Deck Lid update and new direction

After chatting on a auto body repair forum, I asked a question about slip rolling of sheet metal to get the desired bends in my flat replacement panel that I ordered.  One of the users asked me a simple question.  "If you already remove the original skin, why not repair it since you already did the hard part?"  This way, I don't have to worry about the wrong bends created by slip roller and I would not have to cut out and weld in the license plate galley, which is too complicated for me to try to make myself. 

He was 100% correct.  So I removed the stupid stud welds that I originally put on the lid and I started hammering out the dents from the rear side.  Talk about easy work. It is pretty easy when you have full access to both sides of a damaged piece of metal. 

Here you can see the results of my great hammering work. So far, so good.  I'm not worried about all the orange peel hammer marks, as I will follow up with a metal shrinker to push and pull them smoothly.  As you can see in the top left-hand side, the hinge hole will need to be fabricated for this, as the other part is still stuck on the lid frame.  The gauge of the frame metal is only 22 gauge.  It is very delicate, so I'll need to spend some time removing that for the new replacement (See my previous post). 

The rest are simply additional photos of the hammering and dolly/anvil work that I did thus far.  The basic shape is there.  I will need to hammer focus around the lower center area, near the church key hole and in slightly minor areas all around.

View from the most damaged side with extra lighting.  I am keeping track of my hours, as one person told me to throw the lid away and buy a better used on for ~$500 or so.  I disagreed because the condition of the replacement could be the same or worst underneath paint or primer as mine was.

To be continued...

Deck Lid Skin removal

I needed to remove the skin from the engine deck lid frame, so that I can add new sheet metal to replace all of the damage that was caused by a previous impact. If you are not familiar with the damage of the deck lid, please look further down or review my previous post. There are inner spot welds that holds the frame to the outer sheet metal.

After all the stud welds are remove from around the inside lip, I started to bend back the metal folds that secures the skin around the outer side of the lid. The fold is not welded, simply folder over. This

was a quick process, as I only wanted save the license plate section of the lid to weld it into new metal purchased precut.  I wish I had skills to press in or hammer in this second from new sheet metal, but I do not.

Here is a closer look at the lip that I unwrapped from the edges.  It took about 5 minutes per side to remove.

The skin was removed completely from the frame.  Because the deck lid had been impacted, I'll have to take a hammer to the frame to straighten it back to look clean for painted. The details are very important.  I'll first remove all the rust to get a clear view of the frame.  I had to cut around one of hinged slots, because I believe it was welded to try to fix the original damage (poorly). The metal on the frame is very thin and I didn't want to pull off the thin metal that makes up the inner support.  The frame seem like it was made from 22 gauge sheet metal, which is very thin.  I will have to be very gentle to finish the removal of that small piece.

Here is a closer view of the frame metal and how thin the hinge lip really is. This was the side that wasn't welded, but you can see in the picture above, that part of the skin was cut off and still attached to the frame. I'll deal with more delicately now that it is much lighter and is going to be easier to deal with.

Re-skin the Engine Lid of a VW Bus

Here is the damage that sparked my deck lid repair project. After attempting to remove all the paint off the metal (one of the last pieces), the engine lid surprised me. It has about 1/3 think of Bondo covering it.  This was pretty messy sanding work.

I purchased 20 gauge sheet metal to replace the metal on my engine lid. I sent in the measurements so that it is perfectly square upon arrival.

Specs:  17 1/2 x 37 7/8 - 20 GA (0.36) Coled Rolled Steel

 These measurements are not set in stone until I've had time to wrap it around the lid frame.  I will update after this process is done.

This is to show the fit of the sheet metal from the bottom view.  I am going to remove the tack welds and separate the frame of the lid from the top so that I can cut out the license plate area.







This is the condition of the engine lid.  I was trying to pull the metal along the sides with a stud-puller. Originally, I thought the metal was two-ply, but it was not.  So, I decided to go the route above, creating a new skin.