Long Panel Outer Sill Repair

The outer sill repair is an old repair I had my uncle help me do when I first got the van to keep it on the road, this was in the last century by the way! This ancient repair was done with a panel that didn't quite fit and needed re-doing. So using the top quality Autocraft outer sill repair panel I measured and trialled it on the van, marking along the top edge and using tape as my guide and allowing for an over lap, I cut away the old repair and rusted outer skin.

 

I unleashed a new tool as recommended in a Volks World employees project car article, this tool is used to joggle the top edge of a panel, this is called a roller joggle. After reading the instructions and trying a few scrap bits I proceeded to roll the tool along the length of the new panel. I wasn't satisfied at first with the depth of the joggle so I adjusted the wheels closer, this gave me a deeper step (still not what I needed for the thickness I was using) and it stretched the material giving the top of the new panel a nice wavy edge that any child's play ground slide would be proud of. After a few $£%^ and &*£$ got thrown around the garage, I often let rip with a F Bomb when I'm alone, but more importantly without buying a new panel or shrinking hammer I'd try and salvage the situation with a few small cuts down to the joggle line to relieve the stretched material.

 

Knowing that these long panel repairs can turn to chaos if you're not patient with your welding I decided to try and give myself a helping hand. I used a couple of bits of wood clamped either side of the panel to help keep it flush and flat (although shielding the light it also helped keep my welding torch straight) even though the repair panel did had a few wobbles here and there. This only worked up to a point, as the wood would still bend. So I tried a piece of angle iron, this was OK until I snapped the arm of one of the clamps, and the skin still moved when I released the clamps. F Bomb time again.

 

With the clamp repaired (a bad craftsman rewelds his tools?) I tack welded along the length and tried to patiently space my welds along the whole length of the panel. I couldn't get a good penetrating weld unless I held the welder for long enough for the panel to get too hot, so there are a few places where the sill is a little buckled. I then straightened what I could and spot welded the lower edge.

That spot welder is not light and is hard to handle when lying on your back. With the welds ground down the panel looked reasonably straight, I'll have to come to terms with the fact that I'll be buying a XL pot of filler to get that flat panel look. I like the word joggler, I'll be dropping it into polite conversation every chance I can!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cab floor Accelerator Pedal Hinge Repair

I had a wobbly gas (in English we say accelerator) pedal for years and looking at the rust below it I'm surprised it survived this long, and didn't end up getting pushed through the cab floor when trying to get climb up all those hills on the way to Devon.To remove the pedal I had to bend it away from the hinge as the wasted/rusted pin you see below that should slide out of the hinge but it was not going anywhere maybe due to years of me standing up bodily on the pedal to squeeze a few more precious horses from the engine.

I ground away the hinge and then wire wheeled the paint and rust to get a true picture of the total corrosion. It came down to the same dilemma I've been having with most of the small repairs, do I spend the time fabricating the panels or just buy them? This time I decided to fab)ricate) this one myself, although there were other repairs in the floor I didn't fancy replacing like a half or a full cab floor.

The tough part was making the channeled section and matching the curve of the floor. The channel was joggled in a vice with two blocks with a small radius on their edge, positioned the correct width apart and placed on the opposite side of the repair panel to a plastic spacer that I had shaped using the old metal as a guide. 

As this was squeezed between the vice jaws the channel was formed and surprisingly the shallow radius I cut on the plastic spacer shaped the repair (nearly perfectly) to the correct curve I needed to fit the hole I cut out. Success.

I bent the repair patch a little more then tack welded the edges, persuading the repair to sit flush as I went round.

With the patch seam welded all the way around I ground down the welds flush and cut the hole out using the markings I had previously marked onto the floor. The hole came out a little bigger than I expected using a hole saw I couldn't keep square, and I should have spot welded the new hinge on the patch before I welded it in place. but will have to do that later.

Using a spot welder

In between sorting the rear end, the disc break mod, drawing up parts to be machined and collecting the bits needed to finish off the panel work, I've been trying out my new toy.

It has taken me a while to get around to buying myself a spot welder, 1) because of the cost, £370 for a 6Kw (max 2mm thickness weld) or £495 for a 13Kw (max 4mm weld) 2) because I've made do by mig welding holes together. But now I've got it, I've realised I should have purchased it way before I started cutting my van to pieces.

I managed to get my 13Kw as a used display model for £380 from eBay but having to wire up a 32amp socket, plugs and cables so it would work cost me an extra £50 on top.

