Finishing off the welding on the inner wheel arch repair

Here's a couple of snaps of the inner wheel arch repair being welded up. It was pretty straight forward in the end. There wasn't any warping in the panel or on the outer sill. Next job is to cut the inner sill. Then figure out how to weld in the outer long sill under the door....I'm not sure how to do it without cutting some access holes for the welding torch to get in at the inside seam.

Making progress

Keep on welding....


Tidied up the inside....

Welding in inner wheel arch

Here's a picture of the inner wheel arch which I have partly welded in this evening. It has been going in o.k. but the curved join is causing a bit of bother as the metal is a bit thin in parts. The repair panel is slightly thicker gauge than the old metal which means the old stuff tends to melt into thin air if ou don't get the right setting on the welder. I haven't cleaned any of the welds up yet but I it will come in quite nice once I have done so. I should finish the welding in tomorrow evening and then get the inner sill in place.


Schofield's dog leg which arrived before the hlidays. I spoke to a fellow VW nut who reckoned that getting these in and lined up takes about 150 hours of work... That's almost a week of working days...The spot welds need to be drilled out, the dog leg needs to be split in three places, offered up against the door bottom, wleded back together, the inner part welded back in and then dropped into the frame....sounds quick when you say it but I this one is likely to test my patience!

Inner wheel arch cut and offered up

Been working on the inner wheel arch repair. I've cut it to size and also added the top hat section behind it to make a new support for the floor. It has come in quite nice in the end. The top hat section is a bit wider than the one on the van at the moment but a bit of bending and shaping has done the trick. The section is coming together now after plenty of cutting out. I need to weld in the panel, weld up the cuts to get the rusty metal out and fabricate a 2 inch section of B post. That is going to be a bit tricky. The floor patch will be simple in comparison. Then it is a case of offering up the already preped outer sill. It might be out of shape now after all that cutting so to prevent having to have a third attempt at it I am going to offer it up when pulling the b post in towards the door. It feels like I am beginning to make a bit of progress now on this section after hours of cutting and shaping.