Convertible heater channel, and reinforcement rail replacement

[esde]

I've been searching through threads and pictures hoping to get a clearer idea of what I'm up against, and there are a lot of posts asking questions, but not many clear answers or pictures. So here goes:
This is a clients 65 vert, that was a running project, but the support rails were pretty much rusted completely away, and the floors were thin. A previous shop had started to do the work, but got cold feet and returned the car before they did any real damage. I received it completely unbolted from the pan, some door bracing welded in, and with the drivers side front cowl reinforcement partially cut away.

Here is the bracing. Not how I might have gone about it, but no point in starting over..

First day was removing both floors and the bottom plate of the passenger side heater channel.

This is the driver side cowl reinforcement thats butchered

Driver side rear reinforcement

Passenger side cowl reinforcement

Passenger side rear

You know the drill

Here is the lower brace I added between the a and b pillars, it's 1/2" solid bar. I hated this bracing at first, but it's installed in a way that allows the door to stay mounted, so I can continually check the gap. Maybe it's better than I thought

Separating the reinforcements from the heater channel.

Next is the part that took a ton of time and patience. AFter cutting the lower heater channel plate free, I horsed on the heater duct that lives inside till it broke free. Then, I very carefully cut out and removed the heater channel from underneath, without disturbing the front or rear reinforcement panels. I had the full arsenal of tools, 3" air grinder, air chisel, needle nose vice grips, air drill, various cold chisels, and a die grinder with a sharp carbide burr.

Still have a few hours of cleanup and sandblasting to clean up the rust. At this point I removed the center piece of heater channel and checked the door gap
Not bad

So, my goal is to do all of this work lifting the car only as little as needed to get the pieces in. Floor pans get punched for welds.

Here I have test fitted the Wolfsburg west rail to the Klassic fab heater channel, and then bolted up the WW floor pan. Everything lines up pretty well.

Here you can see how the rail and heater channel line up. I'm going to stitch weld the bottom plate of the channel to the reinforcement rail, and then seam seal the edges

So far so good.
I have a plan for getting the heater channel in, and then the floor pan. I'd like to have all of the body bolts in and snug before any welding starts. More pics will come once that happens
SD
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modok wrote:
Bent cranks are silent but gather no moss. I mean, ah, something like that.

[matthew henricks]

Thank you for showing this. Please point out all the vert special things along the way. I do not think most know how different they are.
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1964 Original Owner build Thread. https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=702135&highlight=

Ambulance Fan's. https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=627707&highlight=

Parts i am looking for:
64 bug nice used front/rear Black LHD floor mat.

[Busstom]

That's one heckuva layout table
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My name's Steve and it's pronounced "Bust 'em" (cuz people think I'm Tom) 😏

[esde]

[bigdog1962]

I have a 65 convertible if you need any pictures. Looking forward to the progress.
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Oprn wrote: I'm getting to the age that any self propelled woman (no wheel chair or walker) looks HOT!! Oooo! look at that Babe! She made it from the dining room all the way to the TV room without help!! Hubba, hubba!!

[finster]

brilliant stuff. lots of good info for future cabrio restorers
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"we're here on Earth to fart around" kurt vonnegut

nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect...

[esde]

[Puppy67]

This is from a '67/8, but I think it's pretty similar.

[esde]

MORE:
got the passenger side floor rough fitted, and assembled the passenger side heater channel/ support rail. Important to note: When figuring out where the channel and support rail meet, you have to be sure you leave enough room for the outer folded edge of the floor pan. If you just lined up the holes so they were centered with each other, or lined up the edges so it was pretty, there's a high probability the pan would not bolt up easily. I bolted it all together and scribed the meeting points, and a few holes on the support rail needed to be enlarged slightly.

Then punched a 5/16 hole every few inches, on both sides. I decided this would look neater then just welding the seam.

cleaned paint from the area around the welds

I cleaned and hit everything with SEM weld through primer. Use your imagination
Clamped using my scribe marks

Welding like this I like more heat and less wire feed. Using the 260 Esab voltage was 20 and feed 180ipm, with 030 wire

A few places the parts didn't meet in a way that worked for a rosette weld

There it is man. Substantially heavier than your average channel.

Removed the carpet bar at the heater vent, and saved it for when I fix the reinforcing panel

Buzzed the green paint off everything that will be inaccessible once installed and hit it with weld through primer

Done.

For those interested, this post was about 6 hours of work, in a well lit shop with all of my tools at hand, and good music keeping me going.
If I was doing this at home in the barn I imagine it would take a bit longer
Tools at hand

Few other bits
to make the floor easier to fit, I cut off the rear lip that it rests on, this is the little extra part that is included separately with the WW pans. This way, you can slip it in without lifting the body so high. I'll fix the rear lip later

And the carpet bar under the door is different . See old vs what comes on the KF heater channel. I'll deal with that last as it's likely to get banged up while working. I think a hood seal channel from Virtanen might be very close and work well.

