The work begins- Rear Suspension & The Framehead

Starting with two Beetle chassis, one with a V5 but with a framehead and spine closing panel that were not in great condition, and another without V5 but with good panels, I decided to use one to repair the other (note this involved drilling out literally hundreds of original spot welds...not the most enjoyable job ever!).

First job though was to get the swing axle pan converted to independent rear suspension. For this I farmed the job out to Paul Venners to be absolutely sure everything was correctly aligned. He also tweeked the angle of the IRS brackets to allow for a raised transmission that I had planned.

Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of the removal and replacement of the framehead but I managed to do this without cuting the spine, as is the norm when using the repair panels that are available new. I'll post some pictures showing the end result a little later and when I go into repairing the Napolean's hat. Instead I removed the framehead closing panel and the cut away the factory welds so that the framehead slipped off the spine. Obviously this had to be done twice, once for the chassis I would be using and once for the repair clip, making sure I was left with a framehead that could be used and also making sure I had the necessary closing panels to zip everything back up. It wasn't an easy job but the result was worth the effort. Having bought a repro closing panel I took an early decision not to use it due to the quality of the pressing which was not remotely like the original. Instead I would rely on being left with enough original German metal to do the job.

Obviously once I'd got the old framehead off next job was to clean things up and slip the replacement on, making sure it was square to the spine. It was then welded in the same areas as the factory.