Congrats on your test! and great work on van. I doubt I'll ever have the skillz to do something like that.

Have a try and see! I've never worked with metal before in my life, and prior to this the sum total of my engineering experience was changing the spark plug on a lawnmower engine!

The van's back up now, I haven't done anything whatsoever since the last update - sorry!

And somehow my summer seems to be filling up with ever more things to get done, but I'll be doing as much as I can! If possible, I want to try and get all the welding on the body shell done over the summer, get the whole thing grit blasted or something, and a few of coats of paint on before it gets too cold. Then put it back together over the winter, and have a van in time for next summer

(We can hope...)

Anyway, yes - pics and stuff as soon as I do anything interesting!



George

(Tony - your Kubelwagen is looking fantastic, can't wait to see it in the... metal. New neighbours moved in a few months ago, so I should be able to get a few hours of metal bashing in before they start complaining too )

A fantastic thread. Credit due to you for getting stuck in and sharing this.

Great work and look forward to more developments

Just a tiny bit, to get back into the swing of it







That'll do on the bulkhead for now, I'm going to fit it to the van now, and make any more holes / brackets as and when I need them - I'm just impatient, can't wait to see more shiny metal on the van!

It's not much fun trying to weld that stuff - I think I might actually take off the galv coating, and make sure everything fits perfectly next time...

Hi George,
good to see that you're back in action with the van.

Cannot remember if I've already mentioned that Zintec sheet is great for making replacement panels, as there's no need to remove the relatively thin electroplated zinc coating before welding.
It's still effective at preventing the sheets from rusting whilst in storage, also doesn't need treating with a mordant solution such as T-Wash before painting, unlike hot dipped galvanized sheet...

ken

Great job on that bulkhead-panel.
As on my van progress is slow, but eventually your van will be finished.

Ken, I think you did say somewhere about zintec, and I bought this sheet thinking it was zintec, but it looks like it is actually galvanised - the coating is much thicker, and goes all white and fluffy when welded, much nicer to weld after going over with a flap disc. Ho hum.

This thread is on both of the forums, I usually write something a bit different for each of them, but I've got to be off on babysitting duties soon (Make up slightly for my losses on this project!), so I'll just copy / paste...

Today I took off the left A panel, replaced the bottom of the door pillar, and fitted the bottom door hinge mounting bracket. It doesn't look like all that much, but getting it all lined up perfectly was a nightmare! I'm glad I did though, the door shuts perfectly now. It's the little things like that that count, instead of constantly wrestling with it, it just swings shut and closes with a satisfying 'whoomf'.
Although now the door's got to come off again when I fit a new A panel, I bet it'll never fit properly again!

Pictures at last!



Back in my open air workshop, really friendly of my neighbours to let me work on it there. The sun is shining, I get inquisitive chickens poking around seeing what I'm up to, and I even get free cake!



The A panel. Rotted away at the bottom, more than the repair section covers, and the bulkhead / toeboard edge was, for the most part, missing, or unusable. Dad needed some bits for his car, so I thought I'd just order a whole new one. Panel beating is fun, but I want to get this van finished!



A panel came out without a fuss - The first spot weld drill bit I had, had a sharp spring mounted point in the center, and was a nightmare to use. Always jumping out of holes, loosing teeth and so on. I've just picked up a new one, more like a conventional drill bit and it works wonders! I don't know how long it will stay sharp for, but it took me about a couple of minutes to drill all of those 12 holes.



The rotten section of A pillar - I don't know if you can see in the picture, but it had a bit of metal brazed over a rusty hole in it. But they hadn't fitted it flush, so then on went a load of filler, giving it a tapered appearance. I couldn't work out why one of my door pillars was tapered at the bottom, and the other one wasn't...



New section of door pillar fitted, and new mounting bracket fitted. All welded fully, just need to clean it up with a flap disc, and put a bit of paint on.

Hopefully my new panel will arrive soon, then I can fit that. Then to replace the bonnet hinge (Will be interesting! ). Then to fit the bulkhead, and that will about do it for the front end!

Good times!

George

Quick question, which order do the door pillars, A panel and gutter section go on in?

I know it sounds stupid, but the N/S and O/S of my van were in different orders, I'm not sure which is correct.

I'm rather leaning towards door pillar, followed by gutter section, followed by A panel after inspection of dad's Celeste, but hard to tell under the sealer / filler etc. so could someone confirm please?

My gutter section fell off - so I'm guessing that went on last...?

Thanks Sam, it would seem logical to have it in that order. In the end I went for the other way round, to match the other side, and it seems to work. Still not sure if that's right or not, but hopefully it won't make too much difference!

Yesterday was work on the A panels, which went reasonably well. The hole for the sill bolt makes aligning it up very easy, and unlike a few repair panels I've used, this one fitted really well. For connecting it to the gutter section and door pillar, I drilled a load of holes through both the gutter and A panel, and plug welded it with my mig. I try and use the original methods of attachment, but originally this was spot welded, and I only have a mig, so I think plug welds are close enough. Although for my next 2cv I think a spot welder would be really useful, I might see if I can get a second hand one cheaply. That and a workshop would do me fine









It was actually quite awkward bending that edge around the toeboard, a friend of mine gave me a hand and held a lump of wood against the panel so as I had something to bash against, but it was still quite hard going around the corners! That too, was spot welded along that join I believe, I think I will plug weld it again, but it's a bit difficult with such a small overlap...




Anyway, spent the morning having braces fitted (Ow, dey hurbt!) but got an afternoon free to play again, so that was spent tackling the bonnet hinge area. Firstly I cut a small hole in the middle to see what was what.



It doesn't look to bad, the section behind the repair panel is more or less fine, except where it meets with the top of the bulkhead / bonnet hinge panel. Thankfully, everything upwards of the vent flap is in perfect condition, barely any work needed at all!

I cut off all the rusty beyond use bits, then made up a small 'Z' shaped section from a strip of metal and welded that onto the end of it. It wasn't much fun to weld, rusty 0.6mm to 0.8mm, but I managed without too many mig 'hedgehogs' . Whatever car I work on next is going to be heaven after welding this!











That seemed to go all right, now for the big scary bit!

It hasn't actually been too bad fitting it, just very time consuming, as if I do mess anything up it looks like a lot of work to fix again. It's a rather awkward shape to clamp accurately, and in any case I only have a pair of G clamps and a molegrip! So yes, 'measure twice cut once' definitely applies here. On joints where the two sheets overlap it isn't so critical to get a straight edge, but this has to be a butt weld, and if there is any gap between the parts it makes it very difficult not to blow through when welding - it's hard enough as it is! Also, I've got a new angle grinder after our ancient black and decker packed up, which feels much nicer. It's a Makita, just the cheapest, smallest 115mm grinder I could quickly lay my hands on, but is a vast improvement on the last one.

Anyway, I managed a relatively straight line eventually;



Then just tidied it up a bit, and tacked the new panel in place! It's a bit difficult lining it up at first, but once a couple of tacks are done you can just work your way along it, pushing / pulling it into alignment for each tack (Making sure it still fits at the other end!)



I've also started slowly welding it in place, but I'm doing it in 5cm or so bits at a time to prevent any distortion, and it's really quite hard with the lowest setting on my welder not working at the moment!

Still, the 0.6mm wire I picked up helps a lot



That's all for now, and I'm running away to France next Wednesday for a week, to help with a school cycle trip. With a bit of luck I'll get the bonnet hinge fully welded, and the bulkhead panel in before then, but if not I should have a good chunk of August to spend on it.

Thanks!