Just a pile of interesting text to make sure you can deal with long downloads. The VW bug FAQ happens to have the funniest FAQ name on the Internet as well and it's written in the classic folksy/honest/helpful Internet prose style
FAQ for Air-Cooled VWs: Rustoration
VW Rustoration FAQ
Compiled by Ed Delaney Edwardd@Earlham.Edu
May, 1995
1. Intro
This is the long awaited RUSTORATION FAQ. Most of the
material is my ramblings combined with stuff stolen from posts
and mail sent to me by other helpful folk. I'm doing a crappy job
of giving credit to contributors. Thanks to all who contributed,
and sorry you don't get to bask in the glory.
About me: I started this after I decided to restore my bug, and
found that while there is lots of clear and specific information
available on mechanical stuff, the body restoration information is
much more like art and religion. Information is everywhere, there
are a few "rights" and "wrongs", and a whole heck of a lot of
opinions. I will try at each section to give two general
approaches, the "quick and cheap", and the "slow and better"
way. This way I hope to get to both the drivers who are low on
bread, and those who think they might want to spend quarters in
the cider jug next to the dresser.
About you: You are interested in trying to fix up your ride. You
have "The Idiot Guide" by St. Muir, you think you're reasonably
handy, you want to save a buck, learn new stuff, and end up
extending the life of your car. You have no idea how much time
this process will take, so you want to make sure you don't do
anything stupid, but you'd like to avoid putting that too-common
ad in the paper that says "nice bug, partly restored, over $3000 in
it, must sell $1200 obo"
Please read thru it and if you have anything to add or change,
send me mail and I'll try to include it in the next revision.
In general, you already know the basics; you get what you pay
for in tools and materials, there is lots to learn but you can do it
with patience and time. Uh, *lots* of time.
2. General practice/theory
So basically you have rusted metal. You can cover it up by
cleaning off the rust, coating it with some rust inhibitor, cover it
with body filler, paint it and wait for the rust to reappear some
other day. There are those that feel this is adequate given a tight
budget. The more aggressive types say you should always cut
out *all* rust, replace with new metal, grind, sand, prime and
paint for a long lasting solution. This FAQ will assume you want
to be a little more aggressive and do a thorough job, but will
mention the "low dough" approach when appropriate.
Everyone says that preparation is the key to body work. Body
restoration is time consuming, if you keep your day job, think in
terms of months, not weeks to get you ride in shape. My little
experience with welding and painting (very little) leads me to say
that cleanliness counts here. Metal needs to be clean to be
welded or painted. General workmanship skills apply here, be
neat, be thorough, do it right the first time, do it over if you mess
it up, keep your hair out of the flywheel :).
3. Safety
a. Get gloves, good eye protection, *good* face
mask type breathing apparatus, long sleeves, hair
up, fire extinguisher, jack stands (never get under
a car with just a jack holding it up!), don't drink
and drive, use a condom. ;)
4. Tools
a. Quality
i. Lots of people like Sears cuz of the price
and warranty. You don't have to spend
$$$ to get decent tools, but remember the
more you use a tool, the more you'll hate
the cheap ones and love the good ones.
Spend your money once and have fun, not
twice and curse between.
ii. For power tools like welders, the 220V
ones are better than 110V.
b. Materials/Supplies
i. Rust neutralizers
(1) These are chemicals that bind with
rust to form a coating that does
not rust, and can be painted. They
seem to be a good idea if you
cannot get every bit of rust off.
ii. Cleaning stuff
(1) You will need to clean grease and
*especially* silicone based wax off
anything that will get painted.
There are special cleaners for this,
so get friendly with the paint store
guys. Don't wast their time
though, they have lots to do, so be
nice to them, and give them your
$$ for paint if they really are
helpful to you.
iii. Bondo or body filler
(1) Some say NEVER use this. Some
say, "so how do you smooth over
these newly welded metal surfaces
so you get a perfect finish? I'm not
there yet on mine, so I expect to
use some of it. Just don't fill big
holes with it, please. The next guy
to own your car will curse you.
iv. Sandpaper, sanding blocks
(1) You need sanding blocks, don't use
your hands. Just don't. Sandpaper
comes in various "grits", the bigger
the number the finer the sandpaper.
