Hi all. So i've been lurking on the forum for a long time now and enjoyed reading through other members projects so i thought i would share my own. I didn't intend on having such a huge project on my hands but while preparing the car for some rust repair i kept finding more so i decided to make this a full restoration. It has taken some time to get to where i am now and there's still loads of work to do. I will update this bit at a time over the coming weeks to bring you up to speed. Starting at the beginning..... I bought the car in Sept 2009 and it was my daily driver for about 8 months. It was a pretty tidy example and totally standard. Here are the pics on the first day of ownership. There were a few jobs that i got on with straight away. The engine bay was generally a mess so i decided to tidy it up a bit. The clutch had been slipping so i dropped the engine and box to deal with that - turned out to be oil leaking past the clutch push rod seal. Other jobs done; Re-wrapped wiring looms Painted engine block Cleaned up the rusty bits Painted the gearbox Unfortunately i can't find any after pics but you get the idea. From this point i used the car daily. It was taken off the road for winter of 2010/11. I'll continue from there with my next update.
I had rented a garage to store the car over winter 2010/11. Unfortunately i didn't check on it at all and throughout and we had a pretty wet winter....basically the garage leaked like a sieve. The car ended up a mess. Full of water and mould and most of my work tidying the engine bay had been reversed. Anyway, out came the interior for a good clean. While the carpets were out i found that nearly every hole in the floorpan (the factory holes that seem to be there for no reason?) had rusted. Also, the front passenger side chassis leg was badly rusted, including the floorpan around it. I decided to strip the car down for these repairs...and then it spiraled from there. So fast forward to March 2013, after the car was stripped completely it was taken to my Dad's workshop where i would have mains power to crack on with the repairs. I made a temporary frame to hold the car on its side to make life easier. I started with removing all the underseal and found more rust! The worst bit...wafer thin in places. Underseal being removed slowly. If anyone tries this it is the worst job. I found the best way is to use a 1" scraper and keep it sharp. If you're careful then you can preserve the factory grey paint that lies beneath. A hot air gun helps soften up the thicker bits. Rotten sills... Getting there... More to come in my next update... Chris
So, on with the updates..... The original frame i made was limited as i could only have the car on one side. I decided to make a rollover jig instead. Now on wheels which made it easier to move it around if needed. The only mistake i made was keeping the pivot point in line with the chassis legs which made it roof heavy and a two man job to turn over. I made some changes later on to fix this. Now time to start with the repairs. First up is the drivers side jacking point and sill. Started cutting the panel out. New (genuine) panel back in place... More updates to follow.
oh my that looked like it was really quite smart looking before you started. But you seam committed to spending some time getting it even better.
Apart from the tailgate and a few spots around the windscreen there was no external rust at all..so in that respect it looked very tidy. Unfortunately in this case, the rust all lies beneath. Yes, it will be better than ever when i finally get it finished.
Great job so far, I have a Oak Green 16v with rotten jacking points. Where did you get the panel from?
I got them from VW Heritage but it was a while ago so i'm not sure if they are still available. Here's the part numbers from my original order. Goods Ordered ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 191-803-097/F Front Chassis Section, Left hand Side. MK2 / Golf ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 191-803-098/F Front Chassis Section, Right, Mk2 / Golf -----------------------------------------------------------------------
Next up is the rear arch which is pretty crusty More underseal removal. I started by cutting out all the rot and cutting a sheet to fit. I decided to get rid of the pointless hole in the panel. Then i had to repair the box section behind. I could have bought a panel and cut that piece out but only a pattern part was available and quite expensive so i decided to make my own.. I basically folded a piece of sheet to the correct angle and cut a series of slits to allow me to shape it to the correct contour. This could have been done with specialist shrinking/stretching hammers but i don't have them or the skill. I clamped it firmly into place and tack welded it back to a rigid piece. All welded up And cleaned up with the grinder.
The repair piece you made looks like a spinal cord lol Top work PS. Did you remove the black primer on the inside of jacking point panel?
No i didn't...you're probably gonna tell me that was a mistake? It'll be filled with cavity wax in the end anyway.
The quality of work you've done here is outstanding. In terms of the front floor area I've done exactly the same repair on my G60 (I've replaced the same panel on both sides -- though on the G60 it's a different design of panel) and although I think I did okay (some pictures here), the welding was nowhere near as pretty! It's all ground down now anyway so doesn't matter, but I'm envious of the standard you've achieved. A problem I had a lot actually was that no matter how much I tried to clean up the surfaces, I struggled to achieve pretty plug welds. I think maybe it's because I tried to weld with too much zinc coating. Love your rear arch section repair. How is the inner wing area behind the filler flap looking on your shell? I'm having to do that area as well right at this moment. Quite tricky even when the shell is on its side. I had to lap weld the repair section in as it's just so tricky to make the repair section flush fit given the complicated shape of the pressing. GG, are you saying it's bad to remove the coating around where you're plug welding? It's what I did. I found that the plug weld kind of 'reacted' and was poor if I didn't. I'm hoping good application of Epoxy 121 on outside areas and decent wax injected everywhere will make it last.
Am i missing something? Surely paint is better than no paint?...i'm more concerned with what i can do to protect the rear of the welds with the repairs i have done to the sills. I don't have access behind so i will have to hope the cavity wax does it's job.
Have you decided what cavity wax to use? I'm thinking of choosing one of the better contenders in this test: http://www.classicsmonthly.com/2012/11/05/cavity-waxes-on-test/
Thanks for the positive words Here's the inside of the filler on mine I have already finished the repair and will come to it in another update. It's definitely one of the most difficult repairs so far for the reasons you mentioned. I'm so annoyed as i had one of those inner wing panels (genuine) about 5 years ago but sold it during a period of not owning a mk2...i should have held on to it. Nevermind. Your jacking point repair looks spot on! I have also been using Epoxy 121 which seems to be really good stuff. Hopefully with that as well as underseal it should be well protected. I notice you have removed those wind deflector flaps (if that's what they are called) at the rear of the floorpan....assuming the G60 has them. I had to cut mine off as they were rotten.
From what I've learned the black paint is sprayed on just to prevent flash rusting of the parts whilst in storage. I had an OEM panel lay around for 2 years with the black paint on in a damp garage. It wasn't laying in a puddle, just sitting on a shelf. After 2 years the paint had bubbled up and rusted underneath. And that's just from the moisture in the air. If you want to go all out resto, it's best to rub the paint back to bare metal, rough the surface up (better yet soda or sandblast) and paint as much surface as you can with a good 2k epoxy or washprimer. You shouldn't prime real close to the areas that are going to heat up from the welding. Say in this case when you are plug welding it in, I'd leave spots roughly 4cm in diameter of unprimed bare metal surface around the holes that you are going to plug weld. Same should be done on shell side of the repair. Before welding hit the unprimed areas with a good weld thru primer (3m stuff is great) and then plug weld it in place. The weld thru primer will not burn off like regular primer. Then clean up the welds and prime/paint as usually and fill the cavity with a generous amount of wax. For the first application of wax I've found it's best to leave the can of cavity wax in a bucket filled with warm water to help thin it down. It will help the wax to seep through the seams of the repair. Hope that makes sense. Not preaching, just sharing my experience with you guys. As I said before, vr6syncro is doing a great job, and I bet the outcome will be great.
My plan was the MIL-spec 3125 (Dinitrol) for the cavities as it seems one of the best. Then use 4941 on the underside. What are your thoughts? What underseal are you using over the Epoxy?