Your donor card please

Well here she is, the unsuspecting donor. As the eagle eyed will notice, she was quite a looker in her glory days, and in fact a rolling advert for my local VW specialist I have used since I was 17.
When I went to see what basket cases they had with a correct V5 (tax free) I was surprised to find out the garage had changed hands and that this multi coloured beauty was up for grabs.
If you are squeamish look away now ! After much cutting the chassis was exposed. In the process a good front axle, engine, gearbox, and full wiring loom were retained. However, as you can see the good parts of the chassis were easy to count !
The old framehead had been plated over so many times that the repair panels just wouldn't line up. I also had concerns, which were confirmed by my friendly welder Nigel, that the front end was out of line. The only sensible option in the end was to cut off the framehead entirely and weld a new complete head in - more of this in later blogs.