TheSamba.com :: View topic - '70 Riviera: The Continuing (Mis)Adventures

Tue Aug 18, 2020 7:13 pm

I always find myself considering whether to replace a whole panel and it always depends; what you are replacing how much harder it would be to remove the whole thing, what other stuff is is welded to that also needs to be fixed how long it will take one way vs the other and the quality of the end result. I went through this when redoing my cab floor. one section along the side needed to be patched and a number of deeply pitted areas got welded up but about 85 % perfect. I chose to repair it because it would take less time than to drill out the spot welds and fight with a replacement. I ground the welding so it couldn't be seen and preserved all the original stampings so I was happy with the result. Other stuff like the sliding door track had to all come out. No patching that thing and having a sliding door that would still slide.

Sat Aug 22, 2020 3:41 pm

We’ve been out adventuring for a while now that we’ve upgraded the charging system and cleaned up the auxiliary fuse panel and wiring along with the fresh water tank and intake/drainage lines with a minimum of holes in the new floor. Whereas before every wire had its own hole, we’ve gotten it down to four holes total for everything. The largest is only 1 1/4”. Before, there was only one grommet and that was a piece of fuel line. Now, every hole is grommeted. No pics yet but overall it feels really good driving around with all the weird systems fixed and the floor not threatening to rot out from under us. Infinite credit goes to Capt. Skills for his masterful metal work.

We’ve only had one silly misadventure on our trip so far. Well, two if you count the fact that we put on what we didn’t know were aftermarket valve covers that didn’t fit for shit and leaked oil all over the street. Or three if you also count that after replacing one of the taillight housings we got the wires mixed up and didn’t have a right turn signal with the headlights on. The bigger one was an irritating miss at high RPM and cruise that emerged about an hour into our first drive. For some reason I looked in the distributor first and found that the tip had disappeared from the end of the rotor! Check out that one on the right. I found the tip in the bottom of the distributor. Fun times.

Sat Aug 22, 2020 3:59 pm

Holy smokes! It's a bit hard to read but are they the same part number?

Sat Aug 22, 2020 4:22 pm

cmonSTART wrote: Holy smokes! It's a bit hard to read but are they the same part number?

Yeah, they’re both Bosch and the same part # but I don’t have the original boxes for either of them to know where/when they were manufactured. The broken rotor has probably 20k miles on it.

Sat Aug 22, 2020 8:35 pm

good job putting holes in my floor :evil: ingrates

:lol:

seriously, glad you're out and about in her. you sure had a lot to deal with when it came to that wiring.

at least you had floors to drill holes in \:D/

Wed Sep 02, 2020 11:17 am

Well we’re back from our trip and one of us is already back to work via Zoom. Our project for the next few weeks is to tidy up our under-dash wiring as best we can because it’s an unholy fucking mess. In doing some preliminary work, we found some issues with our speedo cable. The speedo needle has always bounced a fair amount below 40mph and has always been anywhere from 3-5mph slower than GPS.

Here’s how our cable is routed.

Skills already confirmed for us last summer that the upper part is incorrectly routed but the rest of it doesn’t look so hot either. Anyone have pics of how it should go? Also, should we be looking at a new cable or just removing and reinstalling this one?

The large black object the in-line fuse is resting on here is a speaker

Wed Sep 02, 2020 11:44 am

under the dash it needs to run along the inner part (middle of the bus side) of the headlight bucket. it goes behind the air duct. the hole it's routed thru in the column support is correct.

the underside by the wheel is hard to describe. it does a bit of a sweeping loop out of the spindle and gets pinched with the brake light harness against the frame. I will see if I can snap a photo for you. not sure if the Bentley shows the routing, but it might

Wed Sep 02, 2020 2:14 pm

Bentley describes the installation/removal procedure but doesn’t show or describe the routing in great detail. Clearly it shouldn’t be resting on the drag link like ours but I can’t visualize the rest. I guess when I get under there again I can see what makes sense. Also, yeah, a pic would be great!

Sun Jan 10, 2021 10:09 am

Globespotter wrote: Here goes...

Forgive my stupidity or ignorance please but...

Would it not be easier to pull the whole floor and replace it with a new one - or can one not get the whole floor as a part???

...and as usual - stellar workmanship Skills.
If nothing else, the shipping for smaller pieces of floor etc are much cheaper than a full piece. The other thing is it is alot easier to cut out the rot and weld in a piece. Not as much flexing of anything and lot less guessing. You'd be surprised sometimes how it isn't immediately obvious once you cut everything out exactly how a repair panel goes on the body. Even corners are like that.

To me, these metal work dudes are friggin magicians.

Sat Apr 03, 2021 10:46 pm

Yeah
Yeah
Come on

Here we go again, motherfucker
Yeah
Come on down and see the idiot right here
Too fucked to beg and not afraid to care
What's the matter with calamity anyway?
Right? Get the fuck outta my face

Understand I can't feel anything
It isn't like I wanna sift through the decay

I feel like a wound like I got a fucking gun against my head
You live when I'm dead

One more time, motherfucker
Everybody hates me now, so fuck it
Blood's on my face and my hands
And I don't know why I'm not afraid to cry
But that's none of your business

welcome to my life. performed by slip knot and put to lounge music by Richard Cheese.

