Veng? Who??

The next step was to fabricate a new piece of inside channel with the correct profile. Fürsten had a sample laying in the work shop, so I used this to find the shape. And it turned out perfect =) Now the alignment was close to perfect, but the corner was far from solid. Making the rounded piece around the heater tube was no easy task. But after a little trimming and adjusting, the pieces fell together. After welding everything up, it felt more solid and looks straight. It's probably forgivving to weld on a VW T1, as many of the lines on the lower body can be meassured out from straightlines, and nearly everything has the flat bottom of the car as a reference point.

I decided after starting the welding that the Veng part was no option in this corner. The shape was not anything near the OG shape. So I wnt for a total fabrication of the pieces myself. And it turned out better than expected. I had to skip the dimpeled part with the two holes for the bodymount, but in my eyes this is a small detail missed compared to welding in the Veng part with totally wrong shape. Maybe I can fabricate the the correct profile after everything is welded in place?

Puzzle with alignment

With so much metal removed, it is a challenge getting the corner in the right position again. It was no way around cutting away all this metal, to have solid material to weld into. I started with fabricating the outer channel side, and made sure to keep the draining holes intact, and got the height of the channel sitting right. The next step was cutting a Wolfpart bottom to fit, and tack it togheter carefully. Then I extended the last piece of the cross member, and meassured the hight to be as good as it could be at this time...

More rust

The rear end of the riht heaterchannel is a sad story... Quite much of this corner has to be removed, and there will be a problem finding the reference points again. After making the nessecary cuts, it became quite spacious back there =)

Trial fitting

Then it was time to try fitting the NOS part.. and wow, it "fit like a glove". The quality of the metal and the accurate fit is amazing... far from the repro pieces you buy today. Now it's just grinding down the weld underneath and rustprime the first layer of sheet metal. And then spotweld the new panel in place. I must admit it feels good to know how solid this corner of the car is becoming =)

Making a new part

The new innerwing plate was made out of sheet metal and cut to fit... The curved area had originally a nicely rounded edge. I hammered that out and it looked quite like the original panel. In the picture a little adjustment of the curve is still needed. The sheet metal was butt welded, and after changing from 0,6 to 0,8 mm thread in the welder, it went a lot easier.

Removing the rot

The rotted area was almost as big as the new welding plate, so I decided to make the cut in a way that most of the welding are covered by the outer plate when finnished. The edge of the rear compartment area was all good...

Re-using the bracket

Luckily the bracket was pretty good, and I think sandblasting it and remake the reinforcement will make it good as new. There are pretty much work to recreate all these details... Always a little more than you think...

Rear bodymount

After visiting Bad Camberg, the spirit to finnish the zwitter was back again. Sourcing som good NOS welding parts made the job more greatful. I started to drill out the spotwelds on the existing bodymount with the backplate, because some rust was showing through. After removing the 3 layer plate, a LOT of rust came foreward....

Collecting pieces

The choice of VW happenings to visit this summer was Bug Run in Sweden and Bad Camberg in Germany. They both have a swap meet, and the the best in each division. Bug Run swaps are the best in Scandinavia, and the BC is world class. Even on a limited budget, due to house building, I managed to track down some items for the zwitter that I have been looking for.

In the "pile of shit" are for example a KDF fanhouse plate, a NOS vdo fuelgauge with sender, a Störk temperature gauge, OG brakefuel reservoir w/floater, NOS welding parts, OG zwitter bonnet handle, and some split rubber "hard to find".... And some other "juggel" that may be used for the car...

A new assistent

It has been a couple of months with little progression on the Zwitter. Most due to other projects as the Kvikk engine for the "Rallye-bug" and other tasks in the workshop. Some of the time is used to collect and sort out parts as well. Some of the things purchased this spring, was a new assistent for the shop. This will be very helpful when all the pieces of the car is going back together. It's great to be organized. The Hazet assisten is from the late 60ies as far as I can sort out. It's in great condition, and of course it will stay with it's original paint and patina =)

Hopefully this assistent will help speeding up my project.... (Before and after pictures)

A lot of air

This picture helps to make the decision of using danish steel even easier =)

Rear right corner

This is far whorse than the left rear corner. Nothing is left of the rear corner, and heavy surgery is needed. To get to the rusted area, the heater tube under the rear seat had to be removed. I cut it in a way that the top cover will hide the welding when finnished. The job now is to find out where to cut and replace with fresh metal. Here I see no other way than to use some danish metal to replace the rusted area. It's to huge for me to create, as there are few ends to meassure from.

Starting out back

Some exitement was certainly present when it came to removing the rear fender. After struggeling with both the front fenders, I expected nothing less here. But surprisingly it seemed that all the bolts and the fender had been removed at some point before, and the bolts could be removed by hand.

Right front corner

Some progression is visible on my project, but not as much as hoped. But the timewindow for this car is wide, and I'm in no hurry. Bulding piece by piece, the front end is becomming more solid each day. The regulator on the welder broke last nigt, so I didn't finish welding the last two pieces of the corner. But there is only filling of spotwelds and grinding left before anti-rust treatment and painting.

Backside of the medallion

After inspecting the backside of the H-apron, it seemes to be quite some work needed to make this baby shine again =)

Nice ass

A well formed rear end is never wrong in any way. The rear apron of a classic beetle is no exeption. As seen in the pictures posted on the zwitter, the car had a modern rear apron mounted at some point. This will of course be changed for the well known H-apron. These are not easy to come by, and to find an uncut example is almost impossible. Repro versions are on the marked, but there is always something about the real thing. After a tip from Fürsten, I collected a H-apron last night, although in a cut version. Having no experience in restoring this piece, it looks possible to reverse it back to a solid apron. Some pictures of the operation will follow.

Inside right side

On this side I did a little twist to the welding of the ouside channel. Because it was more solid than the other side, I made a more solid overlap weld. As you see in the pictures, there are still some pices to make.

Repeating procedures

To get the corner aligned again, I used measuring points from the other corner to get the pieces right. I started with the outer channel, and the cut the bottom part and tack welded it in place.

Corner nr. 2

The right side corner of the front heaterchannel, was even worse than the left. After cutting out the rusted pieces, there was not a lot of intersection points left. On this side the front wall was rotten on the underside all the way up.

And wholaaa...

Sometimes it's better to act than think to much... In this case the result came out better than expected. Porsche sparewheel wide 5? Formel-Vee? Classic racing? E-bay?