The van formerly known as "Tootle"

Cracking job. Your panel work is spot on, really neat. I like that you have thought ahead welding braces into the front door frames to keep the gaps. God call.

 

Recently took my engine and tank out so I can safely work on the back end and engine bay without the risk of fire!

Rear end is pretty rotten on the cross panel and the lower d posts had been badly repaired at some point.

With the outer removed the extent of the rot on the rear valence can be seen.


I repaired the lower d post next.


With the d post repaired I made the new outer piece.



All welded in complete with new piece that the new outer valence panel wraps around.



A replacement part for the rear valence is £100 for one that probably wouldn't fit properly or a new old stock item for £250!

The ends where it meets the chassis and d posts are sound so I decided not to upset the van too much by hacking it out and repaired it for about 3 quid instead.

 

Next up is the other d post, previous dodgy repair.....



Nice hole underneath, ironically I think caused by water ingress through the hole originally meant for cavity waxing! I won't be replicating these holes on the back, I will get a cavity wax probe in elsewhere.



Repaired.



Surrounding area de rusted, treated and painted (I did this on the other side too just didn't mention it)



New outer panel made up and welded on, I used the same template made for the other side in reverse, I have done this on a few areas of the resto as it's surprising how similar the rot has spread on each side.



When I bought the van it had a nice big leisure battery on the left hand battery tray, it had a huge crack in it and had leaked all over the place. One I cut the tray out it left this section rusting through so I chopped this out also.



Whilst repairing this section I used some inter grip clamps which really helped keep this flush. I have a love hate relationship with these things, they can be fiddly when trying to reach both sides of the repair and often get stuck once you weld your new piece in, however on this occasion they helped out nicely.



This part also needed attention which was annoying as it's rotted through along the crease which makes it harder to replicate neatly.



Cut out until decent metal was found.



Repair welded in and cleaned up.



I have this rust business well and truly on the back foot now

I'm running out of crusty parts to replace

Engine bay skirts, battery trays, rear outer valence panel, small chassis repair in engine bay, lower rear window repairs, sliding track cover rails, small gutter repairs where poptop hinges are and a couple where the tank sits then its paint shop time.

^^that might sound like a big list to some but compared to what I've done over the last 10 months it's not much. I really have repaired or replaced every single bit of rust I can find too, so hopefully she will last for a while longer

 

Brilliant work, great thread!

 

Nice work on the corner. Mines gone in exactly the same place so will need a 1" strip welded in.

 

I like this, your philosophy is very similar to mine

 

Love what you're doing here! Don't suppose you'd mind if I substituted my bus in Tootle's place for a while? Needs the same work doing!

 

Great work just read it from start to finish
Your attention to detail is second to none, cracking resto

 

What colour is the blue paint as it looks really similar to mine.

 

I don't have time to finish my own never mind work on another!!

 

Not really sure, the previous owner had it sprayed about 6 years ago he reckoned its a vw colour used on the beetle?

Its original colour was Neptune blue, it's gonna be done blue again when I get it to the body shop, not sure what type yet though.

 

I haven't updated this for a couple of weeks, I have however been pecking away at the jobs as usual.

A couple of small repairs on the underside of chassis leg.

Left hand engine bay skirt removed in order to carry out a couple of repairs underneath, unfortunately the old skirt was In a bad way so I couldn't reuse it, bit of a bummer as that's the bit the chassis number is stamped into, it was rotten though so it had to go.

I painted the inside of the rear valance next, pretty pleased with this as quite a large repair was required.

Outer valance on next, another one of those jobs where I'm thankful I have a spot welder on long term loan until van is finished. It fit like a glove which is nice after knowing the d posts and valance have been heavily repaired.

I painted the under side of the replacement engine skirt as access once fitted isn't great between the skirt and chassis leg.

Skirt fitted, a few cuts and welds were required to make it fit properly, nothing too drastic though.


That leaves this corner section where it meets the firewall to be fabricated.

 

Next I tried to get the engine lid hinges off, note the the quality previous owner repair of a nail as a hinge pin!


The screws put up a good fight on the lid itself but eventually an impact driver got them out, the side attached to the van was a different story!

