Point A to point C? Where did B go?

If you're observant you noticed that in this post the tunnel and floor pans get mysteriously darker as the pics progress. This is because I started to apply POR-15 rust preventive paint to my car as I went. While I was working on the floors I was also doing surgery to the tunnel and front bulkhead.

The tunnel was all surface rust and fell under the ever present wire wheel to address those problems. I did have to weld an area on the passenger side where an access hole had been cut. In 1968, Beetles could come with your standard manual transmission or an autostick which is sort of a hybrid of an automatic and a four speed. I believe that my car was originally an autostick because it had this hole cut in the tunnel and it has an IRS rear. This access hole was cut to get at the innards to convert the car to a manual. Independent rear suspension didn't become standard on bugs until 1969. I caught a lot of flack about this when I ordered stuff for my car along the way. I would call looking for a bearing or something and the pros would give me a ration of crap when I told them my '68 had IRS. One guy even insisted my car was a '69. I checked the serial number and told him he was wrong (always fun to tell a pro he's wrong.)

The front bulkhead (frame head) had some serious cancer on the underside. Ideally I suppose I should have replaced it but I really didn't want to go through that headache. I assessed the damage and decided I would just cut the bad portions out and, with my new fangled welder and my ever growing skills, weld some patches in. The worst area was the bottom of the bulkhead just behind where the front axle beam bolts up. I cut away the bad portions till I found clean steel. After that I had to deal with the areas further back. Back there I did the same thing. I broke out the can of POR-15 and went to town after cleaning up the area. I buy the little six packs of POR-15 because once you open the stuff in must be used up. At any rate, I wedged as much paint as I could inside the holes and painted the tunnel and bulkhead with my POR. A little can of the stuff goes a long way. When I was done with the paint, I fabbed up some suitable patched and went to work with my welder again. Rust fixed and then coated the entire pan, once again, with POR-15. Slow going but looked nice when I was done.