Grrr! Photos would have been AWESOME!
Did another parts run yesterday, so today was a productive garage session. Started off with a relatively easy job, and popped the headlights into the car. I'm using an original Hella bucket on the one side, and mounting it took less then two minutes including polishing the headlight ring. On the other side, however, the original unit was far too rusty. I gather only the Taiwanese versions are available on their own. Now, in fairness I wanted to order something without lens/reflector/bulb since I already have H4 Eurolights...but had I ordered with these parts I could have got an original Hella part. But I went cheap...and wow is it cheap! The headlight is in, true, but if I need to change the bulb you have to pull the WHOLE bucket, not just the reflector/lens.
With the fan shroud in primer, the flaws become a lot clearer. Left side has a bunch of issues which are 300% better then they were..but still terrible. The right side, though, is where I created the disasters in metal (big holes). Thankfully its looking not too bad!
And a splash of red...
Of course, I got all the way to this point before I realized just how painfully obvious the left side weld is. Um, was I grinding with a concussion...how do you miss that!?! Sigh. I had a good idea for hiding/covering some of front issues...but that won't help here.
With the fan shroud drying, it was on to a more interesting custom project. A few weeks back a friend had mentioned that VW had a little-known accessory for protecting the inside of the rear fenders from gravel. Turns out one of the local Vancouver Guys, Bruce, owns a set and after a few emails back and forth they're now mine. The fender liners snap into the rear fenders, and are a little challenging to remove. This particular set is for an early car with the towel bumpers. The dark strips on both are from the tire spray, and the black marker marks are from where Bruce was going to need to cut them to fit a 73+ rear fender set. At first I was going to just going to snap them into my car, but I think the real value in these is the ability to use them as a pattern and not to destroy them with just one car. I also wanted to make a few changes to them, which would permanently wreck them...and, well, they're green. ;-)
So, I started to get my arts and crafts on with bristol board and some 1/8" LDHP plastic. I had the sheet left over from my last rally car project, so it was rather convenient!
After a bit I had test pattern number one. The slot was my plan for installing it with the taillight wires already installed...but later decided it was just easier/cleaner to remove the wires and pop them back in.
Pattern one test fit, you can see it's not pressed up tight against the fender at the top, which means it will be sucking in a lot of sand/gravel and road crap:
So made a few changes to make it sit tighter, added a couple of features, and the final piece is right here:
Inside the three holes I installed some bolts so that the ends are facing out towards the inside of the fender. I'm going to use these bolts to install short urethane mudflaps so that they hang down below the lip of the fender. That should protect the fender from the usual sandblasting that destroys the bottom lip. The final one I made here is
tight...so tight it took me probably 10 minutes to wrestle it into the fender. I'm not sure I could get it out of the fender, but since it's finished I guess it doesn't matter...until I need to clean the crap out from behind it! Whoops!
The driver's side has been made, I just have to pick up the hardware and pop it into the fender tomorrow. On Monday I'll pass by the rally shop and see if they have any sheet urethane
-Dave