Slough Swapmeet Swag

First time that I have ventured over to the annual Slough Swapmeet and it won't be the last. It was a quality event with plenty of old air-cooled wagons to inspire and motivate thyself (particularly needed in these colder darker wintery days):

From Bristol, it was only an hour down the M4 motorway to get to Newbury Racecourse on a sunny Sunday morning. Met some intresting folk and managed to bag a few items for Gretch: 

6v battery cover. Although this will never be fitted to the car it is my intention one day to make a larger version that has the same original appearance, but will fit the dimensions of a 12v battery. This is low on my priority list, but I think that a period looking cover for a modern battery would be a nice touch. Eventually. Some day. Maybe.

Original Bilstein jack. Not sure this is the exact 'year correct' version for a '65 (comment below if you can enlighten me), but it appears to be around the right era. Good enough for now and it was an absolute bargain for a clean one in working order.

Heater channel vent covers. I was missing the passenger (left) side, but got them as a pair for a low-low price. They fit up into my Klassic Fab channels, but I may need to rework the top lips to enable the covers to freely slide underneath as they are in ther pretty tight:

 

So, a great day out was had and a few more OG parts have been ticked off of the list!

Auf Wiedersehen heater channels!

With the car firmly braced up the time had come for some brutal surgery! I started with the rear crossmembers and marked the location of all the spot-welds ready for drilling out:

A few areas had small weld stitch welds about an inch or so long, these were ground back using the dremel tool as I did not want to over grind the area, which is easily done with an angle grinder:

The Y-piece heater tubes had small blobs of brazing on the top and underneath to join them to the inlets of the heater channels. I also ground these back:

After a while of having fun with the power tools, the old crusty panels came free with forceful wiggle:

The old and the new (yep, there was quite a bit of material missing from that outer edge!):

Getting the remains of the heater channels out was largely the same process. Locate and drill out spot welds:

Cut carefully around and just to the inside of the seam welds of the B pillars and hack through the A posts ( I didn't have to be so precise here as these will be replaced):

Out they come ...after some twisting, tugging and leverage from a big flat headed screwdriver:

Comparison of the old and the new:

Interesting little discovery - the outer skin of the passenger side heater channel had apparently been patched up in the past using a now obsolete 'Veng' repair panel. Sticker still intact on the inside, as seen through several layers of corrosion:

With both channels now out of the car it would've been rude not to have a quick test fit of the Klassic Fab replacements:

Still some minor adjustments to make in order to make them sit right; namely, the carpet retaining strips that sit along the bottom edges of the door apertures appear to be too far back and foul both of the B-pillars. Nothing that a little trim wont take care of though. On the whole I would say it is looking fresh!


Edit (27/02/2017): The marginally incorrect position of the carpet retaining strips were really bugging me, particularly as they cost a pretty penny to buy. Klassic Fab are know for their outstanding attention to detail and it seemed a shame that this was letting the overall quality down. I sent my feedback to the UK vendor of the channels who got in touch with Gerson over at KF on my behalf. This is an extract of the replies I received:

"We got an email back from Gerson and hes checked all the channels he has and they are all the same. Hes sold over 400 pairs but has been told this by 2 other customers so he is now aware of it. He said that he thinks people just cut the small part out or de-spot weld and re-spot weld the strip."

"thank you for your email, yes Gerson knows all about this now so he will make sure that these are right in the future."

Happy to hear that this minor issue will be addressed going forward. Klassic Fab are a real asset to the aircooled VW restoration community and I am reassured by the fact that they take customer feedback onboard to improve their products.

Funky green channels

Recently took an epic detour to pick up a new set of 62-67 Klassic Fab heater channels. Far from cheap, but the pressings are crisp and the detailing is top notch (finished by hand I am told). The closest thing to brand new period correct channels that are currently produced anywhere in the world:

Threw them on the pan for a quick test fit:

All the bolt holes line up wonderfully, but I think that the passengers side pan might be slightly out - hoping I can resolve this further down the line when I am aligning the body. I hope...

The pros and cons of my blasting rig

After a lot of research I decided to go for Aluminium Oxide (60 – 80 grit) as my blasting media. I was able to pick up a 20kg tub locally and added the whole lot to the hopper. I blasted these small inspection hatch pieces to get a feel for it:

I was delighted with the results as the surfaces are amazingly clean and it seems to be gentle to the healthy metal under the rust. Plus, the embossed factory numbers are preserved in amazing condition, something that a wire wheel would have no doubt damaged or partially erased. For a before/after comparison, here is a vent cover from one the heater channels with a thick layer of paint and crud all over it:

After a quick sandblast:

And finally everything gets the usual lick of primer:

However, not all is as good as it seems. There are a couple of annoying problems with my current set-up. Firstly, my little 2.5Hp compressor cannot keep up with the air demands of shot blasting. It has a tiny 24L tank and it is just not enough to hold a sufficient volume of air. In fact, I can only blast for about 8 seconds then I have to wait for it to re-pressurise and this recovery time gets frustrating after a while. Having looked into my options I have identified 3 possible solutions:

1. A more powerful compressor – this would be ideal however for a hobbyist like me this does not make good economic sense because a big compressor that has the spec required is a LOT of cash!

2. Add an expansion tank – I could link a receiver tank to the compressor to increase the overall volume of compressed air at my disposal. This would allow me to a much longer blasting time, but on the flipside the recovery time would be equally longer.

3. Link two compressors in together in tandem – this I feel is the ideal solution. Basically I need to get another little cheap compressor and join it together with my current one with a ‘y’ connector. This would increase the overall tank size and recovery time. Best of all I could set the compressors to kick in at slightly different times (e.g: one starts when the pressure hits 90psi and the other when the pressure dips to 80psi).  

The second issue that I was encountering was the amount of dust being generated which obscured vision a lot quicker than I had anticipated. I think I will rig up a vacuum extraction system at the time I add a 2^nd compressor. In fact, I have an old vacuum cleaner that would be ideal for the task! Stayed tuned...

More rusty warts ...big 'uns!

The biggest problem I am going to confront in this rebuild will be the rotten heater channels! They run along each side of the car, between the floor pan and the shell and are an integral aspect of the car's structural strength - i'm guessing mine currently yield the strength of wet toilet paper!