My Smyth-Utes build thread

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[Powder Hound]

Day 21

Today was a short day, as was yesterday. I am back and took tools over to the shop yesterday, but forgot a few things. Today I went over with a couple of other things. This is the problem worrying me right now:



You know this spot - it is beside the hump that is under the rear seat and over the fuel tank. There is this spot here beside the outer rail. If water draining from the bed gets in here, about the only place it can go is forward into the cab. Since that is going to be sealed off, then water would sit until it gets through the paint by osmosis and rusts out the pan.

Not good. So I've been trying to think of a good way to seal it off. There is one construction video where Mark Smith alludes to supplying a nice cover "in later kits". Mine is a "later kit", but I guarantee you there is no extra cover there. I didn't like the idea of filling the space with urethane foam, because those aren't fool proof, and when water gets in there it will slide down in between the foam and the pan and still eventually rust things out.

Also, the solution needs to provide a way to get your hand and a tool back there because there are 2 bolts on each side of the pan that you install in front of the first bed bar and connecting to the front wall and (mostly) covering the fuel tank access port. So you need to be able to get an allen wrench (5mm, oh joy) or a 13mm socket, one or the other depending on how you install the bolts.

I was waiting on doing the bed bars and installing the bed until I figured this out (due to the access that will be needed later). Tonight I started cutting a piece of cardboard into a pattern for some aluminum I could get my friend to cut for me since he has a lot of that kind of thing around, and a couple of scrap pieces would work perfect. Probably it would end up being the same 1/8" material that is already there. I was working on that, and figuring out that it would work best if I could bend it here and there to fit more nicely, and wouldn't it be better if it were much thinner.

And the light bulb finally clicked on.

It isn't structural, after all. And I have the perfect material in my own garage. Some roofing aluminum sheet - it comes on a roll, and I have plenty. I can rivet it to the outer brace that goes from the B pillar brace to the wheel well that is on the outside of the bed side and seal it up with plenty of black silicone, and it will be perfect.

Photos coming when I remember to get the stuff and take it to the shop. Yay!

Not much else happened tonight, but figuring that out was a good roadblock to have out of the way. It's too cold right now anyway. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. That room I have to work in is isolated from the rest of his shop so it doesn't get heated. Much. I need to hurry and finish this project. And in this cold, painting will be a unique problem all its own.

Cheers,

PH

 

[Powder Hound]

Day 22

Today I just did some drilling and started working on the aluminum sheet to keep the 'pit' from filling with water.



If you use a clamp to hold the 2 feet in place while you drill the holes, it works a lot better. Here you can see the 2 feet for one side of the bar under the bed. They are just a couple of 1/8" aluminum, 90* bend. You drill the base to set a few pop rivets to hold it in place. If you try to just hold 1 foot in place, it will try to walk all over the place. Instead, I suggest that you use some kind of clamp to hold it to the bar at the place where you're going to mount them. The bar gives you a place to clamp the feet, and it will keep them at the correct angle while you drill, as well as allow you to hold the bar to keep everything from walking around. It works quite well.

Drilling through the metal surface is no problem. You don't want to push the bit all the way through as you might hit something else, like the muffler, or other exhaust plumbing, or fuel plumbing. Just enough to penetrate the 1 layer of steel you need to get through.

I decided to get most of the holes drilled. I'll mount them tomorrow. I did try a couple of them to make sure the rivets will work. And on the driver's side, the drill was hitting the muffler, so it is a good thing I bought some shorter rivets than normally come with the kit. I think I'd rather not create a bunch of rattling.

Here's the results of the drilling, although it may not be terribly interesting.





Here is one of the sheets I'm going to use to seal off the sides over the rear seat ledge.



It is very thin, and was purchased several years ago for a roofing problem I had. Since it is so thin, it should be easy to work.

While the box of rivets guards the side wall, the sheet is sticking in the side and under the lower edge of the side wall.



Here I'm holding the brace in place that I haven't installed yet. The sheet of aluminum should be able to be placed from the bottom of that brace down under the side wall edge. It will form a nice slope so that any water, rain, spilled soda, or any other liquid should be able to drain through the seams and run down to the drain hole above the fuel tank.



This is the view from the other side so you can see how the sheet will peek under the sidewall.



This part is going to take a little time to trim into a good shape. I think I'll need to install that brace to be able to fit it into place. I'm not thrilled about doing it this way, but it will probably be best to install this drip shield then install the cover that goes at the front of the bed.

I think I will also need another sheet on the outside of the outside brace. The objective will be to provide a path for condensation to get outside of the seam that is next to the outside of the car. But for all this to work right, I'll probably need to fill the space in between the 2 sheets with some foam to prevent humid air from getting in there and filling that pit with condensation anyway. Closed cell urethane from a can should work. I will need to do some inspections periodically to make sure this scheme is working. If it doesn't, I'll have to think up something else I guess.