You need a bunch, in assorted grits
from about 150 to 500. They call
250 fine, but it's not fine enough.
v. Dismantling/Mantling stuff
(1) Liquid wrench, thread anti seize
compound, wd-40. You should
already have this stuff.
c. Hand tools
You will need some or all of the following tools, add them to
your shopping list and start getting them together now.
i. Files
(1) There are special files made for
filing down body metal.
ii. Snips (inside, outside and straight)
(1) For cutting off old metal and
cutting new pieces to fit. Regular
metal shears work well, but tend to
bend the metal, various snip take
bites out of the metal and don't
distort it.
iii. Grinder (electric, multi heads)
(1) You will have to grind down
bumpy welds and other stuff, get
one. You can get a cutting disc
that goes on in place of the
grinding wheel, and it can be used
to cut stuff. Warning: *Lots* of
sparks here, eye protection is a
must, as is getting the gas tank out
of the building if you've removed
it.
iv. Clamps (spring loaded and adjustable)
(1) You have to hold stuff down while
you weld it. You need good
strong stuff here.
v. Hammer & Dolly set
(1) There are hammers that shrink
metal and others that flatten it out
and make it bigger. There are
hammers that you use to move
stuff around and others that you
use to make metal bend around
curves.
(2) Dollies are wads of metal with
smooth surfaces you hold behind
things while you hit them. They
actually do as much of the metal
forming work as the hammer does.
d. Welding
i. I don't know from welding so someone
should help me here. All of what follows
is hearsay.
ii. The inexpensive wire feed welders seem to
be adequate for VW work. Wire feed
welders are electric welders that have a
hose and a spool of wire. The wire runs
from a spool through the host to a handle
and comes out the end. When you ground
the ground cable to your work, and touch
the metal with the wire sticking out of the
tip, electricity flows through the wire and
causes lots of heat. This simultaneously
melts the metal and the wire into a nice
gloppy mess, uh, a nice smooth weld.
Since the heat eats the wire as you go, you
have a trigger that pushes the wire out the
tip continuously, and a dial on the welder
that adjusts how fast this happens. What
takes practice is getting the heat and wire
speed right, and getting your hand to
move nice and steady. The other part that
I'm sure you experienced welders will
laugh at is, you put your mask down and
there is this moment where you are poking
around with this thing that is ready to zap
whatever it touches, but you cannot see
what you are doing until after you start the
weld. I welded holes several inches from
where I wanted to be, then sort of welded
my way over to the right place.
PRACTICE. These welders also have an
option for adding an inert gas to the point
of the weld while you weld, thus
controlling the high temperature chemistry
there and producing better welds. Get a
welder with this option if you can.
iii. Plasma cutter
(1) Plasma cutters are like
overcharged welders, rather than
melting metal so when cooled it
joins pieces, these just blow away
metal with heat, cutting it apart.
That how they get dead oil tankers
recycled.
e. Air Tools
If you can do it, a two stage air compressor and air tools are the
greatest The rest of us will use a 3-5 HP air compressor with a
20-40 gallon tank. You should be able to rent these, and new or
good used ones are in the $250-400 price range. There are lots of
cool air powered tools, but for the shoestring budget, borrow, or
rent. "I would suggest using air tools, and get a compressor, one
with like a 25 gallon tank and about 5 HP, then you can run the
grinder... Painting takes relatively low pressures, and you won't
tax the compressor at all..." Air cutter & DA (you'll need a
compressor for this beast) DA means Dual Action. This thing
really cuts if you have compressed air.
f. Paint tools
Paint gun. This is important, and you should get a good one if
you plan on doing the whole car. If you only have a patch to do,
use a spray can. WARNING: Paint vapors are evil! Use a good
respirator. This is not an environmentally friendly process.
Sandblasting.
"BE WARNED! Sandblasting is not to be done by a newbiee
IMHO. Sand can destroy the panels......you may wanna look at
other forms of material to blast with. eg: you wouldn't wanna
sand blast a pre 60 car, just in case you kill the irreplaceable
panels.
"It may look like an easy option but when it comes to prep,
patience pays!
"As far as sandblasting goes, you might consider renting a
LARGE compressor and a Pressure feed sandblaster for a day or
two. I bought a small wimpy one and it took sooo long. It may
cost more but it will be time and money well spent. You could
also buy a small sand blaster to use for the little things along the
way. Go big for the big jobs.
Sand can also make the prep work a pain the bunz.......little pits
caused by the collisions of metal and sand. Get advice from a
repitable body shop on the subject...."
