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Mon Sep 02, 2013 6:27 pm

Hey Everybody,

So to make a long story short, I've been plugging away at my 1974 standard slowly but surely over the past 3 years or so. She's now mechanically solid, but the biggest hurdles are, as is to be expected, the heater channels, which I recently finished replacing, as well as the notorious "crescent vent rust" resulting from the so called "death foam" sprayed up into the small cavity connecting the passenger compartment to the engine bay.

I'm having a little bit of difficulty matching the original body line exactly with the filler, so if anyone can make any suggestions on how to get it closer, I'd really appreciate it. Aside from heather channels, this is the most extensive and visible bodywork I've ever done and really only my second or third time using body filler.

So first things first, I removed as much of the foam as I could and cut out the cancer with the dremel and grinder, attempting to preserve as much original metal as possible; here's the result, a pretty large cavity in a rather curvy part of the beetle's body. I was very worried about fabricating a piece of solid sheet metal to fit here:

As you can see, the removed metal looks like it came straight out of a Genevan cheese-making factory! I ripped apart a Cheerios cereal box and cut out a template. I then transferred this onto a piece of 20 gauge(I think?) sheet metal. This is where my dad came in; he took the piece and shaped it, using a clamp for the sharp angled body line bend, and a large diameter length of pvc pipe for the lower circular bend. It looked fantastic, and resembled the original piece better than I had ever imagined it would. Here is the cut-out rusted metal on the left, the template in the middle, and the piece my dad and I fabricated on the right:

Thank God for my Dad's help; here he's test fitting it:

Not too shabby!

I fired up the welder and tried not to heat things up to bad, spot-welding around the edges, alternating from one side to the other:

A closer view:

I then hit it with the grinding disc...when I do the left side of the car, I'll use something less aggressive:

I then whipped out the Bondo:

I wasn't happy with the Bondo; I found it hard to work with, so I went out and bought a can of Evercoat Rage. It is a little bit easier to sand and nicer to work with:

I then slapped on some primer and sealer to prevent it from rusting in the rain...this is an outdoor project :cry:

As it sits now; I definately have a smidge more bit of filling and shaping to do, but am finding it really hard to preserve the sharp countour of the original body line. Anyone have any suggestions? So far I've just been using my hands and 150 and 220 grit sandpaper. My flat sanding block was pretty useless. Would a sort of contoured, bendable sanding block make this easier?

Thanks in advanced for any help or suggestions!
--Brian

Mon Sep 02, 2013 6:29 pm

Nice work.... I had some repairs done there years ago.

Mon Sep 02, 2013 6:56 pm

Thanks a lot Glenn! It's a really tricky area for sure. I plan on sewing up some of those "pillows" like they used on the older bugs to jam up in there instead of putting any sort of foam back in there.

And I remember you were telling me about that repair at the Das Volks show in Port Jeff a couple of years ago. I don't know if you remember me, but I'm the guy you gave those rear drum backing plates to awhile ago. Thanks again for that! :D

Mon Sep 02, 2013 6:56 pm

Wrap your sandpaper around a 1/4" or similar heavy plastic bondo paddle to match the curvature. Sand back and forth in the curvature to get a uniform body line. Use 2-3 layers of sandpaper on your bondo paddle if needed to get the perfect thickness.

Mon Sep 02, 2013 7:17 pm

A guide-coat will go far, flat black is a standard.
Stop when You see the slightest bit of metal.

Tape works real good as another type of guide to stay on one side or the other,
Which you should.
Do one side at a time.

So guide-coat first, then tape out the body line so you can see it, just a bit over center.
Hope this helps

Tue Sep 03, 2013 1:07 am

I have tried to get that contour right and have failed about 3 times or more trying to get it to look good. That spot is hard to get right. Ohh well its a learning process.

Tue Sep 03, 2013 4:46 am

Just a note. When welding & grinding make sure to cover any window glass or you will get little bits of metal melted to it. They usually scrape off but leave marks.

