Rear Arch Removal?

[ropeman23]

Thanks for the support guys! More to follow soon. If anyone's interested I'm using a tig welder rather than a mig. It's slower and less forgiving, but you get more penatration and far more control on heat so you can keep distortion down to a minimum.

[ropeman23]

Been doing a bit more.....

New arch ready to start tacking into place



A few tacks and now starts lots of manipulation! the panel isn't to bad, but it still took a lot of messing around to get it to line up. Notice that the sliding door is back on this is essential to get a good line for the panel to follow



My first welds are these one at each end keeping the swage line flowing nicely





Once I was happy with the above I spot welded down the door slam one at a time making sure it followed a good line. Lots of opening and closing the door! I had to bang it around a bit to make it fit, but nothing to suprising.







Right, this panel was a complete a***! I had to cut 10mm off the top and 8mm off the bit that buts to the wing. Obviously in doing this I lost the fold. I used what I cut off to weld back on and create a new fold of sorts.







Just checking the line before I weld the folds back on







Tacked into position







This is how I am joining the old inner arch to the new outer



That's it for now. More photos soon........

[lhd]

Keep em coming, they are invaluable.
Rob.

[lambrettalee]

you got the job, when can you start

[ropeman23]

you got the job, when can you start

LOL! ............................ What's the money like?

[Pepperami]

Lloyd and myself did one in a pub beer garden in March. It was very hard work and took us nearly two days.




Oh and a seat belt mount.

[ropeman23]

2 Days! well done. I'm about 20 - 25 hours in and no paint yet.

[ropeman23]

More Pics…..

I love this stuff!





Ready to start prepping for paint



Round two!!













JK make quite a good replacement panel, but it’s oversized and has no folds to weld to, so I had to do a few mods.

[ropeman23]

What's this!!?? Really odd split that was full silicon sealent??

[ned]

Great thread ropeman, it was my van's 20th birthday last week so I'm going to treat her to some much needed grot surgery, your pics are just the inspiration I need!

[ropeman23]

Thanks! I've been a bit lazy with the pics of late, I must pull my finger out and get some more up. Just finished the spray job today.... finaly I can start bolting it back together seems like it's been going on forever.

If you can go somewhere and actually see the panels before buying them it's well worth it. I mail ordered mine. One was perfect the other was far from it and took my hours with filler to get it looking straight.

Good luck.

[silverbullet]

Whose panels did you use btw? They look to be reasonably "crisp" and close to pukka VW ones.
You should be really proud of your work.

[ropeman23]

Whose panels did you use btw? They look to be reasonably "crisp" and close to pukka VW ones.
You should be really proud of your work.

Panels came from Just Kampers. There are probably differing opinions on here, but I found them to be pretty good.

Thanks for the words of incouragement, not so sure about my paint work!!??

[Plasticman]

Nice talking with you tonight, after looking at the above I confirm what we discussed, its a nice van
mike
heres the link ref the back panal, https://club8090.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=68856" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; M...

[tamson]

http://s62.photobucket.com/albums/h101/dugcati/t25/ password of club8090

lots of pics of the rot in the sills on mine - should give you an idea of what/where you find it

Been having a look at your pics, nice work there! Thinking about undertaking some similar work on mine soon. Did you do all that work in your back yard and if so did you just put a cover on the van at night? Just wondering as that's where I'd have to do mine.