TheSamba.com :: View topic - The Dirty Double Cab

Thu Sep 04, 2025 6:36 am

Wow :shock: lots of work. Great you're saving this.

Mon Sep 15, 2025 3:59 am

Thanks crownline

Since all the work along the front is all but done it was time to close up the lower front nose for good

Ground all the welds with a 1mm cut off disc to keep the heat out of it, then smoothed it off with a flapper disk

With abit of filler and some creative blending in the future, this thing is looking pretty good from this angle

Sat Sep 27, 2025 3:28 am

The fun continues on the cargo floor now….

With an access hole cut in the tray, for better access for hacking out the floor…

I wanted to try remaking the bottom C pillar before cutting it out of the way to do the sills…

I started by cutting away the c pillar on the parts bus from the cab floor up to see if I could use a section to form the lower part for the dual cab….

Then pie cut it and bent it to shape and filled in the gaps

Think this will work out a treat considering you can’t buy them anywhere that I could find….

And after being bullied out of using checker plate for the cargo floor I spent 4 times the price on a cheap set of vw cargo floors, thanks justkampers

Sat Oct 11, 2025 3:44 am

A few minor repairs to the top hat and jacking point on the LHS

Then burnt in the inner sill and sill strengthener. I’m very impressed with the justkampers preservation panels

Thu Oct 30, 2025 10:00 pm

I Feel like I have been toying away at bottoms of pillars for weeks now as most of these panels are not readily available

Made The bottom of the B pillar

Then welded in both the bottom of the "B" and "C" pillar repair sections i had made.

The Tray bed support pillar repair was interesting... abit of head scratching but making it out of one piece and getting the right curve has seemed to work out well for the 2 outer skins that joint on it

Test fitting the outer skins and marking the curve i needed for the tray bed pillar

Had a go at making the outa skin that attached to the tray bed pillar

All just sitting in place as a test fit

Also Made the lower reinforcement panel for the rear quarter section

Might actually get to melt some more metal together next week and get some of these outer sills welded on

Fri Oct 31, 2025 6:07 am

Awesome work, very impressive!

Fri Oct 31, 2025 9:13 am

Ya know... You're so good at fabrication of difficult parts that, since your truck is right-hand drive, you could consider adding the second crew cab door. Right side crew cab doors are not impossible to find, since they went with LHD trucks. Tha hard part is the B and C pillars on the right.

Sat Nov 15, 2025 2:22 pm

Thanks guys

jtauxe wrote: Ya know... You're so good at fabrication of difficult parts that, since your truck is right-hand drive, you could consider adding the second crew cab door. Right side crew cab doors are not impossible to find, since they went with LHD trucks. Tha hard part is the B and C pillars on the right.

Funny you say that. A really high end dual cab got built with exactly that here in Aus about 10 years ago along with a Porsche v6 in it :lol: but I don’t want to create anymore work for myself as I have enough ahead of me as it is :lol:

Welding and grinding in summer blows! And as we approach Christmas my time in the shed becomes less and less but still trying to achieve something here and there

The outer sill repair panel under the 3rd door had no drain holes in it, a few little cuts, some hammer work and a quick zip up with the welder sorted that out

The under door sill and the 2 rear quarter pieces all in. Only got the section to the rear wheel arch to fit now but leaving that until I fix a few spots of rust in the front of the rear inner arch as it gives me better access without it

Sat Nov 15, 2025 4:28 pm

This is a very motivating build on a very worthy truck

I picked up a shrinker stretcher off Marketplace so I can follow your lead on the windshield repair.

Sat Nov 15, 2025 6:15 pm

Thank you,

You won’t regret the shrinker stretcher! I have used it more times then I would of ever thought

Thu Nov 20, 2025 7:59 pm

Had to fix a few patches in the rear wheel arch...

I hand made the front wheel arch repair that butts into the outa skin

Once the Inner wheel arch repair was sorted i burnt in the outa skin

Passenger side all Rust free (apart from the hangables for now)

there is a fair bit of filler on that rear tray side that im just gonna blend back in as i want to maintain alot of the existing paint and scratches.... this will not be a show car... rather a rust free beat up old cruiser

i also beat out the big gouge down the side and ran a weld over it to seal out any water.... going to leave that as abit of a battle scar to i think....

