Body pp. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

 

Baja Bug: Body

The front piece has been modified as seen here, with the original grill cut and riveted to the fiberglass. All this will be fixed up better. As you can see, the "fit" is terrible. Fiberglass to the rescue!

 

 

 

• Custom front

• Working with fiberglass comes in two flavors: Professional, and then the rest of us. Ha ha. You can get fiberglass kits at an auto store, and they come with fiberglass cloth, resin and hardener. It's not hard, just make sure you are wearing a good face mask to protect from the resin fumes, and chemical gloves because it's a messy business.
  

 

At top right the piece shows that a smidge too much metal was cut. How did that happen? Well it's not a problem, since I want to line up the piece flush to the body anyway.

Here is the initial fiberglass work to fill in the gaps, and strengthen the connection.

Now these gaps at the front couldn't be helped. That front lip was cut right to the end and still came up short.

Not a big deal: Just wet some fiberglass cloth, lay it down, and after dry, sand. That flesh-colored stuff is gunk from the original used to seal up the VW front. Not sure what I'm going to do about it, but it's inside the trunk, so pretty low priority. Shown also is the rubber lip to keep the hood sealed. That area still needs some work as the fiberglass kit is NOT a perfect fit. But for now, it's fine.

 

 

Next page = Body 8