Nose panel replacement

With the acquisition of the panel this week, and a day to actually work on the van, I went to town on the front end today.

As a reminder, this is what I have to work with:

Swiss cheese of a panel.  Both above and below the directional location is toast. 

So this is what I did to repair it.

I started by carving out the bad parts of the panel.

I ran a tape line to keep the cut straight.  Then I cut down alongside the seam leaving enough to be able to clean up the seam perfectly.  I used a drill to cut the spot welds and then sandblasted the surface so as to have a clean weld point.

This is what the panel removed looks like prior to sandblasting. 

I then put the cut out piece upon the donor panel and marked off my cut lines. I added approx 3/8 of an inch so I would have the material to flange the panel in order to have a place to weld and secure it to the body. 



With the flanges, I can weld in the panel and have a recessed portion for those welds.  This will keep it all secure and beneath any needed body filler, which will be minimal due to stitch welding and keeping panel as cool as possible.

Also did the panel behind the bumper.

First, started by sandblasting the mating surfaces again. 

The holes were punched by me.  The lower ones were allowed to be further apart as it is a known seal and will contain a better than factory type sealant.  The upper ones were done about an inch apart to keep it strong and eliminate any potential movement of the joint.

Still needing to finish the welds, and clean them up, but this picture shows the piece of the panel I also used to replace an iffy portion of the original.

All things considered, it was a successful afternoon.  Still need to finish up, and clean up the welds for bodywork, but warpage was minimal, the panels are strong and do not look like Swiss cheese.

Tyrell's school of hack body repair

Removed the layers of filler off the panel today.  Had four distinct layers of filler, with the last one being a version of tiger hair.  Neat part was the change in filler, or hardener that changed the colors by layer.  Not sure if it was intentional, but amusing nonetheless.

That last one was a real pain in the ass to strip off.  But when I did, I was left with a Swiss cheese looking panel like this:

Hello and welcome to the wonderful world of Morons, Psychopaths and Mental Defectives! 

   

We are making today's short bus / window licker trip to Tyrell's school of body panel repair. Here is some real old school hacking right there folks.  Drill a bunch of holes so you can put instruments in there to pull out the dent, but don't bother to weld up the holes when we have all the plastic filler you could ever need!

Have seen better work on some of the ghetto versions of Asian tuners buzzing around.

Need to cut out the offending metal work and weld in a new panel, or carve a piece from a scrapped Vanagon.

Some supplier of used parts in Indiana wanted $200 plus S&H for the piece, and said he could get it to me in three weeks.  I am still looking.