Funny, I am as nervous starting this thread as I was to start cutting into my car.

I resolved to start a rustoration thread when I made my first cuts, so here it is. I'm hoping the community will pipe in periodically with any, "Don't do that!", "Do it this other way!", "Do this first!", or "Don't forget this!" comments that are appropriate. Any and all guidance will be appreciated.

So here's the car as I got it, not quite a year ago:
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Started out doing a little engine work to get it running, then drove it around a little bit before starting to take it apart. Took the engine out, put it up on a dolly, took out much of the interior and suspension, and this is how it sits now:
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After cleaning out the inside and seeing the rust, it was hard to believe we were driving it at all. These are the first cuts, just straightening out the edges of the rust holes really.
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More pics coming soon, I'll be documenting the extent of the damage and forming a battle plan.

Love your dolly setup. Keep the progress reports coming. I'll look forward to following your repairs.

Amazing how much bad crud can lurk below an otherwise really pretty paint job, eh?

Good bracing. If you end up needing to weld higher than you can reach on the longitudinal I would suggest cutting the door jamb like this. I often see guys cut off the lower quarter panel. I personally don't care to do it that way and don't think it is necessary.

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Thanks for posting your pics- now I don't feel that bad about my rust situation! How's your center tunnel- is it rusted up the sides an inch or two? That's the only piece I could find that RD doesn't sell as their inventory is excellent ... has anyone seen those for sale on any vendor site?

Nice work

Nice! Don't be tempted to start working on the engine too soon. A restored engine sitting idle in the corner of the workshop for a long period will start deteriorating.

BTW, I love the wheels on your car. What are these?

Menno

VW Super Beetle .... '78-'79 ?

Nice dolly. Good Luck with the 914!

I would support the front and rear end by adding more beams to the dolly (and maybe a couple of casters).

I would work on one side at a time while leaving the door installed (on the side you're not working).

Regards

Claus

nice work, good luck with the restoration, it's all about the journey

love that color.

good luck with your rustoration; I'm just a few hours of work behind you. Removing the engine this week, then start cutting out the rusty parts

Shouldn't the door braces form an "X" or a "Z"?

Not saying that the car is going to move since it's bolted to that beefy support frame, but I don't see how a "four-bar brace" keeps the jambs fixed relative to each other (think sagging fence gate without the diagonal brace).

I do.

Thanks all for the kind words.



Rick;
I was hoping to get away with something like that. But the suspension pylon needs to be removed, and so far as I've seen in searching this site, I'll have to cut the quarter panel. Please correct me if I'm wrong on this because I would really rather not. But look at this:

When I poked at this, the hole just kept getting bigger and bigger. Rust and sunflower hulls were pouring out of it. Got a whole bag full.
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While the outer pylon seems solid, the metal of the long around it is cheese. Cut the long open and this is looking aft and up, inside the long from just aft of the jack point (it looks backwards because it's looking in a mirror). You can see the entrance to the wee beastie's nest.
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I'm betting his little skeleton might still be inside the pylon.

Just for good measure, here's a top down view of my properly hellish hell hole:
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Lemmerz Baja Champion, and yes- Super Beetle, but I think only available in '72-'73? They've really grown on me, but they are narrow. Car's going to be a drifter whether I want to or not.

I intended the dolly and the braces to all work together- they will all remain attached so far as possible. Both braces on each side are adjustable to set door gaps.

The plan is to measure frequently and if anything sags during the cutting, I will add bracing before welding.

I'll be learning in the near future whether you can replace the inner suspension console without cutting the fender (out with the old and the inner long this coming weekend), but in my prep for the job I have assessed that cutting the outer wheelhouse any higher than the outer suspension console would require cutting the fender. I thanked God when I realized that mine was somehow only rusted on the inner side and down low in the curve.

Guess I better update you guys... Some PO welded in some random patches, have to dig them out and find out where the original metal starts. This is the underside of the hell hole:
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And from above... Looks like grandma's quilt:
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Pulled it all out. This is the PO's "hell hole repair kit"
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I'm planning on buying a bunch of sheet metal from RD. But to help stay within budget, I made a bending brake- this will be the source of my new inner longs. I've got a pile of 18g, but I have a piece of 12g to test the limits of this thing. If it can handle it, I may just make the inner longs from 12g. No additional stiffening kit required!

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Using test strips to get set up:
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Breakfast of champions:
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So far in my rustoration I'm not finding a need to cut out the fender. Some stuff may require contortionism, but it seems possible.

I'm going to try to weld everything from the inside. I'll go as long as I can without cutting the fender. If I get to a point where I have to, I'll take the whole quarter panel off intact.

Matthew, I really like the dolly. I will be liberating some of your ideas for the dolly to build my.

Nice Dolly, I will bet that Brake can bend 16g but 12g may be too stout?

Enjoy the build and hang in there!

Vysoc

I really like your Bloody Mary setup! I will be liberating that idea before I help my son with his rotor and pad replacement!

Killer dolly setup!!

Thank you. That's exactly what I did... Combed the site for dolly pics and stole every good idea I saw. That said, there's some things I would do different next time around, just to make life easier on myself.