Once I was all wired up and running I started practicing straight away, like a child with a hot and dangerous Christmas present. Reading the instructions carefully I set up the rod gap thickness to the metal, adjusted the required pressure and set the welder to the required power and material thickness, pulled the trigger and sparks went flying. As the instructions said to leave the rods closed for a few seconds to cool the weld and then release, behold my first spot weld, easy.... I thought.

The instructions did not mention that you have to set the gap with the trigger set just before the pressure spring starts to work, this meant I started spot welding the lower bulkhead to the forward cross support with no pressure reacting on the metal, and what this does is spark erode the material away, (burn a big hole) after a few burnt through welds that I later MiG welded and cleaned up with a grinder, I managed to reset the spot welder and squeeze my way under the rest of the van to weld along the lower bulkhead.

Although there are still a few variables, power, pressure, gap and timing the welding is pretty easy, apart from the weight of the welder when as you lie on your back and hold it up to the van above you, and also that the material is spotlessly clean.

Now I'm able to fit the front jacking points and cross pieces.

944 IRS Conversion A arm trial fit

With the all the dimensions we previously measured, my mate drew up a comparison drawing on CAD overlaying the VW set up over the 924 rear end. This gave us a better idea what would need to be cut away from the rear end and any issues with clearance. I had also measured the old 924 spring plates and transferred the holes using a pillar drill for accuracy on to the van spring plates, I did nearly make a mistake drilling in the wrong place, luckily I caught myself by measuring twice (and only cutting once). Once both plates were drilled off I cut one to the desired length. Not knowing for sure how thick the spacers would need be I also cut out a recess for the A arm casting to clear but I realised later from trial and error I didn’t need to.

The A arm was first trial fitted with 26mm shims made up from £10 worth of cut-to-length steel tube, 14mm nuts, washers and threaded rod, this clunkingly amateur set up gave me an idea of where I needed to cut the chassis for clearance.

So now the point of no turning back! I got to work grinding away the chassis to get the clearance needed for the travel of the A arm.

With the A arm remounted with 26mm spacers you can see the hinge just inside the horn.

Then with the wheels mounted directly on to the hub, with no discs or caliper spacers, the rim clearance on the wheel arch was too close for even the tyre to fit.

I did fit the discs and calipers to the hubs to see how they would look then try to fit the wheel, this reminded me I needed to shim the caliper lateraly to the disc (placing spacer washers inside the caliper mounting holes and onto the arm mounting position) and space the wheel off the disc about 6mm to clear the caliper, (see previous blogs) this meant spacing the A arm even further in than expected. But don't the disc and caliper look lovely?

With several hours spent fitting and dismantling the spring plates, grinding out the chassis a little more, cutting tubed spacers and threaded rod to length then refitting it back on the van, I finally decided to use 57mm lengths of tube to space the A arm in from the spring plate. This gave the 205/60 /15 tires about a 24mm clearance gap from the wheel arch and 18mm gap from the face of the spring plate. The problem now is that I can only fit the wheel over the disc and hub when the spring plate is set on the original spline (touching the bottom stop). I also need to work out where the damper mount and bump stop will fit. It's a good job the wheel and tyre aren't heavy...

Rear corner lower repair

I've always known there are a few mysteries hiding in the rear corners of my bus so armed with a grinder rather than an archeologists' trowel I fought my way through the layers of ancient filler to unearth all the rust demons hidden beneath.

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I wasn't too surprised with the left side- a few small holes around the shelf line and plenty of dents under all that filler but the right side revealed this maze of holes on the inner corner of the deck lid seal line and covered by a channel section on the inner skin. This could be a little tricky to fabricate a patch for. But I like a challenge...Not

944 IRS conversion

Taking a break from all the welding and body work, I managed to drag my mate Tim from working on his own van to spend the day removing my rear end and measuring up for the sexier back side. On the VW not my own body. He's not an amateur surgeon. Just to clear that up... This is a Porsche 924s (not a 944 as stated in the title but I think they are the same) rear axle that I ordered from Porsche Apart and it arrived in a box as wide as my garage, doing a little VW to Porsche IRS conversion research online I've found that there are two types of 944 aluminium A arms, one shorter than the other, I hope I have the right one. I've also had a few comments that this can't be done so lets see if they're right.

I've played with the hubs and discs previously (usually when I'm alone in the house) but it was now time to get the serious stuff sorted out. So a quick spray of penetrating oil on all the bolts and the original gearbox and reduction boxes pop out after 40 years with no bother.

Here are the A arm mounting points on the 924s beam, this beam is the same diameter as the bus one at 90mm. I may try and use these mounts if I can't work out how to make a fresh pair.

