26 April 2002

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This is some pics of me reconstructing the A pillar on my '69 Beetle. This area needed some work before I cut out the heater channels. I thought it was best to reconstruct this part first so I would have something to go by when I replaced the heater channel. I had an old original fender that was not fixable, the headlight bucket was pushed in in an accident, so it was a good metal donor for some patching I had to do. I cut out the rusty metal far enough back to where I had good metal to work with. Then I used a Dremel tool with a cutting disk and cut out all the rust. I used a piece of cardboard from a 12 pack of soda box and made a template of the piece I was going to need. I traced out the part onto the fender and cut it with my Dremel tool. As you can see there is quite abit of rust in the A pillar and the heater channel. This area needs to be strong as it is an important structural point in the Beetle, not only that but it is where the door hinge plates are also. This rust is why a lot of beetles have sagging doors, not to mention the fact that the door hinge pins also get worn, causing the door to sag and not close right. I might have to replace the pin at a later date.