1971 VW Type 3 Fastback

[broady]

Nov 13, 2018 6:23:33 GMT petervdv said:

impressive!

Why thank you!

Nov 13, 2018 9:24:46 GMT gess said:

I am really enjoying reading your thread. My parents had the estate version of these cars when I was a kid so I have fond memories of these VW cars. My first car was also a 71 VW Variant, but it burned up, the motor caught fire and as they are a magnesium alloy, the don't put out easily!
I am amazed of the amount of rust you have tackeld. I think I would have found a better example to begin with, but the thread wouldn't have been as interesting if you did :-)

They are a great car, very much puts the beetle to shame. As a 71 I would assume you car was Fuel Injected. It was those fuel injection systems which were very prone to bursting into flames. My car suffered such, but it was saved. I'm currently doing a job which is a results of the fire. But were still 8 or 9 month away from that here. So I wont spoil it. But yeah as you say once that block is alight, its not going out!

I was so young an stupid when I bought the car that by the time id realised how much rot was in it, id grown attached to the curse word. Id travel all over in it, slept in it, moved house in it ect ect. I did at one point by a second car same year in blue. Id originally gone to buy some seals from the man and he had the rolling shell on the driveway, I had a look around it and saw its still had a gearbox. He told me it was off the crushers the next time he had time to stick it on a trailer and tow it. So I offered him about £50 more than scrap for it and got a mate to fetch it the following week.

A friend bought the gearbox and I cut a few sections and had the running gear. But looking back at it, the car was 90% more solid than mine. I should have just taken the shiny bits from my car and put them into the second shell. Id have saved years of my life!

Still you live and learn, then die and forget it all.

[broady]

Just a brief update for you here, although ive been busy, its just been panel bashing and trimming.



The only major thing ive done that's photo worthy was to correct a repair from a long time ago. The scuttle corner didn't match my wing shape.



This is much more the right shape. And didn't take me long at all, while weve been snow bound (its was only about 8 hours really)





Then before welding in the inner wing panel, I mocked it all up to make sure the wing could sit in far enough to meet the sill.



With that all fitting well enough I have gone ahead and welded it in, no photos yes as I forgot and its chilly out there now. The next step is to get the filler neck hole in, then ill return to the sill.

Lets see if I can write this in some sort of order then.

Some general beating to start with





You know the rest, weld a bit tap it a little and weld some more. The next step was to try and recreate the filler neck rubber orifice.

The result was this smokey mess.



I tried to strip it down and find the fault, but the thing had melted so quickly that I cant get the armature out, I think the thick gloves and low RPM meant I didn't feel the heat and the fan wasn't throwing the smoke out that by the time I noticed it was all to late. Ive kept the gearbox and skipped the rest, a replacement was found on fleabay.

I did manage to get this hole through with a smaller drill after the bigger brothers death.





A small measuring cock up resulted in the top of the panel leaving a 5mm gap, so rather than trying to fudge it I cut it off and made a small panel to drop in.







With that out the way the last of what I consider to be the big welding jobs could begin, the sill.



I started out with quite a large gap to the bottom of the door.



With it welded in and all panel up, I happier with this side than the passengers side.





Feeling quite pleased to have this all stuck together now! A few smaller jobs to work on this week.

[broady]

Mid march 2018, remember that snow day? I took a screen shot from the AA travel map to show the closed roads



After the great motivational progress of the last update, a dose of reality was thrown my way.

A slightly light start, when stripping the drivers door I found it had the anti theft lock protection plate fitted. after a root around in a spare door I found I had a pair. So these will be off to the powder coaters.



With the basic structure of the car sorted i felt it safe to take the body off to enable the access I needed to tidy up pan edges and genrally strip all the grotty waxoyl off. Ive learned alot of about corrosion protection and waxoyl aint the wayto do it any more.

I meaured up to make sure id clear the shock towers and started to make some trestles on casters.







I bravely sat on them in the middle and jiggled around, I then filled in a detailed form to conclude I had a suitable safety factor

Having at one point or another had the bolts out on this none of them caused any issues and I had it all unbolted in half an hour. My next challenge was how do I lift the body high enough on my own to get the trestles under.

Idea number 1



So the action shots were missed as I had to do some tricky ballancing. But the short version is jacking as I photographed and then putting blocks in between the shock tower and the body at the back until it was the height of the trestle. I think I unscrewed part of the trestle and slid the croos beam through and reassembled the trestle, using the jack to take the weight I removed the spacer blocks and lowered onto the trestle.

