VW into a six year adventure.
Case in point here, I got the carpets and floormat into the VW, then starting thinking that the gearshift lever, handbrake and pedal arms would look much better with fresh black paint. I almost started prepping for the job before I asked myself “Do you know when to stop?” and decided that I could live with it. Once I get the car on the road again, if I have a weekend with nothing to do I can just as easily do something about it later.
Do you fall into the same trap? What would you have done?
Been there done that I stopped perfecting when the owner ran out of parts but the original interior of the beetle I did up was ok and just went back in with a good clean. She was chasing another headlining but I didnt fit one for her. Replacement VW interiors are quite expensive and often do not match local production vehicles, Carpet in a OZ 59 simply did not exist and door insulation/sound deadener, really
If you went to the trouble of dynamat in the doors, what’s another two hours work to paint the handbrake?
(c:
(and yes, I suffer the same malady – “better is the enemy of done.”)
I agree, I would paint them now. It’s not like putting off something because it’s expensive, like getting the seats reupholstered. Also, we need to see more progress pics of your Bug, Doug. 🙂
It looks like you are doing an incredible job! I don’t know if the pedal arms are correct in body color, but they look kind of cool that way. As fresh as your interior appears to be, I’d paint the hand brake and gear shift levers. Those are high visibility items sticking up from the fresh floor.
I hear you, projects like this snowball. If I paint the room, the trim looks shabby. Paint the trim and the blinds don’t look so fresh. Paint everything, and the carpet or floor finish looks old and dull. Houses are just like cars in this respect!
Oh I could never live with that! You already have the entire interior out and a fresh repaint, why not make the shift lever and pedals look good too??
Yea, I know, I don’t know when to stop either. I am seriously considering selling my perfectly fine running Honda CRV to get a Land Rover Discovery, with the intention that if (when?) the engine blows I can replace it with a $4k diesel engine swap to get better fuel mileage. Because I like them more than psuedo-SUV Hondas.
Ah yes. I suffer from the opposite syndrome: interlocking-project-itis. Each project interlocks with another that must be done first to be done properly, until the circle completes, resulting in a complete gridlock, so I end up living with something that is just the way it is.
With my disorder, I would have just kept driving the Bug because you can’t paint until you have the interior all out, but you shouldn’t re-do interior after a repaint because you may scratch your new paint job while fitting the new interior parts. 🙂
I had searched through the DSM and not found a name for that problem. Is there a 10 step program? I need it badly.
“interlocking-project-itis. Each project interlocks with another that must be done first to be done properly, until the circle completes, resulting in a complete gridlock, so I end up living with something that is just the way it is.”
+1
+1 again: this is me to a tee.
Yeah I’m gonna have to chime in with the chorus of enablers saying follow your gut and paint the handbrake, gear lever & pedal arms. You’ll thank yourself.
It looks like you’re doing an amazing job there and in that kind of work the detailing is everything: in your shoes, left unpainted I know those parts would just gnaw at me, and now is the time to do them.
Nothing wrong with perfectionism imo. Besides it’s very… German 😉
I’m in the middle of that myself. I took some trim off around the windshield on my ’77 Chevelle to mount a self-dimming rearview mirror with map lights. Since I had to take off half of the trim from the B-pillar forward and got it all off without breaking it. I figured I’d go ahead and take the rest off to repaint them one color, well that escalated into I have to take all that off to get the now-incorrect package shelf off (now that it has a factory stereo, the AM package shelf blocks the rear speakers) and the headliner is torn and ripped, might as well replace that while I’m there.
Started looking at the carpet, and what’s saving me at the moment is the fact that I’ve yet to find the right carpet for it. So far I’ve got a nice $250 bill waiting for parts from the catalog to put it back together. Friends are ribbing me about spending money on the interior when it needs paint (faded out quite a bit).
Try Auto Custom Carpet (http://www.accmats.com) or Stock Interiors (http://www.stockinteriors.com).
@ Tommy T
….Your dash pad may as well be refurbished, while you’re doing it, might as well spruce up the dash/instruments as needed; and then the door panels, and once you get the carpet, (I assume the seat upholstery is o.k.) you’ll have a spiffy new interior….besides, one can only see small areas of faded paint from inside!! I STRONGLY resemble the prefaced remarks!! 🙂
Nope.
That was a page in the classic VW text, “How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive: A Manual of Step-by-Step Procedures for the Compleat Idiot”. Its artist, a genius of clarity and soul, was Peter Aschwanden. Get posters from his site: http://www.peteraschwanden.com/
Do it – it’ll never be easier. The question you should be asking is “black to stay correct or blue because it looks so good on the pedals?”, to which I say blue unless you’ve run out of the paint in which case I’d go with black to get it together and get driving.
I think that I would paint them silver instead just to be different.
I’d probably be removing them and taking them to get powdercoated.
Oh screw it – just get some new ones machined from titanium. 🙂
I love powdercoat! I’ve had a bunch of things powdered: steel wheels, engine parts, suspension parts, and even a front subframe. I had my subframe chemically stripped, then powdered. Here it is reassembled and ready to install.
