show me your bad pictures and make me feel better

i have got a complete arch and two complete back quarters in my garage just need to get front drivers arch for now that will keep me going for this winter

 

Quite easy if the door will adjust down a few mm? Leave both ends on, slice down your seam weld and force it outwards. Got to worth a try? You could do that much youself with a cutting disc some wood to wedge it out from the inner or axle, and a lump hammer to hammer in the props. Then at least you could show welder how little needs doing? If it that doesn't work out fit-wise at least you just cut what the welder would have to anyway.

 

When I have it re skinned the door position won't change much, the problem I had is the welder lined the new arch up with the b pillar and just welded it on without checking the gaps etc, it need lifting and bring out. I appreciate the repo arches aren't amazing but this wasn't a cheap £80 special either .

 

Nice one zed may have to give it a go

 

In general, starting at rusty bits remove paint/filler in each direction until you have bright shiney steel then you can cut off as little as possible. e.g. if the centre of the rear arch is good, just replace the ends - buy a whole panel to cut them off, but don't use the middle if you don't need to. This will keep the orignal arch flair which is much sharper than the bloaty shaped Cockenheim panels, save distorting an rippling the whole panel, retain lots of german steel and be a piece of cake compared to using the whole thing to fill after. Just depends on what you find as you dig.

And really you need to but weld these repairs - it will retain the original curves better and again make filling easier.

 

thats right like the rear arch i think it will be two ends but i will get digging soon cant wait now i do like a challenge

 

oh yes malc will be worth it in the end cant stop now i have started

 

I cant show bad bits as it seems I was lucky. I paid 4 k for my van and thought at the time it seemed that it was a lot of money. But seeing what people spend I am now rather pleased.

I had mine sand blasted and here is a photo of it just done and getting its first coat of primer

You can see the 4 pieces of masking tape that had pin holes after blasting. My mig packed up so I couldn't weld them as planned before the blaster came.

I let him blast it, then covered the 4 small areas with tape so once fixed I had good areas to weld. God I am so anal

 

my photobucket is crammed with rust

 

i got some rust, although my paint is hiding whatever horrors are under there pretty well so far.... haha.
my rear chassis legs and beam arent looking so good however..

 

don't worry about that arch I've just got my van back after resto and paint and found the prat put the rear corner bottoms in to high so cant get my lights in guess it will be going back for some free work, good job I've still got paint left over

 

My upper sliding door track:




That gave me a weird feeling about how it might look underneath the roof itself.

What I found was no surprise:


... the whole roof gutter is gone and the top of the bus looks the same alle the way round.

I'm curious what I'll find underneath.

 

im so glad i put this thread up i feel so much better