Cracking on with the shell

I have been hard at work over the past month stripping old paint and rust of the shell.

I started out (...and not yet finished) with the engine bay which has a lot of fiddly hard to access areas. I stripped what I could using an angle grinder mounted wire brush, then worked the tighter areas with a drill mounted wire brush then got right into the hardest of places using a rotary tool (I use a Draper one now as the Dremmel turned out to be as crap as their subsequent customer service!). 

Whilst working on the rear valance I uncovered an alarming amount of filler running down the left hand side. When I had taken everything back I could see that the area had buckled inwards, which in turn had caused some damage and creasing to some of the inner plates:

 
Based on the accounts of the original owners this would be consistent with a minor accident back in the 80's when a Mini slid into the back of the car due to icy road conditions. It is bizarre, but knowing the history of these damaged areas stops me from feel frustrated about the state of them!   

Anyway, following my valiant attempt of the engine bay (still in progress!) I moved onto drivers side rear window and again the little rotary tool wire brush was perfect for getting into those tight corners and underneath the drip rail:

And with a fresh coat of primer added: 

As I was on a roll I then bare metaled and primed a chunk of roof section: 

Not sure how to tackle the rear vent area yet, hence why I masked the area off and sprayed around it. 

More progress updates real soon...

Gretchen, aged 5

Happy New Year! I thought it would be great to start 2014 with a bit of a treat that I have been holding back for a special occasion ....a glimpse of Gretchen as she looked back in 1970!

 

Although I cannot disclose too many details for confidentiality reasons (hence the crop), I can tell you all that I managed to make contact with one of the original owners of the car at the tail end of last year. We talked at length about his many years of ownership and we swapped a few stories about her past adventures. Later that same month he forwarded a lovely letter from his daughter (who also owned the car for a while), which included a family group photo with Gretchen (yes - it has now been officially confirmed that this was always her name!) peeking through in the background. I am so grateful to them for sending this photo and for taking the time to inform me about the cars history. It completely blew my mind! The picture provides me with so much motivation every time I look at it, so I now have a framed copy ready to hang in my garage! 

Ohh, and I just love those vintage VW logo mudflaps - another item for my wishlist.

Merry Christmas!

What began a little distraction...

In between my welding practice I have been tending to a few rusty areas on the shell that have been distracting me from out of the corner of my eye. However, what began as a few minor areas has sort of snowballed (excuse the festive pun). Here is a quick run-down of the past couple of weeks of activity...

Crusty deck lid area:

The lip that holds the rubber seal was in pretty bad shape, so I decided to remove it and grind the area flat. I will most likely use the later type of engine seal - the one that fits directly onto the deck lid.

Drivers side rear quarter:

This was an area that had become really bad soon after I bought the car and I remember it failing its MOT one year because of the state of it. I had no choice but to take it to my local garage who advertised themselves as being specialist in vw restorations. Well, it turns out that what for years I assumed was just a 'skim' of filler to smooth out any imperfections turned out to be a dense layer that was hiding lazy repair work:

Once I had removed all the filler and turned my garage into a winter wonderland (the dust got everywhere despite using an extraction system) I could assess what had be done. Basically they had taken a flat section of sheet steel and made no effort to shape it to the contour of the car. They have then appear to have tack welded it into position and hastily ground the welds flat(ish) leaving unsightly abrasions all over the place. This was finished up by slapping copious amounts of filler (3-4mm thick in some places) over the top and sanding a fake profile. What a lazy bunch of cowboys!

I marked up the panel and cut out the abomination without delay. I found that the 'pros' hadn't even made an effort to treat the back of the repair patch and had just left it as bare metal, which had obviously rusted up nicely over the years. Oh well, the offending section is out now:

I then moved on to the inner arch area and figured I would strip it so that I could see what was going on beneath the underseal.

As expected there was quite a few old repairs and other repairs over the top (like patchwork in some places!) but there were vast areas of good condition original steel which was a welcome sight. I treated the whole area with a rust inhibitor before keying it up with the electric sander:

Then added a liberal coat of primer to keep the panel fresh until I get around to making the repairs. It funny - I hadn't intended to touch touch the shell until I had finished and rebuilt the chassis, but I must admit that it feels like a good to see some advancement whilst i'm mastering my welding technique! 

