hi meand a friend have just bought a 2 owner 67 built,68 beetle needing heater channels. (well end plates and front lower 1/4's)

would it be possible taking off the bottom plate and rebuilding them from underneath? as its got the early style heater channels (even got the heater flaps!) and don't want to be fitting crappy repro channels...

One of the professional Beetle repair guys that I know does the following - he gets a pair of Mexican heater channels from Heritage and fits them. Then he re-attaches the old style vents that he saved from the original channels, over the top of the new channels, obviously reshaping anything that looks wrong. The Mexican channels are great - really heavy and reinforced in a lot of places compared to the repros, and are much nicer pressings all around. You need to add the bottom plates yourself though.

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hi i've bought one genuine mexican channel.

would it be best to rebuild the channels before they are fitted to the car?
as in with the top half sections from the old channel?