Windscreen corner and demister transplant

Since I first got the car there was always a distracting scab of bubbling paint creeping out from underneath the windscreen rubber. Inevitably, that bubbling later became exposed rust as the paint flaked away and finally an ever expanding hole! Annoyingly it was always directly in my eye-line when driving the car and was a stark visual reminder that my pride and joy was slowly rotting away before me. Repairing this offending section would be a symbolic victory against the rust fairies and their psychological taunts of the past!

The divers side corner looked bad from the top side: 

...and was not much prettier underneath:

It would require more than just the mating flanges replacing. My conclusion was that the entire demister section also needed replacing due to the amount of terminal corrosion that had taken hold. I debating with myself endlessly about the best cut lines before finally marking up the area up with masking tape and setting about the task. I have not seen this particular operation done before in other restorations, so it was a 'character building' step into the unknown for me and a real test of my developing skills:

I used the small Dremmel cutting discs to carefully and accurately cut of the section. An angle grinder would have been too aggressive and I felt it could have easily led to errors. So slowly I proceeded. Thankfully my educated guesswork paid off and I was able to lift out the rotten section, complete with integrated demister pipe, in one piece:

On the donor scuttle panel I rough cut the relevant section out so that I could prep it and later trim it down to an accurate fit:

After a session in the shot blast cabinet I had fresh unblemished steel. I was heartened to see just what great condition this section is in:

The only repair I needed to make was a angle grinder gash on the inlet pipe. I guess that the seller who originally chopped out the scuttle from the donor vehicle must have been cutting with haste and this part was a minor casualty. Nothing too serious though:

I filed the protrusions around the cut nice and flat. I then cleaned up a thin piece of copper and added a curve roughly the same as the contour of the pipe. I then inserted the copper backer and clamped it in place with mole grips:

I could then weld up the gap:

After dressing the weld and a quick blow-over in the shot blast cabinet it was looking like new again:

I spent some time carefully trimming up the repair section and repeatedly trial fitted. However, I was starting to feel a little frustrated at this point as I couldn't get the damn thing to line up right on both sides - so I have decided to split the section by drilling out the spot welds:

This allowed me to get a far better alignment on both sides of the dash rather than compromising. Before welding anything permanently into place I took the opportunity to shot blast the soon-to-be inaccessible areas, such as inside the window frame and the top of the door mounting reinforcement panel. Cleaning all this was actually a real pig of a job as it was tough to get the bulky shot blast gun into some of the areas with tricky angles. It was slow going and all I could do was my best, but it is certainly better than just leaving it:

I then added few coats of zinc primer to hopefully prevent any rust re-emerging:  

Starting with the inside section I got the best alignment I could paying particular attention to the contours of the dash.

I really took my time with the welding and started at the outlet end which I determined to be the end that was most critical to get right;

As I moved along the tapering flange section I was able to manipulate the steel slightly and adjust the fit. The occasional vertical slit was added as required to allow the shape to be altered more easily:

All welded and smoothed out and holes filled:

On to the front panel section and I once again started welding at the outlet / corner area before moving towards the centre to complete the weld:

Once the front was welded and smoothed I was just a case of closing the gap between the two sections and plug welding them together. I'm satisfied with the end result as there is virtually no indication of any work having been done;

Couldn't resist a before and after comparison;

Patching up the rear stud line

I was planning on writing up this post once I had completely finished the area I've been working on. However, I have been forced out of action for at least a week following an unfortunate incident that could have been easily avoided if I hadn't become complacent and developed some bad workshop habits. Consider the following digression a cautionary tale if you also happen to work with power tools; always wear eye protection even for the quickest and smallest of jobs! 

This past Monday was a bank holiday in the UK, but I spent half of it in Bristol Eye Hospital getting a tiny piece of steel removed from my right eye that had embedded itself just off-centre of my pupil. I had assumed over the previous couple of days that I had a touch of conjunctivitis until I developed hyper-sensitivity to light and my iris became unresponsive (it was stuck at its smallest aperture and wouldn't expand regardless of the amount of light in my immediate environment). Turns out that the metal had started to rust and infection was beginning to set in around the foreign body. The method used to remove the metal and eliminate all traces of rust from my eyeball involved a rapidly vibrating needle. The instrument resembled an electric toothbrush with a sewing needle where the brush head should be. It really was as fun as it sounds, here is my poorly eye after the procedure:

Lesson learned, I will now invested in a full-face shield. Right, back to the main topic...

In between other tasks I have been progressively patching up the drivers side rear stud line where the wing attaches. This was in a poor state due to years of moisture getting trapped between the wing beading and the rear quarter panel. The pitting was very heavy in places and on close inspection there were a few pesky pinholes where it had completely rusted through. I decided the best way to make the stud line solid again was to let in good metal and eliminate the pitted areas, rather than simply slapping body filler over it and hoping for the best. I will let the following photos do the talking:

I noticed that on some of the studs warping had occurred if there happened to be pitting in close proximity, thinning the metal and distorting the surrounding area. These will also need to be replaced, but I will tackle them one at a time to preserve accurate alignment along the stud line:

Despite making a suitable patch for the first nut I eventually opted not to weld it in just yet as I wanted to continue repairing the areas between the studs first. So, moving swiftly on:

And on to the next one:

Note that I have not welded up the end sections of each patch. This will allow me to easily remove the studs later by cutting just the tops and bottoms.

Well, that is it for now. More stud line action to come once my irritated eye has healed!

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.