Learning to weld

Well, I could avoid it no more; the time had come for me to learn how to MIG weld. I have been busy reading, watching instructional videos and seeking guidance from my good friend T-bone about this easy-to-learn-difficult-to-master skill. However, I knew that to really progress with this project I just needed to get many hours of practice under my belt. No time like the present!

Allow me to introduce the vintage beast that I have been learning on:

Using some scrap metal from the old floor pans, I set about honing my skills. This was one of my first few efforts:

In the sequence above you will see the original scrap piece as it was before (top left). I cut it in half with the angle grinder and held the pieces together using an �Intergip�, which is a fantastic little welding clamp manufactured by Frosts (top right). I then proceeded to make my not-so-attractive weld (bottom left). I then carefully ground the weld flat with the flap disc so that the joint became invisible (bottom right). I decided to give the area a quick lick of primer to simulate how the repair would look when painted:

I was impressed with the result � the joint was barely detectable! Not a bad start if I do say so myself. However, I still need plenty more practice to get �a feel� for the welder and learn how to manipulate the settings to get the best possible penetration of weld. I am optimistic that by the new year I will be ready to begin welding the car and that�s when the really fun will begin!

Napoleon balls-up!

As you probably know, this blog is all about documenting the true story of this restoration project and to allow others to learn from my successes as well as my mistakes. Well, in the spirit of the latter I wanted to share this week�s tale of failure � but it�s not as downbeat as it sounds because I have learnt a lot by cocking up!

For some time I had been thinking about the Napoleons Hat section and how I was going to go about repairing it. The reproduction panel that I bought just doesn't feel substantial and also looks uneven because it has been poorly pressed. So, I decided that I would only use what I needed from the repro panel and retain most of the original section. After extensive research I came across other restorers that have replaced just the end tip sections, but the corrosion on mine extended further than just the tips! So, I cleaned up the inside of the old naps hat and assessed the areas of pitting and the thickness of survivng metal. After a lot of measuring I made an educated guess and marked up the section to be cut out off: 

I made a diagonal cut with the angle grinder and was confident that the remaining metal was sound: 

Next came the tricky task of cutting off the corresponding piece from the new panel. I spent a long time checking and double checking my measurements and then carefully cut the piece using a hacksaw:

I used the belt sander to clean up the edges:

I then gave it a test fit and was delighted with the fit:

......Until I placed a straight edge up against it and released that the diagonal angle was slightly out and as a result the whole replacement piece was angled upwards by about 10%! Bugger!

I tried to grind the correct angle back into it, but the drawback to this was that it removed more material than required and so when I had finally got the angle right I was left with a whopping 5mm gap!

I now need to have a think on how to proceed. I am tempted to buy another naps hat and start from scratch rather than trying to find a way to fix my mistake. We will see. I need to scratch my head for a while!

So, what will I do differently next time? Well, I think in future I am always going to cut wider than what I am aiming for and then grind the section down until it fits perfectly. This will enable me to test fit and fine tune 'on the fly'. You live and learn!

Odds n' sods

I turned my attention back to the chassis again last week and started tackling some of the small but nonetheless important jobs. First up was smoothing out the bad welding that was highly visible on the transmission mount: 

After grinding the welds flat it looked far neater. However, I am now a little concerned about the strength of this joint, but I will keep under review and may come back to it in the future:

Next I focused on the reinforcement braces which sit underneath the outer edges of the floor pan upright sections and attach to the u-shaped brackets which come off the torsion bar housings. My originals were in a sorry looking state and had been butchered and plated over numerous times in the cars history: 

The driver�s side was far worse, with blobs of weld everywhere:

After carefully excavating all of the additional rusty layers with the grinder I found the original metal! 

What I am left with will provide a good basis for fabricating some replacement sections or I may just attempt to repair what is already there. I will ask around and come back to it soon.