These are the 2nd round of works that I have started on my camper since I have owned it, unfortunately I cant find any pictures on my computer from the the first round of works. A little back ground - The camper was left to me by a mate who sadly passed away in late 2003, his girlfriend received his Beetle. It had been left static on a campsite for about 2 years before I collected it and had been neglected for a number of years due to my mates ill health (his girlfriend would drive him to the campsite so he could spend time in it). When I carried out the first round of works in the spring of 2004 they included new complete front wheelarches to both sides, various repair patches welded in, a replacement drivers side door, replacement engine lid and a rebuild of the braking system all round. I resprayed it from its original beige and white colour to red and white using Rustoleum. The underneath is in fairly good condition but at the time I knew the battery trays were in extremely poor condition, however being impatient to use the camper I only temporarily patched up the trays up. Now it has become obvious over the last winter that the battery trays and bottom of the rear corners and the gutters at the rear are deteriorating badly, so I have started repairs. I decided to start on the left hand side battery tray with the intention of only repairing the trays and bottom corners, but have ended up chasing the rust. I found that the inner rear valance was perforated, I was thinking of simply repairing it by patching but decided to replace it with new. The problem with this is that I had to remove the engine, something I hadn't planned on and the repairs are being carried out with the bus located on the allotment in my dads back garden, not the ideal place to remove an engine. Still I got it out quickly enough without issues. Now the engine is removed I have also found that the right hand side engine bay panel was badly corroded where water must have been running down and under the battery lead, the corrosion has perforated through to the chassis but fortnuately after removing the rusty engine bay panel the chassis isn't too bad. I tacked a length of angle across the chassis before cutting out the rear valance, i dont know whether this was required to prevent movement but it only took a couple of minutes. After work being stopped by the weather on numerous occasions I have now got the replacement inner valance welding in position. I found the replacement valance had a good fit, the engine lid was temporarily reinstated before I welded the valance in place and the lock lined up immediately with the lock plate. I am now currently making up the repair sections for the bottom of rear posts that were cut out, fortunately I have found that the radius on the curved corner of this post appears to be the same as that on the outside of 1.5 inch galavanised pipe, so I aquired small length of pipe from the tube rack at work and have used it to form the repair section. I havent finished making these yet but will continue to post photos as I go.
Nice work mate I'm just in the process of putting my outer panels back on, had to do pretty much the same repairs to mine
Great work so far Muttley. Have some good karma for the rest of the resto and keep the pictures coming
Nice neat repairs there Muttley. Looking forward to seeing how you progress. I find these things always take longer than you think. I took mine off the road to fit a new front panel & started chasing the rust, that was 7 years ago. I hope to be finished early next year! Good luck with your resto.
great work had to do all the same repairs on mine.............I also did mine outside at the mercy of the weather so I know what your going through lol!! K+ for a new resto and all the hard work
Well i've managed to get a little bit more work done over the last couple of weeks in between being glued to the olympic sport on tv. I had to repair the bottom rear of the wheel arch - I decided to joggle the top edge of the repair panel as I felt it would make it easier to line up, the only downside being is that the joggled lip is visible from the inside of the engine bay. Once the wheel arch was rapaired I started on the left hand side of the engine bay - I bought the JK repair panel and cut it down to fit - Then the new tray was sanded down prior to being welded in complete with the bottom corner radius strip onto the rear of the wheel arch - The corner was then prepped and cut to size. As I've previously read about these corner bottom repair panels it wasn't great quality and a few alterations had to be made to it especially around the part of the corner that butts up to the outer valance - The bottom of the rear light hole looks slightly off but the light fitting covers it fine and the rest of the panel lines up okay so I will have to live with it. I've started to clean the welds up and there isn't any bad distortion, just a little bit of finishing off required, seam sealant and a protection coat of paint and I will then move over to the right hand side. I will continue to post the photo's as I progress.
Just a little update. Last Autumn I wrapped the bus up for winter without getting to the point I wanted to, I only managed to get the passenger side battery tray and bottom corner fitted. Now the weather has improved I have been getting on with the work again. The first thing was to fit the drivers side chassis top, the original was ruined by corrosion and my efforts to move it out of the way to get the rear inner valance out. I bought the replacement from Schofields but didn't like the look of the panel with it being two pieces spot welded together so I ran a weld along the joint and the cleaned it up to to try and give it an appearance more similar to the one piece original - The chassis top fitted with the new battery tray - The drivers side bottom corner finally fitted 9 months too late. I painted the inner valance and battery trays with an epoxy paint which we use to internally paint steel water tanks at work, before welding on the outer valance and giving it all a coat of primer I am pleased with the results and am happy to have finished these repairs albeit a lot later than I expected, I wanted to be at this stage by the end of last Summer. I now need to move onto repairing the roof and gutters and need to get my arse into gear and source a suitable roof panel cut -
Time for an update. As previously mentioned the repairs are taking much longer than expected, this is due to a few reasons but mainly due to the combination of a lack of time available and the fact that there is much more work required than I originally thought. Anyway I have now got on with some more work. The majority of the required remaining welding works were to the rear roof corners and gutters. When I started cutting away the rot I found the rust went all the way around the back to the other corner. I bought some repair sections and the corner gutters from Schofields to use for the repairs but when I started to cut the rot out I changed my plans and instead got a rear roof cut from fbivw from which I cut and removed the bits I required to carryout the repairs. I cleaned up the panel and welds and straightened the joint, applied a skim of filler over the joint and sprayed a coat of primer. I am happy with the results. I have also had to carryout out repairs to all but one of the window frames. With all the known required welding now carried out I need to start planning to get some paint on the van. I've got to think about how I'm going to do this as previously I sprayed it in the garden but with autumn approaching quickly I don't think I will be able to get it done until the spring now. At least I can get to work with some mechanical stuff.
