Vanagon wheel arch damage

[ktai]

Hello all:

I have a bit of t-bone damage to my 1986 vanagon and I'm in the process of fixing it up at the moment. The frame of my van took a bit of a crunch that I'm getting pulled straight by a collision repair center. I'm doing the rest of the work of removing the old panels and welding in the new ones myself.

The affected body panels include the main panel in the left passenger area (I believe this would be between the B & C pillars) and some less severe damage to the wheel arch.

The main body panel is relatively straighforward to fix. I don't have any questions there. I've drilled out the damaged panel and I'm ready to weld in the new one.

I am a bit uncertain about how to approach the wheel arch, however. As a matter of drilling out the spot welds on the old arch and removing the panel, I don't see how I would have access to the area around the arch to carry this out. In the absence of drilling out the factory spot welds that hold the old panel in, would you simply cut out the damaged area and weld the new panel in along the cutout seams? This would be easy to do, but if anyone has any suggestions on a better approach I'd certainly be interested in learning about it.

If anyone has any experience with this, I'd love to hear how you went about it. Thank you very much!

[coclimber]

You are brave. Thanks for doing this to keep the old westy on the road!

Sorry, I'm doing a paint job on my '86, but nothing anywhere near that structural. So, you got my moral support, but that's about it.
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'83.5 Westfalia Camper - SOLD
'86 Westfalia Weekender
2001 Subaru Legacy 2.5L donor
Rocky Mountain Westy kit

[edgood1]

I would cut out the arch section on the top and butt weld the cut seam. You might be able to get away with spot welding the bottom seam like the factory did.


Make sure you check out the underlying panel for damage while you have it out.
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1987 Syncro Westfalia powered by Subaru
1963 Panel to Deluxe Bus project :::: (photo album)
'65 Westfalia

[theKbStockpiler]

I would hammer and dolly that damage out the best I could because in the process of doing that ,the panel that the wheel arc is attached to will get straightened out. That or put a cut in one panel so you can hammer out one panel (sort of) separately from another.

If the wheel arc was put on under another panel you will have to commit to removing the panel put on after it, or making a compromise.


From the images posted , the problem I see is repairing the rocker panel if it is there to aide to the strength of the van and NOT just to attach other panels to.
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My beetle is not competing with your beetle. I have the yellow beetle in my town. There is a red one, a green one ......
Use all safety devices including a mask.