Forest Find 1961 Mouse Grey 11-Window Standard

[Longmont1302]

I made some progress today. I cut out some of the old A pillar. Here's the "before" photo:

Here are some "after" pictures:

Now it's much easier to visualize how the three KlassicFab lower A pillar pieces fit together. It kind of makes sense. In this video I'm holding them below where they go, but maybe it helps to see them in action:

https://youtu.be/eP-zNo_YwcU

The original inside "mystery piece" isn't so bad by my standards. Even though I have the replacement piece I haven't fully decided if I will replace it, in part because I don't yet know what's involved in cutting it out of there.

[Longmont1302]

I've been moving forward slowly, but have neglected to share photos. Today I received a private message from chrismredsox1 who, it turns out, spent many summers at the camp where our bus lived its first life. Chris reports that he taught himself to drive stick in this bus, and it "basically started [his] love for vintage vws..." How cool is that? His message inspired me to get caught up here.

I'm working towards installing the three pieces of the Klassic Fab KF13 – the "lower A pillar repair section below first hinge." I think I'm going about this differently than others in that I'm coming at this from the inside of the bus instead of the outside.

In the photo below, the steel behind the screwdriver is two layers thick, and the layers are spot welded together. Question: is the outermost layer (which faces the back of the bus) called a "lower inner valance"?

At first I thought I'd separating the two layers (seen below) without destroying the outside layer.

Below you can see my first few of several attempts to remove some spot welds to separate the layers. At some point I decided this was futile. The inside layer is one of the pieces I planned to replace anyway, so I decided to cut the outside layer away too, and replace it with a patch later.

When I cut these pieces out I left maybe a 1/2" of double steel inside, then pried this inner portion out of there; the idea is that the KF replacement piece will slide inside the old steel, facilitating some plug welds rather than butt welds.

Here you can see some of that inside double layer coming off:

This bottom piece came off pretty easily thanks to a seam buster, although I think mine's in need of sharpening now:

It's a little tough to see, but there's still two layers at the very top here:

So I bent the outer piece up (so I could get behind it) with the idea that I could bend it back down and butt weld a replacement patch to it later. Here's what it looks like bent up:

Then I had to get the last bit of the inner piece out. Oddly enough, the top edge wasn't welded in place. Should it be? Here's the removal from one angle:

...and another angle:

And here's that piece, once out, along side the new piece that will replace it (again, note the lack of spot weld marks):

Here's another shot that shows me chipping away at that inner part of the double layer:

And here's the replacement piece partially snugged into place:

Here's what I'm thinking some of my next steps will be:

- Remove rust (and green stuff) from all surfaces I plan to weld (clearly some surfaces can't be reached).
- Punch out some holes in the replacement piece for plug welds.
- Somehow coat the steel that will not be reachable once welding begins. I'm thinking I'll brush some Eastwood Rust Encapsulator Platinum as it supposedly adheres to both bare and rusty metal. (I know some folks spray high-zinc weld thru primer on things like this, but I thought welding zinc was a bad idea, fumes-wise).
- Friction-fit the piece into place, then maybe use some sheet metal screws to hold it snug while welding. That said, I think I'm still a long way from turning the welder on as I want to triple check that everything's in the right place the first time.

Any suggestions or encouragement welcome – I'd especially like to find some photos or video of someone doing a similar replacement approach.

[Culito]

Excellent dissection.
I did this same thing for both sides of my bus (thread somewhere) but I didn't document in as much detail.

I think you're on the right path.
_________________
Copyright CJ Industries, Inc.
'64 standard w/2.0L type 4
'62 bug

[Eric&Barb]

[Longmont1302]

[Longmont1302]

[Eric&Barb]

[Longmont1302]

Thanks again Eric&Barb. If I was unclear, I appreciated your suggestion and will look into better lung protection. What I was asking was this: Once wearing proper protection, what you would spray in a situation like mine where you’re trying to slow rust while covering both rusty steel and bare metal?

