Front Inner Wing Repairs

So, I have finally found the time to remove all of the poorly fitted repair panels from the front of the car.  You can see below a trial fit of the wing to see the panel will fit with the wing and bonnet.

Here is a mock up with both wings fitted, this has highlighted some critical issues that the wings were different heights and the bonnet did not fit.  This can be adjusted during the assembly.

Here is the driver side top repair panel and front curved panel welded in place.  This took a lot of checking with the nose clamped in place to ensure a good fit with the bonnet.

 Here is the passenger side stripped down to reveal later rot issues that require attention.

Below is the finished panels in place, and fuel tank in to ensure it fits.  Next job to take it off the chassis again to get everything up front blasted and painted.

Removing the Karmann Ghia nose

Here is the drivers side wing with the air intake boxes removed.  You can see that there is rot and the panels are barely welded together.  The other side was just as bad.....

OK, so with a little it of work, carefully grinding out welds the front panel is off.

On closer inspection, the bad workmanship continues so I also removed the inner wheel well panel.

OK, so here we are with very little left.  It is likely I will remove the top side repair panels as well.
Whilst this is all open, I will prep the whole are and get a it in etch primer.

Replacement Nose and inner wing panels including fresh air intake vents

Haven't been able to work on the car for a while, but got some free time and decided to remove the patch underneath the fresh air intake box.

Previous repairs on the car have been carried out pretty poorly, and I imagine here is no different.

As suspected, rot left under the patch, and this probably passes up into the air intake box as well.

The whole of the front of the car has been replaced with new panels quite poorly, and to top it off the bonnet is a bad fit.

So I have decided that I should remove all of the repair panels on the front of the car and refit properly.

Luckily enough, all of the panels have been welded with very poor blobs of weld that can be carefully cut without damaging either panel.

Here is the long fresh air section removed.

Upper Front Inner Wing Repair

Before I fit the wing, I want to make some sort of panel to bring the inner wing and door pillar up to the wing.

I am not sure how this would have been originally, but as the wings and the top 6 inches of the inner wing were replaced by someone previously, I must assume this was just left.

At the same time, I may close up the petrol tank filler hole and breather pipe as the car came with a tank that is filled from lifting the bonnet.

Door Pillar to wing panel repair

The panel fitted between the door pillar and the wing is prone to rot at the bottom.  I haven't managed to find a replacement that I can buy, so decided to make it myself.

He is a close up of the rust.  Making a repair here is pretty tricky.  I started by making a template in cardboard and then shaping the metal slowly.

This repair took me at least 4 hours to make, but in am pretty pleased with the result, and it fits really well.

Front Inner Wing Repairs continued

I made the panel in the photo and welded it in place whilst the other panel was in place so that they would meet in the middle.  This panel is not an easy one to make as there is a curve to it.  I ended up making it in two bits to make it easier to fit.

Here is the front edge panel now tacked in place.  Both panels have been deliberately left oversize so that they can be cut back together for a neat finish.
















And here is the finished job with the welds ground back and some zinc sprayed on.

















I noticed from some on line sources that the ends of the outer sill should have a plate in place to close it off, so I cut one to fit prior to welding the door pillar bottom in place.

Front Inner Wing repairs

OK, so I have carefully removed the various patches over rust, most of which are close to the door pillar.  The bottom of the door pillar has had quite a few little rubbish patches welded all over the place.  However I found you can get a great little repair panel for this as shown below and it is not super expensive.

To replace the bottom of the door pillar outer, it seemed easier to remove the wing to door pillar closure panel by carefully drilling out the spot welds.  This panel has some rot on the bottom, so I will need to fabricate a repair section for this as well.

Here is the finished area with all of the patches removed.  From here I have trimmed out all of the rust areas and trimmed the bottom of the pillar on the outside to fit the repair panel in.

A lot of head scratching to decide the best way to get a good tight fit and keep as much original as possible.  Not a job to rush here as the joints need to be as tight as possible.

