TheSamba.com :: View topic - '76 westy front and rear beam rust: assessment & repair advice

Sat Aug 02, 2025 1:04 pm

Getting to know my Westy better today, and crawling around underneath I found some areas of concern on the front and rear axle beams. I'm showing only one side each, because the condition is the same on both sides.

The front beam has some perforation already, and I suspect the only solution for this is a new beam, given what I've read on searches here.

The rear looks more concerning, but I don't know how to evaluate this.

Thoughts?

Sat Aug 02, 2025 2:18 pm

if the rust has not eaten into the beams themselves ,then they could likely be repaired with a bit of metal work and welding.it looks like your rear frame member is in decent shape ,

Sat Aug 02, 2025 2:26 pm

I’ll need to do much more exploratory de-rusting to figure that out. I am convinced the front beam has a lot of internal rust—pushing near that one spot of perforation, the metal around it is very thin. I’ve accepted a new beam is in my future for the front. At least they are available.

On the rear, the weld joint between the beam tube and the frame is flaking, and can be pulled off by hand. You can see at the top where I pulled off a 1-1/2 inch long section. The exposed main tube looks intact but I can’t tell what it looks like under that crumbling joint without getting a wire wheel on it.

Sat Aug 02, 2025 3:46 pm

When you put a hammer and chisel on that , it’s going to crumble.

New beam in front , heavy welding in rear

Sat Aug 02, 2025 4:04 pm

Abscate wrote: When you put a hammer and chisel on that , it’s going to crumble.

New beam in front , heavy welding in rear

Well, c’est la vie. I didn’t buy this thing because I thought it would be cheap

I will say I’m a bit frustrated that I bought it from a well respected restoration shop in the UK. And he described the undercarriage as “very, very clean”.

Sat Aug 02, 2025 4:17 pm

Some bashing with a pointy hammer is step one, neither end looks terminal or unsafe yet, but it's seen some salt that wasn't washed out afterwards so the cancer is starting to take hold. The only option is to cut out the rotted thin parts and replace with fresh metal.
I did a thread on the torsion tube repair years ago, but that one doesn't look advanced enough for the savage butchery I posted, some careful removal of a section at a time followed by hand formed new metal of the OG thickness is the answer there. Once you get inside you'll be able to look at the inner tube, I wouldn't expect too much pitting on that one, but you never know until you get in there, it's the tip of the iceberg you see right now.

Sat Aug 02, 2025 4:59 pm

I’m a good wrencher. And could easily rebuild the engine if needed. But metalworking and welding are outside my expertise. Going to need to find a place that can do this.

Anyone have experience with this shop, about an hour from me?

https://m.facebook.com/Midwestaircooled/

Mon Aug 04, 2025 6:58 am

Well, I called that shop, which is the only Aircooled shop in the area. He said he just refuses to do any repairs on torsion tubes for liability reasons.

Suggestions for strategy here?

Mon Aug 04, 2025 7:13 am

credit to bus daddy
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=455598&highlight=torsion+tube+repair

Mon Aug 04, 2025 7:50 am

lil-jinx wrote: credit to bus daddy
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=455598&highlight=torsion+tube+repair

I can definitely do the surgery to determine extent. I just can't fix what I find. Going to need to find someone who does fabrication and is willing to do the work.

Mon Aug 04, 2025 8:26 am

Spent about 20 minutes with a hammer and chisel on one side of the rear beam. This is all I could easily remove:

Damage seems limited to flaking of the reinforcing flange. On the driver side, this is limited to the 2" at the bottom of the flange. On the passenger side, there is about 2" at the top and 1" at the bottom of the beam that appears to be in the same shape. No apparent perforation of the beam but I didn't really get down to clean metal on that one side yet. Frame appears very solid. My interpretation is that moisture and salt got trapped under the flange and have rotted it from the inside out. The damage is only on the outer flange on both side--inner flange has surface rust but is very solid to a chisel tap, and the weld around its perimeter seems tight to both tube and frame.

How should I proceed from here? angle grinder until it is all shiny metal? Should I explore the inner flange, which is not flaking? Or rust stop what I can see and leave it intact?

This is new territory for me...thanks for any advice.

Mon Aug 04, 2025 1:54 pm

i fine it is best to just nip away at the rusted out sections ,untill i get to good solid weldable metal then make a patch piece to replace what you removed,the flakey rust you can just chip it away ,then treat it with rust converter and/or a good rust paint,

Mon Aug 04, 2025 3:04 pm

There's some deep thick scale remaining there that needs to be hit harder, all those shiny brown layers as well as the stuff with the alligator texture will chip off.

Mon Aug 04, 2025 3:15 pm

What’s the best tool for this work?

Mon Aug 04, 2025 4:16 pm

Pointy hammer, like welders use to chip scale:

But a center punch and regular hammer would also do it.

Mon Aug 04, 2025 4:21 pm

a) somehow I love that this tool’s name is simultaneously both completely descriptive (“pointy hammer”!) and also lacking any sense of linguistic creativity (that is the best you could do? Really?);
b) I have ordered one; and
c) thank you!

Tue Aug 05, 2025 10:02 am

I had patched up my front beam, even passed the MOT with it. But in reality under the crusty end, a chunk of the big torsion leaf containment tube at the bottom had broken off.

Every time the suspension unweighted there was a bang as the bottom arm bearing popped back into its inverted "cradle" in the top of the tube. Ever since I had the bus in 2010 there was always a bang from the right hand side going over a speed bump.

Faced wth that and knowing the bus was cut and twist lowered, I bought an adjustable stock width beam, two new shock absorbers and other hardware, about £1000 worth of parts.
It took 2 days to take off the old beam, clean up and swap over good parts, and fit the new beam. With a break for welding up a few holes in the chassis rails that were hiding under the beam..
And in the end, no rust and something new.

Tue Aug 05, 2025 10:11 am

virusdoc wrote: a) somehow I love that this tool’s name is simultaneously both completely descriptive (“pointy hammer”!) and also lacking any sense of linguistic creativity (that is the best you could do? Really?);
:P
Slag hammer?
Chipping hammer?
Scaling hammer?
Bludgeoning device with a tip that tapers to an acute point?

Better? :wink:

Tue Aug 05, 2025 10:17 am

I hereby declare it The Dagger of Hephaestus.

Tue Aug 05, 2025 1:28 pm

So as I work on the reinforcing flange/gusset on the driver's side, I'm running into a complication.

The flange is welded to the frame on one end, and the tube on the other. It intersects with both frame and tube at about a 45 degree angle, and the weld joints are about 1 cm away from the intersection of the two components. This creates a small triangular airspace underneath the flange. That airspace appears to be packed with dense flaked iron. I have only worked about 2 cm away from the initial obvious surface flaking in both directions, and although there is good steel on the flange material at that point, the cavity is still filled with rust.

I assume I cannot simply weld over this rust--it will continue to attack the tube underneath it. Nor can I get rust neutralizer into there to arrest it, since the space is completely packed. If the goal is to remove or neutralize all rust, I suspect the only way to do that will be to cut off the entire flange and build a new one.

Am I thinking about this correctly?