Welding in the pan sections

I have been looking forward to this job for ages! This is the point where this abstract lump of metal starts to resemble a recognisable chassis again:

First task was to drill a couple of 10mm corresponding pedal bracket holes in the drivers side pan (the original holes appear to be 11mm, but I think the smaller hole looks neater). To get them in the right place I clamped the floor pan half into place and then sprayed a small amount of red primer through the tapped holes of the mount bracket. This gave me the markings I needed for my holes:

Next up I drilled out a series of holes spaced 25mm apart around the edges of the pans in preparation for plug welding. For the narrow areas (where the pan did closely follow the profile of the tunnel) I drilled 6mm holes and elsewhere I went with the standard 8mm:

Also added a few holes for plug welding the pan to the topside of the reinforcement plate, just as the original was attached: 

 
Then I cleaned up around the tunnel lip with the drill mounted wire brush and shot blast the small localised areas the drill could not reach. Once all traces of rust were eliminated I applied a liberal coat of zinc/weld-through primer.

On the passenger side pan I chiseled off the unneeded captive nut (which would have been used to mount the pedal adjuster on a later model LHD car) and then welded up the hole:

With the drivers side pan fitted up the best I could do, I began adding the plug welds. It was pretty slow going as I needed to scratch the primer out of each hole to be plugged with a scribing tool. Obviously the added benefit of taking time also ensures that heat doesn't build up to a point where things start to warp.

To ensure a tight fit I enlisted the help of a couple of friends (thanks Dangerman & Chimps) whenever I could grab either of them for an hour. They had the important task of standing on the inner lip edge of the pan ahead of where I was about to weld and would lean their weight on an inverted broom stick. This proved to be an effective way if getting a flush fit.

Drivers side pan in place:

Fortunately both of the pans pulled in tighter to the tunnel as I progressed, so the gap I was previously concerned about was less of an issue. In fact, it pulled so tight in places that I needed to rely on some hammer persuasion to keep things flat! 

Passenger side pan in:

 

Finally got it all mounted back on the rotisserie ready for clean-up and a few final touches:

Pedal reinforcement plate

I needed to recreate the pedal reinforcement plate the I absent mindedly cut though thinking that it was part of an old crusty patch repair. Using a piece of 5mm flat bar I transferred the dimensions from the drawing I created and used the remains of the original to double check accuracy. After some trimming and grinding I had the basic shape sorted:

Once I had located the exact position of the mount holes I began drilling them out on the pillar drill, firstly with a pilot hole:

I then moved up to the 6.80mm tapping bit that I ordered online specifically for this task:

Then added the treads using an M8 x 1.25 tap to match the original. It really pays to go slow here and use tapping compound:

I needed to add more material to the top of the naps hat flange so that the overall thickness approached that of the pedal reinforcement plate (wish I would have thought of this at the time I was repairing this section). To do this I clamped some copper underneath the section and progressively added weld to the top, which I later ground flush:

To assist with getting good weld penetration I chaffered the edges of the pedal reinforcement plate and set a 1mm root gap at the bottom (with corresponding 1mm root face):

Offered up, fitting finessed and ready for welding:

I practiced on some scraps first as I have never welded steel this thick and I really only had one shot of getting it right. Welder settings needed to be cranked up and I also fitted my welder with thicker 0.8mm wire. Blew a couple of fuses whilst experimenting with the setup! This is the finished product after a wire brush and zinc priming:

Top side sanded flush along the weld seams and ready for final fitting of the floor pan half. Fitted a couple of new M8 8.8 bolts for good measure:

Happy with that!

Drivers side outrigger now in place

On the last update I mentioned that I was frustrated by the fit of my passenger side pan. I have since asked around for advice and got some really helpful feedback. Most agreed that the pan fitment looked fine, but cautioned that I should really double check my dimensions before plug welding them into place. I have now added a few technical diagrams to the 'useful resto info' page of this blog following extensive online research. In order to check the accuracy of my dimensions I decided to plough on and fit the other outrigger which would allow me to assess how everything was looking:

I then flipped the chassis over and welded the u-shaped torsion bar bracket to the support foot I previous fabricated:

Cleaned up and zinc primed:

Spent a great deal of time the tape measure assessing the distance between the two outermost holes in the outrigger sections. Made some notes to compare against the technical diagrams that I sourced and concluded that I was 4mm in total (i.e; 2mm on either side). However, the tape measure had to go over a slight hump (centre of the chassis tunnel) and would probably account for the extra width I was detecting:

It made me consider whether the diagrams had been drawn up with this aspect in mind or not. That would make them open to interpretation and so my findings will remain inconclusive for the time being I guess. Ultimately I would have preferred the gap to have been a couple of mm smaller so that the pans butt against the tunnel tighter, but I can live with what I have and make it work 

....I hope this doesn't become a statement that I haunts me further down the line!

