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Sat Apr 01, 2006 1:18 pm

I know this has been covered in the past. I hit a deer a while back and I just finished replacing the nose skin on my 67 camper. I got most of the info here on the samba and further advice from some members. So I thought I would share my experiences for future generations of V-dubists.

I don't claim to be an expert and this is the way I did my nose job. It dosn't mean that its the only way, just what I found to be easiest. Take my experiences for what its worth.

So here we go!

REMOVING THE DONOR

So you just need the skin. Simple, just remove everthing around it off. I started on the windshield frame. Cut it along the back inside edge of the window sill.

After you cut, get out your favorite pair of pliers and peel off the remaining window sill "can opener" style, popping off the spot welds. If you have some stubborn spot welds, grind some of it off and peel away. Don't get too tough with the peeling so you don't bend up your donor section and be carful not to pop the spot weld off the donor section.
Next work on the sides. Start by prying the side lip open to expose the spot welds. Others in the past have drilled out these spot welds, but I peeled it off just like the top. On your donor, cut away the side door sill and then the inside support. Cut it as close as you can being carful not to cut into the donor skin.

You kind of have to work around the hinge area but after you've cut both the outer and inner door sill, you'll have two trips to "peel" off. This is where I should have spent more time grinding down the spot welds because I ended up pulling out some of the welds through the outside of the donor skin.

Now work on the bottom edge. Pry the bottom lip open and cut close to the usable donor. Now you'll have to peel off the remaining strip. Thats it for the donor skin. Grind down the spot welds, clean it up and if you have any dents to pull out, nows the time while it is acessable.

REMOVE THE NOSE OFF YOUR BUS

Now here comes the scarry part. Getting your balls big enough to cut the nose off your bus. Once you've mustarded up enough courage to cut, start with the top just under the window sill. Here I have my suppervisor watching over my cuts.

Work your way around to the sides. Here just cut on the inside of the lip being carful not to go too far as to cut the inside support. The same for the bottom. There's no turning back. Now you have full frontal ventalation.

Now you need to remove the remaining strips along the sides, bottom and on the inside of the windshild frame. For the sides, carefully pry the side lip to expose the spot welds. (just like you did with the donor) Get your pliers and peel away.

The bottom is similar to the sides except you need to be careful when prying the lip open. Use your prybar in a sideways action so that you don't dent up the lower skin behind the bumper.

Now you need to take a deep breath,clear your head, get some fresh air, have a smoke, a doughnut break, whatever. Now comes the tricky part, peeling off the back side of the windshield sill. Find the spot welds along the outer lip of the window sill and mark them on the outside. There are also a few on the top edge of the window. You'll see what I'm talking about. If you can stick your head inside to see the spot welds great. I have a fat head, so I used a mirror.

You CAN NOT peel this strip off without grinding down the spot welds. You will end up bending the crap out of your window sill. Use whatever you like to grind, but I ended up using a die grinder with a rounded grinding tip.

After you've ground down all the welds, GENTLY peel the inside strip off. If you can't peel it off gently, find where its attached and grind a little more. "How far do you grind", you say. I ground until I started seeing the paint on the outside of the window sill starting to bubble and If I needed to go more I'd do so later. You'll also have a difficult time where it tucks under the side window sill. Its only tucked under there a bit but it is welded in there so I pryed it open a bit and got my thin grinding wheel in there to loosen the spot weld. Be careful not to get too close to the sill and watch the outside lip. No problems, right. Now that you've removed the acess metal, clean up the spot weld. The better you grind down the welds, the better the fit wil be.

Good Job. If you have a spot welder, great, then you won't have to drill any holes to plug weld. All I have is a mig welder, so I drilled some holes on the side lips of the bus and where you marked the spot welds along the window sill. These holes are where you will plug weld the new skin on. For the bottom, I drilled a few holes on the top of the lip on the donor skin and welded from the top. Now that everything is "cleaned up" and in the open, take care of some of the surface rust you exposed. I also lubed up the wiper asembly.

ATTACH DONOR

As I said earlier. Make sure all your spot welds are ground down and flush. This will make a better fit. With the side and lower lips of you donor opened up set the new nose in place. It should fit nice. I started on the sides first and I clamped down a in a few places on the side where I wanted to weld and tacked in a few holes. Make sure you have a tight fit where you want to weld. If you don't, your weld will not hold.