If you do the sandblast thing, everyone says use the smaller grit
material, and cover everything, cause the grit will get inside your
engine and everything else. It's really messy. Use your mask
too.
5. Doing it - how
a. Setup
Take your car apart for a complete restoration. Take off nearby
stuff like fenders for a smaller job. This is the part where you
will loose control. You will start to discover one more little part
you want to fix, "hell I might as well do it while I have it apart."
Eventually you whole car will be in ziploc feezer baggies with
labels on them. You'll have to decide on your own where to
stop. Get your chosen primer ready.
b. Prep
Go around the car with a pick hammer and whack on all the
rusted parts, and bubbled paint. It's all gotta go, so don't be shy.
You are assessing how much rust you are dealing with. If you hit
bondo, double your time estimate, cause it will really slow you
down. It's gotta come out too.
c. Cut
Use your snips and cut out all the rusted metal. Grind down
anything that seems solid but has rust on it. If you are
sandblasting, blast. If you will be leaving metal uncovered for a
while, get primer on it. Order precut body panels from Rocky
Mountain Motor so you don't have to become a tin-bender
yourself. Spray rust neutrailizer into the places the have some
rust but that you are not going to be able to reach.
d. Replace
I'll only give the crudest of outlines here. The idea is that you
trim your new metal to fit the place you cut out, and tack weld it
in place. This means clamping it in place and putting small weld
spots here and there to hold it, and keep it from warping too
badly. Then go over it and get a nice weld down all around.
When the weld is done, let it cool. Now you use various
grinders, files and sandpaper to grind off the weld and work it
down to a smooth surface. This is why you practiced welding
first. You need to make sure that there is actually a weld all the
way down, and that you are not just holding things together with
a wad of surface slag.
e. Finish
If the rust is minor, you get ALL, I mean ALL of it off, you hear
me? Grind it sand it whatever. Then only if the surface is intact,
use bondo to smooth over it. Sand with gradually increasing grit
till it's really smooth. You will be AMAZED at how a perfectly
smooth surface is really not, once you get the paint on it.
6. Painting
a. Setup
b. Prep
If you have reasonable paint on most if the car, don't worry about
getting it all off. Use the paint code from the the label on the car
to find out what type of paint can go over it. Then prep the
surface by sanding, and use a paint that is compatible. The paint
guys will be able to tell you. 500 and 800 grit sandpaper is what
you want to finish with. Rubbing compound will be used later.
c. Prime
i. The primer, paint and clearcoat if you are
using one will have to be compatible.
*Everyone* agrees on this. Understand
me, do what the paint guy says and get a
"paint system", everything works together.
d. Paint
i. Read about it. Practice with your paint
gun. Mask everything well with
automotive masking paper. Use your
resperator.
7. Paint Types etc- the following material is stolen - thanks
whoever you are!
a. Zinc Based primer
Err, cellulose primer that has Zinc in it. This supposedly forms
Zinc ppt over bare metal thus preventing it from rusting. You
would put this onto the clean, rust-free steel first. In my
experience it does work well in preventing rust from forming, but
it still requires a top coat since primer paints are generally
porous. This stuff takes about an hour to harden properly.
b. Deactivator Paint
This is special paint which is NOT cellulose based (I think it's
Tricloretholene? based) and is used over old cellulose, synthetic
or 2-pack based paint to stop reaction between further top coats
of cellulose, 2-pack. For example suppose you fill a dent with
bondo and sand it flat. You get a feathered edge around the
bondo where the surrounding paint is through to the original
primer. Now try spraying more primer over the bondo and
surrounding area - urgh it tends to react at the edges of the
bondo and makes a mess, the only easy way is to spray some
Deactivator on first then cellulose on after that has dried. Hence
you only need deactivator paint when you are repairing sections
like dents etc.. You can generally spray on Zinc then primer paint
straight onto new panels. It takes about an hour to harden
depending on thickness of coat.
c. Etching primer
Hmm, this is the lovely stuff that I use as final primer after the
Zinc and/or Deactivator. It can be cellulose, synthetic or
2-pack based. I use sand-colored cellulose based etcher by ICI.