However, not going to weld this on yet as there is a repair to complete on the inner skin.










Here I am making a repair panel in one length for the corner here.  I have used a joddler to get a flush finish n the outside, and this will put the repair overlap on the inside.

I have not cut the outside of the panel to size yet as I need to make a repair panel(s) for the inner wheel arch to meet this panel.

The panel in place including the door pillar bottom clamped.

I am not a metal fabricator, but I am very happy with how this is working out.  All of the work on this has only really taken about 6hrs so far.

Workshop Move and front inner wing rework

Got tired of working in cramp conditions, so the wife finally agreed to let me build a new workshop as I have been working in a small garage with the floor pan rolled in under the body being held up by scaffolding.

It took a couple of weeks to build, but here is a shot of the inside.  I took the opportunity to make a rolling frame to bolt underneath as well.

As you can see from the photo above, I have removed one of the front wings.  These were fitted by someone brand new, but there was a lot of bad welding with plates tacked over rust.

Its time to get cutting all the rubbish away and fit new.

RHD Dashboard Conversion Part 3

What to do with that large hole where the Gauges used to be.

I suppose a glove box would be nice.  So as I have an old beetle that will never see the road again, I thought maybe I could graft its glove box in.

Unfortunately, the Beetle glove box is about 25mm too deep, so not wanting to be beaten, I decided to section the glove box door and frame and weld them back together to fit.

Here is the slimmed down beetle glove box clamped in place.

 Unfortunately, I forgot to take photos of the glove box door as I cut it down to size.  This is a little tricky but does butt weld together very nicely.

Then I used the dash top section from the RH side to fill the top hole.

Not the best photo, but you can see that we now have a glove box.

RHD Dashboard Conversion Part 2

With the Steering wheel in place, I trial fitted the gauge panel in place.  The brow of the panel has to be removed and  the angle reversed to fit the opposite side, but is a good fit.

Next job to make and fit small plates to fill all of the holes.  At this point I thought, maybe making an all metal dash wasn't the best idea.

However, with a huge amount of patience it is possible to get an all metal dash.  Hopefully with a little smoothing a primer....

Getting there.  Next job to make a glove box from a RHD Beetle.

RHD Dashboard Conversion Part 1

I decided it was time to tackle the tricky job of converting the ghia dashboard from LHD to RHD.  The panel in front of the pedals has the pressing in place that helps determine the correct positioning for the steering column hole to connect to the steering box.



Here you can see the new hole cut and the steering column checked for fit.  I will need to place a small tube section through as per the original.
















Here is the steering column clamped in place in front of the original glove box.  I am currently planning to move the gauges section of the dashboard over in a separate section to the steering column mounting section.










Here is the hole left in the dashboard with the gauge and steering column mounting point removed.

















The mounting plate for the steering column is not fitted square, so I drilled out the spot welds and reversed the offset to suit RHD.

Holding this piece up under the dash, a hole was marked and cut to allow this piece to be welded in to place.














Here is the plate tacked in place and the steering column mounted to check the fit.

View of the panel from under the bonnet.

Next Job to fit the gauge panel in place.

Front Bulkhead Panel Replacement

29th June 2013

 

Although the front bulkhead panel in front of the pedals looks pretty good from the inside, it did have some repair panels fitted to the corners where it meets the heater channels.

The under side edge that meets the floor pan has substantial rot.

 But the outside panel has a lot of rot. This was probably partly due to a bad earlier repair.



I bought a replacement short panel for a beetle as these are basically the same, but as it was a cheap one it needs some work to fit well.

Carefully exposing and drilling out the spot welds on the inside of the panel.  It provide to be difficult on the outer edges where the panel meets the inner wing.










To ensure a good fit, I bolted the floor pan back up to the body. 












Here is the new panel fitted and tacked in place.














Biggest problem on fitting the panel to the Ghia is that it doesn't actually reach the heater channel.  I will make a small panel and spot weld to both following the contours of the channel.