Weld a few spots on each side while checking your fit during the whole process. Do the same for the bottom. Getting a tight fit on the windshield sill can be tricky. Another member suggested to push the inside lip with a 2x4 or something to get a tight fit. This sounds like a good idea, but my donor fit real tight in this area and all I had to do was hold down the sill a bit where I wanted to weld. Once you've tacked all around, work your way around and fill all your holes, again making sure you have a tight fit so your welds will hold.

Grind down all your welds and use a hammer and dolly to fold the side and lower lips over your welds.

Do your body work, primer and paint.

BE CAREFUL. Wear proper safety gear. Eye protecton, ear protection and proper welding protection. And remember that welding causes sparks. Have a hose or extinguiser handy. I'm glad I did. You notice a blanket on the front seats in the begining of the pics but not on the later ones. Thats because it caught on fire when I was welding.

I'm not an expert body man and I've only replaced a few body panels in the past. So with that said, I feel that with the right tools, time and patience, anyone one with a basic knowledge of VW's and decent welding skills can do this job. I'm sure I skipped somethings, so feel free to ad your input, comments and criticism. Also feel free to PM me if you have any other questions. Todd

BEFORE AND AFTER

Sat Apr 01, 2006 1:53 pm

Nice job! I've seen some hacked-on nose clips before, it's nice to see one done right.

Sat Apr 01, 2006 2:34 pm

Lookin Good!!! Looks like you will be back campin' in style very soon.

How many hours would you say that you have in it from when you started removal of the bent skin to the point that it is in primer??
Way to go as it looks really well done.

Sat Apr 01, 2006 3:33 pm

camperfan wrote: How many hours would you say that you have in it from when you started removal of the bent skin to the point that it is in primer??
Way to go as it looks really well done.

It took a good solid week. Worked on it all through the weekend and after work on the weekdays. I also did some rust repair in a couple of doors. So probably 30-40 hours. I had the nose off and back on during a long weekend. The time consuming part was the rust repair, body work and prep work. And I still have a lot of work ahead. It's worth it though.

Sat Apr 01, 2006 10:17 pm

=D>

Very nice work! I like your detail approach to the work. The only "scary" thing to me was the lack of metal that front end had on it after you removed the clip. :shock:

A recent topic in the bug section was a clip of a beetle hitting a wall off center at i believe 45 miles an hour. It was not very reassuring. :(

Again, good job to you sir!

Sun Apr 02, 2006 1:38 pm

G-wood--
That's a nice post.
I don't know if you read the thread, this year, I did on replacing the nose panel on my 1958 bus, some five years ago. I bent back the crimps with a super wide chisel type tool, put the chisel between the edge of the panel and the pillar, and banged on it lightly to separate the metal, a little, put the thinnest disc in my disc cutter and carefully cut the spot welds from the side. It turned out good.
I don't like plug welds and I lucked out and got an old time spot welding gun with a transformer (or whatever you call it), which doesn't use tongs, and reconditioned it. I used my mig welder when I installed the cargo floor halves but for the nose panel I wanted to get the factory "look." The new spot welders with tongs, obvisiouly, wouldn't work when doing the top of the nose panel. I was never able to find a new spot welding gun so I guess that nobody makes them.
Did you spray weldable primer on the inside of the sheet metal where you were going to weld?

Sun Apr 02, 2006 9:39 pm

Wow, glad to see you and the bus survived the accident; and that is some nice body work BTW.

But I have to say, that must have been pretty wild being that close to the deer when it hit. What was that like?

Mon Apr 03, 2006 3:49 pm

Campy wrote: Did you spray weldable primer on the inside of the sheet metal where you were going to weld? Yes I did use a weldable primer.

Mon Apr 03, 2006 4:08 pm

Dock Bus wrote: But I have to say, that must have been pretty wild being that close to the deer when it hit. What was that like? Yeah it was pretty crazy. I was cruzing about 60 and two deer popped out of nowhere. I turned a little to miss the deer in the middle of the road and as I did, it ran out in front again. Before I could finish saying "f**k", a loud bang. Everything in the dash tray went flying. The deer kind of bounced off and ran away. For the most part it happened so fast that I didn't have time to freak. My dog was laying in the front seat and after i hit the deer, she sprung up and jumped into the back seat. It punched in the nose so far, that I couldn't release the e brake all the way. I was lucky that no one was hurt. I was lucky that I hit a deer and not an elk and I guess lucky that I hit it pretty much center of the nose. The only thing damaged was the nose skin itself. Didn't tweak the outer door sills or even touch the bumper. And it gave me an excuse to learn about body replacement.