Thu Dec 11, 2025 7:24 pm

This last 2 weeks has been 1 step forward 3 steps back as more rust holes appeared in sections while i was trying to repair areas nearby.... one of these areas was the engine bay firewall and fuel tank tray area...

started off by trying to repair this back left corner of the firewall

I used bennet's customs trick by making a template from dirty finger marks over a piece on paper

than used my Indian backstreets panel beating skills to form a shape

but before i could weld this off i had to fix the tray that would normally hold the fuel tank in kombi VANS, so back to the parts bus to get hacking...

replacement piece retrieved

to fix this

but while cutting out the section to be replaced on the D/C, it revealed more rust in the bottom of the "firewall" where the 3 pieces lap eachother behind the engine. The tray meets the firewall and then the engine bay seal channel is welded on the engine side of the firewall... so what felt like 1 million spot welds later while laying on my back in the filth revealed i had to do a little repair strip to the bottom middle of the firewall before welding in the tray repair section.

Done!

then i could weld in the panel i made 2 weeks ago before it turned into a really big job...

With some wild joint sealer sprayed over this section you wont notice the imperfections from being hand made i don't think....

oh and all this was achieved under the careful supervision from the new workshop dog...

just the inner wheel arch section to weld in now an thats another shit job ticked off the list

Fri Dec 12, 2025 3:19 am

:shock: wow man, I admire your work. That's some mad panel beating skills you have.

Fri Dec 12, 2025 8:58 am

Wow! If I was only half as talented as you, I would resurrect everyone’s bus!

Awesome skills Sir!

Martin
Allwagons

Fri Dec 12, 2025 2:55 pm

Earl Bay wrote: :shock: wow man, I admire your work. That's some mad panel beating skills you have.

Appreciate your kind words

ALLWAGONS wrote: Wow! If I was only half as talented as you, I would resurrect everyone’s bus!

Awesome skills Sir!

Martin
Allwagons

You to could be as stupid as me to take on such a project, few trials and tribulations along the way but thats all part of the journey. The first ever rust repairs i did when i started restoring my old 56 oval beetle were cut out and done again later in the build as my skills progressed and they were sub par to what i was then producing. Again its all part of the journey to better your skills

Fri Dec 12, 2025 2:59 pm

NUG637 wrote: Earl Bay wrote: :shock: wow man, I admire your work. That's some mad panel beating skills you have.

Appreciate your kind words

ALLWAGONS wrote: Wow! If I was only half as talented as you, I would resurrect everyone’s bus!

Awesome skills Sir!

Martin
Allwagons

You to could be as stupid as me to take on such a project, few trials and tribulations along the way but thats all part of the journey. The first ever rust repairs i did when i started restoring my old 56 oval beetle were cut out and done again later in the build as my skills progressed and they were sub par to what i was then producing. Again its all part of the journey to better your skills

I may be stupeder!

My father is a jeweler, he can repair most any type of jewelry, You remind me of him. Pieces other jewelers would not touch, he would make it look easy. He never became rich, but supported a family of 12 including him and my mom.

Fri Dec 12, 2025 3:07 pm

I respect that very much, i think a lot of it is mindset to… i have abit of mongrel dog in me i think and dont like to be beaten so i will poersist until i concur :lol:

Fri Dec 12, 2025 3:22 pm

Kids had another play date yesterday afternoon so while mum and the groms were out i finished off that inner wheel arch… my initial cut was a little small to fix all the rust so had to tack on a little extra piece off to the side to finished it off…

While drilling the the spot weld holes in the little extra side piece, i was rushing to get it done and was holding the metal in my hand while drilling… and in my head i was talking to myself saying, “this is risky, if the drill grabs this will hurt” and no sooner did it grab….. one day i will learn

Abit of grinding next week and then onto the next area for some cancer treatment