Tue Sep 03, 2013 5:28 am

Thanks for the suggestions everybody! I think I'll give the masking tape and using a guide coat a shot. I think the masking tape will help me build up the filler in that area and then concentrate on shaping it right.

Anthony, I hear you. It's a very distinct and hard bend that is nearly impossible to duplicate without an appropriate metal brake/press. How I wish someone would reproduce this piece of the car as a replacement panel!

Tue Sep 03, 2013 5:48 am

Hi Brian,
You want to use the "LINE" as your starting point.
Just work one side until you get the feel for it.
Guide coat is for highs[Metal] and lows [Filler]
Also, you need to remove any surrounding paint.
This will help you to feather out filler so as to square up the original shape.
Once you figure the feel for this type of work, and see what I'm trying get across You can use this technique anywhere on the body.

I kinda thought the metal patch placement was off a bit, but in a tight area like this it's easy to mask.

If you get high spots, just tink them down a bit with the pointy side of your body hammer.
Gentle.

PS tape is your friend, use it guide to you when applying filler, remove quickly so as pull extra filler off before it hardens.
AND use it as a guide for sanding.
And to protect an area you don't want to sand
Don't be afraid to do it three more times.
With these tricks your learning curve will get much faster!
Make it a goal to do it fast, forget about the past mistakes as mistakes in themselves.
Journeymen with 20 years might have to redo a spot like that three times to get it right.
It's an ART, that most don't respect.
Until you learn how.
Aloha Rodney

Sat Oct 05, 2013 8:37 pm

UPDATE!

So, nearly a month later, but using all of your great advice, I've managed the get both sides nearly perfect! I am extremely happy with the way the repair turned out!

Here is the right side. I used Evercoat RAGE filler, as well as USC "Glazing Putty" to do the final skimming/filling:

A shot down the body line:

With Rustoleum:

Another shot down the body line:

Sat Oct 05, 2013 8:50 pm

I then moved on to the driver's side quarter panel. The rust was nearly twice as worse, with multiple rust through spots:

I began the surgery:

Digging out the foam is a bear of a time, especially with the wiring loom in the way, and required scraping away with a very long screwdriver and a multitude of other sharp and pointy implements from the two sections of cut-out metal, as well as from the access area in the upper left of the engine compartment:

As with the passenger side, I replicated the contour as closely as I could in 20-gauge flat steel. Again, using a cereal box as a template was tremendously helpful. Here are the initial tacks after being ground down with an aggressive flap wheel on my angle grinder:

Skip ahead several hours, and I had it all buttoned up tight (though still very ugly at this point :shock:. Welding on the driver's side was much more time consuming because I had to ensure that I wasn't burning through the wiring loom. To prevent the possibility of this happening as best as I could, I wrapped the wiring loom in a damp rag with several layers of aluminum cooking foil on top, both of which I promptly removed after the welding was finished :

In the above photo, you may have noticed that I welded in a new fender weld nut to replace the thoroughly crusty one that had a broken off bolt stuck firmly in place. I used this type from Wolfsburg West. I have seen that Bughaus also stocks these:
http://www.wolfsburgwest.com/cart/DetailsList.cfm?ID=N114071

With some filler thrown on...I sanded the better part of my 20s away:

I then sprayed on Rustoleum Filler Primer, and subsequently Primer Sealer, and followed with a coat of Rustoleum orange:

Sun Oct 06, 2013 2:13 pm

That looks real good and ready for another 40 years on the road!

Sun Oct 06, 2013 2:37 pm

Thanks Mike! You were right about using the bondo paddle as a sanding block; doing that really helped get the shape and curve as close as possible. I don't think I would've gotten the repair nearly as close otherwise! Also, Spezialist's suggestion about using tape to block off sections I didn't want to apply filler worked great.

Wed Oct 16, 2013 8:04 pm

Looks awesome and definitely inspiring. I have to make similar repairs to my 74 standard and this helps me see it from a step by step POV kinda...

Fri Dec 20, 2013 8:22 pm

Thanks for the inspiration on the death foam areas, it keeps my hopes up. Great looking car, post more pics as you go along, we love to see them!