Looks like walnut to me … but actually the type of wood isn’t as important as matching the stain.  I recently made my own dash out of walnut plywood, but the steering wheel I ended up with was mahogany and so I stained the walnut as mahogany and it turned out that walnut can look just like mahogany!  LOL

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Try Coker Tire Company. Not cheap, but they have a lot of 15″ tires in VW sizes, including the narrow period-correct wide white walls that I have on my car.

Problem solved.  The tabs on the trim rings wouldn’t grab the wheel, so I bent them outwards and was rewarded with lots of vicious scratches to the paint with no more grip than before.  So, I took the opposite tack.  After touching up the damaged paint, I bent all the tabs as far as possible the opposite direction and found that the trim rings wo…[Read more]

Yes, that is correct, they all are the 4×130 mm lug pattern.

Since my original speedo gear was broken, and the replacement gear gave the wrong info, I was tired of dealing with it and therefore went for a GPS speedometer:

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I think LRH has the same idea I had, which was to add fake side pipes up under the front fenders to lay along the little shelf of the VW pan that is otherwise painfully visible. Curve the pipes upwards toward the fender and hood at the front (no fiberglass cutting required) and make them just long enough to be out of sight when the car is not on…[Read more]

The PO of my TDR was also short, and like jesdreamer, he had added 2×6’s under the fiberglass seat bases.  He also mounted the seatback so it was farther forward than originally designed.  Being 6′-4″, this was a significant problem as I could barely fit in the car at all.  I re-did both the seatbases and the seatback, and solved my comfort pr…[Read more]

The flip side of Royal’s comment is that some of us live in places the sun roasts you so much that a top with a zip-out window is usually necessary for a comfortable open-air experience.  Even so, I don’t think a hardtop would be popular.  The convertible top that came with my replica had kind of an ugly shape, but it’s not hard to lower it and r…[Read more]

It must depend a lot on the builder. My FF has a different spare mount than your picture, and the hood/trunk is hinged at the bottom, with latches at the top. There is a cable that limits how far back it tilts. This setup means you are not lifting a heavy load, but the drawback is that the engine is not quite as accessible because you are kind…[Read more]

Wouldn’t it be a lot better and save your trunk space just to convert to a real rear spare like a real TD? My car is also FiberFab and somebody fixed it with a rear spare that folds back with the engine cover. The Weber Progressive breathes through the spare. It’s obviously possible and it doesn’t look that complicated. But then, I didn’t have…[Read more]

About your sound, I used Retrosound speakers that are surface mount. Although expensive, I don’t see how anything else would work. I was able to contour 1/2″ wood up under the dash on the sides and glue that in, then attach the 4×6 speakers to that. The rears are 8″ round and surface mount to the back edge of the storage area. All four…[Read more]

Congrats, Doug. Glad you finally met with success. I’ll be going through the Nevada DMV process soon. In my case, I start with a Utah title in hand but the Utah registration plate that had been glued to the car disappeared during the painting process, and I don’t know if they will notice that the title assignment was October 2014, not 2015, and…[Read more]

I lowered the backs of my new seat bottoms a couple of inches more than the fronts so I would have more of a bucket seat feel. I like the result lots, but it may be better because I also redid the seat back so it goes much lower and reclines a lot. It thus mates well with the lowered bases and gets me away from the steering wheel. For me this…[Read more]

Sorry for asking, but what is the blue bag in the right hand side of the picture (driver’s side of car)?  My car is nearly identical under the “hood” but I have no blue bag.  Windshield washer?

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I second edsnova.  My car also had a lot of stress cracks.  The body shop ground them down, applied new fiberglass to both sides and re-sanded the outside.  This is necessary to strengthen the area in question and thus attack the cause of the stress cracks.  More fiberglass is a “must.”  Just grinding these areas down would further weaken an alre…[Read more]

Instead of screwing through glued-on plywood, why not just run a pair of oval-headed bolts through the hood and bolt your seat belt strap underneath?  You’d never have to worry about the bolts coming loose from gas fumes, and you could put one bolt on each side of the chrome strip for symmetry.  You could paint the heads to match the body, or u…[Read more]

The original builder of my car built a trunk box that fits under the “hood”. I am having it re-lined with fresh carpet and plan to extend the carpet over the inside of the hood. I am also planning to run carpet over the gas tank as well, using Velcro for removable attachment (having just replaced all my fuel lines, shut offs, and filters). I…[Read more]

Absolutely, Roy.  You can personalize it a lot while still making it look so authentic that only a TD expert can tell the difference.  The outside of my car tracks the original better than most TDrs, and the inside uses a real TD instrument panel, but other than that … well, let me put it this way:  I can’t fit into a real TD without looking li…[Read more]

I measured and remeasured the fiberglass seat bases from my FF in order to make a pattern for my wooden bases (to give more headroom). The fiberglass bases are even, so that is not the source of the tilt. Use a small level to check your floorboards — maybe they aren’t level. Also, some builders seem to install the seats so they point inwards,…[Read more]