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windfish
Samba Member
Joined: September 05, 2012
Posts: 1126
Location: NC
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 Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2014 6:13 pm Post subject: |
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Thanks Bill
That's more or less my plan.
Decided against removing the spotwelded lip, just used my angle grinder and cut it clean to the side. A little extra thickness isn't nessisarily a bad thing here, though I did use an air chisel to break all the spot welds on the old floor pan against the tunnel (replacing floor pans as well, that's really what prompted this expedition).
Did a bit more searching, POR15 is good for ~450F (tech sheet) and it self extinguishes, so that's neat.
I picked up a can of Eastwood frame coating with the long nozzle thing, will use that to pick up the spots I missed after its closed up.
So I made some progress today.
Previous condition of the heater channels -
Inside the driver's side
Again, the heat pipe is in excellent shape, main bit of rust is in the inside top rear and the front by the pedal cluster is a bit crappy. Everything else is very decent. tbh, I'd have liked to replace the whole channel but that's not really doable for me at the moment (no garage, only able to work on it in spurts).
Went ahead and sprayed rust converter, it at least looks better.
The patch panels, prepped with two layers of POR15. Left the edges bare for welding purposes.
Oh, and I didn't quite trust the way the nuts were held in. Probably okay, but I had visions of getting it all welded up, going to put the floor pan on and having a nut spin.
This one I didn't quite leave enough space from the paint, but I got to see the POR15 catch fire then self extinguish.
Also replaced the running board nuts while everything was nice and accessible. Most of mine had broken off bolts in them, so I drilled everything out and replaced, 6mm bolts (with 10mm heads) -- consistent with the rest of this car.
My welder (Hobart 140) doesn't have one of those easy spot-weld attachments, so I opted to plug weld. Drilled holes every 2" in the heater channel lip, then welded through those to the patch panel.
Reasonable penetration (?)
So yeah... Driver's side done.
If the weather holds I'll get to the passenger side tomorrow. |
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windfish
Samba Member
Joined: September 05, 2012
Posts: 1126
Location: NC
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| Posted: Mon Sep 15, 2014 9:21 am Post subject: |
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And she's done. Floor pans (WW) in as well.
Sprayed over the POR15 with 3M undercoating. Also cleaned up the tunnel and gave it a new coat; tunnel's old undercoating was flaking off, but it did a great job protecting the metal.
And Rustoleum truck bedliner on the inside.
One thing I do want to note for those looking to patch the bottom of the heater channels - the Klokkerholm bottom panels are fairly decent, but the front two floorpan nuts don't agree with the WolfsburgWest pans. Had to notch out the two front holes on the pan to accommodate, but not a big deal.
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flyboy161
Samba Member
Joined: December 26, 2009
Posts: 2157
Location: Perry, GA
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wcfvw69
Samba Purist
Joined: June 10, 2004
Posts: 13701
Location: Arizona
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| Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2014 7:41 am Post subject: |
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Nice job!
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