VW Beetle Wizard Roadster
This is part 5 of my project to build a VW Beetle based Wizard Roadster. If you have any interest in Beetles, this will certainly interest you. There are loads of photos of the build. In this part, final blending in of the windscreen surround and rear body work take place, along with starting on the flip front and hidden door hinges. Great Wizards on YouTube - See a Wizard on the road. If you have not seen a VW Beetle Wizard on the road before take a look at these videos of some great Wizard Roadsters. New Windscreen Surround - Blend it in for a smooth look. The windscreen surround was fitted in one of the previous installments on this project. It now has to be blended in to the rest of the bodywork. The new windscreen surround is made from fibreglass and actually sits over the lower part of the windscreen pillars. This means that on the scuttle area it is sitting proud of the surrounding metal. When it was fitted it was bonded on to the metal work with a special bonding agent.
I filled the area around the base of the new windscreen surround with a good quality flexible car body filler. This then has to be sanded and refilled and sanded again until you have a result that you are happy with. It is well worth spending a bit of time getting this perfect before moving on to other things. Any imperfections in this area will certainly show up when the car is sprayed. In this picture you can see the almost finished job. Spraying with a coat of paint will highlight any imperfections which can then be rectified. It is also worth fitting the bonnet at this time to ensure that the fit looks good. Blend In The Rear Bodywork - Obtain a smooth rear end! Once the windscreen surround is sorted it is time to move on to the rear end bodywork. Here you have a couple of choices to make.
Some people leave the rear wings separate as on a standard Beetle and then use the standard Beetle piping to finish off the joint. I was fitting wider fibreglass rears wings so decided to go for the totally smooth look and blend it all in by filling the joint between the panels. It is important if you are doing this to ensure that there will be no movement between the bodywork and the rear wing. If there is it will be sure to crack as soon as you put the car on the road. As I was fitting fibreglass rear wings these were bonded, and screwed on the the body work and then the joint was fibreglassed both inside and outside. Once I was happy that the wing and bodywork were joined fully I could then start on smoothing it out. Again a good quality flexible filler was used to finish off the join and allow final smoothing out.
Whilst most of the rear steel bulkhead is left in place, it is important that the gap between this and the new rear deck is closed off. This will also add strength to the rear deck so that damage is less likely if some clown decides to sit on it! I used a piece of 12mm plywood and bonded it on place. The picture shows the initial bonding, this was then fully glassed in on both sides once it was secure. Also whilst working in this area I used expanding foam to fill the gap inside the old inner wings. This will make this area stronger and will also help with sound deadening as it adds stiffness to the panel. Fibreglass was then laid over this between the new upper deck and the side panels. One word of caution here is that the resin used in the fibreglassing process can dissolve the expanding foam so you need to use just enough to wet the fibreglass matting to get it to cure. One way around this is to use a barrier between the two.
