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Monx
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Re: My bus repair and begining of the resto!!!

Looking good Matt, you've got bigger b...s than me to take the repairs on. Keep up the good work and also the pics coming emoticon

4/Nov/2008, 9:49 pm

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bobthebeetle
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Re: My bus repair and begining of the resto!!!

you're just like me and dave now a beetle and a bus to be working on lol. Enjoy there's nothing like the joy when it's nearly done and you've done it all yourself emoticon

6/Nov/2008, 8:07 am

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flyingbusman
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Re: My bus repair and begining of the resto!!!

Blimey....November was the last update!!....feels like alot longer!!

Well in that time, nothing has happened. I've been too busy with the business and leaving my job etc, etc....

At the begining of this week, I decided it was time to get back on it. The evenings are brighter and I want my van back!!so determination is currently in my mind!!!

So I dug the van out from the stuff that was piled around it and set about remembering where I left off!!....Oh Yes.....ROT, hidden ROT.

I took to cleaning up the inner front wheel well and found a patch that was firmly in place but had another piece of metal about 5mm behind it. I could see this from the crossection view I can get from the arch being removed. Turns out this piece of metal was once the top hat!!So I took the plate off and found yup the top hat and closing panel were pretty much gone.

A number of repairs had been undertaken and rust had set into them so it all looked pretty grim!!

The top hat had to come out, but to do this, the jacking point and outrigger had to come out and as the inner sill had been repaired with the same piece of metal that was fixing the top hat, that came out too, as did the outer sill that had been repaired fairly recently ut I've never been happy with so the time is right to correct it.

I had to take a section of floor out to get the tophat off!!

Took the outrigger off and guess what, yes more rot, this time in the chassis rail!! emoticon

so all came out and got cleaned up to assess the damage!! As I was taking out the inner sill, the other two tophats that house the rear outriggers and jacking point were also found to be rotten!!FUN!! So the whole lot came off!!to reveal yup you guessed it, more rot!! This time and fricking gaping hole in the chassis rail that must have been there when the rear jacking point was replaced, and that was fairly recently!!

As a note to people having a van done by someone else, I would recommend you ask them to take pictures as they go to prove that what they are covering is solid metal and not rot holes, especially in chassis rails!!

So I cleaned all of this up and removed more top hat section. This is now ready for stitching back together.

I got most of the panels the other day on a trip down to VW heritage! I picked up a front outrigger and jacking point complete assembly, Outersill, lower wheel tub repair and a top hat rail! Had I know about the rest of the rust problems I'd have got the other two outriggers and the jacking point aswell!! I chose not to get the inner sill from Heritage as they only have the reproduction sills in stock and word on the street is they're not that good!!usual story of ill fitting reproduction parts. So in stead this is comming from Schofield's. The rest of the panels except the lower wheel tub are genuine VW parts and still of fairly reasonable quality, i.e. the top hat actually felt like there was real metal in it rather than the "chocolate" metal everyone jokes about these days!!

So those parts are now prep'd. inside and ready to go on. still waiting on the inner sill though!!But first I have a few repairs to do before any of it can go on!

---
'67 Bay all the way!!

August 1967 - Devon Caravette
November 1967 - 1200 Beetle
1968 - 1200 Beetle

12/Apr/2009, 11:21 pm

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flyingbusman
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Re: My bus repair and begining of the resto!!!

Here are some pictures of the inner sill having been removed and of the absent rear outriggers. As you can see the chassis was pretty rotten behind it. The outer sill is removed also.

The Middle sill will be staying. This is the sill that the sliding door runs along and as a result of the being smothered in grease (hopefully) the whole time, they very rarely rot completely out. You can see that the bottom edge has rotted away but this can be taken up to good metal and extended with new once the inner sill is in place to give the correct line.

To remove the inner sill, I drilled out all the spot welds then had to attack it with the air chissel underneath as it had had a cover sill put on it in the past which had been smothered with welds all round the top hats and supports. This was worrying as just the vibrations from the chissel were enough to break the welds off even when I was no where near the area that was comming away. What was more difficult was removing what was left of the original sill that was still underneath, attached and rotting!!

So Anyway, I set to the areas to be repaired with the wire wheel and rust killer and painted the areas inside the chassis rails and the areas to be covered by the outriggers etc..to give extra protection. At least these sections should last a little longer!!

Time was running out in the day so I set myself the target of at least getting the front chassis repair done!! so here it is and painted for temporary protection.

I will eventually go over the whole chassis rail with the wire wheel and clean&strip wheel and give it a proper coat of paint before undersealing but this is a little way off at the moment.

Can anyone spot the obvious mistake??

Yes its true in my haste, I spent time making two opposing folds to follow the line of the chassis rail join, but these don't need to be there as the outrigger leg goes through them to meet with the cross member!!Doh!!!....well lesson learnt!!I hope!!