Mon Apr 03, 2006 5:35 pm

It's incredible that the deer ran off.
When I was cruising in Jacksonhole, Wy., in my 1957 bus back in the late 1970s, I stopped to look at a fat chick at the edge of the road that had its frontend totally destroyed. The bus and a moose had played a game of chicken and they both lost. :(

Mon Apr 03, 2006 10:00 pm

Great post! :P You did a fantastic job. :!: Thanks for sharing. 8)

Very timely for me, I lucked into a front clip and just pulled the skin off this weekend, much like you did. I was going to cut and weld the skin at the top roll of the panel, but after you made it look easy, I'll tuck mine under the window frames too. :idea:

Thanks again,

Thu Oct 11, 2007 8:21 pm

Your explanation was really good. I would like to clear up a few things.
1. On your donor you cut everything around it off and then grinded with a smal ltip the spot welds from the back?

2. How did you get the old skin off your bus, i was going to drill but the cutting with a thin wheel sounds good what do you suggest? Did you use the small grinder as well from the front?

3. How important is tucking under i was going to overlap on the front window seal , what do you suggest?

Thu Oct 11, 2007 9:52 pm

Nice job on that front clip.

Fri Oct 12, 2007 1:07 pm

sidatwestern wrote: Your explanation was really good. I would like to clear up a few things.
1. On your donor you cut everything around it off and then grinded with a smal ltip the spot welds from the back?

2. How did you get the old skin off your bus, i was going to drill but the cutting with a thin wheel sounds good what do you suggest? Did you use the small grinder as well from the front?

3. How important is tucking under i was going to overlap on the front window seal , what do you suggest?

Its been a while since I did my nose job so I'll try to remember and explain the best I can.

1. Yes, on the donor I cut all the extra metal off leaving a small strip that was still attached to the donor with the factory spot welds. (check out the 3rd pic)I removed this strip with a pair of plyers peeling it off "can opener style". If some of the spot welds were stubborn, I would grind down the welds a bit.

2. I removed the dammaged nose by cutting, with a cutting wheel, as close to the welds as much as possible again leaving a small trip where the spot welds are. After this was cut, Again I used a pair of plyers to remove it can opener style. Any welds left over, I ground down from the front.

3. I would recommend tucking the nose under the windshild frame.

If you have any other questions, please feel free to PM me. Good luck. Todd

Thu Jan 14, 2010 7:51 pm

I'm following this thread now and going to try and get my donor on by the end of the weekend. Wish me luck!

Thu Jan 14, 2010 10:19 pm

Good luck der.

What is the story with all that nastiness on the driver's side headlight bucket area?

Fri Jan 15, 2010 3:51 am

Leaky windscreen washer bottle?

Fri Jan 15, 2010 10:50 pm

I was driving home one night from El Dorado Hills, Ca. about sun down in mid 2009 and the same thing happened to me, except I did not see the dear until 1/2 sec before impact. Just caught a glimpse of brown out of passenger front window and wack. I know what you were saying about the package tray exploding and everything flying to the back window. I was lucky enough not to have a passenger that day or they would have sustained injury.
I got help from Randy and we were able to push out the damage the next day until I could afford to get it replaced. Someday.

Fri Jan 15, 2010 11:57 pm

buggdude67 wrote: I did not see the DEAR until 1/2 sec before impact. Just caught a glimpse out of passenger front window and wack. to avoid future damage to your beloved bus just file for a divorce...

Sat Jan 16, 2010 1:25 pm

mtb7001 wrote: buggdude67 wrote: I did not see the DEAR until 1/2 sec before impact. Just caught a glimpse out of passenger front window and wack. to avoid future damage to your beloved bus just file for a divorce...

Different type of deer. LOL

You got me. Boy you spelling geeks don't let anything get by, do you.
Good one mtb. Thanks for the spellcheck.