The mornings' work gave us the measurements we needed to calculate the size and shape of the A arm and most importantly if they would fit. I've drawn up a plan of the measurements to get an idea of how things are going to fit (the arm on the drawing is a bit fat). The Porsche axle wheel offset including discs worked out to be 1497mm across, the Bus axle with the original reduction boxes and drums came up as 1445mm across. To keep the outer wheel rim in the original position under the arch and using wheels with an extra 40mm offset means I'll need to locate the A arm mounting points 46mm closer to the center line.

I've also stolen a couple of photos from the SSVC 'For Sale' forum of a 944 rear end and edited them to show the comparison of the different length arms below. Please don't sue me if you hold the copyright of these pics. The longer arms have no bump stop molded in the arm and a longer reach from the spring plate mount.

Before we removed the spring plates I marked their position across the spline shaft with a junior hacksaw then carefully slid them off making sure the inner portion of the splines stayed in position, if the moved I'd have to waste a lot of time later setting the ride height to the correct set up. The 924 spring plates are a lot shorter and made of two plates, the outer plate has the inner spline tube poking out (the spline is smaller than the VW one) the tube is slid through the inner plate and held in place by the two bolts one is elliptical used for adjusting the ride height, the plates are sandwiched by rubber bushes and bolted on in the same way as VW do it. With the reduction gear boxes out the way we decided to see what sort of ride height would look good. These are 205/60/15 unfortunately they are touching the top of inner arches. But you must admit it does look good! (No the grass isn't real, I R Photoshop King)

Fitting outriggers and jacking points

I've finally started to see some progress with the endless task of repairing the cargo bay chassis. With a bit of cutting, measuring and banging with a huge mallet I was able to fit and weld the outriggers I'd made with the new jacking points I definately did not make. I thought I'd made some real progress with my welding until I started doing it against the laws of gravity. Guess I've still got a few things to learn!

A few tack welds hold the outriggers in place untill I can get my hands on a spot welder.This is the right side fitted. I levelled and positioned it with a spirit level clamped across the beams like the Professional I deep down am. (Yes in the picture the spirit level is actually invisible)

Although I still needed to spot or mig weld the forward support section to the bulk head so I can fit the front outriggers and centre cross member, I couldn't help trial fitting my new cargo floor before I got called in for tea. No I don't still live at mums but I did eat fish fingers and beans.

Vanfest 2009

Just thought I'd post a few shots from the show.

Re fitting cargo floor chassis rails Pt 2

Once both sills were fitted I cut the chassis rails out any way I could, trouble is I needed the tubes embedded within the rails. With a tiny 1mm cutting disc I delicately cut them free from the welded frame brackets.

I also removed the brackets from the centre of the I beams that securely hold the gear link tube in position. To do this I again unleashed the 1mm cutting disc very carefully and gingerly (see what I did there?) using plenty of light to see what I was doing cut away the weld, wobbling the I beam regularly to break the weld. Once each rail was slid off the tube I drilled the 8 spot welds off each side.

With the main chassis rails cleaned I placed all the cross members in their positions and using the datum marks and laser I marked out the centre and handbrake cable tube holes. When I hastily cut and folded all these parts originally I didn't order enough material to fold all three top hat sections, so the other two I picked up from the Autocraft engineering stall at Van Fest, the quality of these parts is spot on, and surprisingly fitted perfectly between my new fitted sills.

I had originally decided to manufacture many of my own parts and save money, this was decided before I knew what parts if any were available, or the quality of the ones that I could buy, and also because of my previous crap panels I'd bought before. This meant I created for myself a few problems- marking and cutting a 31mm tube hole without a pillar drill accurately in bent 2mm and 4mm sheet is not easy, requires patents and can be very time consuming, the only tool I thought was available for a pistol drill was a tapered drill bit. Backed up by wood I started drilling slowly, straight away skidding off my markings, then unable to control the awesome speed of the cutter I burnt out the drill and hardened the sheet steel, like an apprentice fitter I once was. All this trauma and it was still my first hole! I was having a bad day, it felt like I was wasting precious garage time on these parts that I'd made and I was getting really grumpy. I decided I would bit the bullet and order all the chassis parts I needed. The prices online came to over £200, again I changed my mind and decided that my local machine shop would save me, and do the drilling for me at £10 a hole (over £40 total). They sent me away with the advice to try an electricians' hole saw and come back if I had no success, or produced yet more warped glowing red sheet steel. With a good lunch and large bottle of Coke (other brands of pop are available) inside me and my new tool in hand I tried one more time. I was surprised how tough and accurate the hole saw cuts were but I do need to ask Santa for a pillar drill (if you're in New Zealand it's pronounced Sinta by the way). It's all about using the right tool for the job. Or buying one.