The front was much easier as the majority of the weight is at the back so I can lift the front and kick the trestle under and then position as required.



Oh how smug I felt with myself, off I went for a brew and a sandwhich.

It was only when I tried to roll the body back the issues started to arise, the wheels hit the sills. Doh!!! To make up the difference the easiest way I could I slid some more battons of wood under the body and removed the rear wheels on the chassis and got the thing over. Though this weekend its been 0 degrees or worse and a couple of inches of snow. So I havent been able to get the body out, but here it is at its new altitude.



Having never had the body off I sort of expected but really didn't want to admit to myself that I would find this.



The major structural parts are still good and solid so it isn't all doom and gloom but Its still more work I didn't want to do. Anywho feeling sorry for myself isn't going to get the car on the road. I just got stuck in and with in 3 hours this happened.







Just the pan corner to repair and that's that job sorted. The otherside requires similar work but not quite as extensive.( I hope) Looking forward to sticking the body outside so I can have a bit more fighting room. I want to get the pan off the sub frame and strip it all down then give it a good coat of epoxy primer. Lets hope the snow buggers off and it warms up.

I think your last sentiment sums up my asperations perfectly too.

I,m not aiming for nor am I after a perfect example of a Type 3. I,m

after a good solid vehicle that I can rely on with a set of "Take me anywhere and get me home

mechanics".

Well kind of, i am going to be playing with silly engines so I expect a few stuck in a field swearing trips too!

Elbow deep in my B1 license course for a few weeks but I do get the odd hour to spare in the garage.

Now that were mobile it was time to take advantage of said fact and make some working room.



And with the body out the way I could do the matching repair to the drivers side of the pan.



I forgot to photograph the small piece from the underside. But it is in there
The fact I was grinding the surface rust away left a lot of dust making things look alot more orange than they really are.





Pretty happy with that one myself

A sudden burst of mild weather at the weekend quickly drew my attention back to the body and the removal of the old waxoyl and sealer from the rear arches and boot floor. So Saturday I wheeled it out and spend 4 - 5 hours with a blow torch, heat gun, chisel, scraper and angle grinder getting it all off. As well needed as this was, some places were stuck fast other is pealed away. It found me some more holes to repair.









I seem to have forgotten how to weld here. it very bird s@*ty



The last job I did was this evening,







So thats lots of work done down a road I never planned to head down! Still were nearly back to where we should have been a couple of weeks ago and there isnt an inch of the car I havent seen now so I cant be rotten anywhere else!

[07lilredwagon]

No Fear! well done...love the progress on this car. you are inching closer and closer to having a whole car again.

JP

[Deleted]

Nov 13, 2018 21:02:38 GMT broady said:

and there isnt an inch of the car I havent seen now so I cant be rotten anywhere else!

Oh you ARE an optimist!!

[broady]

Nov 15, 2018 13:20:38 GMT 07lilredwagon said:

No Fear! well done...love the progress on this car. you are inching closer and closer to having a whole car again.

JP

Fortunately I'm much closer than that, but still not all the way there!

Nov 15, 2018 14:49:18 GMT @quickrack1 said:

Nov 13, 2018 21:02:38 GMT broady said:

and there isnt an inch of the car I havent seen now so I cant be rotten anywhere else!

Oh you ARE an optimist!!

Everyone loves and optimist, shall we have some more and see if my optimism was well placed?

[broady]

Hope you get it done before your knees and hips get creaky and everything stiffens up (or not as the case may be). I can report that WD40 doesn't work on seized-up human bodies!

I am slowly seizing up, though its muscle ache rather than joints. From sitting at odd angles to clean up and reach various bit plus ive been getting back on the bike recently, not that there is any point with the weather still being wibblepoo. Has anyone been consulted on this? I thought the curse word weather was also issued when it was dark. The clocks have changed now, it doesn't need to be -5 any more, but I digress.

I bet you have the next candidate lined up already

I have , its a 68 beetle, and there are millions of panels readily available
cheap as chips.

I think what puts the hardship into a type 3 resto is the scarcity of panels,
and the expense of them if you can get them.

I know I would have bought them if they were reasonable and available.

Hmm I might have had it for 18 months. but its no where near as intense as this, its an 81 mini which in short needs painting and putting back together! But it will wait some time yet. I need a dose of summer. Also be careful with cheap panels, they are often a very curse word fit, or made from waffer thin steel so arent much better than the bits you cut off. its worth paying a little more for the better panels. The type 3 is a more complex construction so even if a lot of the panels were around, they would be incredibly hard to fit.

