1967 VW Variant.

Tacked in the last piece of the horizontal panel today. Jusat have to finish of the welding of it tomorrow.

And then on to the other side. After i tacked in the panel, I closed the bonnet to check the alignment of my new piece. Bit surprised that it was bang on the money. I had expected to tweak it a bit, but its grand, which is a relief. Even viewed front the front of the car towards the rear, along the bonnet edge, it shows a slight curve towards the inside of the front boot, I quickly checked the other side, and thankfully it showed the same. So after a success this side, it wont be going to the scrappie😁

Bit of grinding and finishing to do tomorrow. Inside the boot .

That strip along the top edge of the wing that carries the weatherstrip was the best piece of the valance that was there. It was the only part that did not have significant rust thankfully. As you said before that would be a nightmare to manufacture. Its coming along nicely and once all the remaining fettling and grinding is done, it should be ok. I never replaced any metal on that car since I got it.

I have to put the resto on the back burner temporarily, and put on my plumbers overalls😁

My Stanley Errigal cooker boiler has sprung a leak. Fortunately for me its in the summertime, so just a minor hiccup. Imagine if it was in the middle of winter and all the headaches that would cause..

I have the cooker top removed and just clearing the last of the fire cement to release the boiler. I just have to figure out how to finally remove it from the cooker as its still attached to the fire brick at the front.

So it still needs a few coats of looking at🤣

Hopefully it wont be long before I get back to the resto.

Boiler is out now, and just doing the tidying to get ready for the new boiler, so what to remember for the next time or anyone else..

When removing the boiler, I had to remove the oven brick first as it was locking in the boiler.

Once that was removed I had to remove the fire cement that ran vertically down the rear right hand side of the boiler that also held in the oven firebrick.

Then I removed the fire cement around the top and bottom fire door opes. As the boiler runs from the back to the front, and is then sealed around these opes.

At the left hand side panel at the back of the cooker is a tek screw that connects into the bracket on the left hand side of the boiler in the location of the stay rod.

Also removed the rear panel held on by 2 screws into the back of the boiler. Its to hold on the panel to keep in insulation at the back of the boiler.

When this panel is removed if you look at the back of the cooker behind the boiler, you will see 2 screws on the right hand outside back boiler panel. These are the screws that hold the boiler in the cooker.

Once these are out a few taps of a hammer on the back panel should push the boiler backwards. Steady now becasue the stay rod at the rear left hand side will connect with the bracket. So on my cooker, once I was clear at the front end of the boiler from the door opes, I was able to lift the rear part of the boiler up about 3 " to clear the stay rod. Once that was done, its able to lift up, and outwards from the cooker.

Its heavy, so best to have 2 people if you can. I didn't, so i lifted it myself.

Thats what worked for me. I cant claim that its the right way, but it was my way.

I will post up a few pics later to clarify the brackets on the boiler left hand face that fowls the stay rod, so needs to be lifted.

And should anyone complain about high pricing by plumbers for this replacement. Its a tricky , heavy bit of work so they will be earning their money. Its not something I would like to do for a living.

I have a new boiler souced at below half the price of waterford Stanley, so just have to source new bricks now, and refit.

I sat the new boiler into place to familiarize myself with the fitting as it proceeds. Its from a well known boiler manufacturer who is local to me, and a family business in operation over 40 years. Quality appears to be very bit as good as it was 40 years ago when i bought other boilers from the same place.

You can see the L shaped bracket at the rear where the side panel is tek screwed to. Checking all around to make sure no obstructions are anywhere, I just need to finally clean the base where it sits at the front. And then it attaches from the rear into the rear central part by two 6mm screws into the edge bracket.

Looking down from the top, at the back of the cooker, we can see the two slotted holes to take the 2 screws for fixing. If you look to the left in the picture, you can see the 2 box iron mounts that take the 2 tek screws to hold the rear cover panel and insulation, over the boiler.

Made from an old box spanner I had , and a 13mm x 1/2" drive socket.

Done the job, and cheaper than buying it.😉

This is where I foolishly put the fitting.

So , thinking cap on and this is what I came up with. Fully slot the bottom of the box iron, so it drops on the pipe and slides up to the fitting. And weld on the 1/2" drive socket, for the bar and ratchet to turn.

Here is how to drive it.

So...back to the grind. I was checking out one or two things on the kombi for the last week or so. But its all variant now.

I gave a couple of coats of covert ox rust convertor to the left hand bulkhead panels, and brush applied a coat of seam sealer for the time being, until I get the other side to the same condition. Then i took a copy template of this panel, to mark out the lines of the panel on the opposite side

Finally I rough shaped the top section, and called it a day.

After i made the template I rough cut the top horizontal panel, and trial fitted it in to trim it a bit nearer to size

I haven't been skiving, i have been concentrating on the other valance. Sadly its every bit as bad. So angle grinder cutting discs, sander , and welder, back in play.

So whole panel was cut out to reveal a firm door post, and inner heat channel

Bit of digging around the door post bottom, which needed to be sorted.

Tacked in a filler so I could proceed with the large valance panel.

Large panel tacked in , and moving on to the horizontal bulkhead section.

Panel offered up for marking and trimming

Trial fitted the inner bought panel, and drilled for the spot welds to match my suspension tank support steel.

Same again on the right hand side, and everything is fitting up nicely

Small patch to be cut out and repaired with new metal. So the inner panel is now fully welded in, and the front clip was trial fitted today, and plan is to weld it in tomorrow.

Just a small bit of spot welding along the bottom edge of the front clip, and then onto the sills.

