1967 VW Variant.

So with all the sculpture out of the way, and a new kitchen for the missus, ( keeps her off me back ha,ha,)

Back to the variant next week.....finally, to get the front end tidied up and welded.Hooray.

THis is the total wheelhouse panel needed each side. If it was available which its currently not. Cost 550 euro plus 250 shipping. So 800 in total, so realistically thats not going to happen.So i need to get the mig tuned up and good to go.

Plan is to make the top half panel form just above the wing bolt holes, down to the petrol filler hole centreline on the right, parallel to the top edge of the panel and over to the centreline of the small hole on the left. There or there abouts.

The top edge will just be to the top edge of the panel, but I will cut below top edge of existing, and put a rebated edge on the new panel about 6 mm wide. This allows me to proved a supporting 6mm lapped edge along the cut body just below the bonnet edge.

THis allows me place the lap on the inside of the cut edge, and gives me a flush face on the inner face of the new panel. Then when I am welding it will be directed onto the new metal as opposed to blasting any more holes in possibly weaker existing metal.

Thats the plan, but we all know how that can go pear shaped.

Just marked out the template to put me in the ball park for cutting. And when i have rough cut it, i will drill the wing bolt holes, and then bolt the cut metal to the body and it will stabilize it for me when I am trimming the lower parts of the new metal for fitting.

Apologies for the poor pics but " goddammit Jim, I'm a car doctor, not a photographer"🤣

Good days work done today. I marked and make the paper templates, cut out the metal panel oversize. Then clicker pinned it to the body, and took a few more measurements. Then i cut the panel to suit, a bit of trimming here and there. Then went over to the plannishing hammer, and worked the profile as best I could, considering I didn't have a wheel to finish the final smoothing, but its ok.

I then re positioned the panel to a slightly higher position, marked it for trimming , and this is where we are after a few hours.

With the fine weather recently, the weekend was a great opportunity to take out the &" fastback to knock the cobwebs off if for a few runs. Only kept to a local area just to see how it would wake up after its winter slumber. I noticed going up one hill that I was lacking a small bit of power, and put it down to driving up the hill in too high a gear at the start. And carried on me way. All good no frights of any description..

It was time for an oil change and I did that and took it for a spin. I noticed that on the journey at55 km an hour there was some vibration at the wheel. So drove home at 4o km which had no vibration at all. Inspected the front right wheel off the ground, and it was locked solid. So a seized caliper was probably the issue.

Stripped it down and re polished the pistons which were locked into the caliper. Cleaned the caliper, and covered the seals, and the inner caliper in rubber grease, re assembled, bled the caliper. Job done

Luckily enough I am well in tune with the way my classics run. And i know the instant there is a slight change in its overall handling. I had an inkling very recently that the right hand caliper was not fully releasing as quick as the left hand one, all the tell tale signs were spotted a few weeks ago. Slight pull to the right on braking , which I was hoping would return to normal after a bit of driving.

But it switched to a pull to the left, hinting at it now being fully ceased and non operational. I was careful enough to drive sedately while all this was going on, so there was no overheating of the new discs i put on last year. As a matter of fact, I always check the heat from all the wheels when i return from a journey. Its the quickest way to pinpoint any wheel that is heating beyond the rest of them.

On any of the classic vw I have i always renew the brake drums, discs, pads and shoes as quick as possible.

Problem with the type 3's is the lack of availability of new calipers. Cant be got, so rebuilding is the only option... And all the reference manuals I have for the vw's suggests fitting pistons dry, which i did. I#ve since found new data which suggests lubricating all the caliper parts during rebuild with Red rubber grease which is designed for brake caliper rebuilds.

So i did that this time round. Its not a big deal as the calipers are easily removed.

When i stripped the caliper, it was dry, and a slight bit of corrosion on the extreme piston edge out side of the caliper dust boot, that I never filled with grease when I did them before.

Caliper body was in great order anyway when I did them a couple of years ago, and the pistons were good as well. I polished up the pistons any way with wet n dry, finishing with 3000 grit polishing paper.

But they were good anyway. But long term I would like to replace with new if i can. If I cant do that I will try new pistons if I can get them. Faling that I might contact a brake rebuilding company to see what I can get if anything.

But i am always in tune with how my cars drive, so i know when there is an issue.

I have decided to cut the rusty valance at the top edge of the panel, about 12mm below the edge where the rubber seal sits. This does 2 things for me. First it removes the severe rust from the proposed welded seam. And second this cut line allows a right angle face with the horizontal edge. So this gives me a 90 degree supporting angle which is very strong. It maintains the line along the edge of the bonnet mating edge, down to the nose. As well as this I will weld in a supporting brace if I need it.

You can see from the pictures how bad the rust is. Normally this would be heading for the scrapper, but as its on an endangered species list, its worth trying to save. And the fact that i have plenty of time, sure what else would i be doing😁

Probably be cutting roughly through the bolt centres

It would be a waste of time to try to clean this and weld through it, it would be burnt away. If in doubt,cut it out.

THis panel along the face of the door post, which is good and solid. Door post is solid, the rest is tayto, and all full of nice compound curves🤥

Got on well today after fixing the welding shroud on the mig that would not stay on. After which I checked the welds which were greatly improved since yesterday evening. From the pics you can see a nice bead, and great penetration through the sheet.

Caliper on the white type3 now done and dusted and working nicely. Sticking piston as opposed to severely seized. So polished and cleaned the piston and caliper, a bit of grease and its operating nicely.

Back to the 67, and the more rust I see on the wheel house area, the more I question my sanity of repairing it🤣

Missus already made that diagnosis many years ago. She tells me I'm mad to be doing it😄

Once i remove the rusty panel and inspect further into the cross member and heater channels, I can see if they are beyond repairing. heater channels is not a problem, but the cross member under the dash, might be. Its unobtainable, and might be very tricky to make . Just going out now to remove the spotwelds, and have a look see.

Maybe I should be out to pasture as well, in the next field, I'm pushing 68 now,

Come back to the vdubs JM, they are crying out for a mechanic on the clubs. You know you want to.

Today I welded in the full half panel, and the smaller complex shape panel. Not bad as things go, but time consuming. Just have to lal in the last horizontal section this side. Then its grinding, cleaning up, pin hole filling, all the usual associated with rust.

My auto darkening helmet played up today with not allowing me to work with any led lights, blast it. So some of the time I was starting to weld in the dark.

A helping hand off the block work.

And the small panel .

Small panel offered up for a trial fit

So next is the long panel, then all the grinding flush for the welding.