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Mon Mar 01, 2010 5:23 pm

John as far as pneumatic tools, do you use a certian name brand? or do you do like I do and use Harbour frieght?
seems as you can get 10 tools for the same price as a more commerical tool pneumatic that is.

Mon Mar 01, 2010 5:59 pm

Most of it is HF, I just went to one of their stores here for the first time and bought a pneumatic shear. My air chisel is a nice Ingersoll Rand I bought to drive door hinge pins out, needed some balls for that. And after breaking a HF chisel bit on the air chisel, I bought a better set of bits on eBay.

I also upgraded my impact wrench to a an IR "Thunder Gun". I use that thing a lot and often need the extra torque. Grinders and air ratchet are HF. Stuff works ok and is usually cheap enough that you can go through 2-3 of them and still be ahead of the game.

I cannot imagine doing this work without air tools...

Wed Dec 29, 2010 3:25 pm

Some progress with some time off from work this week. I finished the replacement of the tunnel section. Tack, stitch and grind and it came out real nice. A pair of good strong magnets is useful here, but if you do use them, be warned that they will distort your MIG torch arc if you get within about an inch of them. Thought I was out of shielding gas at first, then realized it was the magnetic field....

Wed Dec 29, 2010 5:07 pm

Nice work John!

Wed Dec 29, 2010 6:19 pm

Soooo, what are you going to do inside the tunnel to keep the welded areas from rusting away?

Wed Dec 29, 2010 6:46 pm

ZwitterND wrote: Nice work John!
Ditto that JH, it is nicely illustrative to see it photographed in such a 'stage by stage' fashion. You are very inspiring (and didactic) in this manner!...can't wait to see the results! :idea:
(posted here I presume) :?:
carry on then. :arrow:
And Happy New Years :)
-Grant
P.S. TIA for the parts for my '52 split! (going via "air snowshoe"...snow country to snow country) :P

Wed Dec 29, 2010 8:42 pm

drscope wrote: Soooo, what are you going to do inside the tunnel to keep the welded areas from rusting away?

Keep the car dry.............. :wink:

Thu Dec 30, 2010 7:38 am

Nice to see the Tunnel start to take shape after the PO's impressive Hack repairs. What's next the pans? Keep the updates coming.

Thu Dec 30, 2010 8:24 pm

johnshenry wrote: SA pair of good strong magnets is useful here, but if you do use them, be warned that they will distort your MIG torch arc if you get within about an inch of them. Thought I was out of shielding gas at first, then realized it was the magnetic field....

That's funny, that is the exact thing I thought when that happened to me the first time I used magnets like that.

Wed Mar 02, 2011 8:28 pm

Some work on the front beam tonight:

Freshly media blasted.

The shop does not like to blast any parts with grease anywhere in them as it contaminates their media. But I couldn't think of any way of getting all of the grease out of the torsion tubes. I had put rubber plugs in the allen bolt bores, and the shop stuffed paper towels in the ends of the torsion tubes.

You can see some typical "tower rust" issues on this side, the steel around the lower tube has rusted through from the inside.

After spending about 30 minutes fooling around with a slide hammer and several 2 and 3 jaw pullers, trying to figure out a way to extract the fiber trailing arm bushings, I realized the sawzall, as is often the case, was the answer.

I cut 3 slots, thinking I could pry out the small one and then collapse the other two to extract them.... but quickly realized that a single slot is all that is needed. It allows the bushing to collapse just a bit and you cna just pull it out with your fingers....

Another rust issue, the tower halves had opened up as rust fomed between the flanges and "layered out" spreading the metal. I chiseled it open a bit more, scraped out the rust, and then dollied it back up tight. I then drilled the flange all the way through in 3 places and plug welded it.

I will seam seal all of the gaps and seams before painting.

Wed Mar 02, 2011 8:40 pm

johnshenry wrote: Some work on the front beam tonight:

Freshly media blasted.

The shop does not like to blast any parts with grease anywhere in them as it contaminates their media. But I couldn't think of any way of getting all of the grease out of the torsion tubes. I had put rubber plugs in the allen bolt bores, and the shop stuffed paper towels in the ends of the torsion tubes.

You can see some typical "tower rust" issues on this side, the steel around the lower tube has rusted through from the inside.

After spending about 30 minutes fooling around with a slide hammer and several 2 and 3 jaw pullers, trying to figure out a way to extract the fiber trailing arm bushings, I realized the sawzall, as is often the case, was the answer.

I cut 3 slots, thinking I could pry out the small one and then collapse the other two to extract them.... but quickly realized that a single slot is all that is needed. It allows the bushing to collapse just a bit and you cna just pull it out with your fingers....

Another rust issue, the tower halves had opened up as rust fomed between the flanges and "layered out" spreading the metal. I chiseled it open a bit more, scraped out the rust, and then dollied it back up tight. I then drilled the flange all the way through in 3 places and plug welded it.

I will seam seal all of the gaps and seams before painting.
Nice to see you back at it JH (and this thread "light up" once again) :wink: ...seemed a bit too quiet on the Eastern Front. :P
carry on. :arrow:
-G

Wed Mar 02, 2011 8:58 pm

drscope wrote: Soooo, what are you going to do inside the tunnel to keep the welded areas from rusting away?

