V8 1973 VW Beetle Project by V8 Super Beetle

3 minute(s) of a 270 minute read

OK, I did a search on this forum but found lots of threads with the word body in it but nothing specifically talking about body channeling.

Can anyone tell me or give me advice on the best way to channel a body to fit / lower a the body on a frame / chassis? I'm wanting to look ahead into this because I will run into this soon and would like to kinda know where I'm going with this.

Is it as simple as placing the body on the frame, centering it (well, in my project's case), and cutting away the body sheet metal, using the side of the frame as guide?

Any advice / input would be appreciated!

3-9-2008

Hey guys, I got the frame welded up but I've run into a little trouble. Hopefully some of you could give me some advice to help me fix it.

I have an arc welder that I'm using to do the welding and I'm getting some slag inclusion. I'm a novice welder and I can weld a good looking sound bead using a circular motion technique flat, no problem. My problem comes when welding vertically. I think part of my problem is when welding vertically, bottom to top, the molten metal would run a little and trap some slag. Also, I'm using a 3/32 rod and I ran the first bead along the butt joint and then did multiple overlapping beads just trying to be sure I've got it welded up good. In doing so I've managed to trap some slag and I'm wanting to get rid of any slag inclusions. Before each pass I would clip and brush the slag away. So what I tried was grinding down the welds smooth and you could see the slight slag inclusion. I've used a wire brush and even a cup brush attachment for a grinder to try and remove the slag. I could completely get it out. So I would weld another few overlapping beads down to try and fix this to find I've made it a little better but then would run into the same problem.

How do I fix this? Also, I've having a little trouble welding on reinforcement plates. The slag is tending to fall into the cracks. The weld metal from the rod also would just sit on top the plate rather than weld the metal to the frame. Is this cause I'm welding it not at the right angle?

Here's some pics.