Classic VW BuGS How to Mount your Fenders and Beads for Vintage Beetle

hey guys Chris again from classic VW bugs common in this video I want to talk to you about how to mount your fenders with new fender beads as you can see is a 1958 ragtop beetle with the body off restoration and if you do in a body off this is a great time to mount the fenders because you have easy access to the bolts here's our passenger fender that we're going to be putting on its freshly painted bug here and again it's easier to do this when the body is off but if you don't have the body off it's okay to first what we want to do is tap the threads where the fender bolts go into if you just have the car painted many times the paint goes in the threads and can really gum it up so you can get a tap from your local hardware store that's an eight millimeter thread so you're going to need an eight millimeter tap some wd-40 to squirt into the threaded holes and then you get your tap and start working each bolt hole back and forth back and forth and just make sure it's nice and free and there's our chassis body off restoration we love doing restorations this way makes the car come out supreme and if you have your running board still loved you could also tap your running boards while you're at it and that's a six millimeter tap I love to get the German fender beats guys I highly recommend going German fender bees they fit the best they look the best and you really don't have to do any modifications to them and I like to get brand new hardware fender bolts they look nice it looks professional when people look under the fenders you see how clean it is and it looks like you have a lot of attention to detail so I like to test the bolts out first of my newly tap threads and they check out okay little swig of green tea or espresso or coffee whatever you like and we get going I like to lay out my bolts with the fender washers already on the bolts so I have easy access to grab them and this is a good two-person job here if you can have someone hold the other end of the fender while you're holding it up against the body I can grab some bolts get underneath and just start loosely finger tight start mounting the fender down you have to go too crazy here I just want to try to mount a couple bolts so it stays up in place and I kind of leave it loose to the point where the washer still spins now here's my gap from the fender to the body we want a decent gap so at least we can fit the fender bead without any issues and here's a glossy German friend a bead which again I recommend and there's a tail end on the fender beads now these are always supposed to go towards the outer parts of the fender okay so they don't go towards the running board sec area so the tail end always I always like to put in first you just get the bottom most cut out on the on the fender bead and that usually goes right around by the first bolt and then it's pretty self-explanatory from there you should be able to line up every bolt with the German federal bead and I don't usually have to cut the bead to make it fit it usually fits without a problem so this loosely put it in now this tail end here is usually got to go get tucked under so you want a finished look too many people are cutting this off right at the bottom and it's it doesn't look right it's needs to be tucked under and then fastened down from the fender between the fender and the body there I'll show you that in a second so we need a 13 millimeter socket three to six inches extension if you want and your ratchet you could also use an electric gun impact on if you have or something like that so I'll start tightening the bolt down finger tight first just to get them nice and snug and then then I just usually tighten them up with my ratchet they see brand new bolts look good see in this area here it's always pretty tight with that headlight bucket so I usually get my ratchet wrench and tighten that one bolt there which is usually kind of tough to get to with the regular ratchet now as you're tightening down the bolts you want to make sure as you're looking up on the outside of the body that defender bead is nice and flush with the fender and the body and you don't want it dipping or gapped anywhere and you want that rounded finished look at the bottom and you see where I tucked it in here and tightened it down that is the best way to make that look in some areas as you're putting the fender bead and you might dip down a little too far so usually then I get this like high impact uh you know putty blade plastic blade or a butter knife or something like that that's not going to scratch the paint and you can push the bead upward in between the fender in the body and you see I pushed it up just a little too much then you can just push it down a little bit and then from there on the line is nice and straight and you can start tightening down the rest of the bolts like I said with the body often without the wheels there it's pretty easy to get to and tighten that fender down now towards the bottom sometimes I can get a little problematic with the bead and it might get a little tight as you're tightening the fender down so I just get that plastic blade again and start prying the fender way just a little bit or you might have to loosen the bolt just a little bit and then you know just Fester that bottom part of the bead inward might be a little tricky here and there but for the most part it goes right in cut that in make sure our lines are good everything looks like it checks out there's no bumps there's no dips the German fender beads give you the best results look as you can see here the lines are very straight it's a glossy bead very presentable very show-worthy and you have that finished edge on the bottom not cut off I'd like to leave the fender loose here if you don't have the running boards on yet so you know you can bend them you know move the fender a little bit so you can fit that running board in later on and usually I cut that bead at the bottom of that fender on the inside part so it's finished there is your German fender bead mounting with a perfect finished look any questions Chris at classic VW bugs calm [Music]

Channel: Chris Vallone

Views: 51,090

Rating: 4.9305859 out of 5

Keywords: VW Beetle, Classic VW Beetle, Classic Volkswagen Beetl, VW Bug, Volkswagen Bug, Vintage VW Beetle, Vintage Bug, VW Beetle Ragtop, VW Beetle Convertible, VW Beetle Restoration, classicvwbugs com, VW Beetle Sedan, Chris Vallone, VW Super Beetle, Vintage Beetle, Type 1, Kafer, Air cooled, aircooled, KDF Wagen, oval window, split window, wolfsburg, kdf, super beetle, Classic Super, German

Id: S9Lv7uB6ki8

Length: 6min 18sec (378 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 09 2014