[Eric&Barb]

[Busbodger]

[Longmont1302]

Thanks Eric&Barb (An Busbodger). Among my challenges is deciding where I am in the continuum between a full proper restoration and simply patching the minimal holes necessary to someday drive my bus, something I’ve yet to do.

[Eric&Barb]

[Longmont1302]

I made some small progress on our bus in the last few weeks. I hope that sharing my first attempts inspires others to begin welding, too.
I'm working my way towards some A-pilar patches, but first things first. Sometime back I cut out the remaining rot in this area, leaving me with this triangle to replace:

I used a piece of cardboard to determine the exact size of my patch. I first pressed it against the trianglular hole, leaving a mark of its outline on the cardboard, then cut out the result. After some fine-tuning, the cardboard template fit well:

Then I used the cardboard as a guide when cutting out piece of 19 guage sheet steel. Here I started tacking it in:

Then I added a few more welds, ground some down, and repeated the process several times. After I got it mostly roughed-in, I ended up burning through a bit on the bottom corner, so I cut that piece out:

...and made a patch with a 90 degree angle in it (which I bent in a vise):

So I tacked THAT in, and continued alternating between grinding down welds and making a few more tacks at a time. Here's what it looks like today:

The surface is still a bit uneven. While I could keep grinding at it, I hesitate to take off a lot of metal. It could certainly be filled in with a little bondo. Or I could add some more welds, trying to fill in the low spots. I'm not sure when to stop messing with this and tackle the next step - welding in some green replacement pieces (seen above) - that I still find a bit intimidating.

Happy new year, friends.

[Culito]

Nice work with the CAD (cardboard aided design)!
_________________
Copyright CJ Industries, Inc.
'64 standard w/2.0L type 4
'62 bug

[Longmont1302]

Ha! Thanks, Culito.
Today I experiemented with this vise press metal brake:

I tried to create the inside piece that fits on top of this Gerson piece:

Here's what I came up with:

It may not be 100% perfect yet, but it sure seems like it's possible to create the perfect piece this way: I just need a bit more practice.
Metal is so much more forgiving then wood. When I get the angle wrong, I can bend it back a bit. When I cut it too short, I can weld a piece back on. Who knew?

Happy new year!

[LAGrunthaner]

Love this. Love the vice brake too.

[Longmont1302]

I mentioned earlier in this thread that our bus lived its first life on a children's camp where my dad works as a general handyman every summer. My dad was born in 1938, so the fact that he's still able to remodel cabin bathrooms (as well as work on his own American cars) is pretty impressive. He's not big on technology, however. If it wasn't for eBay he would never have touched a computer. He's had a flip phone since 2012, but I've never seen him use it. At one point someone showed him how to take photos with it, but he never figured how to get them off the phone, so he stopped doing that.

Today my stepmom was looking at his phone and discovered the following photo he must have taken of our bus. This had to be sometime between 2012 and when the bus was painted the black as it appeared when we dragged it across the country in April 2017.

Earlier in this thread I shared some black and white photos of the bus painted in completely different faux-hippy livery, circa 1996, but this is the first I've ever seen anything like this.

This surprise photo totally made my day. I hope it puts a smile on your face, too. Now I'm back to the garage, using some Clecos for the first time.

[djway3474]

[Blue Baron]

[Longmont1302]

We’ve already had a foot of snow today. In addition to being a little chilly in the garage, I can’t open the overhead door to let the fumes out without having snow blow in, so I’ll catch up on posting photos instead.

As I’m preparing to seal up the lower inner valance, I sprayed some internal frame coating inside and punched some holes in both the nice new patch and the old steel for plug welds:

While I’ve previously welded in some small patch pieces I’ve made, this is the first Klassic Fab piece I’ve welded onto the bus, and it feels like forward progress:

I’ve still got a bit more work to do to clean up/finish these welds, but I’m already thinking about the next step: making a piece to replace the section of what I think is called the outer valance. Here’s my cereal box template:

Ah, to heck with the snow. After shoveling I'm going to get started cutting out and bending that patch piece. Just like a glacier: slow, but steadily moving forward.