Well I didnt want to do it but sprout, my double cab, has been sorned. over the weekend i was replacing a few breather hoses on the tank and found one or two questionable areas. I knew there was work to do, the battery tray is quite thin and there's a bit of rust on the rear valance but other than that, I thought it was fairly solid. The day didnt go too well... I thought it was solid right up until I thought I'd have a look at the ball joints. I started the afternoon by cracking off the wheels nuts and then armed with the only jack I had to hand, I put the vw jack into the jacking point. I wound the handle upand much to my dissapointment, nothing happened. There was a couple of clunky noises and the van moved a bit but it didnt go in the direction I wanted. On closer inspection, the jacking point must have had a row with the body and decided that they "wanted a bit of space". Roughly an inch of space...... I removed the jack along with what was left of the crunchy jacking point still attached to the jack and gave it a prod with special tool number 2 (flat head screw driver). I ipened up a hole about the size of my fist. sills looks crusty inside at the opening end but nothing a bit of sheet cant clear up. So then back to the ball joints. I started by attacking what I thought would be the most rusted on nuts.... these being the big nuts on the ball joints. They came loose no problem. then I thought I'd look at the retaining pins at the top of the drop arms as they looked a bit crusty. Nope! they came off easy too! I celebrated with a beer while the WD40 got to work on the anti roll bar and track rod end. Armed with an imense feeling of satisfaction and confidence that all would be easy, I looked at the caliper retaining bolts... I'd doused them in WD40 at the start as from experience, I know they can be tough. On with the socket and breaker bar.... feet in the brace position, both hands, a gulp of air and an almightly tug!!............................................ ....................... ............. Nothing!! did the same with the lower....................... ...................... ................... Nowt! now Ive had hard ones before but these resisted hammers WD40, breaker bars (actually bent the breaker bar). My last resort is heat. as I dont have a blow torch, I decided to remove the hub and caliper as one unit. this would mean that I'd have to come back to the caliper bolts at some point. The top ball joint came loose from the hub instantly. The bottom one is not having any of it though. it's well in there. hitting the nut head did nothing, hiting the cast around the taper did nothing, soaked everything in WD and now to wait. I think I might have to get a blow torch Pictures will follow. Planned for the restoration is the usual suspects, battery tray, rear corners, jacking points, sills, patches and rust treatment. The interior is already done but it has to come out ready for the respray. I intend to do a sage green bottom and a white roof. The engine is a good 2L type 4 with new twin webbers so this will be coming out to have a clean up and put back in. I'm going to put an EMPI GT exhaust on it but that's it as far as mods go. everything else will be pretty much standard. watch this space
you need a ball joint splitter much easier than wacking it ,also the caliper bolts would come off easier if the hub was attached ,someone on the bar and someone holding the socket onto the caliper.. Rule number one ,never jack a vw on it`s jacking point....
it's been a while.. ball joints done the hard way. bought the g clamp tool and used a lot of perseverance but got there in the end. turned my attention to the jacking point which crumbled into dust along with the top hat bit and most of the inner sill then replaced it all with new bits.... apologies for the patch work look. will grind it all back when i'm done. then found this nasty under the sill. it was made up of 3 sill panels and this is the original green.... doesn't look like the original was that bad!!?? this needed replacing too.... inner sill all chopped out and replaced and the outer sill panel cut out and replaced where needed. welded in and filled the hammer is holding the inner sill in place while I weld it all done apart from paint next is the rear valance followed by corners
Cheers para! yeah, they're going to stay. I've got to give them a fresh coat of satin varnish and a general clean up but it makes it very distinctive looking Ive got the originals in storage but I think these look better for now
Looks good and nice to see real metal welded well rather than the usual bodges we always seem to come across! I hope to improve the fuel economy of my van once I remove the 2 inch layer of filler hahaha!
Cheers Stan, There's enough filler on there in places. the panel next to the rear door had to be beaten back into shape it was under about 1/2 inch of filler. It was a lot of work with the grinder! The other side has a bit of a warp by the looks of it after someone welded on some arches and went to far in one go. I cant get behind the panel so I might just have to resort to fillingn and sanding with a long sanding float.
