I thought this are split convertible semaphores! But no...

[HeSa]

Bit off topic but Bonsoir Alex and thanks for asking. Good opportunity to think back what has happened since February and thank all the people who have helped me so far. There has been some progress on several fronts.

I took the car on a trailer some 3000 kms (out of which 650 km on sea) for metal work to Finland in April. It is on a evening/weekend contract with a friend of mine who is of course a professional doing the same work as his day time job. The body was dry ice blasted and the chassis steamed to start with. Chassis is now done with factory condition 53 pans. Bodywork is proceeding well. The car will have all original Aug 1951 fenders and the rest of the work will be done as close to original as possible with either manufactured, original new or used panels and Wolf´s Parts repro products. The door inside repair panels are from Peter Ebeling.

Had two engines redone by EPH already. One will go to a friend of mine in Finland and the other probably for sale because I found later a NOS non-numbered block and I still have all parts to make a completely NOS long block. 26 VFIS and VE4BRS383 are already restored professionally in Germany. Jacketed K is waiting to be restored.

Chrome parts are all there. Bumper blades have to be rechromed again. They were already done with non-satisfactory results in Estonia and I think I will now try a shop recommended by Guido here in Belgium. Guards and some small chrome were done in Buenos Aires with good results. I am still waiting for my Huf flying swastika door handles and inner handles from BA. L-handle will be NOS, thanks Thorstein. All window cranks will be NOS as well as wipers and bases. For body and running board moldings I have the option to restore a good original set or to use repros from Argentine. Depends on how the repro running board moldings will look like when I receive them.

Been of course buying parts - and selling to get some funds - the usual stuff. Thank you all for your businesses. Got an original Petri Banjo from Andy as well as some excellent NOS mechanical parts. Power pack to the IA-50 from Seb, quite a bunch of NOS parts from Virtanen. All NOS brake parts incl 19 and 16mm four bolt cylinders and 19mm main are there and also NOS drums, NOS lever shocks (EPH I know you are not reading but thanks anyways), NOS spindles, OEM VW king and link pins, wheel bearings etc. Accessories will be the above mentioned Banjo and Telefunken, steering lock, toilet bowl and probably fog lights. No more guaranteed. Rear seat back rest and the navigator seat were “besorged” by some previous owner. Was lucky to find a compelte rear seat just a week after I bought the car. Thanks to Bob/BBT for transporting it from München. The extra base has been looking for a new owner for some time now. Offers please gents…Pascal had an excellent roof frame to replace the original that was certainly repairable but had some issues. Still need to buy all rubber and wood for the roof. Will check the products of Jan from Netherlands in the near future and if that won’t work I´ll invest to Claus’s perfect wood products. Rubber I hope to get with the Coenen whole sale Claus is now organizing. For semas I have the options to use the full metal jacket SHOs or regular split SWF AL143.001.1s. For sema boxes I have a pair of BBTs repros and a pair of Haun’s repros yet to be decided which ones to use. Wiring loom will be either Kabelschmidt or JSH. Have had no time to study that yet. To conclude the only difficult part still missing is the right side front seat. It can be of course replaced with a sedan seat but I´d like find an original light brown vinyl seat– maybe some day.

The car will be the same color as yours, Atlantic and pastel green with green roof - as it has originally been. Time table does not exist any more but let’s see how it will look like in the spring of 2009.

What else has been going on since February. Found a very nice Nov 1951 Azurblau Export Sedan. The car had been stored in a barn since late seventies. Worked 2 weeks with it in the beginning of July and got it through the technical control. It is now my Sunday driver here in Brussels. The car is pretty original and 3x matching number. I like especially the original fender to body seals in the rear and the alu-covered rear light wires. Some things still need to be addressed i.e. hub cap clips, crank pulley, manifold, oil pressure switch, brake cylinders and rear bumper mounts and I need to install the og aluminium molding to the wind screen. After that it will be 99,99% original – with only some marks of use. Thanks to Guido for the navigator side front fender and shnorhagallem Opa for fixing it.

Unfortunately no pictures of the process with the Kabriolet. They do exist but I won´t get them before my X-mas holiday in Finland. The bodyman is good in the garage but not with computers. However here´s some pics of the sedan to add some color to this long monologue.

Yep – think twice before you ask

[passoa55]

Nice split Heikki!
You should drive it once to my home!
Regards, Pascal.
_________________
1950 Hebmuller #458
1955 lowlight lizard green
1955 original paint oval
1956 1600 super V-sunroof Porsche
1958 lowlight ghia black
1963 firetruckred 23 window
1967 SO42 westy
1969 original paint Westy
1970 one owner 1300L bug

[HeSa]

Thanks Pascal, would be nice to meet some day soon to hear news from your very interesting project. Maybe in the Oktoberfest in Putte on Sun 21st Oct? With the split if the weather permits - there´s nothing much going through to the wipers with the original harness.

[johnshenry]

Resurrecting a very old thread, having recently got my hands on what appear to be split vert sems. Below are some pics of an SHO one I bought recently. It is suggested earlier in this thread that the mechanism (body, pivot arm, coil, etc, NOT lenses and outer arm) are "exactly the same" between sedan sems and 'vert sems. I have found this not to be the case.

I have found/seen supposed SHO 'vert sems with the wrap around steel arm, but on closer inspection it is clear to see that the sem was apart and that the pivot pin was driven out, and replaced... or replaced with a long M3 machine screw.

As took apart this sem, I was also restoring no less than 8 other SHO grooved sedan sems, dated anywhere from Dec 1950 to 1956, so I had lots of others to compare too.

First I noticed that the body is VW logo'ed, with the l 143.001-2 part number, and the pivot pin does not appear to have been removed/tampered with. So I conclude that this IS a split Beetle sem. It has no date code however (I have seen a few others with no date codes in the past).

3 other things I noticed different from the sedan sems.

The "snail spring" perch on this sem is very close to the pivot, and the spring very small. On all the other sedan sems, it is farther out (where I put red diamond in the pic) as those springs have a much longer "leg" wire. Those would seem to be the better design, so I conclude that those are probably later.

On the pivot arm, there is a little, fat "rib" in the casting on all 8 of the sedan sems on my bench now. But this vert one is missing it. So borne of a different casting.

And lastly, the bumper stop/bracket on this 'vert one is a little eyelet type, presumably to take an SWF type bumper, vs the "band" type bumper that the sedan sems use. Also the holes in the body at the bottom are different, and it does not have that slip in tab at the top that the sedan ones have.

Somewhere else here, (maybe in the Zarwerks Spy Cam thread) I had posted pics of what I thought was an SHO split vert sem, but it had the L 143.001-1 part number. Later, I think I discovered that it had been re-pinned and probably was not a legit vert sem.

Anyway, form your own opinions. I just love studying all of this minutia detail on these old parts....

_________________
John Henry

'57 Deluxe
'56 Single Cab

[Böm]

Quite a lot has been written about split convertible semaphores on this forum. When I got my april 1951 vert meny years ago the original semaphores had been replaced by oval era sedan ones so I have no further info to add regarding the semas themselves. However on my car the sema boxes which are very original have M4 threaded holes for the fastening screws as oposed to M6 which we most often see. Any coments on this would be very much appreciated.

[virtanen]

M4 is correct, you just need the special screws.

I have them if you need any
_________________
Mika
Split beetle restoration panels
Oval beetle restoration panels
New projects

[Böm]

Thank you Mika. On my car a small U-shaped extra bracket with a 5 mm hole and a M4 screw was used to hold the semaphore. Would that be original?