I tried said impact driver to no avail, lots of heat followed by impact driver resulted in the heads rounding off. I'm not keen on drilling out in these situations, sometimes it's the only option but personally I think it's best avoided where possible, I prefer to try and weld something to the head before resorting to drilling out.

I drilled the large part of the head off first to get the hinge out of the way.



Then build up a couple of blobs of weld as shown.


Then slip a nut over the blob and weld together, nice high setting on the welder to get it nice and hot.



Hopefully you can then unscrew the little bar stewards easily. All four came out with little fuss, good result.



The last person who took the tank out twisted and snapped both the retaining straps and just araldited it all back together. I managed to reuse the original strap ends to make a proper repair, a new new threaded section and portion of strap were welded on.




No doubt the eagle eyed among you will have noticed the poor condition of the upper seal channel near the engine lid hinges, both sides are like this. This pic shows the spot welds drilled out so I could remove the corroded section, it also shows the small section I made where the new engine skirt meets the firewall and the tank strap repairs in place.



Corroded section of seal channel removed.



Repair in place, I had to do this in the same place on each side, it's spooky how consistent the rot has been on opposite sides of the van!



I have also wire wheeled the full tank area and a few bits of the engine bay, what a horrible job that was! I also managed to remove a flaky paint job from the engine bay, I think the last time the engine was out they just quickly painted over the dust and oil, didn't take long to get off.

It's all ready now for rust treatment in the base of the tank area and a degrease in the engine bay, then I'm going to paint it all with bonda primer. Then the engine bay / back end is done....hooray.

 

doing a great job looks good

 

Today after work I rust treated the areas where I removed surface rust then painted everything in bonda primer. For anyone contemplating this job don't under estimate the amount of time it will take to do a decent job! Degreasing, a rub down, rust treating and painting seemed to take forever!

You can also see the rear battery trays fitted which aren't included in my resto pics so far, they were gen vw and fit perfectly.

I discovered today that my tailgate is as rotten as a pear, the last paint job was done over 5 years ago and I can't believe that the holes (at least 50mm and rotted all the way through) just filled and painted have only presented themselves as small bubbles! It's true what people say on here, don't go poking at bubbles in paint if your not prepared to tackle the potential rotting mess underneath!

 

Started on my rear window frames next, although it's the superior panel van conversion the window surrounds were knackered. The track cover channel was virtually non existent.



I have chopped many big important parts off my van to replace them but strangely cutting this piece out felt wrong!? Maybe because it's so visible, I don't know, anyway it was rotten so out it came.



Repair for the lower part was made up for me by schofields, they don't list it on the website but readily make them if you just ask.



Cut to shape.



I worked my way around the frame making repairs as needed, been thinking of a name for the van when it's finished (more for the kids sake, honest!) and I'm thinking patch might be rather apt!



Here it is finished with a nice new track cover channel too.



I also did the other rear window too but I won't bore you with duplicate pictures.

Next up is rotten outer gutters where the poptop hinges are, literally 2inches at each hinge. I also new there was a slight bleb on the rear corner so stripped the paint back to see what was underneath............



It really is the van that keeps on giving!

I know this is the other corner but this is what it looked like before stripping paint.



I hit this side with the pointy end of a chipping hammer and it held up ok, so hopefully this side is as solid as it looks.
Watch this space for the rear corner repair, it's spread underneath into the frame so as always it's getting the chop until solid metal is found, hopefully won't have to chop too much

Due to the shape I reckon it's gonna be a challenge to get the corner repaired and end up the same shape as it started life!

I suppose it's a good chance to use the skills I've been honing during the rest of the resto....watch this space

 

Well done, looks like we are both in the same predicament with the same list of jobs to do, Good Luck with it.

 

Took the poptop off today.




It's almost ready for the bodyshop I'm hopefully getting a solid tailgate from davidoft and I'm waiting for a curved gutter to arrive so I can finish the repairs on the rear corner, some small outer gutter repairs where poptop hinges have been and a few other small bits of welding I might find, like the millions of screw holes inside added by the 18 careful previous owners! Nothing really compared to what I've already done.

 

I'm very impressed with the skill, determination, and attention to detail you're showing. I think "Patch" would be a perfect name.