Has it really been a year?

No it hasn't, we did most of this work last year but I've just been too damn bone idle to actually post anything......
The heater channels are now fitted and as this is the second time we've done this I couldn't see the point of detailing it all on here.
They went in much easier this time round though, I can tell you.

Before we fitted the channels we removed the internal metal pipework to allow for installation of long coolant pipes inside the channels in the future...useful if we have a front-mounted radiator.
It's a Baja and will probably never have a back seat so if we stay with an air-cooled engine we can just route the heating into the car from the back seat area.

A small repair to the front inner wing area to finish things off and we got started on replacing the front bulkhead

The bulkhead was rank-rotten at the bottom so a new panel was grafted in, you can just see the light coming through where we cut out the panel

Here's Tom cleaning the cut edges with a bastard-wheel on Mr.Bosch.
He gets all the best jobs, lucky boy!

Bulkhead panel in position and ready for stitching up the sides

Old scrap floorpan being used to check fit of panel, none of the welds have been dressed at this point

Because I bought some cheap heater channels that, it turns out, are 1303 items there are no captive nuts in the ends of the channels to bolt to at the frame head. Oh...
This means we'll have to fabricate something to bolt through to secure the front of the car at the framhead area........oh well, it's all practice.
Having checked a "correct" set of heater channels I'm sort of glad we are going down this route as the original captive nuts are in a cage within the end of the channel which would be slap bang in the way of our proposed radiator pipes as they exit at the front of the car.

The plan was to finish of the welding over the last bank holiday but as usual plans change and no real progress has been made this year.

It's all Tom's fault, he managed to pass his driving test so we've bought him a (standard) Beetle for the road.......how cool are we?
The Baja will have to wait while we fettle his bug, it's not modified (honest) and is really cheap to insure.
In fact it's about the cheapest car for a new driver and it has the added benefit of being a 1972 model, registered "historic" and road tax-exempt - win!

Hopefully he'll be too busy with the bug, he'll forget all about the Baja and I'll be able to use it on the road.
When it's done that is :)