Hmmm...doesn't look like much eh? But the seven hours to get here were pretty crazy. I've never done a heater channel before, and it's a significantly challenging piece, so I called up a friend to give me a hand. I've had a driver's side heater channel kicking around the garage for eons, so I didn't even think about checking it before he arrived...just confirmed it was still in the corner. Well, who would have thought that that a Super Beetle channel is different from a standard Beetle? Oops! Thankfully Geoff is a master when it comes to sheet metal work, and we both agreed modifying the channel I had was better then the four hour round trip to go and get the proper one.
Geoff also had the fun task of sorting out the sheet metal above the Napoleon hat. Once you start cutting out the rust on old cars, you just have to keep going until you hit good metal...or the car is gone. Thankfully he didn't have to dig too far.
With the heater channel repaired I managed to squeeze out a few hours this weekend to continue attacking the rest of the jobs on the car. I was never really happy with my engine bay access panels, but unsure what to do about it, until Geoff suggested I make some frames for them. I've welded the frames in on both sides, and dressed the welds after the photo. Now I've got good looking holes, and they strengthened up the rear end quite a bit. Now I just have to drill some holes and weld in some nuts for mounting the removable aluminum panels.
From there I decided to stitch-weld in the rear body mount, and also the rear bumper mount. It takes very little time to do, and should increase the overall strength by a good margin. Tonight I will start attacking the front end, then its time to put the car back on the pan so I can finish cleaning up the rear apron area.
-Dave