My brother has used it since the 80s on his bikes,it’s tough,looks good and is easy to clean.
I’ve seen overspray on restored cars under wings and inside doors to make them look new,also inspector’s chalk marks and no underseal which is great for a museum piece but forget it if you actually want to drive it somewhere wet and cold.Whatever you do some anorak will tell you it’s wrong for that year and the pinstripe is 3/64ths of an inch too thick and you should have used zinc plated split pins!Paint them black and let’s see the rest of your work please
My Minx has no interior but has underseal it will be getting another coat or two this summer it may even get washed I have a Singer interior for it 100kms away but havent been back for it yet.
You are doing a great job, keep going. As said above every time you dress up or paint one part it makes anything not new look bad.. It’s a hobby, keep going as long as it is fun.
Very nice work on the old bug. If I was that far in, I’d paint the shifter and the handbrake.
But here’s a bit of advice. When you’re done, put it back together and drive it. Enjoy it. It’ll get rock chips and maybe a door ding or two. But if you get too OC, do you own the car or does it own you? The time to stop is before you get so invested in it, you’re afraid to use it for what it’s for. I learned that the hard way.
Perfect colour choice by the way.
With as nice as a job as you have done already, I think you’ll want to go ahead and paint the handbrake and shifter. Like someone else said, go with your gut.
What color is this; is it a VW color from the ’70s?
In any case, it looks great!
I totally understand that obsessive compulsive character trait that comes out during a restoration. And there were times when, if it was just me, there were things left undone that I could live with. But nagging me and sitting in the back of my mind are the snarky comments made in an off-hand way by a prospective buyer or some onlooker at a car show, you know “not period correct”, “indifferent paint job”, etc…
When I think of those voices, I double down and re-do the paint, track down the correct part, whatever it will take to shut those mouths. My pride demands it.
I made the attached graphic a few years ago for the Ford 8N tractor board where I hang out… it’s the same thing there. Some folks just want to patch it together enough to get it running, others argue the slightest shade of paint color difference and whether lug nuts were plated or painted ex-factory. My 8N is a “20-20” restoration: looks good at 20 feet or 20 miles per hour.
You”d like this little beast Ed its in the same whanau as your N series
I spent about 40 hours refurbishing this grille assembly. It’s made using the best pieces from 4 grilles, one of which was shipped up from Arizona, plus one NOS part. A good chunk of my time was spent masking the chrome bars to respray the painted sections. I even found a “textured argent” silver paint to replicate the factory finish.
Here are the individual pieces before I reassembled everything.
Love it!
I probably would have just sprayed the whole interior with truck bed liner.
If my aging parents are ever content with the way their house and yard look, thus freeing up all my Saturdays once more, I’m doing a complete frame-off resto on my ’65 Skylark convertible- right down to media blasting all the individual body panels inside and out.
You”d like this little beast Ed its in the same whanau as your N series
Ok jpeg didnt attach its a deta on the cohort
I usually stop when I run out of time, talent or money. It usually the money sadly. That said paint the handbrake seems like a no-brainer – go for it.
On my ’64 wagon I started out planning to rebuild the front end. While I was taking it apart I decided to paint the mounting points on the body since it would be a paint to paint there later with the suspension in place. Then I decided to scrape & paint the rest of the wheel wells since I was painting anyway…
A few hours later it looked like this.
Several weeks later I had ground down and repainted all suspension components, the front clip, the insides of the fender, restored the headlight buckets, replaced the body to fender seals, and coated the inner fender wells & insides of the fenders with truck bed liner, re-mounted the trans cooler properly and ground down and repainted all four rims.
The irony is aside from the wheels, all the work was completely invisible once it was finished unless you stuck your head under the fender.
Minor imperfections don’t really bother me. Some moderate pitting in the chrome, a small ding under the taillight, paint rubbed off of old buttons and knobs only add to an old car’s charm for me. I like old cars because they look and feel like old cars. I also think that an over-restored garage queen makes for a terrific waste of a fine piece of machinery that should be driven and enjoyed like it was meant to be.
Thanks for the comments everyone,
The color is Gulf Blue, which is the original color of the car. As it turned out it’s a bit greeny-gray in natural light, but at least it’s all the same shade now.
Unfortunately the interior bits will remain as is. There about a hundred such non mission critical jobs that could be done, I seem to get about 2 hours of free time each week, and the car has been off the road for six years. Six. Years.
I am shooting for a Curbside Classic level of refurbishment, so will do a more complete writeup once I can turn the key. (I’ll have to find it first, ignition switch is still AWOL)
There is still time for Ed Stembridge to catch up and beat me to the finish, but he’ll have to work hard over the winter..
I finally gave up on making plastic models because of the same OCD-like compulsion to make it better and better that I usually end up with a museum quality model…half completed when I give up in frustration or boredom. My last project was a huge B-36 model that I’d painted perfectly and rigged up a battery pack that would fit in the bomb bay. When a tiny computer dip switch was flicked, red/green nav lights would have come on in the wings while tiny grain-of-wheat bulbs would light up in the cockpit, showing the intricately detailed instrument panels. Argh…