Aircooled VW South Africa

OK, here's one for you...

...before my bug body goes back on, it needs some metalwork...the priorities being the dash - metal graft to fix the hole from the POs F'ing deck...

...and the rails around the decklid.

Both the one holding the rubber seal under the decklid, and the engine bay rubber seal.

They're totally vrot and non-existant.

As you can imagine, this is a dilemma...any ideas?

We thought of shaping an aluminium strip and riveting it in place, but I'm not sure how well it will work - or look.

Although it would last forever.

Ideas?

Thanks, N.

Hi Merlin
What tools (welder etc) do you have access to. What is your skill level/experience with sheetmetal? Both jobs you're talking about can be fairly straightforward, but can also get out of hand quickly!!
For the dash, you can simply weld in a panel - at the very least you'll need a MIG that can handle pretty low amperage settings, and access to the back side of the weld seam. Need PERFECT panel fit and can basically tack all the way round, and then keep on filling between the tacks with more tacks until you have closed it all up. The metal will shrink due to the weld heat and the discoloured area (heat affected zone or HAZ) needs to be stretched by hammering on dolly - don't be tempted to do any hammer and dolly work outside of the HAZ to fix any bulges/puckering as these are often caused by the shrink from welding, and should fix themselves when you return the metal to it's original state. The seam should be grinded flush before any hammer and dolly work, taking care not to add too much mor heat. Although a flat disc is tempting, you are better off with a normal 3mm cutting disc on a small grinder as this should be about the width of your weld bead. Do some practice welds first on the same thickness metal, as you actually want to avoid too much penetration causing a bead on the back side which will be difficult to grind off.

For the rails, I would prefer doing them in steel as joining two dissimilar metals is NEVER a good idea as it sets up all kinds of galvanic corrosion issues. If the rail is gone, I would also want to make sure of the condition of the surrounding metal too ( pretty hard to weld onto rust )
It is possible to make up the rails with basic hand tools, and doing it in sections should yield fairly simple shapes.

Shaping sheet metal is actually a lot easier than it seems at first, but does need quite a lot of practice, and most guys don't seem to want to put in the time. Learning to do it right will make you feel a whole lot better, and it beats the hell out of sanding body filler and breathing dust all day long!!!!
Drop me a line if I can help in any way, or probably even better go here:
http://www.metalmeet.com ,to answer every metalshaping question you could ever think of and more!
Good luck with your project!!
Barry

Hey Barry,

Thanks for the very detailed response.

I have a knowledgeable mate doing the work for me, and will send this to him to see if he can do it.

The metal surround the rails is perfect.

My bug was scrapped at some stage in it's Life, but the metal seems good.

Obviously I don't know what's underneath the PO's Shite paintjob, but I can't afford a respray to the degree I want, for atleast 3 years.

The metal seems good to me though.

I don't believe in adding plastic to a car that never had originally, so anything Bondo-like will get removed when I finally get around to the body full-on.

I also have another small issue on the dash...the PO closed the fender indicator holes - which I like, but also fitted a later steering column with column ignition, and then closed the ignition hole on the dash.

I want to return it to stock, so I need to cut the right hole there too.

Eish...this is turning into a full-on restoration slowly, but damn, I really want my '67 LHD sunroof.

Cheers, Nic