Cargo Bay Floor Removal Pt2

For the second attempt at attacking the floor I managed finish cutting all the way around and pull it up in one piece, although I did have to cut around the jacking points, and the spot welds under the seat rail plates had me stumped until I had a bit of help from a large chisel. The only things that gave me any trouble was the welding on the previously replaced sills. Although the door side was cut away earlier and also where the heater tubes come through the back of the floor, it was hard to get a cutting disc around most of it, so I chain drilled the tight corners here and the other places around the floor that a cutting disc would not fit.

One mistake I did make was along the front edge was cutting too deep through the floor and into the front support beam that was in reasonable condition. This means I will have to remove this support without damaging the lower edge of the forward bulkhead lower skin that this support is spot welded to. I am not sure how much trouble this will be.

As for the forward and back cut edges where the floor is folded up and spot welded I went round and peeled these remaining strips away by pealing and twisting the metal strips causing the welds to pop away leaving a small raised weld to grind off. This is a lot easier that grinding off the whole strip or drilling each weld but it could distort the good panel which is easy enough to tap straight again, but in the worst case it could rip away the weld so be careful when you do this. The edge of the floor that attaches between the rear wheel arches and the lower part of the forward engine bay fire wall is S shaped and not a simple 90 degree L shape as I thought, so I'll be leaving this part in tacked until I see what the new floor looks like.

Volks World Show 2009 at Sandown Park

Wise words to follow when I dont have to get up early in the morning.

Cargo Bay Floor Removal Pt1

After a lot of contemplation I finally committed to pulling up the whole cargo floor area. This was not a decision taken likely, many hours staring at the rust and the calculating how may repair patches would be needed in that corrugated floor, and how impressed I was with the replacement floors produced from Muscle Bus, finally got me to the decision to attack the many spot welds that pin this floor down. Once I started I knew I had made the right decision. I just hope I don't regret it later. I could have attacked the floor slicing it to pieces with a cutting disc along the edges of the outriggers which would have been fun but I felt I wanted some sort of recovery plan if I did make a huge balls up. So I decided to take the floor up in one piece, this meant removing every single spot weld. Although I had a spot weld drill I found it better to start with a sharp 1/8" drill bit carefully cutting only through the first piece of floor then finishing with a 3/16" that I'd slightly ground the tip flat so that it cut no further than the depth of the first drill bit. I only slipped through both pieces on a few holes and my knees suffered for too long on the ridges of the cargo floor.

Cargo Bay Clear Out

With a few hours to spare I managed to not sit in front of the TV and instead got myself into the garage. Although I wasn't in the mood for getting covered in rust I did manage to get the van out into the sun for a good clearout. That was after I pumped up the rear tyre with a cheap bike pump (not recommended for those with a heart condition). After a struggle drilling off a few rusty screws heads I was able to removed the rear pop outs to unearth some tiny pinhole rust spots in the gutter. I then cleared out the remaining interior, attachments, wires, insulation, gas pipes and old coppers (coins not Policemen) to get a good assessment of the whole cargo bay.

The 4 or 5 holes in the corrugated floor had not got any bigger than the first time I found them years ago, but the struts and floor supports I could see through these holes are looking very corroded. I brought a floor repair panel, but the idea of seam welding corrugation doesn't sound too good and could take a while.

Rear wheel arch and Cargo door latch rod repair

There are a few things I needed to do to get the rear cargo door lower skin to align in its original position and shape, the hole at the front of the left rear wheel arch needed patching up so that I could use the curve of that panel as a datum for the lower door skin. But as always another part needed repairing to get that panel to fit correctly. This could have carried on until I came around full circle, so I stopped at the inner wheel arch patch. The cargo bay floor and jacking mounts will have to wait till later.

Another little job to make sure the skin panels were fitting in the correct location was to repair the door locking rods (these are the rods that fit between both door skins and lock the door at the top and bottom from the central door handles) so the doors would not flap around like they did whilst on a bumpy road. A few beads of weld and a couple of minutes with a grinder and sanding disk sorted the corrosion on the lower part of the two cargo door latching rods. A little bead of weld along the worn parts of the lower latch sockets helped lock the doors in the correct position temporarily.

