I'm about to make the big leap of taking the body off the pan as I prepare to start serious work on my 66 bug project. On my car the rust is so bad in the area at the front bottom corner of the driver side door that the pan is actually separated and sagging down more than half an inch or so. (see photo)
On virtually all of the body-off projects I've checked out online, people have welded braces in to keep everything in alignment before the body is removed. In those cases, I assume that everything was properly aligned before the braces were welded in. I saw one body-off job where they left the doors on and did not weld in braces.
I'm concerned about both vertical and horizontal alignment: I could jack up the driver-side door area to align that area, but there is also horizontal movement, so not sure what the correct measurement should be from, say, the driver-side door hinge post to the passenger-side door hinge post, etc. etc.
Anyone else struggled with this problem and come up with a workable solution? Unfortunately, I don't have access to another beetle to take accurate measurements.
Best way to approach body-off restoration?
Best way to approach body-off restoration?
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- Badly rusted front quarter panel area
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hercdriver
- Senior Member
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- Location: Beaver, PA
Re: Best way to approach body-off restoration?
I haven't done the job myself, so take this advice with a grain of salt. I think your heading down the right path. I would jack up the body until the doors aligned properly. Then tack weld cross bars to hold it in place until the metal is replaced.Digger89L wrote: I could jack up the driver-side door area to align that area, but there is also horizontal movement,
If you haven't seen these before, they maybe helpful.
http://www.bugmevideo.com/volume6.html
http://www.bugmevideo.com/volume7.html
Yes...that much makes sense. However, as you can see from the photo, I'm going to be replacing the floor pan and heater channel: if I get those positioned properly, will everything "approximately" fall into place when I put the body on back on the pan ...or should I be really concerned about keeping the horizontal alignment (ie: distance between left and right door posts) near perfect as well??
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Blue Baron
- Senior Member
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- Joined: Sun Jan 18, 2009 8:34 pm
- Location: Tampa, Florida
The answer is there's no exact science to this. People can take precise measurements and still have the doors fall out of alignment, and others can do little prep work and everything fits perfect when finished.
In general, I've seen people run into more difficulties on a car that has had accident damage in the past vs. one that's simply rusted, the reason being when you cut the structure, it can cause compressed accident damage to expand.
If the doors are not drooping when you open them then the structure is still pretty sound. You should weld some braces across the door openings and that's probably all it will need.
In general, I've seen people run into more difficulties on a car that has had accident damage in the past vs. one that's simply rusted, the reason being when you cut the structure, it can cause compressed accident damage to expand.
If the doors are not drooping when you open them then the structure is still pretty sound. You should weld some braces across the door openings and that's probably all it will need.
Driver side door is a "drooper" ...but some of the droop is caused by a worn bottom hinge pin. Due to rust, the driver side, hinge-side door post is actually separated from the heater channel area ...so I'm a bit concerned about alignment there. As for horizontal movement ...there's about an eighth of an inch. As far as I can determine, there is no previous accident damage on the vehicle ...so that's a blessing.
I would think in your case, the drivers door should be closed before attempting to doing anything. You should be doing any welding of braces without first removing the interior along with all Upholstery or anything else that is flammable. With a few measurements I would think the next step would be to tack weld a few braces.
As you can see in this Chris Vallone video, the braces were added before the body was separated from the pan. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gmzt9gtBQo
As you can see in this Chris Vallone video, the braces were added before the body was separated from the pan. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gmzt9gtBQo