My 181 bundeswehr olf friend, time to do a body swap ...

[coopster]

try Julian www.partsemporium.co.uk for the doors or www.vwtrekker.co.uk forum in the UK

[joghia]

thanks ! working on a leed in holland now, ...
if this is nothing , i'll try him, there are many doors and fenders out here in belgium, but almost all of them are rusted, dented or full of bondo...

[joghia]

yes front left fender and 2 left doors found ! picking them up this evening !
now i only need a left rear fender !

i have a spare one, but this one weighs 3 times more than an untouched one i guess

welded a few times and some sort of bondo/resin /polyester on it...

pics will follow !

[joghia]

finally found some nice doors without rust... now i have a set of 4, altough 1 is damaged on the inside huge dents, but it is what it is,

i put some filler on all 4 of them (not much) they 're pretty straight now,

181 bundeswehr straight

and they are ready to be painted in and outside now !

[joghia]

now the tricky part, i found a left fender for 30 euros, this was pretty banged up, we used a fire torch to beat the corner back in,, but it still needed a lot of banging and 'filler/bondo.....

then i came home and found a really dumb mistake i made, ...

seems that there are 2 different model fenders out there

small an large side repeater ( as in euro and american style ?)
my right one was og bundeswehr and had a small one and my new donor fender has a bigger bump for the front blinker.

so my " new " fender was cut up, and i managed to cut the right side indicator 'bump' out of my old fender, out with the old and in with the new

after that surgery i found a nice healthy spot in an other fender i had, so i cut the corner out of that one and inserted it to the heavily damaged one i was trying to fix.

so i managed to make 1 fender out of 3 !

a saturday spend on nothing more then that !

now all we need is filler, but i was hungry and tired, and dirty, and so i left it there in the cold.....


tomorrow another day of sanding and putting filler on,.... almost there with the 'new' parts, then it's on to the old body............

[joghia]

also my lightbowl ? was pretty rotten in the 'new' fender

thanks to some previous dodgy repairwork on my old car, i managed to save this one !!

it was only in there with silicone !

nice !

gotta love the p.o. dodgy repairs !

i peeled the fender of ! like a rotten banana !

nice score !

[joghia]

so here we are, sanded the inside and sprayed the red on it ..
also the doors insides were done

[el_safari]

Hi
Did you choose what colour ?
_________________
La terre n'est qu'un seul pays

[joghia]

no, i am still choosing between 7016 and 7021 ral,

i like the 7021 stumpf panzergrau, but i leek it a bit worn, so a little brighter would be perfect,

right now it's only first coat of base paint (red menie) ish



here are a few pics of my 181 as it sits now waitng for the new body....

[joghia]

sad to let her go, but she will almost be as new as she left the factory soon

[joghia]

these pictures don't do her justice, she is in fact far worse !

every panel is rotten and filled with filler, even the insides are bad,

i think this bodyshell is beyond repair ! you tell me !

[ente_kaefer]

[joghia]

the front black out ligths are also unrestorable, they are too far gone, when i sandblast themwith the softest sand there will be nothing left of them... even the insides are too far gone i believe,

i'm sure you can find a good usuable pair on the ebay.de site in germany ! they aren't that expensive in a good shape

[joghia]

getting ready to 'pull' the body off ... if i get some help, this thing is rotted but still heavy, i'll have to cut the body off with the bottom plates, they are all welded together......

[joghia]

finally this weekend we had some time to pull te old rotten body off, it took a whole lot of elbow greas, but we did it !

the pans look like theyr are gonna fit quite good actually, we'll see if we get there ,


now on to the other side, the left pan needs to come out, also am looking for better usable seat rails, because mine are not so good any more...

[joghia]

even the tunnel needs a bit of tlc..............

[el_safari]

Hello Joghia
The seat rails from 181 are different from the one from bug .
It works also but the driving position is different .
What is the year of your 181 ?
Bonnes fêtes à tous !
_________________
La terre n'est qu'un seul pays

[joghia]

will check that later, i know they are different, there is also a chance that i can save them, the fronts are good, but thse sides need some welding.., i am also looking to 'lower' my seats a little, not sure about that !, but i like the lowered look in the car also

in the mean time my ordered paint from germany is on it's way !

ral 7021 panzergrau stumpfmatt

i am hoping that it will arrive shortly, so i can spend my holidays with my car in stead of the family

the temperatures here are almost too good to be true, so fingers crossed !

next up more welding ...

[joghia]

painted the gastank,

left and right pan were completely wirebrushed to get the 'transport' coat of

(almost done with that, 1 is allready painted in rot-braun anti rust base.

also cleaned the tunnel edges .. need to clean the chassis even more, man this is a job that has taken all christmas days and evenings...

no party for me yet

[joghia]

this evening i finally finished my second pan , completely wirebrushed it , to get rid of the factory shitty paint and put some good 'rotbraun' on it !

now the 2 pans are ready to be fitted.




next up : remove frontaxle, remove transmission and small parts, so i can completely paint the frame and tunnel in rotbraun, then fit the pans , this is gonna be tricky, i need some help to put the body on and off for exact fitment,

also i have a fitment issue with my left front door, gonna tackle that this tomorrow, a bit of 'tweeking' , some wood and muscles ....