You just spray it on, let it dry, spray some more, let it dry and so
on, until all the little scratches and marks (which you should have
got rid of before!) disappear and you reckon that there's about
0.25mm of paint on the surface. Let that dry off for about 1hour
(depending on ambient temp.) then get some P800 wet'n'dry
paper (oops, I forgot to mention that one) and a bowl of warm
water (cold water makes your hands freeze - in the UK anyway)
and lightly "flat" the paint, making sure you don't rub too hard
and go through the primer. The surface should feel really, really
smooth. Remember this is the final under coat and the finish of
the top gloss coat depends on it.
d. Top coat
Again there is cellulose, synthetic, and 2-pack. With cellulose
you just spray it on building up layer after layer, allowing a few
minutes for each application to harden, but watch the runs and
don't spray in direct sunlight (on a good warm day the paint can
semi-dry before it hits the surface that you are spraying giving an
orange peel finish). When you are satisfied that there is enough
paint on the job leave it for a minimum of one day to harden
properly. Don't be disappointed when the paint losses its initial
gloss - it always does with cellulose. Then get some rubbing
compound (oops forgot that one as well), this stuff looks a bit
like shoe polish with very fine dust in it. Rub it on the job. This
smooths the top cost to a glassy finish. Polish it off with a dry
cloth, then rub it again this time with cutting fluid (like T-Cut
(UK)). This is like liquid metal polish and makes the surface
even smoother. Polish again with a dry cloth or buffing wheel
and Wax. Don't use synthetic top coat, it shines for about a
month then goes dull and is impossible to polish. 2-Pack is the
best (and expensive) top coat because it is resin based which
means it requires hardener to dry (set). When it's dry it's really
hard (like epoxy resin hard) and doesn't lose it's shine. Talking of
which is rarely needs to be polished even straight from the gun.
This is because it takes about 3 hours to become dust-free, this
gives the paint time to settle over the surface and sooth out
giving a glassy finish that lasts. The only trouble is that you need
a really dust-free environment to let it dry in, oh and it contains
cyanide :(
Velcro (tm) pads
There's these wonderful Velcro backed sanding pads. I use ones
made by 3M. They seem to last for ever if you keep them clean
with an airline. They stick on to a sanding block covered with
the opposite Velcro bit and make for a really flat surface when
sanding. I have never had a lot of success with power sanders
for getting large surfaces flat. Well I'm knackered now, so I
hope this has answers some questions...
Top coat thinners
This is for thinning the top coat paint down so that you can
spray it. Normally top coat cellulose paint needs a 1:1
thinners:paint ratio but that can vary to 1:2 thinners:paint
depending on how you spray and what your gun is like etc.
There are all grades of thinner available, but only top coat grade
will give you a decent shine straight from the gun. I use low
grade thinners for thinning undercoat - don't want to waste that
expensive top-coat thinners.
Waxoil gun
We have this stuff called "waxoil". Its like err wax and oil mixed
together. It repels water very well and is just about the only thing
that slow our buses rust in the UK. To spray it into all those
nooks and crannies that fill up with water and dampness. (You
have to wait for a nice warm day so that these places have dries
out properly) Basically you use an underseal gun to spray waxoil
on. It's a spray gun with a big nozzle for spraying thick liquids
like underseal or waxoil. When spraying waxoil on you first run
the tin under hot water, which makes it really thin and easy to
spray. When it dries it's like candle wax.
You'll need about a gallon of paint per (bug per coat?)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here is Gary Shoemaker's tome one floorpans, which is certainly
going to be part of your Rustoration efforts. Thanks Gary!
Working on the Belly Pan
Your mother-in-law just stepped through the floor on the
passenger side. You take this to mean it's time to replace those
rusty floor pans. Installing new floor panels is a fairly difficult
chore, not in the work itself but in making sure you end up with a
straight chassis when you're done. The floor panels make a
significant contribution to the strength and rigidity of the belly
pan, which is why they figure high on the list at vehicle inspection
time. Unfortunately, rusted floor pans is usually a symptom of
more serious problems; if the floor pans have rusted through,
there's a good chance you've got rust in other areas as well.
Scope of the Job The problem: You got rust. The fix: Cut out
the rusty parts and weld in new panels. The Zinger: The whole
thing might be rusted out! So start by removing all of the rust
and making an accurate survey of the damage. The easy way to
do it is to pull the body, remove the corkboard insulation,
sandblast everything back to good metal.
Removing the Body Disconnect everything (engine is already
out, wrapped up and stored away), take off the fenders, unbolt
the body and lift it off. It weighs less than a full-dress Harley but
you're still going to need three husky friends or a little tiny hoist
and a sling. But before pulling the body you need to figure out
where you're going to store it; figure it will be off for a month.