That's all till Monday.
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modok wrote:
Bent cranks are silent but gather no moss. I mean, ah, something like that.

[Mike Fisher]

Reed's VW Restoration in WA builds their heater channels in house!
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https://imgur.com/user/FisherSquareback/posts
69 FI/AT square Daily Driver
66 sunroof,67,70,71,71,71AT,72,72AT,73 Parts
two 57 oval ragtops sold
'68 Karmann Ghia sold

Society is like stew. If you don't keep it stirred up you end up with a lot of scum on the top! - Russ_Wolfe/Edward Abbey

[esde]

[Mike Fisher]

[Busstom]

Looks like this project landed in the right hands, owner should sleep peacefully. It's more than I could chew, big equipped shop, barn, or my little garage.
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My name's Steve and it's pronounced "Bust 'em" (cuz people think I'm Tom) 😏

[esde]

[bigdog1962]

That's the best I have.
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Oprn wrote: I'm getting to the age that any self propelled woman (no wheel chair or walker) looks HOT!! Oooo! look at that Babe! She made it from the dining room all the way to the TV room without help!! Hubba, hubba!!

[esde]

bigdog1962 thank you!
Rainy Monday, got right into it.
Spent a little time cutting more rust away on the firewall to fit this piece.
https://www.klassicfab.com/product/kft1-61-right-side-lower-inner-front-firewall-4in-high-all-years/
I won't know exactly where it fits till the heater channel is in, but I had to at least get it fished into place. Also got the inside of everything cleaned up and treated with OSPHO, and then painted. OK, time to see if the damned pieces will fit back together. Here is how I started, at the front, with the rear of the heater channel hanging down. I had to cut and lift a flap in order to get to the last bits of the old rusted heater channel, and it made fitting this end back in easier.

Here, from the inside

Next detail. The damned defroster tube. It's paper and foil, so the bottom 6" was just mush. And on a vert there's a stiffener panel that prevents you from getting your hand down there from behind the hood hinge, so working on any of it is a real PITA. I had just done some oval heater channels, and had the early metal defroster tubes. They're a tight slip fit into the later paper tube. I slipped a piece up from below into what was left of the paper tube, and then tacked the metal tube to the heater channel. DONE.

Started to jack the heater channel into place, until the rear end hit the floor support that sticks out from the torsion housing. Lifting the body an inch or so did the trick (wood block at the mount)

After considerable banging and prying, it's in.

but hanging a half inch from where it needs to go

Then came the fun part, which was getting to floor pan in. It fought me for a bit, and would have gone much easier with 4 hands, but eventually my persistence payed off. All pan bolts are in on that side, so kept pushing the heater channel into place
First obstacle. The carpet bar I said I'd remove later is in the way, so later is now. You can see it hits the curved panel and keeps me from raising the channel tight to the B pillar

After that it slipped home easily

tight fit

More patching to be done

General overview after I called it a day

From here, I need to get the front and rear pan gasket set down, and the front and rear body mounts in place. Everything has to be aligned and snug before I start welding anything. My door gap is a little tighter at the top than bottom, so I'll experiment with ways to correct that before I make any commitments.
Tomorrow I start chopping out the drivers side and fussing with the mounts.
SD
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modok wrote:
Bent cranks are silent but gather no moss. I mean, ah, something like that.

[VW_Jimbo]

Looking great! I welded in adjusters into my angle iron bracing. Worked out awesome when it came time to tweak the 54s body! Maybe something like that would help out.

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Jimbo

There is never enough time to do it right the first time, but all the time necessary the second time!

[Puppy67]

Great work.

Just to warn you though, the cowl reinforcement panels may need to come off then be refitted after welding in the channels. Some of the seams cannot be reached with them in place.

[esde]

[esde]

Here are the front windshield supports, that mount just forward of the hood hinges. You can just see the metal defroster tube that I used slipped inside the original paper one

Then more heater channel removal. This side has been repaired before, with rivets, bogger welded angle iron, and roof cement.

I cut what remained of the bottom off, and just left the top between the a and b pillar. I'll add a lower brace there before cutting the channel completely out, but for now I don't need another thing to hit my head on.

Rust where the rear crossmember meets the heater channel end, typical. Even the shitty patch with roof cement is typical

Here you can see the front lower quarter has been welded before. It's pretty ugly and will get mostly cut out

The rear cleaned up pretty easily. I'll leave the voltage regulator here, but I'm tossing the ammeter and heavy gauge red wires.

Carnage

_________________
modok wrote:
Bent cranks are silent but gather no moss. I mean, ah, something like that.