Tomorrow will be more fun as I'll have some time to get more done.

Cheers!

PH

 

[JLMurphy]

It's difficult to see from the pictures but would it be possible to drill a small hole in that void so that any water that got in could just drain out? My concern would be the longevity of any seal and how you could check to see if it was holding. My truck has a bunch of weep holes in and under the bed to let water drain before it collects and starts a problem.

 

[Powder Hound]

There is a place like that - you'd just poke the lowest spot. I think the Smyth guys avoided that because a simple hole in the best spot would drain right into the main structural rail on the outside of the car. I've been thinking about the same kind of thing. Even if you do put a shield like I'm showing, you will still get condensation on the braces and it would fill the 'pit' anyway. The only thing I can think of that might work is to drill a hole completely through both surfaces of the pan (there's 2 layers) then seal a small tube in place that would allow the water to drain out.

Given the downside of having water collect, I am thinking that I might need to do that anyway because I don't have much faith in filling the area with foam and not having that foam merely insulate condensing water from evaporating.

Grrr.....

Maybe the best thing to do is to check for any conduits like fuel lines and such and drill it anyway.

PH

 

[Powder Hound]

Day 23

Today was supposed to be a day where a lot of stuff would get done. Alas, a large number of untoward things happened, not the least of which was an event that leaves me needing a Montreal wheel. If anyone knows where there is a cheap one available close to Concord, NH, please let me know.

Anyway, mostly I ended up finishing up setting the footings for the cross bars. Most of the holes got drilled yesterday, so today was some drilling and many rivets being set. I used shorter rivets than supplied because there's stuff under and beside the floor that I thought would be best if it was not disturbed by long rivets sticking out too far. That is, the rivets supplied are 3/4" long - overkill for nearly all the points that are riveted.

Here's the details on bar #2.





On this (driver's) side, I had to "adjust" one of the feet (read: sand it down to match the level for the tops of the bars). You can do OK if the feet are too short by a bit by just drilling the hole for the long bolt that will support the bar in the correct spot. But if it is too tall, you'll either bend the bed extrusion(s) or have it loose in spots - generally it would turn out screwy.

Here's the detail on the driver's side of bar #3. Since the rear foot goes sideways instead of down to the floor, I beat it up so it would fit nicely on the curved fender well.



Here's the right side.



This side is OK, but the front side foot doesn't have a lot of footprint.



As you can see from this vertical shot, the foot only has purchase on about 1/3 of the possible area. I don't think that is structurally sound. Maybe it is OK, but I'd rather feel like I won't have to do something later, so I made up a doubler to rivet on the side like the rear foot, just to reinforce the provided foot. It is really nice to have a friend that has a metal fabrication shop so that useful scrap aluminum is readily available. In this case, it is a 2 inch 1/8" thick aluminum angle. Just about perfect, I'd say.



So when the hole is drilled for the suspension bolt, I'll have multiple layers instead of just one. Yiha.

I didn't drill the center holes for the long bolts to finalize all this as it was dark and getting colder and I needed to get back home to finish up one of the unscheduled tasks that hit us today. I think Murphy is having a good laugh at me today.

More fun ahead!

Cheers,

PH

 

[Powder Hound]

Day 24 Drill and mount bars 2 & 3

Today I was able to drill and mount bars 2 & 3. This completion allows the mounting of the wheel well covers and the bed.

I still haven't decided on what to do about the pits beside the front wall. I checked to see if you could just drill through. The distance between the lower surface of the bottom of the car body and the most likely place for a drain hole is 4 3/4". This is also in the vicinity of the reinforcement for the rear jacking point. There's other structure running through there as well, such as a couple of seams and the outside rail of the unibody. So maybe trying to drill through isn't such a great idea.

On the other hand, there's a port at the rear of the door opening. It appears to be some kind of drain where water could exit from that port and just run out to the ground, since it would be just below the lower door's seal. That might be doable, if I can figure out how to make the right connection.

Anyway, to get the bars mounted correctly, you need a long straight edge that can span from bar 1 to bar 4. Both of these bars are bolted via holes in the side walls that were drilled by Smyth. Since they're cnc machined (a cnc plasma cutter did the deed) I figured I can rely on them. Kinda hard to change things if I didn't.

Using the straight edge, you check the height of the feet to ensure they aren't too high, and reduce that if any of them are. Then you use the straight edge to give a reference for the bar and clamp it. Once the clamp is in place, you can drill the hole (5/16") for the long bolt that will hold the bar in place. You basically do it by best guestimate - I don't know of a good fixture you could use to get the drill perfectly lined up. You can't pre-drill it because if you do, you're sure to be a few millimeters off. So do it in place, by hand, and hope for the best.