Although a lot of works gone into the last 48 hours, the update is brief.

I have folded a couple of sections of seal channel for the rear section of the body to pan area.



From then on you know how it works, so the pictures can talk.







So thats the passenger side nailed back together and I set about attacking the passengers side.







This was a tricky one to try and cut out.



The only exciting news is that my pair of German door seals arrived, and I can report the quality seems great and they do fit the door very well. If anything they're a bit on the tick side but as they spend 90% of their life compressed I'm sure they will thin down in 5 or 10 years!

[broady]

And so april is upon us!

Nice.

Sure you are making it look too easy, everyone will want to have a go.

They are quite welcome! I feel like i've had enough of the 11pm finishes in the garage. One more evening this week and then I'm taking a week off! Well from manual work, I've got to study aviation legislation. And all the odd jobs that i need to catch up with in real life.

Those of you with an eagles eye might have noticed I hadn't quite finished the drivers side arch panel where it meets the bulk head. I was waiting for the body off section of the resto to give me more working room.



I think dropped in some seal channel section under the rear seat area



That only leaves an few small body jobs to do. But the weathers suddely picked up from from minus stupid to nice and mild. So I got the pan outside for a strip down.

No where near as pretty as I recalled it being, i spend an evening desealing it.





It clearly needed work, but there was no way I'm paying £1000 for a pair of floor pan sections. As wonderful as it is someones making them again. Its not a justifiable price. Id have gone as wild as £600. I wonder how many they sell?

Some light research and brain racking pointed me towards ghia pans. £200 and 24 hours went passed. These were on my door step.



Id say they're a good 75% out of the box. The swan neck to the frame head isn't as tight as a type 3 and the back sections completely different. But it can be made to fit with a few days effort. So to save £800 is well worth it, or even paying a fabricator a couple of days labour.



So left the hacking begin. I tried to remember to document it for other folks as reference











A pretty decent fit, just the rear to make fit. My pan is to get both halves just about fitted, then take the spine out, clean it all down to bare metal. Mock it all back up and weld the pans in. Then give it a nice coat of epoxy.

To that end the drivers side started to take shape.

Ive also taken all the furniture off the old pans and will be getting it blasted before refitting it.

[broady]

Thanks for the kind words. Progress has been a little thin recently but this weekend I certainly made up for it.

The other pan front end mod.



Not quite as neat but its all there, bit more work to shape it up will give a decent results.



Ive also fetched another pile of parts back from the powder coaters.



I also got most of the pan furniture blasted rather than spending ages cleaning it up myself.



The kick pans are a little pin holey towards the bottom but its pretty minimal compared the rest of the floor!

That was the last couple of weeks. Now there is the weekend 21/4/18 I'm desperate to get the chassis back together and rolling. Having it all in bits is cluttering up my garage and its annoying me.







I then sheeted the ground down with the spine one the trestles and used a sand blasting gun Ive recently bought to speed things up and get into all the fiddly its before the epoxy goes on.

its done a decent job of things like the seat rails.



I blasted the while rear end as well, better than a wire wheel which just polishes it. And any rush edges were just eating the strip discs.



Once complete I gave everything a good clean up and sweep up. Followed by some strip disc action on the spine to remove the paint. Following this was the major surgery, Pans in! I bolted the spine in, followed by each pan being secured in place. Then tacked along each edge and any trimming required.



To give it some strength once I unbolted it, the rear corners got a little reconstruction.



I then got it back on the trestles and started the long jobs of welding them in and modifying the rear of the pans to match the type 3.



The drivers side pan is now in and I'm happy with it. Id say ive broken the back of it

[shielsy68]

your making a good job off that

[peteh1969]

Great progress with the floor you should be ok for panels as long as they are not from Expressed Steel.

[broady]

Cheers gents! I cant wait to get this thread up to date but theres still tonnes more to post, 2-3 pages worth.

Id never heard of expressed steel, have you had a bad experience? They don't seem to offer VW panels, the one I used are mass produced by klokkerholm which aren't great, but they are the correct gauge steel. I know what I get with klokkerholm and as long as you clean the storage paint off and properly protect it, itll be solid and provide many years of service. The real type 3 floor pan is £500 a side and its money I'm simply not prepared to spend, type 3s aren't that rare they can charge so that much for floor pans! As nice as they might look

[broady]

Good work

Ta I'm hoping the work will end soon

Lots has been done this week, I spent every evening doing something and most of the weekend. Once ive got paint on the pan ill take my foot off the gas a bit.

