Not managed to keep the blog up to date with progress as all my spare time has been working on the beetle.
So I am trying to update the blog now.....
Next step after the Bonnet, wings and rear was to move onto the passengers door.
The outer door skin at the lowest few inches has always been coming away from the inner door and a little rust has been there since I purchased Gus, it was the worst and need repair.
Firstly I tried to remove the door hinge screws.
That did not go well :-( Impact driver and bit just ripped the screw heads out.
So had to do the door repairs with the doors fitted. At least I could check door gaps as I go along
Inspected the inner and seal areas. Not too bad on inners but very bad seal lip
Check along outer edge once the paint and massive amounts of filler were removed. At least the 5mm filler will allow me to skim over any repairs!
Checked out the raised section in the heater channel where the running boards are while they were removed.
Screw driver goes in a bit too well
Bad patch over already rust hole! Why do people patch over holes!!! Cut out the rust people!
Increased in size to get back to good metal again
Patches from previous repair!
Butt welded in a patch + new bolt for running board. Painted whole running board mounted area in Epoxy mastic
Started by cutting out inner area (Kept the outer in place so as to have a door gap reference point)
Had to cut about an 2 inches up to get the section in place. This is about where the recess is for the door cards so I can hide the join
No so bad alignment of the inner panel. Covered it in Epoxy to protect
Then I cut out the outer skin. Again about two inches covered all the bad metal.
But jointed it in place. Repair panel was a cheap panel and was a little too square & flat. Just made sure the gaps to the rest of the body were tight. Welded in and a good fiber glass filler to get into all the pin holes.
All in all quite a lot of rust!
To finish just filled the inside of the two panels with Epoxy mastic and allowed it to flow out the bottom as any water would do.
Starting point
The previous onwers had used a Barrier coat + Acrylic paint!
Acrylic paint is so rubbish. It never dries and also cracks when it finally does. I had to remove it all back to original paint.
You cannot sand it off as it melts due to heat of the sandpaper and cloggs it up. DA sander also does not touch it.
In the end had to wipe it off with thinners. Horrible job but comes off and also takes off the barrier coat.
Once back to original paint applied my first coats of Epoxy primer
Then applied a layer of filler over and around the door skin repair. Not too much needed in the end. Just flat sanded in
Then another layer of Epoxy primer.
One slight run around the window.
Followed by 3 coats of color Notice the 3M perforated masking "tape". It slides under and lifts the rubber seals. Great stuff and allow paint to coat inside the seal better than normal masking.
Masking removed and chrome trims refitted
I fitted a new seal so the door gap is slightly wider when closed but it needs to bed in as without it it closes fine.
That's it. Passenger door repair and rear quarter painted. Repaired a hole in the heater channel as well.
Not bad. Over 5 days spread out over about a month.
Next update. Drivers door......
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