The feet are 1/8" thick aluminum, and the C channel that makes up the bar is a little thicker than that. I would recommend if you do one of these to be sure and drill from the backside of the C channel. The reason is that the C channel will make a lot of chips. There is a small piece of wood/laminate in place to fill in the center of the C channel inbetween the feet. This gives both feet a good clamping surface. If you drill from the front, all the excess chips from the C channel don't really have a good exit (you think a 4" curly cue of aluminum is going to run neatly up the drill bit flute? Ha!), so the chips will get packed into and chew up the inside of the spacer. That would weaken it, and it slows the drilling operation down. Trust me, it works better to drill the backside of the C channel first. Or rather, go from that direction. I drilled a pilot hole with the 3/16" bit and then finished with the 5/16" bit for the final hole.

After doing the drilling, and tightening up the bolts, then cleaning up, the results are in.









So now I'm ready for the front tray, the wheel well covers, and the bed floor. The taps for the bed floor mounting bolts have arrived, and they're waiting for me at the shop. I just have to figure out the drain problem.

Cheers!

PH

 

[Powder Hound]

Day 25

I've had it. It is time to pull the trigger on something. I'm not going to be able to drill a drain hole, and there isn't much else to consider, so I decided to fill in the gaps at seams with silicone RTV, fill with foam, go back in a day or two after the foam has cured and smooth it out, then seal it with POR so that any water getting in there can roll down to the outside and out over that seam at the door.

First I mounted the little piece that is provided to make a hole that isn't on the bottom where the wires are. You lift up the wires that go forward, stick the piece in place, and rivet. You can pre-drill this one because there are little pips made by the plasma cutter to locate the holes in both pieces (the other piece being the front wall of the bed).

You then rivet the small cord suspension pieces from inside the cab, so that the ugly part of the rivet stays hidden in the bed sides.

Then you shake up the urethane foam in a can purchased from the friendly local home improvement store and slowly 'spray' (ooze?) it in place. I ran my hot air gun at the same time on the foam, hoping to help the bubbles remain small. Actually, I think the best way will end up being to only lay down a small amount of foam at a time because inside a large mass of foam that doesn't cure quickly because of a lack of moisture, the bubbles combine to make a less than optimal foam mass. We'll see if it gets ugly when I trim it back after it hardens.

From inside the cab:


From outside, bed side. You can see the wires as they lay on the bottom, but I'll lift them up to hopefully stay on top of the foam.



The driver's side, with foam:



You can also see the markings for the wheel well cover. I did this because you must rivet from this side, and it is much easier if you know where to drill.

Another view of the same thing:



The rear portion of the bed side with the cover markings.



The solid line is about at the top of the cover, and the dotted line is the bottom of the flange. The flange gives you 1.5" to use as a glue and rivet space.

The wheel well cover, loosely in place because it isn't riveted.



A vertical of the flange of the wheel well cover. I don't think the less than perfect flange (2 different angles - this isn't because of camera angle) will cause trouble.



So things are coming together. I decided not to bolt in the tray until the foam and drainage work is complete because it would be a little easier this way.

Cheers,

PH

 

[Powder Hound]

Day 26

I have a few puzzles to work out, so I put the other wheel well cover in place and took a look at things.





So if you look at the above 2 photos, they are the tail and then the front of the passenger side. The rear is fine, but the front has that gap in front of the 1st bar. What should be going on is the tray should be bolted in, and the tab on the front of the wheel well cover slides down into the gap between the tray and bar #1.

The other side shows much the same fitment, except I located on the bar and let the rear extend just a little over the last bar (#5) . So everything is OK as far as sizing goes - both wheel well covers are the same size, and the bed is measuring the same side to side.



The above is the tail of the driver's side that is located right on bar #1 like it is supposed to be.

What I need to do at this point is to go check the videos and make sure of how it is all supposed to fit. I might need to make some adjustments; if so, not much material will be removed.

I also ran an idea across my friend, and he thinks it would be a great idea to weld a seam along the top of the cover where you can't really rivet because the car's body work is left standing there. I like that idea. I'll rivet on the sides to make sure the cover is properly located and we'll clamp it as well.

Then there is the foam I left yesterday. I was thinking that I rushed it too much. I was right.



This is the right side. I had forgotten to fasten that bolt at the bottom, so I had to dig out some foam to get enough clearance to insert and tighten the bolt. I was thinking that the silicone might not be cured yet due to lack of exposure to air. That was indeed the case. Also, in the cold and lack of air (actually, the moisture in the air that the foam needs to cure) maybe 2" of foam cured, and under that, the foam collapsed and the resulting urethane was a gooey mess.

