Date:         Thu, 2 Nov 2006 20:57:19 -0800
Reply-To:     Mark Keller <kelphoto@TELUS.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Mark Keller <kelphoto@TELUS.NET>
Subject:      front end work
Comments: To: jag@CS.UALBERTA.CA
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

Hi Martin,

I had a similar vehicle, 91 Carat hit in the Right front.

Our repair was to put a small 1/4 cut, as it's called.  the donar van
was cut generous  to attach to these aproximate locations: ,at the
A-pillar midpoint of the grab handle; verticall at the front near
center, just past the windshield wiper spray nozzle, at the floor just
midpoint of the foot well.

The basic procedure was to drill out the spot welds on my van and the
same on the donar parts. These are at the air vent tube, the foot
stepwell and the diaganol box from the front crash beam , lower one back
to the frame, kinda of  45 deg.

You prospect seems to be hit at the mid crashbeam, just below the
headlamp assy.  These are super highstrength steel, hard to cut and
weld.  We spent about 40 hours doing this.  Our frame pull seems like
eight hours was the tab, cut an access in or near the park lamp.location
weld on to the frame horn and pull.

The difficult issue for my dad was the weaving of the parts together, as
there is a bit of  overlap once your into it.  He typically used masking
tape for a base and then majic makered the exact line and cut that with
a cutoff wheel.  So, I'm sure you not doing this but thats the highlights.

The main reason I got my van this way was Florida would not allow a
"rebuilt totalled vehicle to reinsured.  As I lived in another state
that didn't discrimante I was ok.
The other tidbit is that my dad used a product called "weld thru
primer", probably a 3M product.

Hope this helps,

Mark Keller
91 Carat "Lazarus"