Cargo door repair

Well its Bug Jam weekend and sadly I’m not there, so it's a good time to focus my VW passion somewhere else and get back into the garage. Fueled up with leftover Chinese and some classic Aerosmith on repeat, I've decided to skip any attempts to repair the front arched (dog legs) and move further around the bus and start on the cargo door bottoms.

I've had a pair of cargo door inners for a while from the first batch of panels I bought a long time ago. They have weathered well but the quality of these is something to be desired, so I've recently ordered another pair from Auto Craft Engineering, They actually look like the bottom of the doors, they also include a box section to help locate the door handle locking rods.

A bit unsure where to start, I decided to try and keep as much of the original door inners as possible while keeping the length of the doors wright, this meant starting on the inner panel and getting that all to fit before cutting away the outer skin. My first cut was just below the first inner radius, I then tried the repair panel against the inner door and found the top hat section of the repair panel is a little thinner than the original. To recover from this I flattened out the inner radius of the repair piece to give me the length to cover the bad material (gap I'd cut out), this would not have been a problem if I'd just cut the old bit out at either end.

Once the panel and door were cut and filed, and I was sure they matched against the outer skin, I then made the bold move to cut away the outer skin. Using the tape as a guide and a 1 mm cutting disc I sliced off the lower portion of the repair skin to keep as much of the original door skin as possible.

How time flies by

It’s been a while since the van has been out from under its' cover, everyone who has a car project know how fast time goes by, and in the back of your mind you're thinking 'I must get something done on that car'. All the normal things in life have got in my way, lucky I don’t have kids otherwise I'd never get to see my van on the road. But a major part of garage time has been taken up by my other VW Beetle.

A bent con rod caused by a lost tin wear bolt I dropped in the inlet manifold. Remember to cover your inlets! A good 200 miles of tinkling noise coming from the engine before the bolt finally passed the valve and seized between the piston and the cylinder head.

 

Then a Ford Focus decided to cut in front of me while pulling away from the lights. After I jack-knifed him for trying to push me into a lamp post, I had to get the front of the car repaired. This then led to finding a cracked front suspension beam upper mount, this is probably due to going over too many speed humps in a lowered bug.

 

To top things a rotten heater channel that had stored a puddle full of water from the floods a few years ago decided to break through just before the MOT. This took up the week off that I'd put by to get the van restoration going again. The joys of owing an air cooled V Dub. May be next weekend I'll have some time to work on the van.

Still on going

The van project is still on going but work and exams have taken up a lot of time at the mo, I hope to post more on the project before the new year.PB

OK so its been a busy Christmas as well, so it will be updates in the new year.

Machined front caliper mounts

Every day priorities like moving home, exams, barbeques and playing new playstation games have unfortunately put the van's rebuild on the back burner for the last month or so (I just don’t want to miss out on any of the summer sunshine, you never know how long it will last). But I have managed to get the front caliper mounts machined.

A friend that knows their way around a CAD program was able to help me in a morning produce an engineers' drawing. We started drawing all the known dimensions e.g. brake disc size, caliper size and spindle mounting hole pitch, from these we were able to calculate all the dimensions required for the mount, then with an outline added we created the virtual caliper mount. This wasn’t far from the rough sketch I'd made in the garage to produce the wooden prototype, the hardest part was calculating the curve that would match the profile of the caliper inner mounting lug.

I sent the drawing to a local machine company (Cranford Engineering) that was able to do the machining at a decent price. I chose solid steel as I didn’t fancy trying to calculate the strength and shear properties of aluminium. I was very pleased with the end result, with a clean up, coat of paint, a few new bolts and the front brakes will be ready. Unfortunately I won't be able to test them until the van is rolling.

Van Restoration Relocation

Haven't had much time to get on with the panel repairs because the restoration has had to be relocated, I was able to find a nice big double garage with power and water, this means I'm now able to work on the side of the van and not just the front and the back. Amazingly, through a door in the back of the garage I found, tucked behind some bushes and an over grown garden a house that also had electricity and running water. My girlfriend was happy to stay there while I get on with the rest of the restoration.

