Left Hand Wheel Arch Repair Part 1

 Gosh been a little quiet around here. Global pandemic does not help.

Betty has been resting on a new Barn over winter. With Covid restriction not allowing me to visit her until now.

With regular access since April I have started work on the Rear left hand side wheel arch.

The left hand wheel arch has had a small amount of bubbling just above the pressing over the wheel for a many few years. It never looked as bad as the right hand which was done a few years ago. But now was the time to have a good look.

Small amount of rust in two areas

Lower area around sill

Along the top edge

As always it starts with a few rust bubbles and then turns into holes.

Needed to understand why the lower corner where it meets the inner sill was rusting out. A bit more picking and the cause was found.

Under the underseal a hole had grown into a major entry point for all the water

So started to remove the rest of the paint and a good amount of cutting off the old outer wheel arch later.....

Quite a lot worse on the inner tub edge

Caught the rot not to effect the sills much

Gone up quite high

All the way back to the Battery tray. Rear corner and tray look okay

The rust had been a lot worse on the inner wheel rub area on the inside then obvious on the outside

So some inner tub repairs are needed. I always prefer to do these first and work my way outwards. Start with the flat vertical areas and then move onto the outer skin. Then coming back to finish the inner / outer closing lip once both are done. It makes life a lot easier then trying to do inner edge in free air not knowing where the outer is going to end up.

Cut out the inner sill closing

At least the C Post has not been badly affected. Only surface rust.

So much cutting and a lot of rusty metal removed. Nothing I have not done on the other side. After cutting and cleaning back a good coating of FE-123 rust converter was applied to all areas.

Moved onto starting to build up the inner wheel rub.

New straight area at the top was grafted in. New curved area on left created. New angle on right between the tub and the "mud flap" of the tub also built back.

Now I was happy the areas of the tub has been recreated I moved onto the outer skin.

Outer skin cut down to size and trial fitted

Outer body cut to fit

So the repair panel and outer body cut down for a massive long butt joint weld.

Painted all non welded edges with Epoxy mastic paint to ensure the area is good coating.

Coating the whole area again with Weld through primer again to ensure a good seal.

Moved onto the welding.

Tacked and then welded along. Ground down the weld.

I chose to align the butt weld at the top and then move downwards to the sill and battery tray to ensure I had a good panel gap without compromising the flatness of the join at the top.

Clamp the bottom sill on the left. Had to clamp down quite hard to get it to meet the lower sill limp. Poor cheap reproduction pressing. Tacked it in place.

Then moved onto the Battery tray on the right. again had to press in, clamp and tack weld. This allows me to get a good body gap which runs down.

That's all for Part 1. So far I can only have work access on Saturdays. So I did this over 3 days worth of work.

In Part 2 I will conclude the welding and hopefully have it finished. Maybe in 2 weeks time. Might be a part 3 with paintwork.

Stay tuned.

Bodywork - Part 6 - Paint & Finish

Just to recap the last 5 posts are all about inspecting, cutting, fitting and welding.

This post of the finial post on the painting and final finishing.

I will do one more post on the results of all this work with before and after photographs.

The paint used was the rust busters Epoxy mastic EM-121.

 

 

 Injected some paint into the sills before closing. 

End of inner and middle sill looks better. 

Inside of wheel tub

Much better view of the battery tray!

After the epoxy went off I put the U pol Grey Stripe seam sealant on all welded areas.

Next update is the Before and After Photos!

Bodywork - Part 4 - Repair Patches

After the last part 3 - Cutting each repair area could be assessed and CAD (Cardboard Aided Design) templates can be made.

These CAD models can then be transferred to sheet steel, cut and folded to fit the exact CAD model.

The metal repair patches are the trial fitted and fettle to fit. Once a good fit is found then they can be primed with weld trough and ready for the welding in part 5.

Front wheel arch / Sill

Nice simple patch for this to close up the sills. This will be one of the last panels I will weld in as it allow me to get pain into the sills.

Inner sill front

Simple patch. I decided to go down onto jacking point to give it some extra strength.

Inner sill rear

This area was a mess. There are two holes on the inner. either side of the jacking point.

The worst area is at the end of the middle sill and inner sill where they meet the wheel tub. The sides and of each and also the bottom need to be recreated.

The wheel tub closure panel will be welded over this to close it up.

Outer sill

The purchased outer sill will cover all the external edge. One small area of the edge of the inner sill was required

I then had to decide where to cut the old sill out. I had two choices, Cut at and leave the old sills door rubber OR cut at the lower edge of the sliding door track.

Both options are fine as the old sills rubber seal area is in good condition but cutting and joined old and new is hard. So I opted to cut out all of the old outer sill and join at the sliding door track as per the stock design.

The only downside of this is that I have to cut the old sill to track out without damaging the sliding door track. First thing was to remove the door. Then cut into little sections and remove old spot welds.

This was slow work, as I did not want to damage the sliding door track.

Then trial fitted the new sill

Nice to have some new metal fitted!

Rear wheel arch

This is one of the largest panel in length covering 1/3 of of the whole length.

I made the decision to leave the inside wheel tube repairs until the wheel arch is in place. It means that you have the best chance of joining the tub to arch alignment. The only downside is that you have to recreate the wheel tub lib when inside the tub which is tight to access.

The arch is trial fitted as full size. My plan was to flange this panel BUT it is too close and joined to the upper part of the wheel tube.

So I am going to have to cut the arch panel and the van and butt weld them together! Nightmare but possible. 

The panel will be cut down as I only want to remove as much as I need so in years to come there will be still original metal for future repairs.

Rear Bumper Mount

This was a nightmare to bend and fold. But got there in the end.

Battery Tray

The battery tray was an original VW part. 

Fitting the panel was a COMPLETE NIGHTMARE! having the rear corner and van complete it does not go past the light metalwork. Had to do plenty of cutting of edges to get it fitted.

Painting

Once all parts and panels are fabricated then I then coated everywhere with the weld through primer.

When looking at this there is not actually that much metal.

Recap

All repair patches have been through a complex CAD modeling then transferring to metal. Trial fitted, primed and painted.

Next step. Final clean and then welding!

Stay tuned for Bodywork - Part 5 - Welding