TheSamba.com :: View topic

Sat Dec 06, 2025 10:08 am

Christian, imho you should be good with your solder repair !
The work you are doing elsewhere is phenomenal, and those are really structurally important areas on the main framerails, crossmembers, axle bolt anchor points and such. also considering vehicle inspection.
But on the other hand you still have a weathered body, with lots of remaining surface rust, and you obviously prefer to keep it that way. The tool tray certainly is a structural (if minor) panel as well, but it is still 99 % original after your repairs and the pin holes and surface rust will not weaken it by that much. think of a space frame like a crane or such. it's mostly air between a few structural elements. so the pin holes and rust grooves are mainly air between the (structural) beads in the tool tray panel.

Unless you are going for a total aviation safety quality restoration like sgellis, I would keep that original panel.

Huetti_1989 wrote:
I’m really torn about whether I should replace the under-seat panel or not.
It has some small pinholes, but the whole sheet is still solid and strong underneath.
So I cleaned it and filled the pinholes with solder

Mon Dec 08, 2025 2:12 pm

Thanks for the kind words. It still gives me some sleepless nights, but it’s getting better…
I want to repair this thing, not make a full restoration — I really need to keep that in mind.

One step forward: I made the front hat profile with a NOS template so it’s closer to the original, relocated a few holes, and fabricated the lower repair panel for the bulkhead with the mouse hole.

Spotwelded it together and started welding it in place.
Lying inside the bus while welding that thin metal in the underseat area, where I can barely reach, takes a lot of time… plus some bad words and a lot of coffee.

-Christian

Wed Dec 10, 2025 1:50 pm

Relaxing welding position, finished the lower bulkhead:
-Christian

Thu Dec 11, 2025 3:15 am

Bravo, Christian, bravo!! =D> =D> =D>

Recently i just clicked through your entire "67 Sparsamba" thread and now i had a look at this current project of yours.

Hats off, very impressive! :wink: :thumbsup:

Thank you for posting all your great work here, it is great to follow this build and see so many details of all your hard work - especially after i was lucky enough to see it in person last May.

Greets,
Alex

Fri Dec 12, 2025 3:18 pm

Thank you very much Alex, really appreciate your kind words.
I’m very happy that you like the projects and yes, that meeting last year was really great. I hope we can repeat something like that again soon!

I’ve now started working on the next bad corner, the very rusty left dogleg with lots of holes all around.

-Christian

Strange original Fitting welds:

Sun Dec 14, 2025 12:32 pm

And the next homemade parts fabricated with some early details:

-Christian