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(2000) This page last modified- 11/3/01 |
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(2000) This page last modified- 11/3/01 |
Long before I even came close to finishing this restoration, I started thinking about how exactly I was going to store this car. I knew it needed a safe, protected space to sit out the "salt season" (New England winters) and also knew that even when I was driving it, I couldn't just park it amid the kids bikes and wagons and "house traffic". I have a 25 x 25 foot 2 car garage and had always managed to store the car across the back of the garage while I was working on it and still was able to park mine and my wife's car in the garage. But storing the car this way when it was completed introduced some new challenges. Even in the "driving season", I needed a way to basically keep the car covered and protected, yet had to be able to get it out and put it back in pretty quickly.
So this page shows how I store this car, both on and off season.
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The challenge for me was to design a system
which:
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| This is how the rear dolly is used. First,
a 2x4 is placed across the bottoms of the shock mounts on the ends of the
axles, and the car is lifted with the floor jack. This 2x4 is a pressure
treated spruce one, it is bowing, but it is very strong. This allows me
to raise the car, yet keep the suspension loaded (wheels don't drop down).
You can see the dollies laying on the floor underneath. Note the foam pipe insulation on the jack handle to keep it from scratching paint. Bythe way, I have another muffler I'm going to sandblast and paint with POR-20 next spring (although that one is still very solid). |
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The car is raised up and the dollies are
slipped under the 2 x 4, then it is slowly lowered and the jack removed.
You can see that the tries are about 2" off the floor and the suspension
never unloaded.
During the driving season, this is all I do with the car to put it away. With the front wheels still on the ground, I can easily push the car by the back bumper and "steer" it into the storage space. Sort of like pushing a shopping cart backwards. Also, with the driver's door window open, I can reach in and turn the front wheels to get it to fit in the storage space. Works very well, takes me about 5 minutes to get the car on or off the dolly. |
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| For long term, winter storage I needed a
dolly solution for the front as well, to get the wheels off the ground
and still be able to roll the car in place. The front one was made very
similar to the back. A spruce 2 x 4 was cut to 47.5", and two 1.25" bores,
about 3/8" deep drilled in the ends (1 5/16" from the ends). This board
will support the back end of the lower trailing arms, right where the link
pin bolt is. The bores allow relief for the link pin bolt nuts so that
they don't take all the strain. The nice thing about using wood is that
it will "give" against immense pressure from a hard metal point or edge,
and the metal will not be marred.
The little block of wood with carpet on it was placed there when I realized that as I was jacking that car up, the board bowed enough to allow it to hit the underside of the framehead. But after drilling the holes, I realized that the block stuck up too high and I took it off and just stapled the carpet right to the 2 x 4. |
| This dolly looks a bit different than the
back one. You will notice that one of the wheels does not swivel. This
is because even though I like to think my garage floor is pretty level,
I had a terrible time trying to manuver the car when it was on 8 swivel
dollies (in the late stages of the restoration). No matter how "straight"
I tried to push from the back, the front would roll sideways and into the
wall. The swivel dolly is smaller and needed a wooden "shim" to make the
dolly level.
The crossmember support on the dolly is placed farther toward the non-swiveling wheel to insure it does the longitudinal "guiding" that it needs to as the car is rolled into place. |
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Here you can see how the back of the trailing arm rests on the end of the crossmember, the nut on the link pin bolt well into the bore drilled in the wood. Again, the car is lifted without unloading the suspension, it rests on the dolly much the same as it would on the tires. (front sway bar added in '59, it might be a bit more of a trick on a car with the sway bar) |
| Here is the front end resting on the dollies. The crossmember looks a bit bowed and the dollies tilted in, but as soon as the car is moved, the whole setup levels out nicely. |  |
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[Ok, I admit I just had to find a
better use for my graphics software in these pages..]
Some things I did before covering this car
and storing it (more complete list below):
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| My car cover is an inexpensive, single layer cotton cover. It does have a plastic zipper on the driver's side to allow you to get inside without removing the cover. I think I paid $30 for this cover, it is a "small". A Beetle is 13 feet, 4 inches (4.065m) by the way if you are buying cover. This one is a generic "small" car one and is not made specificaly for the Beetle. If you look close, you can see how the front of the cover is flipped back over the bumper a bit, it is actually a bit too long. You must not use a cover like this out doors, it will quickly ruin your paint. |  |
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Ok, so what does this storage "space" look like? Well, this picture is facing back left corner of the garage, the back of the garage is on the right. That grey stuff you see on the lower part of the wall is grey jute carpet padding and it is hanging down to cover the cement kneewall of the garage foundation. And another piece of it is glued to the wall under the overhang. That overhang is actually part of the laundry room in the house and is a bit over 3 feet deep. And, as it turns out, the nose of a Beetle fits right under there perfectly. |
| Here you can see just how close of a fit this is, and why the front dolly could only hold the wheels up off the ground a tiny bit. The clearance side to side is probably under 1.5 inches. This is why it is so important to be able to accurately "steer" this 1600lb car into this tight spot. Every possible "bump" surface on either side has been covered with either padding or foam. After doing this a dozen or so times, I got pretty good at it. Sort of like docking a huge ship in a tiny slip. |  |
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This how you keep the bike handlebars away.
This is a 4 x 8 foot piece of 1/2" CDX plywood, hinged on the right end.
1x3 "strapping" is used lengthwise and diagonally to give strength to the
the "door". And where the strapping might be able to touch the fenders
is, you guessed it, foam pipe insulation (the stuff is usually slit lengthwise,
you just open it up and slip it on the 1 x 3s).
On the hinged end, you can see some more foam padding stapled on. This "pinch" area almost wrecked my paint on the front fender before I trimmed some protruding wood and added some foam padding. |
| Voila! The car is tucked safetly away for the winter months. The hinged wall, couple with the little "nook" that the nose is slid under, protects all but the rearmost foot and a half (mostly bumper) of the car. The bungee cord keeps the door snug against the car. |  |
Winterizing my '57 isn't quite the same as putting a car away for years of storage. The fact is, most winters it will sit from Nov-Dec until around April or about 5 months. Here are the specific measures I have taken:
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