First let me say sorry to taking so long for another update, and I also forget to take some pictures along the way. I haven't had a whole lot of time to work on the beetle lately, and when I did I didn't always remember to grab the camera.
Since the last update I got the two halves of the drives side door welded back together, got it stripped, epoxy primed, and installed some new stainless hinges, etc....
You can also see the update on my website at: http://www.v8beetleresource.com/vwbodywork8.html There are a few more pictures there, plus the rest of the project at: v8beetleresource.com
I started welding the door back together with just a few spot welds here and there to make sure it looked good, so far so good.
As you can see after getting a few welds on there I put them back on the car to make sure the profile of the door still matched the body.
I think it looks pretty darn good considering I cut two doors in half to make one. Now I just need to slowing start adding more small welds spread evenly across the door to try to keep warping to a minimum, this is where I forgot to take some pictures.....
Here is the inside after a little grinding, after grinding the welds I took the door down to bare metal to get a good surface for the epoxy primer.
Here is the inside of the door after I primed it with SPI Epoxy Primer. I have herd nothing but good things about SPI's Epoxy Primer and clear coat.......... I'm sold now, the primer sprayed great!
The ouside of the door turned out pretty good too, I just put a little bit of filler across the weld area because welding it cause a bit of a flat spot in the door. There is also a small low spot in the door handle area, but it won't take much filler to blend take care of that. While I was welding I also welded up the trim holes.
You may have also noticed that the hinges are no longer on the doors. They were rusty and sloppy so I decided to replace them with something else.
I decided to get a couple sets of Speedway's Stainless Budget Hinges, they are skinnier than the VW hinges so I also welded a little more sheet metal in to make the hinge holes in the door smaller and I welded up the extra hinge bolt holes too.
one leg on it is 1/4" think and the other is 3/16" think, I think these will work great for replacement VW hinges. The hinge slot in the door is about 3/16" wide, so that leg will be the one that gets mounted to the doors, It looks like this makes the hinges go on upside down compaired to what they were ment to be, so I will just put the hinge pins in the opposite way. It looks like they'll work great this way.
I used my dewalt 4.5" angle grinder with a cut off wheel to trim the hinge.
Now I just need to mark the holes to drill and tap, They'll look a lot nicer than the old rusty vw hinges.
After doing the top hinge I did pretty much the same thing to the bottom hinge, but again forgot to take pictures.....
The old hinges had counter sunk rivits holding them on, instead I'll be using high strength serated head Stainless bolts, and to strengthen the door where the hinges will bolt on I cut some 2" wide x 1/8" thick stainless backing strips.
And here are the Speedway Motors stainless steel budget hinges assembled on the door.
I think the stainless hinges really turned out nice..... Now I just have to do this process all over again with the other door, but atleast now I know what I'm doing...... LOL
Since the last update I got the two halves of the drives side door welded back together, got it stripped, epoxy primed, and installed some new stainless hinges, etc....
You can also see the update on my website at: http://www.v8beetleresource.com/vwbodywork8.html There are a few more pictures there, plus the rest of the project at: v8beetleresource.com
I started welding the door back together with just a few spot welds here and there to make sure it looked good, so far so good.
As you can see after getting a few welds on there I put them back on the car to make sure the profile of the door still matched the body.
I think it looks pretty darn good considering I cut two doors in half to make one. Now I just need to slowing start adding more small welds spread evenly across the door to try to keep warping to a minimum, this is where I forgot to take some pictures.....
Here is the inside after a little grinding, after grinding the welds I took the door down to bare metal to get a good surface for the epoxy primer.
Here is the inside of the door after I primed it with SPI Epoxy Primer. I have herd nothing but good things about SPI's Epoxy Primer and clear coat.......... I'm sold now, the primer sprayed great!
The ouside of the door turned out pretty good too, I just put a little bit of filler across the weld area because welding it cause a bit of a flat spot in the door. There is also a small low spot in the door handle area, but it won't take much filler to blend take care of that. While I was welding I also welded up the trim holes.
You may have also noticed that the hinges are no longer on the doors. They were rusty and sloppy so I decided to replace them with something else.
I decided to get a couple sets of Speedway's Stainless Budget Hinges, they are skinnier than the VW hinges so I also welded a little more sheet metal in to make the hinge holes in the door smaller and I welded up the extra hinge bolt holes too.
one leg on it is 1/4" think and the other is 3/16" think, I think these will work great for replacement VW hinges. The hinge slot in the door is about 3/16" wide, so that leg will be the one that gets mounted to the doors, It looks like this makes the hinges go on upside down compaired to what they were ment to be, so I will just put the hinge pins in the opposite way. It looks like they'll work great this way.
I used my dewalt 4.5" angle grinder with a cut off wheel to trim the hinge.
Now I just need to mark the holes to drill and tap, They'll look a lot nicer than the old rusty vw hinges.
After doing the top hinge I did pretty much the same thing to the bottom hinge, but again forgot to take pictures.....
The old hinges had counter sunk rivits holding them on, instead I'll be using high strength serated head Stainless bolts, and to strengthen the door where the hinges will bolt on I cut some 2" wide x 1/8" thick stainless backing strips.
And here are the Speedway Motors stainless steel budget hinges assembled on the door.
I think the stainless hinges really turned out nice..... Now I just have to do this process all over again with the other door, but atleast now I know what I'm doing...... LOL