Back Again.

The first frost came and my gardening days are pretty much done, we are adjusting to the addition of our youngest son, and the patio is finally complete (mostly). I now have a few moments here and there to escape to the garage and play. I decided no to mock up the radiator in the donor front clip due to space constraints. Instead, I started to cut it down to usable panels. I can walk all the way around the bug without running into stuff for the first time in a long time.

Patio before the rock work.

Garden before the frost.

A much more manageable mess.

For anyone interested...sorry for the delay.

This project has been put on hold for the following reasons:

• garden prep and planting
• patio prep and installation
• new addition to the family

I am anxious to get things going again. Progress will resume as soon as I wrap up these projects and organize the garage.
The patio also includes a concrete pad outside of the garage which should help in moving this project along faster.

Here's the idea...

I spent Saturday cutting stuff up--removing spot welds, decklid seal channel, and other misc. stuff. It may be hard to tell from this picture but this is what I want to do with the front to allow air to get to the radiator. The black lines represent a grill that I will fabricate from 3/8" X3/8" square bar stock. I'll see how it goes.
I unfortunately found some more metal that will need to be replaced on the donor front clip. More practice...

Removing spot welds

Tonight I started getting the front clip ready for the installation of the radiator. All I was able to accomplish was to remove the front apron. I did so by removing all of the spot welds on the sides and then cutting along the seam between the apron and the tire well. I used a Harbor Freight Tool spot weld cutter--it works surprisingly well.

I also experimented with removing the decklid seal retaining strips. I found the easiest way to do this is to cut or grind the first two or three welds then pull the strip away while wiggling it back and forth(2/23/09--this method didn't seem to work for the remaining strips unless I ground down the spot welded area a bit first). The welds break right off without distorting the base metal. When the strip is removed all that is left is a small piece of metal to grind down at each weld--less than is left when using a spot weld cutter.

A toasty 43 deg

Beetles = Rust

Yesterday I put my skills to work repairing a rust hole in the panel that I am going to graft onto my bug. Up to this point all of my welding has consisted of stick or MIG on relatively thick steel. So this is my first attempt at sheet metal work. Fortunately I had a very inconspicuous place to start.
The bumper bracket area on the donor piece had rusted through, so I began the repair by cutting a good piece of steel out from the same donor piece that I will not need. I cut it to fit the place that was rusted out. I then traced the piece out on the rusted area. Once the rusted area was removed I fine tuned the fit and tacked it into place. I then continued adding more tack welds--cooling in between--until the seam was complete. A few passes with a flap disc and things looked pretty good for a rookie.

Things that went well:
I used the suggested settings on my welder and didn't have to adjust the feed or amperage.
Good weld penetration.
Only a couple of burn throughs that I was able to fix by holding a piece of brass behind the hole while filling it in.
Minimal warpage.

Things I would have done differently:
I wouldn't have made the fit so tight--one part of the patch ended up overlapping after applying a few tack welds which was difficult to fix.
I would have cleaned the weld area better--one area that was tough to get to had a little surface rust causing a few messy welds.

Other notes:
I found that my welder could easily handle a gap of up to about 1/16".
Clean metal is necessary for a clean weld.
I found that I was able to create a smoother arc when I clipped the wire before each weld and when I cleaned up previous welds that I was welding over with a wire brush.

Here is the piece that was removed

The new piece with a few tacks (and one burn through)

The finished product

The back side--to show weld penetration

This gift from Emily made this job a

heck of a lot easier than with my old helmet

Summer...so far away...

It's too friggin' cold to go in the garage--and my garage could use some cleaning. So instead I found a cool website where I can build my bug without freezing to death. Whaddaya think?
I can't decide if I want to paint the sides white or not.

So this will be my last purchase until I make some serious headway on this project--I am running out of room in the garage. This is the front of a '70 Beetle. I know it is the wrong year but it was cheaper than getting the year that I need and it was available. The differences in the years won't matter anyway since I will be heavily modifying the parts that make them different. The reason that I got this part is because the front quarterpanels on my bug look like crinkled aluminum foil and the bottom of the front apron has been hacked up pretty badly. I need a good front apron as a pattern for the grill that I am going to fabricate. I may also mock up the radiator mount on this front clip then graft it onto my bug.
This front clip also came with the fenders, lights partial wiring harness, spedo, dash, original Blaupunkt radio, wiper motor, etc... I don't know if any of it works. I don't need any of it for this project so I will probably sell it online for cheap.