More to come soon as I'm aiming to have her at least road worthy by Brighton Breeze!!eeek!!

---
'67 Bay all the way!!

August 1967 - Devon Caravette
November 1967 - 1200 Beetle
1968 - 1200 Beetle

12/Apr/2009, 11:47 pm

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Mechanoid
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Re: My bus repair and begining of the resto!!!

Isn't it about time we had an update! emoticon

---
Mech.

16/May/2009, 9:00 am

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flyingbusman
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Re: My bus repair and begining of the resto!!!

Havn't had time to do more yet, been moving workshop and wasting time at BugLovin!

---
'67 Bay all the way!!

August 1967 - Devon Caravette
November 1967 - 1200 Beetle
1968 - 1200 Beetle

17/May/2009, 11:30 am

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flyingbusman
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Re: My bus repair and begining of the resto!!!

Finally I have an update!!

Managed to get some evenings in on the bus this week as it is now over at our new workshop in Hooe.

After finding all the problems around the sills, jacking points etc....the task of cleaning off all the crap bits off the good bits began.

The majority of the middle sill was still good and as the new middle sills are more rubbish than a trash can I decide to keep as much of it as possible.

I had to replace some top hat section in three places, so far two are done and the inner sill is in place making the third piece easier to fit.

Some might ask what the little bit of tubing is doing in the sill section, this was a nifty little trick I was taught to make sure the sliding door doesn't drop on the bottom runner, thanks Rob.

The first of the jacking points has gone on. I bought the outrigger/jacking point combo for a well know new panel supplier based in Sussex. This is a Genuine "New" Bay part which surprisingly still fits the older vans.

The rear combo piece however is a different story, they sell them as will fit all years with minor modification. To get them to fit an early bay you need to add about 2" of metal for it to meet the chassis or sill. What else didn't help was I ordered left side and got a right side, good one Heritage. So I decided to go with the good old fashioned twin piece set up which still needs modification to fit.....when will people make proper panels!?

This is the rear jacking point offered up. Still a little more prep to do then its on!!

---
'67 Bay all the way!!

August 1967 - Devon Caravette
November 1967 - 1200 Beetle
1968 - 1200 Beetle

24/Jul/2009, 11:20 pm

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paulski1966
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Re: My bus repair and begining of the resto!!!

Nice work Mat thats really coming along now. Didn't realise the work you were doing to it was quite so major. Impressive stuff.

27/Jul/2009, 11:25 pm

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flyingbusman
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Re: My bus repair and begining of the resto!!!

It didn't start out this major. It's just snowballed, so I thought I might as well do the whole thing in one go rather than do it again in a couple of years.

---
'67 Bay all the way!!

August 1967 - Devon Caravette
November 1967 - 1200 Beetle
1968 - 1200 Beetle

1/Aug/2009, 11:11 pm

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flyingbusman
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Re: My bus repair and begining of the resto!!!

Been getting on with it quite well over the last week or so. All the jacking points/outriggers on the left side have are now done, just waiting for me to clean the underside up for paint once the body is done.

Started to pull the paint off the wheel arch to find out how far up the previous repair was, found so much filler its unbelievable, also found that where the arch was welded on it had warped the main panel making it very wobbly. Anyway, found the join line and cut it off below that for cleaning up later to fit the new arch.

Also stripped the paint off the rear corner and found the join for a lower repair and the original corner is still underneath the repair, or at least most of it is, surprise, surprise.

It wasn't until I got round to the tailgate pillar that things got really interesting. I knew my bus had filler in it but this was ridiculous, it has previously rotted out where the tailgate seal should be and has just been filled to cover it up. The damage is quite extensive as the inner pillar is also rotten.

I decided to investigate the other side too, this was much worse.

Fortunately i know a couple of guys who import parts from the states emoticon

so I have the panels ready to fit.

I have a similarly big plan for the front too. This involves a complete reclaimed front clip and arches/wheel tubs in one clip ready to weld on. When this arrives I'll make the decision on how best to takle the front, but for now I can get on with the back.

I decided to chace back the filler around the right corner and found more rot, it appear that the lower corner repair wasn't long enough to repair the previous rotten corner so they added a piece in which has rotted.

It also appears to have had another accident in its past, as the are some serious dents and ripples in the rear quarter after the petrol filler flap. The filler here was beyond rediculous. Monx wrote in his post about his fambulance that he found more filler than in halfords, I found more filler in this rear quarter than U-Pol make in one year. People joke about filler being and inch thick, this litterally was. I ended up chiseling most of it off.

The panel here is nearly rotten through also so some major panel replacement is going to be needed to fix the dents and the rot.

---
'67 Bay all the way!!

August 1967 - Devon Caravette
November 1967 - 1200 Beetle
1968 - 1200 Beetle

1/Aug/2009, 11:47 pm

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