I wonder if something like this might be a good idea?? http://www.eastwood.com/internal-frame-coating-w-spray-nozzle.html I'm contemplating this for one of ours that also had some tunnel welding done. I can't imagine it would hurt anything. Might be a good idea for new heater channels too or would the smell be a problem once heat was flowing through ?

Anyone used it or something similar?

Wed Mar 02, 2011 9:18 pm

I had to replace the support plates that are on the lower front of the rear wheel wells because it was rusting behind them an into the heater channel and when I did I could see into the heater channel (after I remover the mouse nest) it gave me a straight shot into the heater channel. So I Modified a cheap garden weed sprayer, the kind with a brass wand (I suppose you could use plastic & pvc) but I soldered a 6' section of copper on to the wand, filled the tank up with sightly thinned POR, pumped up the sprayer and sprayed my heater channels with POR. I set the nozzle to fan, it worked great. I am sure you could shoot down from the bulkhead. But be sure you plug all holes or put plastic under the frame.

Wed Mar 02, 2011 9:34 pm

ZwitterND wrote: I had to replace the support plates that are on the lower front of the rear wheel wells because it was rusting behind them an into the heater channel and when I did I could see into the heater channel (after I remover the mouse nest) it gave me a straight shot into the heater channel. So I Modified a cheap garden weed sprayer, the kind with a brass wand (I suppose you could use plastic & pvc) but I soldered a 6' section of copper on to the wand, filled the tank up with sightly thinned POR, pumped up the sprayer and sprayed my heater channels with POR. I set the nozzle to fan, it worked great. I am sure you could shoot down from the bulkhead. But be sure you plug all holes or put plastic under the frame.

Outside of dipping the whole chassis in a huge vat of POR15, that is a great idea!

Wed Mar 02, 2011 10:03 pm

Damn your taking forever :lol:

Thu Mar 03, 2011 7:45 am

I was thinking about "Clear Waxoyl" as seen in this thread:

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4...p;start=60

I guess it dries fully and not sticky/gummy.

I had thought about a garden spray too Bill, and possibly pressurizing it with regulated air from the compressor.

Rich, it will take forever. As I said before, nobody pays me to work on my own cars. It is hard to turn away $$ part resto work for others as I generally enjoy doing that too, and it just keeps coming at me....!

Thu Mar 03, 2011 7:50 am

Does anyone know where to buy Waxoyl in the US (online preferably). Lots of UK sellers, including this "cavity injection kit":

http://www.rust.co.uk/popup.cfm?p_i=474964&p_n=474964

I found a Rover parts dealer in the US that sells an areosol can of it so far that is it....

Thu Mar 03, 2011 7:56 am

johnshenry wrote:

Rich, it will take forever. As I said before, nobody pays me to work on my own cars. It is hard to turn away $$ part resto work for others as I generally enjoy doing that too, and it just keeps coming at me....!

I was just joking Sir, I'm sure if i had your talent I would do the same and take my time 8)

Thu Mar 03, 2011 8:57 am

johnshenry wrote:
After spending about 30 minutes fooling around with a slide hammer and several 2 and 3 jaw pullers, trying to figure out a way to extract the fiber trailing arm bushings, I realized the sawzall, as is often the case, was the answer.
I cut 3 slots, thinking I could pry out the small one and then collapse the other two to extract them.... but quickly realized that a single slot is all that is needed. It allows the bushing to collapse just a bit and you cna just pull it out with your fingers....

you can make a driver for removing the bushings. you need a long steel rod, thread an 8x1.25 hole in one end, use a long 8x1.25 bolt, a couple washers, and make a driver that is just smaller than the o.d. of the bushing. i use this tool all the time. it will work on inner and outer bushings. it's a little tricky to get it through the inner bushing, but after a few tries, it becomes pretty easy to get the feel of it.

here are some pics of the bus version i made. i also have a type 1 driver piece. http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/album_search.php?...t_dir=DESC

Thu Mar 03, 2011 9:06 am

hazetguy wrote: johnshenry wrote:
After spending about 30 minutes fooling around with a slide hammer and several 2 and 3 jaw pullers, trying to figure out a way to extract the fiber trailing arm bushings, I realized the sawzall, as is often the case, was the answer.
I cut 3 slots, thinking I could pry out the small one and then collapse the other two to extract them.... but quickly realized that a single slot is all that is needed. It allows the bushing to collapse just a bit and you cna just pull it out with your fingers....

you can make a driver for removing the bushings. you need a long steel rod, thread an 8x1.25 hole in one end, use a long 8x1.25 bolt, a couple washers, and make a driver that is just smaller than the o.d. of the bushing. i use this tool all the time. it will work on inner and outer bushings. it's a little tricky to get it through the inner bushing, but after a few tries, it becomes pretty easy to get the feel of it.

here are some pics of the bus version i made. i also have a type 1 driver piece. http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/album_search.php?...t_dir=DESC

Funny, I was actually thinking about that. Just using a washer and a bolt, but I didn't think about "flat siding" it so you could get it in there (TONS of grease in there BTW). In the end, the sawzall was the right tool for the job...!

I have a whole drawer of "homemade" tools like the one in your pics though. Once you have a welder and some metal working tools, the possibilities are endless!!!