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Fri May 27, 2011 7:18 pm

bmundy wrote: I am happy to report I am the new owner of Tom's Thing. I am working on it, bit by bit - not that it really needed anything. I am teaching my teenage son how to do some basic auto work. It has become my daily commute car, which is much more economical than my H2. I am also happy to report it just won an award at a local VW car show that had about 200 entries.

Welcome Brian, good to see you join the forum. Lots of great Thing knowledge here for sure.

Tue May 31, 2011 3:49 pm

I finally broke down and tore into the rocker repair this week. The hardest part was getting started!

Cut out the wrecked part and started trimming back the area. I'm going to try to save the paint at the factory seams so I have a paint line, hence the odd splice there. Also, I really didn't feel like tearing out the entire rocker since the front was fine so I decided to just use the rear part of my NOS rocker.

Cutting:

First test fit of the rocker:

Oooh, NOS.

Trimmed up and ready to tack in. Guess I'll start welding tomorrow.

Tue May 31, 2011 5:35 pm

great splice

before you tack it in place, you may consider a rust "encapsulator" for the remaining portion of the inside of the rocker.

I had to replace the complete outer. while I was there, I used master series and sealed up the inner rocker. I then drill 3/4 holes on other inside rocker and sprayed master series all around inside the rocker cavity. kind of similar to "rust proofing" days.

The things are bad about rusting from inside out.

just some thoughts i wanted to share.

Tue May 31, 2011 7:15 pm

63ziggy wrote: great splice

before you tack it in place, you may consider a rust "encapsulator" for the remaining portion of the inside of the rocker.

I had to replace the complete outer. while I was there, I used master series and sealed up the inner rocker. I then drill 3/4 holes on other inside rocker and sprayed master series all around inside the rocker cavity. kind of similar to "rust proofing" days.

The things are bad about rusting from inside out.

just some thoughts i wanted to share.

Yeah, good point. I was definitely planning on coating everything with POR-15 before stitching it back up.

Wed Jun 01, 2011 6:52 am

Nice work and a good approach. The insides don't look bad.

I'm all for preserving what you can!

Thu Jun 02, 2011 3:06 pm

Got quite a bit done...

Coated the inside of the rocker with POR-15

Then tacked in the rocker

And then finished welding it in and cleaned up the welds. Almost there!

Thu Jun 02, 2011 3:09 pm

Good job!

Sat Jun 04, 2011 1:43 pm

Finished up the job yesterday and today.

Filled, primed, guide coat:

Blocked out with 400, ready to spray:

Done! I'm really pleased with the splice, it came out really straight.

Sat Jun 04, 2011 1:45 pm

nice! did you use the same paint as the fender?

Sat Jun 04, 2011 1:51 pm

norcalmike wrote: nice! did you use the same paint as the fender?

Yeah, for now. I may have some new paint color matched in the future, and then it'll be super easy to just mask off and spray it again.

Sat Jun 11, 2011 4:34 pm

After unmasking, it was readily apparent that the color was off. Way off. So I bit the bullet and had some paint custom-matched to the original paint and re-sprayed the fender and rocker. I wish I'd done this to begin with - it's so close I almost can't tell the difference! Thumbs up to Lucky at Jerry's paint in Sac.

Sat Jun 11, 2011 4:44 pm

I love what you're doing. Makes me wish I had these kind of skills two years ago.

Sun Jul 24, 2011 3:00 pm

Haven't had too much to say lately, but I did manage to get the Thing reassembled, refinished the front and rear bumpers, refinished the wheels, restored and reinforced the top frame and finally installed a new TTS top. It's come a long way in the last year.

Sun Jul 24, 2011 4:07 pm

Wow. Great work!!!!! Stop by anytime. I have some stuff i need your skills to accomplish. Very impressive!! Well done. K-mann

Sun Jul 24, 2011 8:26 pm

Nice work Mink. Congrats!!

Sun Nov 13, 2011 11:41 pm

So last month my wife took the Thing to a Euro Sunday event in Folsom and I recently found this picture. When I was a kid watching "Sesame Street", there was this song they'd sing called One of these things is not like the others...

The Thing was very warmly received, I should add.

Mon Nov 14, 2011 3:27 pm

hell yeah that is a great pic

Sat Jan 14, 2012 6:00 pm

It's been a while since I posted in this thread so I guess it's time for an update.

One of the things that always bothered me about this car was that the bottom of the trunk looked really crusty and had been slathered over with POR-15. The rest of the car is really dry and original, so this seemed really out of place. I started to dig into the right corner it was like opening a can of worms.

The mess I found after digging:

The crusty mess:

A friend let me scavenge a similar strengthening rib from a parts Bus so I used that to repair the one that had rotted away:

Fabricated the rest from sheet steel:

A littler filler and primer:

Then I used some 3M seam sealer around the perimeter and then brushed it with a cut-down 1" paint brush so it looked like the original seams:

Then I wrapped it up and painted it. It's not perfect, but it's a whole lot better than before!

Sat Jan 14, 2012 7:27 pm

your work is amazing! i wish i could hire you! i do this to teeth all day long, but the larger stuff really intimidates me

Sun Jan 15, 2012 7:23 am

Great work man

Those things are lucky to have found you