(heeheehee!) Okay, three months. But before you can do that,
you'd better take a close look at the body. Is it rusty too? Then
you gotta fix it before you can pull it off. The body is floppy as
hell without the chassis; if it's rusted you'll never get it lined up
again once you pull it off. These repairs can be sorta crude since
the object is to insure the body's structural integrity, not its
appearance. Okay, so the body is straight and you're ready to
unbolt it. But before you do that, you'd better take a careful look
at your belly pan, because if it's really rotten it's liable to fall apart
when you remove the body. And without the body, you will
have lost the only jigging tool that will allow you to keep your
repairs aligned; you'll end up with a twisted chassis. So you may
have to do some structural repairs to the chassis, especially in the
area of the side rails. Okay, the body is straight and the chassis
is... straight enough. Pull off the body. (I'll leave you to figure
out how to get out all those rusted bolts. And while you're doing
it, keep repeating to yourself: "Anti-seize compound. I will
never assemble a body to a chassis without Anti-seize
compound!) When the body came off it revealed a whole
assortment of gaskets you've never seen before. You can't reuse
them. Oh, you'd like to, and some of them may look okay, but
one of the classic Gotchas! is that the body has to be torqued
down on new, full- depth gaskets to insure proper alignment.
(Relax; body gaskets are still available. But get a set before you
take anything apart.)
Dealing with the Belly Pan ("How we going to flip this sucker
over?") Now you've got this neat looking go-cart in your garage.
You can put the steering wheel back on, slap on a seat and have
a hell of a fine time; your power-to-weight ratio just shot up
there with a Shelby Cobra. But if you've got a swing-axle, you
can't pull the tranny (Perfect Opportunity!) without rigging up
some sort of dolly under the belly pan because pulling a
swing-arm tranny also pulls your rear wheels! (AAgghhhh! Why
didn't he tell me that FIRST?) Okay, calm down. So leave the
tranny. But drain it. And bag it. Tight. Three layers of heavy
plastic. Lotsa duct tape. You're going to be sandblasting your
belly pan and that sand is going to go EVERYWHERE. (This
also applies to your brakes. And your front suspension.) The
Big Trick is how to work on the BOTTOM of the belly pan.
They've got flipper jigs for this: You bolt them to the wheels,
add a lever arm, and tip the vehicle over on its side by raising the
lever arm with an engine hoist. Or those three husky friends who
helped you pull the body. In fact, you can leave the body on and
still flip it over; the curved side rails support the body clear of the
floor. Flipper rigs are made in Canada. They cost about $500
(spring, 1995 prices). Or you can do something else. Most
shops use a fork lift for positioning the belly pan for sand
blasting. Others use a ceiling hoist. Others use a derrick. Others
use three husky friends. You decide which method works best
for you. A derrick is two A-frames with a bar between them; go
look at a kid's swing-set; make the same thing only
bigger/wider/taller out of steel pipe or wood. A hoist is a winch
on something higher than the floor; a ceiling beam or a tripod. A
tripod is three pieces of heavy pipe lashed together. You're not
dealing with the Titanic here but there's enough weight to turn
you into a road-kill pancake. If you're not familiar with hoists,
winches and moving thousand pound loads, you'd be smart to get
help.
Sandblasting Sandblasting is the most economical way to
remove rust. You need at least a 3 HP compressor and a
pressure-type sandblasting rig that holds a hundred pounds of
sand, minimum. You're also going to need some protective gear
because the sand comes out of the nozzle at about a thousand
miles an hour, bounces off things and makes you bleed. And you
need an air-mask, like for a diver but on land. It gets its air either
from the big compressor through a reducer, or from a separate
low-pressure, high volume compressor, which is the best way to
go. (Some air compressors can kill you with their fumes.) And it
helps if you have three husky friends hanging around to position
things for you, refill the tank, and so forth. Figure on spending
four hours getting your chassis clean. You can rent all this stuff.
Or maybe find a mobile sandblaster who will come to your shop
and do the job. Or you can tow your chassis to a shop and let
them blast it there. But one thing you can't do is a proper job
using a spray-paint compressor and a one-quart sandblasting gun
from Sears; it's going to take several hundred pounds of sand to
do the job right. And the little rigs are just tooooo
sloooowwww, as in weeks.
