Page 2 of 3

Re: The one about Sylvester, Samantha and the windshield

Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2012 10:16 am
by Sylvester
Amskeptic wrote:
I prefer amateur mechanics who know and love what they're doing . . .

Image
I will go on record to say I did not know Colin was taking a picture until I looked up. I was trying to get a 10mm open socket on the nut that holds the dash pad to the front dash. I was not very skilled bending my hand in such a way get it on, it was not easy coming off either. Colin had to get that one.

Really something like this should be handled over many days, not crammed into a weekend. I could have had the windshield out and ready to treat with converter but really that is only an hour there. My goal other that treating the rust and replacing the glass was to learn how to do similar repairs in the future. I certainly learned a lesson about how fast bondo can set if you mix it incorrectly! My next repair will be the nose of the Bus sometime this summer. This certainly prepared me for that task.

Re: The one about Sylvester, Samantha and the windshield

Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2012 10:32 am
by Sylvester
hambone wrote:Patching is fine, a composite that will last longer than metal. It's hidden under the windshield seal anyway. I think you guys should have used POR15 however, that rust will come back.
That was my mistake. I had assurance via the internet (Everything on the Internet is true, according to Wikipedia), that my automotive paint store was open on Saturday mornings. Alas it was not, and I had put all my eggs in one basket by holding off buying POR 15, my Mary Kay pink paint, and catalyzer for tha store. I ended up scrambling for all three, and had limited choices and time to get them. We did use rust catalyzer on the lip, and an unmentioned line of monkey shit (3M tar essentially, this was interesting to work with. You can see it in the shot of my pained expression). I do remember the guy with the white Bus on the Samba years ago who did it four times before he got it right. I guess we will see if we keep the Rust Monster at bay.

Re: The one about Sylvester, Samantha and the windshield

Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2012 11:37 am
by hambone
You look like a young George W getting birthed from that bus! Funny.

Re: The one about Sylvester, Samantha and the windshield

Posted: Tue Jun 05, 2012 9:16 am
by Amskeptic
Sylvester wrote:
Bleyseng wrote:I'd buy the metal replacement piece (I did on mine) and weld in it. That way you know it won't rust out on you again...unless you know its only going to last a year or two. I don't agree with you Colin esp as I can see the rust on the lip. For me it wasn't too hard to cut it out and weld in new fresh metal that fits perfectly the same as OEM.
Turned out nice and off you go.
hambone wrote:Patching is fine, a composite that will last longer than metal. It's hidden under the windshield seal anyway. I think you guys should have used POR15 however, that rust will come back.
That was my mistake.
Crap, lot of Monday Morning Quarterbacking around here. It is easy to tell others what they should have done with an easy keyboard "that's what I did", but indeed, we did not have a welder, we did not have a chinzy new piece of aluminum foil thin windshield channel which has to spot weld to the piece right behind it, and we did have this hired hack mechanic who has to find solutions that fit into agreed-upon time allotment ( in this case it ended up pretty much double the contracted time off the clock ).

I now own a bus, Geoff, that the prior owner paid damn good money to fix up, and I used to own a bus, Geoff, that never saw a professional in its life, and I have rust bubbles showing up on rockers and rust on the sliding door sheetmetal, and I have rust-through on the jack ports where the professional must have guessed no one would look, and this "professional welder" did things to the left rocker that to this day I cannot understand what the hell was he thinking.I had leaky windows with, you guessed it, rust eating up the sills, but my bus which never saw a professional in its life somehow hung in there without appreciable new rust.

So let me ask you who can afford to weld in a new windshield channel good to go at the drop of a hat, did you or your welder treat the inside surface of that metal? Did you rust proof the inside pinchweld piece where it will never again be accessible? How did you protect the spot welds themselves from future rust (in between the pieces of metal you are joining)? How did you protect the inside of the bead weld along the outer sheetmetal? Everybody looks at the outside smoothed to perfection and primed and painted, yeah yeah yeah, but the inside? I ask these questions because I see very nice body work all the time that does not go to the inner places that need protection. I do spend my allotted time or non-allotted time to work in rust catalyzing primer in between the pinchwelds of the entire channel. I do harass my customer to lock in the repair filler in the holes so that it may never loosen, and if you look at the Road Warrior photographs of the right rear tail lamp/battery box area, my repair held for eight years of serious driving and environmental assault.

I will say that this kind of work is labor and time intensive, and we had to delegate operations between us that might have not followed best practices as far as curing time, but to hear you, Geoff, I need to rethink the scope of how I might help people. It is getting too professional around here for me to get anything done in a weekend not to mention one day which is most of my appointments.

Re: The one about Sylvester, Samantha and the windshield

Posted: Tue Jun 05, 2012 9:43 am
by Bleyseng
Back to your questions, yes, I treat the new and old metal and everything exposed when I open it up with rust catalyzing primer, coat with a weld thru primer etc before welding it up. I am not a professional welder but have sought out people I know to learn a few tricks from them. The window channel I bought wasn't a piece of tin and needing a bunch of forming to fix correctly to match the frame.