Not a huge number of photos here, lots of tidying up of edges with a file, and reinstating holes ect. Not lots to photographs but lot of progress. First of all I cleaned up the back of the passenger pan half.



Then repaired the IRS clamp plate mount.





The bulk head had suffered somewhat on the drivers side to so that was infilled. Some of my least pretty welding here though.

I had hope to get it in paint this weekend, but as its mid December again, I figure ill wait until its May next week and much warmer.





Once that was complete I though it was time to weld in the stiffener plate for the pedal cluster. Ive had this lot powder coated and I'm happy with the results.



I have neglected to take a photo of the stiffener but it has been welded in.

This left three things that needed doing. The rear seat kick panels, front seat outer rails and the pan strengtheners need fitting. So step one.

I offered them up and with a bit of trimming to fit the new pan shape dropped straight in.





I spent a good few hours today aligning the outer seat rails, I have had to order a set of the plastic guides, but in order to make sure I have the rails suitably gapped I used some old broken bits of guides roughly installed. I hope this works! I haven't weld the rails in solidly yet, just well tacked.

[broady]

And as quick as that its May 2018! Wont be long before Ive got you fully up to date now.

My foot is now off the gas, its been a heavy few weeks, I can finally take a breath.

The last piece of the floor puzzle was to fit the strengtheners underneath. As this was spot welded originally I decide I would do the same thing.

I cleaned the floor top and bottom to get the transport paint off. Positioned it underneath and marked out where the holes needed drilling.





Once compete I sat on the floor while the jack preseds the rib from the underside and I welded through the holes. It was then a matter of ctrl+c ctrl+v for the other side.



The final final job was a simple check of the seat runners with the guide on. These arrived in the post on Wednesday. I only had one good original one and a couple of small broken bits. So these were a little expensive but a worth while investment. I popped them on and fitted both seats, they slide up and down wonderfully. So I fully welded in the seat runners.



I then began to dress the welds and the big clean up.



Not the most exciting thing to see so I havent taken loads of photos. But this next bit was jolly exciting. Lots of lovely upol raptor epoxy primer.





I gave it a lot of time in the sunshine. With it being over 20 degrees during the day at the minute is touch dry with in an hour. But I left it 4 hours before turning it over and painting the other side. With that done came the boring job of seam sealing the whole lot. Most of a tiger seal tube used, although it is instantly over paintable I was having a leisurely day, so had a beer in the sun before I laid some top coat on.

Its not show winner, but it isnt the leaky rusty pile of curse word it was last month.

[johnthesparky]

Heard a few comments on here about expressed panels, and ‘where there is nothing else they are ok’ seems to be how they are described.
I think some panels are pretty good, but others are only just better than doing it from scratch.

Anyway, looking good and awaiting the next update

[broady]

Ahhh ok, glad I dodged that bullet without knowing it! Its gernally accepted if you want type 3 floor pans, you buy "the funky green panels" from klassic fab or you modify ghia floor pans at 1/5 the price.

Now I take you back to the beginning of our banana republic summer, a football team doing well in a world cup, a failing economy and endless endless sunshine. Late may 2018

All I can do you for here is a series of small jobs, so it wont be as exciting as the last one.

I spent a bit of time stripping the rest of the body down, windows out, parcel shelf out, door catches off. that kinda thing.

The rear side window seals feel very good. they're still soft with no signs of cracking. I think I'm going to reuse them as the trim sits in nicely.



Once id done this I covered the head liner with brown paper just to keep the dirt and dust off.

My next target is to finish the welding. So i took a look at my failed air box repair. I removed it, cleaned the seal off and then offered it back up to find the gaps. Its much easier to see with the body off the pan.



With my previous practice at this, it didnt take long to sort out. I made some more chanel.





And as you can see, this is a much closer fit than the previous iteration.



I sealed an tested. I'm preased to report that it worked! The nest was a little in fill between the inner wing and firewall.





In the mean time these arrived, the carpet for the parcel shelf and the vinyl for the A posts as mine are sun burnt brown. Hopefully I havent got much else to order!



I marked out my dash to figure out which holes have been added and modified over the years. It seems I don't have any extra ones, just a few over size. So i Have filled them in and will redrill.



I put the filler flap release mechanism in. It was tricky to work out where in the wing it needed to go. But with some careful measuring and guess work I drilled the holes and it was spot on.