When I originally found the garage and measured it up for the fit, there was loads of room to work, but it was very close on height. I thought I may be pushing it in and out of the garage with flat tires, or having to start another project of raising the roof, and I don’t think I'll be able to keep a roof rack on for long.

The vans trip to its new home went smooth, A few curtains twitch as a rusty heap was unloaded from the flat bed on to the street, Then, what I forgot to do was measure the width of the access lane to the garage. Pushing a van enthusiastically down an ally when you have 6in or less clearance either side and you don't have any breaks is a bit scary.

Having all this room In the garage didn't last long, to accompany the van came all the VW parts I’ve been hording for the last 10+ years (just in case I might just need that old rusty part), gear boxes, engines, tones of engine tin wear, exhausts, front beams and boxes of all the smaller bits. It's going to take some time to clear away the unwanted parts, and sort out a working garage, but in the end it should make getting the van back on the road so much more enjoyable.

Left "A" pillar and cab floor

Another patch in the floor that needs filling up, I wonder if it may be easier to replace the whole cap floor with the time it takes to cut, file, weld and grind each repair.

I'm still teaching myself to weld, with this patch after the tacks were in place I tried to run a continuous tack weld with a higher weld setting to get the penetration with a pause so the seam didn't get too hot, this did work but needs a bit more practice or a faster wire feed speed to get the weld deeper into the corners and looking cleaner.

Cab floor and door seal carrier repair

I've managed to drag myself back to the welding, and attempted to deal with the rust holes behind the cab door seal carrier, and the parts of the floor I've cut out for the A pillar repair.

After cleaning up the A pillar skin under the seal carrier with rotary wire brush, probably one of the best rust eating tools I have come across so far. I cautiously welded up the holes and ground flush ready to weld the carrier back into place.

It took a few attempts and measuring to fold up a replacement length of seal carrier. Then butt welded this on using the magnets keeping it square while it was tack welded. I cut out a patch for the floor, bending it to suit the curve of the floor as it was tacked into place, this patch was then cut to suit the seal carrier and a seam weld to hold it all in place, all in a long days work, grind it all down and should look as good as new!

The bus also got it's first bit of sun for the summer.

Porsche brake conversion Pt3

I think I've been a bit sidetracked sorting out the brake conversion instead of getting all the welding completed, probably because it's more fun seeing shiny bits coming together.

The problem with the rear disc diameter being too small was solved with replacing the 944 >88 discs (289mm diameter) with 944t (928s2/928s4) 299mm diameter ones, these new rear discs are a little thicker at 22mm making it a squeeze fitting the caliper when they have new pads. The new disc cost an extra £30 a pair; this reminds me why I have a Vdub and not a Porsche.

The caliper is a pretty tight fit in the back off the 15" wheels; there is a slight rub on the wheels' inner shoulder where it rubs on the front caliper face so I'll need a wheel spacer of about 6mm to get the minimal clearance all around. It's not what I wanted to do. But it's something I'll have to live with.

Trying to find 14mm washers in the local DIY shops to use as wheel bolt spacers was harder than expected so I've resorted to using 15mm plastic water pipe. I first cut them 7mm thick that didn't work, then at 9mm and this still rubbed in a few places on the inner wheel, This meant pushing the wheels this far from the hub gives me the next problem of having to use longer wheel bolts, so I may just space the wheels enough to get to get 4mm spacing from the caliper keeping enough thread for the wheel bolts and clear the small amount of material from the caliper to clear the foul.

I popped down to a local Porsche show room in my bug to collect some caliper mounting bolts, after a scan of the 911,s I was greeted by a pretty lady behind a desk asking if I would like any help, explaining why I was there and a phone call later a suited gentlemen arrived with my £6 bag of bolts, a little surprised I paied and started to ask about caliper piston sizes and brake master cylinders, "sorry I don't study the breaks" silenced I decided it was time to leave. You can't beat speaking to a grubby mechanic who knows there way around the cars they work on.

With new bolts I mounted the front caliper to the wooden bracket I'd made and with the bearing spacers fitted I was able to work out that I needed 11mm offset to centralise the caliper on the disc. I'll now have this bracket machined once I decided the best place to position the caliper around the spindle. Although I'm still unsure if I should use my link pin or ball joint spindles and beam.