Face Off
Welcome to operation 'Face Off', you are now a member of the Special Ops Team who conduct the most extreme operations on vintage Volkswagens: we will be removing the entire front panel of the van!
You don't have to be an expert to see that there is quite a significant portion missing from the front of our van: almost as if Jaws has taken a bite out of the front-left corner... Therefore, it was a pretty easy decision that we were going to replace the entire front panel instead of spending hours on trying to restore the front with moulded bits and pieces.
On a nice sunny day, we took our patient outside to perform some major grind works. To keep as much of the original metal in place, we used multi-layer disks to gradually grind away at the edges of the front panel and reduce the 'OOPS' effect. We were shocked when we removed the front: there was not a single place without rust, unbelievable how thoroughly this natural phenomenon had gone about performing it’s job.
We used drills to remove the remainders of the inner and outer lower front panels, which are spot-welded to the chassis: simply drill through the spot welds and remove the body panel. Note that they are attached using plenty of spot welds to keep you occupied for some hours, so make sure you have plenty of beer at hand...
Last but not least, save the bits and pieces you removed from the front for reference. They will save you a significant amount of time when you start putting your life size puzzle back together.