For your listening pleasure:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqcXgODTeOU

so... here we go again. this was suppose to be a lower middle window repair.

nope

this is fucking criminal....

they bought a repair panel from a member here. it needed FAR more. lets take a look shall we?

removed the window to find this

well i'll be dipped. looks like some body filler

let's cut out a piece shall we?

ooohhh... let's keep going

well, what have we here?

oh, wait...THE FUCKING TOP IS ROTTED TOO

you cock sucker...

body filler in the TOP of the frame

the panel they bought was clearly not enough. out to the back 40 to this gem

and remove this

i ended up blowing it all apart and sand blasted it

after that it got epoxied on the back side

more to come. here is a handy video to express my feelings. not rated G so make sure the kids are out of the room

it's almost 2 am and i should be playing hide the carrot with mrs skills but here i am....

Sun Apr 04, 2021 6:51 am

Damn, that sucks. The video was good tho!

Keep the pics of the process coming, live to see the transformation.

Sun Apr 04, 2021 8:40 am

Quote: The broken rotor has probably 20k miles on it.
_________________

I think that’s why VW says 12k for the service interval’

:D

I run about half of my cars to failure but if you want a reliable ride, stick to the PM schedule , of course. No judgement, each strategy balances different merits

Mon Apr 05, 2021 2:38 pm

inner frame welded in and epoxied

outer frame done

and another colorful video of me and my bad attitude and potty mouth

Mon Apr 05, 2021 3:44 pm

Another quality video!

I wonder what the windshield frame looks like.

Mon Apr 05, 2021 4:05 pm

Mad Skills with that welding 8) nice videos. I was trying to count the f bombs but they were coming to fast :shock: sounds like me sometimes.

Mon Apr 05, 2021 5:08 pm

That’s nice work. I think I could probably do that but it would take me a long time. If I may ask...How long did that take you? It does me good to see work done right. Holes in the window frames are huge leakers. The water can end up causing rust far away from the actual leak...as you know. These get neglected when a bus gets a new paint job and the rust comes right back.

I wouldn’t be able to find someone to do that kind of work where I live. Luckily I don’t need it. Luckily I knew when I just started learning not to layer metal on metal under filler...especially not in rust prone places.

I also like how you are doing the jobs a little at a time so the bus can stay on the road. It’s expensive work because it’s so many hours of labor. It’s often hard for bus owners to have the money for a full restoration done right. The time is also hard to nail down because it’s easy for a rust spot to become a huge fan of worms.

Mon Apr 05, 2021 7:43 pm

thanks guys.

i think if i had a fuckometer out here it would fly by like the numbers on a gas pump :lol:

orwell...

the window frame was 35 hours to get it to this point. i suspect another 4-6 hours to be "paint ready" but it will be hard to tell how many hours are spent on the frame because i will be doing the rest of the body work on that panel as well as finalizing the rocker.

so that 4-6 hours will be mixed in with other work if that makes sense.

the whole thing makes me sick. i actually have to (potentially) apologize to Tram. he may or may not have done the spray foam.... so if that's the case i apologize. that doesn't change the fact that he plowed body filler over all of the rust

this is the back side of the rocker. full of bondo worms :?

whatever. at least they have been fantastic to work with. they are great people so i'm doing my best for them

we decided to just blend in the old body work to the surgery we just did. not 100% correct to do it that way but in an effort to 1) keep the bus moving for this season and 2) not uncover any more secrets it's the best we can do.

they are very understanding and use the hell out of the bus...the were never looking for trailer queen...just a solid driver that looked good. i hate stacking product on top of product like that but it's what we have to do.

they are just happy to have actual metal in there

sad part is this needed rust work from the beginning

they just paved right over the holes

here is the worse part of it... the metal was still pretty solid...20 mins with the welder and grinder and that's all it took to fix the holes

the panel was still very solid. i don't think anyone who worked on the bus had any welding skills...but boy can they frost a cake :roll:

Tue Apr 06, 2021 2:50 am

Put a dollar in the Phugue Jar for each one. I’ll be round to empty it when I pick up my a$$ kale. Great posts and really reinforcing why restoration estimates are meaningless.

Thanks for saving another one Don. I hope the community realizes that for 35 hours, he could have easily done 17 brake jobs and 34 oil changes at a gross margin of $15000, all while whistling kumbaya...

Tue Apr 06, 2021 6:50 am

skills@eurocarsplus wrote: inner frame welded in and epoxied

and another colorful video of me and my bad attitude and potty mouth

I went to watch that expecting to see some welding, but got something even better... lol.

Tue Apr 06, 2021 7:52 am

richparker wrote: I wonder what the windshield frame looks like.

Don’t say that!!!