Front Wings & Bonnet installed

Last post was the painting of the front wings and bonnet.

After a week of drying out it was time to fit the front wings and bonnet.

Progress at last!

The wings were quick to fit. The headlights and indicator electrics were a pain to get wired in and removing all the dodgy crimping the previous owners has cut in.

The bonnet was hard to install single handed but if you rest the bonnet over your head you can just reach the bolts. Alignment was easy and everything went okay.

The new bonnet is not original stock and its not a bad reproduction but the trim and badge holes were not the same.

So took a cardboard template off the old bonnet for the badge position.

Drilled the 3 holes for the badge and an extra hole for the trim. So nice to see his crowning.

Bonnet is still quite textured orange peel on the paint. It still needs a flat sand and polishing compound with G3/6/10 and the buffer but will do the whole car when its ready.

So he is finally looking okay at the front. The front valance and bonnet seal area needs painting but will do that when I paint the front quarters.

What's next - Roof, doors or quarters....... Its been very windy so not much work done. Last week of lockdown holidays and bank holiday now gone. Back to weeknights and weekends....... More updates / progress to follow.

Front wings and Bonnet Progress

Progress on the beetle during Lock down.

Managed to turn the beetle around. Removed the Party tent as weather has been dry (for now)

This is the state of the front end:

Pretty bad.... Rust on the wings and headlights. Crackle glaze on the Bonnet

So jacked up the front end and removed the wings.

Wheel arches not so bad. Little surface rust

Quite like the roadster look.

The wings have been stripped. The bonnet stays on as I am replacing the whole thing.

Monet inspired rust art trees

Why does my coffee taste of rust?

The wings are not too ad. Lots of surface rust. Some areas are worse than I would like but if I can spend a few days protecting and rust converting them and they last 2 more years it is better than buying off the shelf new ones!

So Inner are having FE123 rust converter and 2 coats of Epoxy mastic. Outer is having a good sand down to remove as much surface rust and coating of FE123 and 2 coats of Epoxy Primer.

All the Epoxy mastic also on worse rust areas, high wear areas and inside the bowl area.

A few spots on the wings will require a little filler

Dog inspecting the work!

While that was all drying I moved onto the wheel arches.

Wheel arches came up nice and spare wheel well was surprisingly in good condition.

So I started the last paint day so to complete a High build primer and flat sand and top color coat could all be completed in one day to avoid moisture issues.

Painting went on really well. Managed to set the gun up to give nice even spray and plenty of coverage. A few runs.

Happy with the result. Needs a little flat sanding and polishing up.

New to refit the wings and bonnet and then thats the front end done!