Itinerant Air-Cooled

It has begun.


neal

ruckman101 wrote:It has begun.


neal

Will this be the blog thread diary of the process?
Colin

That was the plan. Didn't get too far today. Where to begin? Bumpers. PB Blaster, but even then, the first bolt I attempted to extract broke off at the head. Better luck with the rest. It's gonna hurt the wallet.

A surprise on the rear bumper.





An inexpensive spare key. Feels like aluminum.

Some particular nastiness behind the rear wheel on the driver's side.



Lots of bubbling paint along the heater channels, too. And rust about everywhere.





And most of the rubber looks kinda like this on the driver's side turn signal.





Eh, got the bumpers off, one head light, one tail light, and that was about it. Rusting bits hit with PB Blaster for the night and more tomorrow. Good golly much to do.


neal

I'll take all the advice I can get. Questions abound. The plan is to dip the body parts to strip of paint and start fresh. Seems like I should be doing all the welding and body work before the dip, so the primer can be immediately applied and then parts painted before reassembly. Re-chrome the bumpers? Yikes. No wonder fully restored cars carry such big selling prices.


neal

well i would strip the paint 1st wether its dipping or blasting.
That way you can see all the stuff that the pretty paint is hiding.

Dip? I would have the body, doors, hoods etc media blasted down to bare metal (not sand blasted!) All the rest of the parts you can strip with a orange citrus based stripped that won't harm them. Rusty stuff can be restored via the battery charger electrolysis method or batch the parts you want coated in yellow or silver chromate.

You can always just start with the active rust, stripping the whole body is $$$ and mucho time. You can't afford it either. Me 2.

Debt is an American tradition.


neal

Slow going. Over two hours and I've managed to get one nostril grille removed, the front logo, the horn, and the other head light, after drilling off the head of the screw holding the trim ring on. The driver side turn signal was attached with two stainless philips head fine threaded screws, but the passenger side has nuts rusted up real well. Slow going.


neal

ruckman101 wrote:Slow going. Over two hours and I've managed to . . . Slow going.
neal

Neal, banish those thoughts of quantity-based "productivity". You are on an open-ended journey and there is no manager breathing down your neck. I took two days to scrape/sand/paint a couple of heater valves and two pipes-with-brackets from the exchangers. If I tormented myself with the very real likelihood that I would be fired from a body shop with my rate of "production", I'd make myself miserable. Your Gretchen needs extra care with all of this rust binding things together or collapsing. That is all that counts, that you take care of each operation to protect what is there and make it whole where you need to, and have fun with this resurrection. How many cars get to thank their lucky stars that their owner is going to restore them?
Colin

Or buy another Ghia, my brother-in-law's advice. He points out another Ghia is most likely a less expensive option. Another unknown. I guess I could start by scraping and poking at issues, issues all Ghia's have. They sure can collect mud around the front and rear turn signals. There's certainly a level of rust that needs to be addressed. But there are other issues. Body sag and the like that impacts the door alignments, and more critically, the ability of the window seals to be effective at actually sealing. Crusty brittle rubber is another factor. I've already got two applications of Goop applied to front and rear windows. And you know there's going to be rust under there, too. I took another gander at Gretchen, and was encouraged. Hopefully that encouragement will be sustained.

Gretchen's story is told as each part comes off. Whoever painted her black only got one front turn signal off. Paint under the rubber of one, but not the other. The horn, also didn't come out.

We'll continue on this path and see where it takes us.


neal

zabo wrote:well i would strip the paint 1st wether its dipping or blasting.
That way you can see all the stuff that the pretty paint is hiding.

Tearing into the paint is such a final commitment. And isn't one of the points of dipping is that it strips the paint and rust? Or is it just a clean before primer and painting. I certainly want to knock off any lurking bondo.


neal

Bleyseng wrote:Dip? I would have the body, doors, hoods etc media blasted down to bare metal (not sand blasted!) All the rest of the parts you can strip with a orange citrus based stripped that won't harm them. Rusty stuff can be restored via the battery charger electrolysis method or batch the parts you want coated in yellow or silver chromate.

I like the electrolysis suggestion. Like for the headlight assembly and the smaller bits. Been looking into soda blasting. Are you saying that rust free parts can be primered with yellow or silver chromate plating through a similar electrolysis process?

neal

yes, lots of places do the plating that matches the VW yellow or silver chromate plating. You clean or they clean the parts and plate them so take stuff in batches.
I need to do this for my Ghia stuff. Soon, soon to come but first tranny rebuild time and a engine reseal cleanup.

Ok, found an outfit in Portland, American Metal Cleaning, Inc., that can deal with the body in terms of paint stripping, rust removal etc., with an electrolysis process, not an acid dip. The rep I spoke to claimed it doesn't rust up as quickly as it would with an acid bath dip. Epoxy primer, then metal work, then paint. Brace the body at the doors. About $1.520 for body, doors and lids. Three month wait to get to the body. I'm on the list.


neal