Painting Sandblasted metal rusts so fast you can see it form.
Seriously. You want to have your anti-corrosive primer ready to
mix and shoot when you start blasting, and be prepared to apply
it the minute you're done. This is a precautionary paint job,
intended to protect rather than serve; you'll do the whole thing
over again later. But if you don't do it now, you're going to have
do the sandblasting all over again(!). Okay, yeah; there is
another way. Some guys do all the metal work and THEN the
sandblasting, fixing anything the sandblasting reveals. That only
works if the rust isn't too bad. I do it my way because with a
really rusty chassis the sandblasting reveals problems you never
even dreamed of, problems too serious to repair before the Rust
Monster returns. When you sandblast and then prime, you can
spread your metal work over however long it takes; the chassis
won't get any worse. When you're all done you clean up your
welds, maybe do a little local sandblasting, and lay on your For
Real coats of anti-corrosive primer. (The epoxy stuff is best; the
Navy uses it at sea and it really works.)
Repair Work Now you know what has to be done, but you
probably don't know how to do it. Back about a thousand words
ago you should have ordered the replacement panels you knew
you were going to need, such as the floor pans. But sandblasting
has probably revealed other problems, some for which there are
no replacement parts available. Deal with these things first. You
want to pay particular attention to the front axle attachment
points. (Front suspension for you Fearsome Strut people) And
to the rear torsion tube and the tranny horns. Rusted through?
Cut it out and replace it, using parts locally fabricated from an
identical thickness of mild steel sheet, tube or plate; or find a
junker that has a good section you can transplant. This last is
tricky because you must insure perfect alignment. If you're a
virgin, think about it before making the leap; you may do more
harm than good. Those little mig machines have turned everyone
into wizard weldors. (Well, maybe not everyone.) Big rusty
hole? Clean away the corroded metal, tack in a patch about the
right size, use your torch and a judicious selection of hammers to
forge the part for a perfect fit. Scribe it; mark the exact shape
you want. Grind off the tack weld and cut/grind/file the patch
until it exactly fits the hole. Chamfer the edges. Fix it in the hole
with wedges/clamps/whatever. Tack weld. Finish-weld both
sides. Grind the welds and fix any holidays. Do it right and the
repair will be as strong as the native metal. Finish it right and the
repair will be indistinguishable from the native metal. There's a
little bit more to it than that. (Okay, there's a whole lot more to
it than that.) Metal is malleable stuff; it's willing to work with
you. You can acquire the skills you'll need but don't expect it to
happen over night.
Replacing the Floor Pans Cut away the rusted metal. Use the
replacement panel as a pattern. Don't use a torch, unless its one
of those teenie-tiny plasma-arc thingees. A regular gas torch will
need a lot of grinding for clean-up. Use a stab saw, or a cut-off
wheel, or an air-chisel, or even a saber saw; you want a nice,
clean edge, well back in uncorroded native metal. And if that
falls outside of the overlap you'll have to do a local patch before
you can do the floor pans. Insure an overlap of at least an inch.
Remove all paint where you're going to weld. Align the
replacement panel and tack it into position, taking the time to
insure as perfect a fit as possible. If you're doing an early bug,
the floor panel may have the seat rails already attached. Make
sure the replacement panel goes in so the seat is straight.
(Having the seat a few degrees off will drive you crazy on a long
trip.) If your new floor pans don't have the seat rails or
attachments, you'll have to cut the old ones off the old floor pans.
Use a spot-drill; make a neat job of it. Position them with clecos
or pk's before tacking them down. When you're satisfied with the
fit, and have it tacked down every two inches or so, flip the
chassis over and do the same thing on the bottom. This puppy is
going to try and move around from thermal expansion, once you
start welding. And it WILL. All you can do is go with the flow,
running only a few inches of bead at a time, working from end to
end, side to side and top to bottom, trying to even things out.
Keep your hammers handy, and your three husky friends; they
can lean on things to close the gap while you run the bead.
There are a lot of tricks that every tin bender knows that will
produce a flat, undistorted repair. If things look like they are
getting out of hand, seek help.