One step forward (or possibly two back!)

Got the first of the rear pan outriggers welded into position recently:

However, not all is well in the garage of Los Rhysos! When I offered up the floor pan it did not fit snugly into the lip as I would have liked:

I used some red primer to mark where the pan sits and removed the pan to assess how much overlap I was getting:

The gap is about 4/5mm in the widest places, which is enough to really bother me! With this narrow overlap it will be difficult (not impossible) to make suitable plug welds. It is far from ideal, but then I have high expectations. At this point I really don't know if the perfectionist in me is clouding my judgement! After all, if I get hung-up about the fit about every little part then the resto could stall and never get done. At the end of the day I would rather have a car that I could drive and enjoy, but that is a little 'off' in discrete places, than a car that remains unfinished because my vision outstrips the reality of an amateur DIY restoration. Food for thought, but I digress....  

Essentially I am not sure whether to leave this outrigger as it is and hope for the best or grind it off and start from scratch. I think I need to take a step back and conduct some research and ask around on vw forums for advice before welding the pans into place.

Cup of tea time! 

Safer Motoring

Thanks to a well known online auction site I managed to get my grubby mitts on a collection of old British VW 'Safer Motoring' magazines from 1965!

It has been fascinating to flick through the pages and see what was going on at the time my bug was born, such as the prestigious award for Miss VW: 

Then of course are all of the vintage adverts for accessories for me to droll over. With this accurate reference material I now have a wish list of accessories to fit the period of my car. Just got to keep my beady eye out now:

Even in '65 they understood that if you wanted to market a set of boring foot well mats, then you can always rely on the fact that sex sells:

I want to wrap this post up by wishing you all a Happy New Year! My sincere thanks to you for your continued interest in this resto journey. 2016 should see some big leaps forward...

Fitting the rear chassis outriggers

To ensure correct alignment of the rear outrigger/pan supports, I needed to drop the shell back on the chassis. This enabled me to match up the bolt holes with the shell and provided me with essential datum points. I enlisted the help of my generous pal 'Chimps' to assist with the heavy lifting. He is no stranger to shifting this lump of rust around and was previously involved with 'Operation: Beetle Relocation'. My thanks goes out to him for devoting most of his evening helping me out on a cold wet December night. We attempted reunite the shell and chassis in several ways, but to cut a long story short, we ended up opting for 'plan B' following strained back muscles and colourful bruising to my forearms (don't ask!). 'Plan B' involved removing the shell from the wooden supports and taking it briefly out of the garage. Then we removed the chassis from the wooden rotisserie and laid it flat on the floor of the garage on top of some wooden beams just so that it was slightly raised. We then brought the shell back in the garage and dropped it over the top. Then bolted on the front beam and loosely bolted the shell and chassis together. I was then able to position the rear outriggers and offer up the new floor pans:

It was obvious that I would need to rework the profile that joins onto spine section to get an optimum fit. The better the outriggers fit, the better the bolt holes under the rear seat would match up and the tighter the pans would fit to the lip.


Out came the outriggers for a bit of prepping. First up was to drill a few holes on the outter edge of the dirvers side ready for plug welding. I then positioned my fabricated support bracket (remember that little beauty from the last post?!) underneath using a couple of small G clamps. Utilising a reference photo on my laptop I was able to visually fine-tune the angle of the bracket to ensure it was in the correct position. VW never put them on totally square it would seem):

I then plug welded the bracket into place from the topside through the holes I had previously drilled:

Good signs of penetration on the bottom is what I like to see:

 Dressed the top edge and gave it a lick of primer:

The outriggers also needed minor adaptions to make them correct for a RHD car. Time for a quick round of 'spot the difference'...

Having manipulated the profiles to roughly match up with the spine of the chassis, I bare metalled all the areas to be welded, offered up the outriggers and added the first initial tack welds with the shell lifted up for better access:

Then dropped the shell back down to check the fit:

There we have. A lot of repeated lifting, but time saved down the road as I know the chassis matches up with the shell like a glove! All thats needed now are the final bead welds to fix these pieces into position ...but that will just have to wait for another time as I have family festive business to attend to!