Thanks. I went through as much cardboard as metal for them bulkheads😉

Its something I learnt when I was shoemaking. For smaller sections its handy to use masking tape in alternate layers criss crosed fashion to give the pattern strength. Then just peel it of, and hey presto a self adhesive template.

Just to put your mind at rest, I was never placed in any establishment " at her majestys pleasure " to learn shoemaking🙂

Not that I shouldn't have been for some of my indiscretions. But I learnt my shoe making from a 7th generation shoemaker who now makes both uillean pipes as well as museum pieces of historic shoe ware.

Door pillar bottoms always rust out. Due to the fact that the wing bottom is very effective at providing a scoop to hold onto bucket loads of crap that soak up water like a sponge and hold iot there. I tacked on the end piece so that I have decent metal to continue the sill and heater channel down along the side. Luckily I dont have to make them as I bought them NOS 12 months ago. Just have to provide the heater channel pipe, and maybe a round cover as I did for the fastback

The vertical windscreen ducting on my fastback is within the doorpost and up to the windscreen, and its metal, so no need to change that. I made my own galvanised heater channels from 1.5mm galvanized sheeting. Its a great job, but had to be careful on welding galvanised. I over shot the pipe length by about 15mm, so had to dispense with the outlet into the rear footwell. It made little difference anyway as I used to re route all the heat coming into a beetle, type 3 directly to the wind screen first any way. WE always had brilliant heaters in vw's despite what other folks had. The main problem with vw heating, beetle or otherwise was cabin pressure. If you were forcing air into the cabin from the car, with closed wirndows, then positive pressure in the cabin would restrict the heat coming in, rsult was poor heat. Leave the 1/4 window open by 1/8" result was good heat.

There were little tips'n'tricks that improved the beetle no end. Another was due to the high volume of paint on a beetle body, it created high resistance and resulted in poor earths at the lights, hence the rep of dim lights on a beetle. We used to re run all the headlight and dim earths direct back to the battery, result was brilliant lights, both head and dip as well as spots.

As for our engine tuning, we had sweet running engines like this.

https://youtu.be/RoG7AMZOIYI

Been off air for a while, due to a major pc meltdown. Bad enough that I couldn't fix it with a welder and angle grinder. But hopefully all sorted now, and back on track.

Since my past post I have finished welding in the new metal and parts on the front, and now moving down the drivers side cill. I had thought that I would get away with a new outer cill, which I had purchased from my German supplier. But alas no. On Inspection the heater channel bottoms that bolt to the floor pan, have significant rust damage. Option 1. Replace the bottom face of the channel with all new fixing nuts and weld in the piece. Tricky enough if the body is still attached to the pan.

Option 2. Cut out the heater channel, and weld in a new one with the body still attached to the floor pan. Trickier option than option 1 but doable....maybe.

Option 3. Call it a day, and part out the car.......

Next to do is remove the back seat for a closer inspection, then pull my remaining hair out, make a decision, stick to it ....and move on.

Thinking cap now placed securely on the old noggin for the remainder of the afternoon..............👨‍🎓

Here are some pictures of the part of the heater channel after the rusty outer cill was removed

The second picture shows the shiny top face of the heater channel. Looking directly at the face of the picture, you can see the very rusty cover piece that protects the tubular pipe that carrys the heat along the inside of the channel. You can also see the rubber weal that is placed on the floor pan, and then the body is lowered onto the strip

In the third picture you can see how the ruust has damaged the cover strip that protects the tube underneath it.

The fourth picture shows the panel behind where the rear wing is situated. Strangely enough it has a rust converter applied to it at some stage. Probably because the rear wing had a rust whole through it. Its the black area of the panel

The last picture shows the bottom area of the rear panel behind the rear wing. Here you can see 2 buckets of sand from the beach in Ardmore. Rust area here is significant, but easy to access. So as you can see the heater channel is going to be the challenge . A lot of my vw friends who own type 3's like this are only too familiar with these types of repairs on fastbacks and squarebacks. Other beetle owners think I am mad to be doing it🤣

Funnily enough, its not schultz, but when I get the channels done, if in doubt I will always cut it out.

Off out now to sort out a nice slim chisel for a bit of slicing.

I know them only too well. I became acquainted with them when I broke all of them when I fell asleep at the wheel on a homeward journey, and hit an oak tree.

I replaced the bent beam. Well it had a 4 " right angle at the end of it, so there was no disputing it was bent. And then I made throwing knives from some of the short lengths of broken leafs. Great stuff alright.

I didn,t need the chisel after, as I cut 95% of the heater channel out. If in doubt then **** it out.

Current state of play before I trial fit the new channel. I need to remove the end section of the old channel before any trial fit.

As you can see from the pics, the only salvageable piece of the heater channel is the heater tube, and the front control section to direct heat up to the windscreen defrosters.. The pics show the little tabs holding in the heater tube. Both of which I am keeping as the flap control is functioning perfectly.

The base of the heater box was well rusted out.

Yep, I think I got to it just in time before any damage to the floor pan luckily enough. I also increased the thickness of the heater channel section material from 1mm to 1.2 mm and galvanised. So there is a major improvement.

I chose to salvage the mounting plates from the bottom of the rusty heater channel. Reason being the fact that they are a long plate increases the clamping force of the clamping bolt. Thats a good thing. the

other option I had was t o use flange nuts, and weld them in from the inside of the new channel. As the name suggests a flange nout has a wider flange around one face of the nut facilitate welding. As the originals were good, I went with them and welded them in.

I cut out the remaining piece of the heater channel to make things more accessible.

I placed the channel into the position for it, marked it for the mounting bolts, drilled it and welded them in