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.