While starting to prep the flap, I found this blue (at the top)



It leaves me a little confused, its the same colour I found on the body. The colour code of the car is 21 which is marina blue. The photos on google of marina blue cars tend to be close to the light blue the car currently is. The other blue so far as I can tell is much closer to gulf blue. But that was only offered on cars in the early 1960s. So what colour is it?

[Deleted]

Respect!!! Qualty restoration.

[broady]

Nov 17, 2018 0:16:07 GMT @hotrodder said:

Respect!!! Qualty restoration.

Cheers I wish I could drive the banger now.

Following my last post a decent discussion of colour followed. Then it was the 28th May.

Money well spent, I felt more secure just testing them on the drive way

Thoughts returned to a couple of modern touches. I wanted a discreet 12v socket and USB charging capabilities. I bought this from ebay for about £6. They are both the size of a normal 12v socket and remove from that plastic plate.



I plan to mount the USB module here on the bonnet hinge recess.



Ive got a couple of thoughts for the 12v socket but I will keep messing to see what I can come up with. I then got back on with learning to silver solder as the new rear valance although much better than the one on the car still have a few pin holes.





I think ill keep practicing!



After getting fed up with that, it was a nice hot dry weekend so I got the body outside and set about it with a strip disc and flap disc. I dressed welds and cleaned the whole front end down, then wiped with thinners, and the tack cloths ready for epoxy.







I have since done a lot more grot removal and it made me realise I wasn't at all happy with the drivers side rear corner. Too many patches and seam sealer was hiding a lot of small holes. So in for a penny in for a pound. I hacked it out.



A roughly shaped repair section.



And a just about fitted piece.



Much happier with that. So that just leave me to silver solder and fit the rear valance. And to continue with the abrasives ready for more epoxy. I think I can have it all in epoxy by the weekend if the weather plays nicely.

Lots more chat about expoy primer and EBI 4 filled another 10 or 15 posts.

To quote "dude wheres my car" And theen! It was June

Lets have a bit more then. I had a bright idea that I should have my rear wings blasted and then put them in this epoxy too. During the hot sunny weekend I laid them in the sun and let the waxoyl heat up. It was much easier to wipe off. Then I dropped them off of blasting. They have come out very well. One tiny crack was there, the rest of them is completely solid.






Hard to tell, but after its got some epoxy on.



And while I was heading that way, I dropped these few bits off.



I have previously used a water based stone chip on a few areas on the car, this is amazing stuff as it doesn't react with other paint. But I had no means of inhibiting rust. So I decided to lift some and see what condition the metal was in. Its been about 6 years under there.



It really wasn't too bad at all. But a few light pits made me strip it all down and got for epoxy anyway.

So here were my weapons.



For the more tricky areas i used a propane torch to weaken the paint and sealer and then picked it out with a sharp hook. And I used my sand blasting pot to get to a few tight corners. I looked like id spent the day down the pit when I finnally got it all cleaned up. Once it had an hours worth of panel wipe, it got a liberal coating of the primer and this is how she currently sits.







You will note I havent got the rear valance on, I wanted to take advantage of this wear dry weather and cover the bare metal up. I will work on the vlance in the week.



Then ive got to spend many hours seam sealing the whole thing. I think ill need to stick some decent music on and take my brain out.

[broady]

Monday motivation any one?

A small update for you this week, it was a job I hadnt been looking forward too as it was actual body work. And I can cock that up far too easily. The results a very nice though. Monday evening I was having a potter and clean up in the garage after and hour I was about done. I thought id just have a quick look at the rear valance and do any set up work to make the job easier on tuesday evening. One thing led to another, and the panel just about fell on the car, it all went very well. Those are the best kind of evenings, it was warm and still doing a job which I hadnt planned to do and it was no effort.

Here it is lined up after a rough cut.



Further trimming, and a little work to take some ripples out as well as getting it to follow the contour of the body.



And welded on.



I'm sure you've noticed it is still the missing the bumper iron slots, I fitted both rear wings to give me a reference points and then made up a couple of pieces with out the iron holes in. Welded them in and then with some careful measuring and filing. I put the slots in.





Here is the nearly finished job.



Tomorrow night i plan to get the gridner out and tidy up the welds, followed by a coat of epoxy and then its all in primer. I have also made a start on the seam sealing. This week is the Le Mans 24, I will be putting that on in the garage and spending hour upon hour in there sealing away.

[johnthesparky]

Sat at a customers house waiting.....

So pleased to see another update

Good work and nearly up to date