Commercial Work If you take your bug to a body shop they'll
slap a pair of pans in it in a couple of hours. A good shop might
even throw a coat of paint on the welds. If you say you want the
pans replaced, they will replace the pans. Period. If your front
axle is about to drop off they might tell you about it but that's the
limit of their liability. Or, they can tell you the gravastatious is
rusted to the point of asfulizing the thingamabob, but they'll fix it
for another hundred bucks. There is no enforceable 'Standard of
Good Workmanship' (and probably no enforcement, period)
unless you come equipped with lotsa money and a team of
lawyers. The only thing you can do is put your trust in the
people doing the work. (Okay, yeah; there are both standards
and enforcement procedures. But with a population of
30,000,000 [all of whom own cars] California has exactly two
(two -- count 'em) people to investigate automotive-repair
complaints filed with the California Office of Consumer Affairs.
So on the one hand we have the laws, on the other we have
reality. I'm talking reality here.) The bottom line is, no matter
the level of your skills, if you do the work yourself you will know
exactly what was done; you put your trust in yourself. And when
you get right down to it, that's not too bad a deal. (No, they're
not all rascals. But enough. The sad part is that the other shops
know who the rascals are and don't do anything to clean their
own house; they get tarred with the same brush.)
Fiberglass Floor Pans It sounds like a good idea, and if you live
in the rust belt it may be the smartest thing since beer in cans, but
the problem is subtle: To insure adequate strength and corrosion
resistance you must form a perfect metal-to-epoxy bond on the
underside of the belly pan as well as the top. The quick fix, and
one I've see in the magazines, is to cut away the old pan,
pop-rivet the new one into place and slather a few layers of
fiberglass over the joint. FROM THE TOP. But if you've failed
to deal with the rust, all you've done is buy a little time. (And
sell a few magazines, which was probably the goal.) The proper
composite repair calls for bonding the fiberglass panel on both
surfaces, top and bottom, overlapping the native metal by about
four inches and using an epoxy formulated for metal bonding.
(Ciba-Geigy (Shell) has some stuff; so do others.) The trick here
is making the lower bond. You need to use multiple lay-ups with
peel ply, or use air bags, or flip the chassis over. And if you can
do that, you might as well do a proper welded repair.
Sexy Metal Work In a private message to a fellow subscriber
blessed with rusty pans I expounded at some length on the joys
of hand-flanged seams and other tin bender tricks that only took
me thirty years to master. (Gee! Whatta swell guy!) The point
is, there are better ways to do the repairs above, and autobody
men will use them if time and money permits. But the methods
above will work well enough in most cases and you don't have to
be born with a wrench in your mouth.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Books
"Guide to Purchase & D.I.Y. Restoration
of the VW Beetle & Transporter,
including information on building a Baja Bug"
Written by: Lindsay Porter
First published in 1986. Reprinted in 1987, 1988 & 1989. The
1989 edition
is reviewed here.
Published by:
Haynes Publishing Group
Sparkford, Nr. Yeovil,
Somerset BA22 7JJ, England
also available from:
Haynes Publications Inc.
861 Lawrence Drive
Newbury Park, California 91320
USA
British Library Cataloguing in
Publication Data:
Porter, Lindsay
VW Beetle & Transporter: guide to
purchase & DIY restoration.
1. Volkswagen automobile
I. Title
629.28'722 TL215.V6
ISBN 0-85429-474-0 (Hardback)
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number:
86-82409
ISBN 0 85429 603 4 (Softback)
Reviewer comments:
Mr. Porter's book provides a comprehensive view of the history
of
Volkswagen vehicles and their specifications, as well as detailed
information on performing repairs to the bodywork and engine
with
additional sections covering interior, electrics and some
modifications.
The book is profusely illustrated and the photos provide the VW
owner with a unique opportunity to see what's behind certain
body
panels. Indeed, the photos may be used as a kind of X-ray eye,
giving you some idea what may be lurking behind innocent
looking bubbles of paint in your fender well -- and how to deal
with the problem.
A copy of this book should be in every VW owner's library. It
offers material not found in other sources, including the
official service manual.
Entry & comment provided by: Robert S. Hoover, April 1995
Parts/Supplies
Rust Converters - Extend, 3M Rust Avenger
You can get good repor bus panels from:
Das Bulli Haus
18 Ward Lane
North Franklin, CT 06254
(203)642-7242
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ed Delaney
Earlham College
Richmond Indiana
EdwardD@Earlham.Edu
T: 317.983.1284
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
Disclaimer: All views expressed are my own opinions, and not necessarily
those of Intel Corporation.
Steven email: sjohnson@pcocd2.intel.com