Finishing the first cover and starting the second

Not a massive amount done this time as I have a business trip to Spain that cuts short my weekend!

Final welding of the first cover. This was then primed as with other parts to keep the surface rust at bay. I also have to sort how to fix the cover in place yet but that will wait until I've completed the second cover.

Speaking of which, here you can see the second chassis spine opening I need to cover, and the section of donor panel I will be using. Same process applies as before starting with marking the panel roughly to size and then gutting to approximate length.

Whilst the repair panel is in better condition than the original you can see it will still need some work to remove various dents.

...and more

Continuing with the cover, the ribbing on the original panel was marked onto the new sheet metal.

Cutting out the excess sheet metal and making sure at each step that I'd got the marking out right!

Here the sheet meat is fully cut out.

And clamped in place ready for welding.

Tack welded into place.

Continuing with the Cover...

The idea is that I will make a cover where the original panel sits into and flush with the chassis spine. Then a raised lip around the edge will prevent it falling in and allow some form of sealing (probably a thin foam strip). First thing was to cut some sheet steel to size.

I left the ends a bit long so I could play around with exact length afterwards. Edges of this panel were joggled to give me the raised sealing lip.

The panel was then formed to give the same curvature as the original panel.

Next the original panel was aligned, ready to be trimmed so that it fits flush with the chassis spine.

The trimming took some time as I didn't want to remove too much material. You can see the corners were radiused to try and  prevent cracking due to chassis flex.

Week off!

Sorry, no update this week as I've been working on other people's cars so no progress.

Hope to be back on the Beetle next week.