Aircooled VW South Africa

It's coming time for me to make a start on me bugs.

I want to remove the body on my '64 but the bottoms of the door posts are a bit vrot. It seems the best thing would be to weld a length of angle iron between front door frame and rear door frame. And then maybe a cross bace or two as well.

My problem is that I don't yet have a mig or tig welder.

Can I weld the angle iron to the door frames with a stick welder and a 2mm stick - or will I just burn holes I'll need to fill later?

Your Bug has got 4 doors?????




No Worries, I know what you mean. The thing is that you will have to weld the bottom of the two pillars together with a brace(both sides). If done properly, you will have to weld a diagonal bar in the door to and to over kill, one from one door to the other. Problem is, in my humble opinion, a stick welder is going to give you REAL head aches. So it is not advisable. Thing with stick welding is that it doesnt like rust that much, so you wont get good penetration(oooh errrr missus!) and not a good spark(to start) either. Also Tig is not the recommended tool to weld a chassis/repair panels with. Not that it isnt 'good enough'(contrary!) but time consuming and expensive. Especially if you only want to weld cross bracing in! So that realy only leaves you with MIG welding(although OA welding/brazing will also work.).

Point is that now, even only welding in braces, is the time that you should be carefull not to burn extra unneccesary holes where later you have to stuff that awfull body putty in!!! Erm, I mean body filler......

Hope this helps a bit.....

Hmm. Was pretty much what I was expecting. Was hoping against hope that somebody would say '2mm? Yep, be careful and you'll be fine mate!!'. No such luck.

Ja, sorry to spoil your hope! Not saying that it cant be done. BUT, even with a 1.2mm rod, it will take a real (no seriously!) professional qualified welder to weld this metal! Bear in mind that you say that the metal is vrot, and even with a MIG welder, you are going to have a real kak time trying to weld your braces in. Rusted metal dont weld, it 'evaporates' into thin air as soon as the 'spark' of the MIG welder strikes...... Sorry.

What realy need t obe done is to determined EXACTLY where your rust stops, and then cut at least 1cm higher on the panel that needs repair, and work from there.... What you also have to bear in mind is that in 90% of the cases, you cant see the rust that is on the REAR of the panel where you want to do the repair job. Soooooo......, even when you think that you are working on non-rusted metal (looking from the outside), the panel does have rust on the backside..... After welding in your repair panel, there is still quite a bit of work left to do in treating the remaining rust that is present on the back. Otherwise you nicely new welded repair panel will start to rust in double time(remember, wherever you weld, you burn the existing paint off on the backside, and a lot of people dont think properly to treat this new fresh bear metal. And that is where your sh!t starts! )

Hope this input helps a little, sorry for the longwinded post.

Ja, I was wondering about treating the internal spaces. What's best? Something like waxoyl that may not treat the rust, but hopefully excludes oxygen so that it can't get worse?

Over here we have a thing called (no idea how it is spelled, so I will try do it phonetically ) "Korkreu" . Nevermind, persistance paid off. Found how it is spelled(French) "corps creux anticorrossion". It is like a milky/transparent very sticky liquid. The thing about this is that it is a rust inhibitor, but the most important part, is that it does not ever dry properly. So, it doesnt crack and let poisture in underneath. You HAVE to be sure though that the panel it DRY, DRY, DRY before you put it on. Sorry, I cnat help and tell you what is available there in SA.

Here, I found a slightly better (technical) explanation of the product. Ignore grammar and spelling mistakes, it has been translated from French on the web.

It is a thixotropic wax to prevent rust with excellent properties.
The product is mainly based on waxes, corrosion inhibitors.
The product leaves a protective film transparent, waxy, water repellent, and giving excellent protection against rust.
Designed to be used in enclosed, on spare parts, etc., which are stored for long periods or transported in the weather conditions that favor rust.

I would repair those bottom hinges with repair pieces (from callooker) before I remove the body this is in my opinion the safest. it can be done with the body in place. a good rust preventer available over here is called tectyl and is available from midas (I bought it while on holiday in natal) it is a oily liquid that dries to a hard waxy substance it works by seperating the metal from oxygen.

Armand

I'll give callooker a pm.

I've used tectyl before - used to live on the coast and used it on an old land rover I used for fishing on the beach. Had forgotten about that.

IMPI wrote:it is a oily liquid that dries to a hard waxy substance it works by seperating the metal from oxygen.

Armand

Not doubting/disputing it being effective. I just wonder, even when dried to a hrd waxy substance, if it cracks. The main thing is that it needs to stay flexable. As cracks just ask to be filled with water/moisture....

How about welding a "door" and bolt it on to the door gap at hinges and lock.