Sheet Metal Trilogy

[dmend]

Hello Everyone,

I have a 1972 standard Beetle and am rebuilding it from the bottom up. Yea, its a rust bucket.

I'm replacing the crossmember, rear wheelhouse, and the section of the luggage compartment that butts up to the wheelhouse. Since this does not exist on my bug, due to rust I'm not sure how these three meet. The three pieces meet at the crossmember and I can see it working two ways.

Option one:
the crossmember is below the wheelhouse and the luggage compartment section is on top of the wheelhouse.

Option two:
the crossmember is sandwiched between the wheelhouse on the bottom and the luggage compartment on the top.

Anyone know how this goes together?

Thanks for your help.

dmend

[beetlenut]

It's more like option one. The crossmember extends into the rear wheelhouse area, above the spring plate cover area, out to the inside of the quarter panel skin. That section of the cross member is welded to the bottom part of the rear wheel house section. The luggage compartment sits on top of the crossmember where the two are spot welded together. Put up some pics of the specific areas in question and check my gallery for pics. I'm sure I have more pics of this area on my home PC as it was not real obvious how it all went together for me either. Of course you can always look and see how the other side goes together if it's even there.
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