Patina Loco - lowlight facelift a'go go :)

Well been pouring with rain here all afternoon.....still raining now, but I decided I havent got time to wait for mother nature to stop being an assh*le so I braved it and did some wet weather cutting (dont try this at home kids....im a professional idiot! lol)
got soaked, but thankfully not electrocuted and roughly hacked out the d/s belly pan. Much the same story as the other side.....solid floor, solid tophats, solid chassis, jacking points and outriggers are good this side, and the inner sill, while not quite as bad is still pretty rotten on the ends so gonna need doing. All in all it could be a lot worse gonna start cutting out the rot tommorrow weather allowing

 

Good luck. Hope it all goes well.

 

Sounds like a really good outcome. Brilliant. Not sure how you get the inner sill in with both jacking points in place, but good to know that you have a lot less rot than I did!

 

Yeah just been looking at that....looks like theyre gonna have to come out too which is a pain since theyre fine

 

Following this to the letter lol got the outer sills chopped out and the middle sills cut out along the track flange. Supposed to be sunny tomorrow so im gonna have to drill out the spotwelds then as the whole interior is gonna have to come out and sit outside while I do it. Figure I can chuck it back in once its done until I get the panels sorted out. Burning through cutting discs at quite a rate though.....my kingdom for a plasma cutter

 

Yep but making progress....only thing holding me up right now is a lack of cash lol
Predictably, the more I cut out the longer the panel list is getting

 

Done all I can do today as its started to rain again, and the next job is spotweld drilling which means the entire inside sitting outside, so thats got to wait for a dry day.
Opened the drivers side slider for the first time in over a year......the swing arm and spring mech were siezed solid and the roller bearing on it fell to bits. Spent half an hour of greasing and working the pivot and all is now well with the world.
Found a few other bits that could use attention after some digging......the drivers side rear jacking point and outrigger has a hole in it, so thats another thing to sort, and theres a lot of loose rust sitting in behind the rear wheelarches where they butt up to the sliding door shut, which cutting out the sills has exposed so I have a dillemma now......do the lot while im in there, or just do the minimum for the sake of my deadline?

 

And I need to invest in some of them fabricators magnets and a metal punch I think....any recommendations?

 

Don't buy the cheap tiny little ones, they barely have the power to hold themselves to the metal never mind two pieces together.

The ones that have a toggle to switch off the magneticness are handy when they end up covered in a million metal fillings.

 

I have a plan:
Stop chopping up your bus if you like where you live, nip up and fix that car, swap them over and fix the bus without the pressure.

 

Its a good plan, but my jetta is gonna be more than a quick fix up......it was supposed to be a year plus long termer, and is pretty much stripped to a shell with no running gear. I sold the engine that was in it and it Would be a couple of months work just to transplant the 20v turbo engine in and get it running lol
Its the bus, or bust

 

Good at taking things to pieces aren't you?

 

Yep lol
Im actually not half bad at putting them back together either.....just not normally under such a tight deadline

 

As it stands now? or as it would stand by the time you got here? as @zed pointed out, im badass at taking stuff apart quickly

 

realistically, what is the Jetta worth? keep the parts, scrap the shell and move the bus there and do the bus properly without the pressure.
when the bus is done go and buy another Jetta and fix it up

 

Realistically, finished, its worth what I paid for my bay.....theyre rarer than split screen vans and really hard to come by. Took me almost a year to find one in solid, straight order.

I have enough stuff for sale with bids on ebay atm to pay for the panels, and I can put a minimum five hours a day into the bus weather permitting so I think an MOT in four weeks is achievable, just gonna be a learning curve is all. Ive never been one to shy away from a challenge though.....its what got homo sapiens out of caves and into space lol