Well, this project has escalated...
Life has changed quite a bit in the last few months which is why there's been a lack of updates. I'll attempt to bring this thread up to date for you today.
I last left you at the end of July with widebody dreams. Your dreams have come true but it hasn't been without the nightmare of rust and undisclosed and unknown bodywork.
In this update, I'll show you what I discovered, what I have since fixed, and where I'm at right now (all within the 10 pics allowed per post).
While waiting on machine work for my Vanagon I decided to dive into some Avocado projects. A lot of this prep had a self-imposed deadline of the Overcrest Rally which was September 23-26. I also already had a three-week "vacation" planned in the middle of this, end of August/beginning of September.
If I had only been adding the fender flares and not bonding on a carbon roof or dealing with rust issues I think it was a totally realistic timeline. When I found a dime-sized rust hole behind the passenger side rocker cover, I got worried. You never know what something like that might turn into. In my case... it was really bad.
After I found the hole the size of a dime, I wire wheeled that area:
When I saw how bad it was, I cut that portion of the quarter panel out:
When I saw how bad it was underneath, I cut more out:
It was at this point that I really began to get worried. You can see that the entire rear portion of the outer rocker cover is nearly completely rusted away. I also noticed as I was cutting that I was cutting through body filler. In the next pic you can see that there are weld marks that have been ground down. Someone had cut a portion of the panel out and welded in a new piece. Not a problem, I'll be sectioning in a new piece too but what they did do wrong was not drilling out the spotwelds to replace the entire flange as well as incorrectly reassembling the pieces to leave a big open hole at the end of the rocker cover that they filled in with foam :facepalm:
At this point I knew I wouldn't make the rally. I ended up buying an Audi RS3 to use for the rally. I still have it, it's frickin sweet and is the nicest car I've ever owned, but I'm waffling on whether or not to keep it.
When I came back from the rally and found some more motivation, I cut the remainder of the latch panel flange off. What the prior body person did was weld their sectioned panel to that flange, that probably melted whatever undercoating or protection was there and allowed water in which rusted the sheet metal that the latch panel is welded to.
After cleaning this all up and realizing I was getting to the top of the mountain I found a bout of motivation to start making patch panels and finish welding. This is what we ended up with:
And then with a lick of epoxy primer! Once this has undercoating you'll never be able to tell there was work done, not that you can see this area anyways. That's why I never noticed it and I've really been THROUGH this car and you know it.
As for the fenders, here are a few sneak peaks. I test fit with cleco pins then cut through both panels with a cut off wheel. That gave a great gap to weld. Starting at the top of the panel it was a cut/weld/cut/weld/cut/weld process until you were down at each end and the old flare essentially popped out.
This is where the car is sitting currently. My next step is to section in the new outer rocker cover, latch panel, and quarter panel. Epoxy prime and then undercoat with Wurth SKS. Once that's done, I can move onto bonding the roof and the bodywork on the flares.
I already have some updates that are kinda car related for the next post since I'm out of room for more pictures...