Re: The one about Sylvester, Samantha and the windshield

Posted: Tue Jun 05, 2012 9:58 am
by Amskeptic
Bleyseng wrote:coat with a weld thru primer etc
What is weld-through primer? That sounds useful.
ColinDude

Re: The one about Sylvester, Samantha and the windshield

Posted: Tue Jun 05, 2012 10:25 am
by airkooledchris
so either method has a 50/50 shot of coming out great or turning into a turd, all depending on the skills of the person doing the job.

:study:

Re: The one about Sylvester, Samantha and the windshield

Posted: Tue Jun 05, 2012 1:34 pm
by vdubyah73
a primer on weld thru primer.

it's a very high zinc content primer that sprays and look like silver metal flake w/no gloss. it really only allows the the strike of an arc for welding then it burns off when the heat hits it. good for priming closed cavities before welding them up and under lap joints if that is the way used for patching. it's not a primer sealer. i've used it twice, both times disappointed. you need to have a primer party when ever you first push to spray. the zinc load is so heavy that the rattle can nozzle plugs up if you stop to wipe the sweat of your brow , the port in the can that the nozzle is inserted into clogs if you stop long enough for a swallow of coffee or have a smoke. once you start spraying don't stop. waste the excess on the bottom of the bus. I wasn't able to get the majority of product out of either try. good for a production shop maybe. worth it if you open and prep a lot of cavities at once and then spray, spray, spray, till it's gone. i like rust converter, self etching primer and rattle can or brush paint over it.

Re: The one about Sylvester, Samantha and the windshield

Posted: Tue Jun 05, 2012 1:35 pm
by hambone
Don't get caught up semantics, "I think" was clearly an opinion. I am on your side!

I wouldn't thin or spray the POR. First coat takes at least a couple hours to dry, second coat (recommended) takes at least overnight. I SHOULD have (and did) used it in places that get a lot of water. In my experience the POR holds up better than the cat-a-lyzing stuff in those places. This is for daily driver VWs in multiple climates. Paint it on, prime and color coat and forget about it. Loose rust MUST be removed first though (wire brush etc.), but some rust must remain so the stuff can have something to bond to. POR doesn't work as well on smooth/shiny surfaces (it peels) or unrusted metal.

Re: The one about Sylvester, Samantha and the windshield

Posted: Tue Jun 05, 2012 4:27 pm
by Amskeptic
vdubyah73 wrote:a primer on weld thru primer.
it's a very high zinc content primer that sprays and look like silver metal flake w/no gloss. it really only allows the the strike of an arc for welding then it burns off when the heat hits it. good for priming closed cavities before welding them up and under lap joints if that is the way used for patching. i like rust converter, self etching primer and rattle can or brush paint over it.
Thank you, vdubyah73. I personally have had good luck with rust-catalyzing primer followed by self-etching sandable primer, followed by a topcoat, myself.
Colin
(I hope you were expecting me to delete those two orphan posts)

Re: The one about Sylvester, Samantha and the windshield

Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2012 6:42 pm
by Sylvester
This is what the lip looked like with the primer on. We did two coats, sanded then applied primer on the bare metal.

Image

We let it dry as much as we had time to. Using a mixing method that DaVinci must have used back in his day, Colin came up with a pink that matched Samantha's seven year old climate ravaged "Pig Pink". I will wet sand with 1000 grit to get the brush strokes out and match the lower paint. The glare is bad here, but you can also see the chunk from the side that was not a rust casualty.

Image

We laid down the 3M tar as an additional seal from water. I also painted the dash and cleaned the stainless screws off from a previous paint job.

Image

Holy Guadalcanal the seal on the glass was a tight fit! Colin was struggling with getting it on, then we had a fight to get it on the Bus! But when we did, and cleaned it up, did it ever look great! I waited two years to get this in, really with the rust it was not supposed to take that long. It sure looks great, I must continue this restoration!

Image

Colin came through for me yet again, and I should know, I have had him help me almost every year since 2003! With the knowledge of how to continue my rust fight, I will update here to all and keep the fight up! Thanks Colin!

Image

Re: The one about Sylvester, Samantha and the windshield

Posted: Fri Jun 08, 2012 7:08 am
by Sylvester
One thing to keep in mind, with the primer and the paint, we sprayed into a cap and applied both with brushes to avoid over spray and control the coverage.

Re: The one about Sylvester, Samantha and the windshield

Posted: Fri Jun 08, 2012 7:21 am
by sped372
Sylvester wrote:One thing to keep in mind, with the primer and the paint, we sprayed into a cap and applied both with brushes to avoid over spray and control the coverage.
Good technique. I prefer an old sauerkraut can, you know, cause it's more German that way.
Image

Re: The one about Sylvester, Samantha and the windshield

Posted: Fri Jun 08, 2012 9:43 am
by Amskeptic
sped372 wrote: Good technique. I prefer an old sauerkraut can, you know, cause it's more German that way.
Good for you, hand-application craftsmanship is where it is at.

I think Samantha is happy with the attention.
Image

Re: The one about Sylvester, Samantha and the windshield

Posted: Fri Jun 08, 2012 9:58 am
by Amskeptic
Sylvester wrote:I have had him help me almost every year since 2003!
Image

We've aged . . .
Colin :cyclopsani:

December 2003
Image

(edited - I've aged)