Thanks! Pro-tip: put half your batch in the fridge for a couple days and let that horseradish marinate. Gives it a nice kick, will be good on these upcoming winter mornings in the garage.

ha; timely update. I was just ruminating over how to make my own sheetmetal brake.

Can you show a pic of how it works?

Took these after dark, hope they show it well enough. The brake is just three pieces of angle iron. Two are hinged together and bolted to the stand, the third is used as a clamp. This is what it looks like set up with a small test strip:

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Once the sheet is clamped in place, you just lift up on the handles like so:

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Of course it's going to spring back some. You can find tables that tell you how far to bend it so that it springs back to the angle you want. You can also muscle it after the fact.

Here's a close shot of the hinge. It's very simple.

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And the best part is, it folds up!

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That is awesome... Its so simple!

Hammer forming patch for the back part of the forward wheel well where the long attaches. Got to make it healthy before the new long goes in. Three tries, first 2 in 20 gauge for practice, third in 18 gauge.
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You can probably guess where this little monkey is going to go:
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Adjacent layer of the onion/ogre:
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While it's open, here's a picture of the dirty tunnel. Guess I should clean it out before welding it up again...
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Back at you on the fab skills! And I'll add to the "Awesome dolly!" comments.
Keep up the great work.
Chris

awesome work, that tunnel shot looks like a surgical theater compared to mine

Time to catch you guys up... Spending some cold January Saturdays with my butt planted on the concrete floor. Love the welding, agnostic on the grinding.

I had a pile of patches that I made in December, all ready to weld in.
Started the month with a big part of the wheel-well/steering-tunnel cut away.
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Here's the first patch in the firewall, from the outside and from the inside:
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Second patch in the tunnel:
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Third patch completes the box section that reinforces the area where the tunnel meets the wheel well:
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Fourth patch to complete the steering tunnel:
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Some strategy: Was puzzling over the best way to clean out the center tunnel. I realized that at some point in the process, every edge of the floor would get cut and re-welded. In fact, there's only a few inches of any edge that is not rusted through. So I figure I'll repair the longs and firewall but hold off on welding the floor back, then I'll drop the whole floor, clean out the tunnel and rust-proof, then repair the edges and weld it back in.

Just a suggestion, when I do sheetmetal fab on rusty cars, I weld back in galvanized sheet metal. You can find at sheetmetal fabrication shops or order through metal distributors. At the very minimum, clean n prep metal n spray with weld through/cold galvanizing spray. Welding in untreated metal is just putting in new tin worm food.

Thanks for the input. I'm a little leery about welding galvanized steel. I don't have a professional-level shop, my ventilation is just a fan. Planning to have the whole thing grit blasted, rustproofed, and painted.

Man, the voting is quite a job. Fun to see where everyone is at, I thought I was doing a good job keeping up on all the challenge builds, but there's quite a few I've tagged for a closer look.

Lots of hand fab work. nice.

Slow month. But started working on the tank. Dumped all the rust out:
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Filled it full of electrolyte and plugged it in. What could go wrong?
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Results of electrolysis on the tank. I would turn on the battery charger and let it run overnight. The sacrificial electrode would get covered in rust and slowly the current would drop until it was too rusty to conduct. Each morning I shut it off and pulled the electrode out. After work, I would clean it up and stick it back in and do it all over again. This is the result after 4 or 5 sessions... before and after:

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On a side note, my HF grinder spindle lock got really loose a while back and has been having trouble holding the spindle while I change discs. Took a few minutes and took the head off. Thought I'd take a look, although even 30 minutes is too much to spend fixing a 14 dollar tool. Turns out the casting broke away where it supports that little lock pin. Going to put up with it for now, if I get bored at some point I make get mix some JBWeld and fix it.

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Front passenger corner is pretty much rebuilt and strong, ready to support the front end of a brand new long.

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That gaping hole that's left needs to have a piece that wraps around the corner and then extends into the long. I.e., it will be sandwiched between the two halves of the long. Here's the piece with the two halves:

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More on this later. The next step is to get the old long out of the way so this piece can be added in first.

Now you see it, now you don't...

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Final corner piece in, ready to fit the long:

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Anatomy Autopsy of a long...

Here's the whole thing as it came out. You see a lot of it missing with straight edges as if it were cut away. In reality, this was mostly rusted away and the jagged rusty edges were just trimmed off.

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Condition of the motor mount. Going to remove this and clean it up, see if it can be saved. The hole on top was covered by a couple rectangular patches that looked like the were hammered in place and welded on- I think I posted pics earlier. Took them off when I cut out the engine shelf.

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Condition of the pylon. Don't think this can be saved. There's a nest inside it, I'm afraid it is corroded from the inside beyond help. Have a little wager whether I'm going to find a little mouse skeleton inside.

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Patchwork around the jack point. I was more critical of the previous work on this until I start welding my own patches in.

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More patch work...

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And the forward section...

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So in the end, hoped to have an educational experience in seeing how the frame is put together. I did learn a lot, but feel a little like a doctor that learned anatomy by dissecting a zombie. I hope I'm building a better Frankenstein.

Cool, I love dissections.

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12ga? Holy crap...

That's the standard gauge plus the stiffener kit.

That's awesome right there.

How are you going to refinish your fuel tank on the inside?