Moral of the story is that if you are going to fill it in the way I did, then you apply as much silicone as you want, but let it fully cure before you apply foam over it. Then apply the foam in amounts no more than about 1 inch before letting it cure, then go back and fill in more allowing for each layer to cure. I should have done this starting last Monday!

I am also sure there's a few of you smart guys out there that probably figured this would happen, and now I'm one of you as well. You just can't rush some things.

There's a few things I need to do tomorrow, so I won't be working again until Saturday.

Cheers!

PH

 

[Powder Hound]

Day 27 (a)

I'm doing today in 2 parts, because I have more than 10 photos.

I started out today doing various small tasks, some I have skipped over and others just because. The first thing was to look for a brace, #22 on the packing list called "tailgate brace/adjustment plates". They were mentioned in the video, but I couldn't find them. So I made a direct effort to go through all the stuff in the small parts box, and there they were, hiding under a bunch of small parts. Who'd've thunk??

They are there to freeze the gap between the top of the tailgate and the side wall where the striker is mounted. The bottom is pretty much fixed due to the hinges and the short bar that is bolted in place, so you put this corner piece in to ensure you maintain the gap all the way up. If it varies, you'd be really surprised how much something like that sticks out.



And of course, the video only shows 3 rivets so I had to do some overkill.

Then it is on to carving up cured foam. I used a hacksaw blade and it works surprisingly well. I wanted to shape it so that a nice surface is formed for allowing drips and condensate to drain out the side. I'll have to apply sealant when the general shape is correct, but this is a good start. You can see the pit I dug out to bolt in the bottom bolt, and now the stuff that was in the bottom is mostly cured. It is still a little soft, but I'm not worried about it still being liquid.



And there's other places I'll fill in with more foam as well.

This is one of the gaps under the corner of the rear seat. There's a hoop there, and a hole next to it that I filled in somewhat with foam, but it didn't really go well. There's another on the other side (well, a few inches away). That one I left the ugly foam and have covered it with silicone to seal it off. This one I covered with a thin aluminum piece I just cut out. I used the aluminum roofing material I was going to use on the sides of the rear seat, but as you can see above, I decided that wasn't going to work well and went with the foam and silicone. So the roofing material is getting used anyway. I just trim to fit, a little oversize, line the bottom with a generous bead of silicone, and press into place.

Here's the bottom of the spare tire well. I had left out 2 of the plugs as seemed to be done in the videos, but such large holes didn't sit well with me.

If you look in between the 2 plug holes I covered with aluminum, you'll see a small black spot which is a drain hole that VW already provided. I figured that will most likely be sufficient. If I left the large holes open, Murphy would probably find a way to fill the entire well, other than what is displaced by the tire and other hardware, with sand, so I'm feeling better now.

Some of the drain plugs I just filled with silicone so as not to provide swimming holes to the local fauna.

And just to be different, the plug was in place, but I covered it with an aluminum cap instead of filling with silicone. After all, variety is the spice of life, is it not?

This is the 'bucket' on the passenger side, outside the side wall of the bed in back of the rear wheel. There are 2 plugs on this side, but only 1 on the driver's side. Both of the plugs pretty much fell apart, which is why they were both open and needed covers. I'll punch a hole in the small one on the outside before I mount the quarter panel. Same on the driver's side.

And this is why I'm looking for a Montreal wheel. They seem to be pretty unusual, so I'm not holding my breath.

 

[Powder Hound]

Day 27 (b)

Some other tasks. The big plastic hold down molding for the spare tire didn't work too well - I ended up using a wrench on it when I cleaned it out in the beginning. Today it was time to do something about it.


It is a great thing to be working next to a very well equipped metal shop, whose owner happens to collect a lot of stuff. I asked if he had a short piece of rod to weld onto the bolt, and he came up with this. So I notched the plastic, he welded the piece, and I pressed it right in. I'll add some glue, maybe a little dab of windshield adhesive when I get to that point, but as of now, the spare tire hold down is pretty much fixed.



Now, after doing the foam contouring I showed earlier, I was able to apply some more silicone to the inside parts of the voids that need filling. I am OK at this point to mount the front tray, and I can finish off that void fill in the next few days before I start on the quarter panels.

In the meantime, I was able to mount the front tray. Sort of. When it comes down to it, you can reach around and tighten the side bolts by yourself, but those bolts on the front wall (5 of them) will require some creative body positioning, or 2 people. I'll go for 2 people. Right now, the side bolts have nuts on, but they aren't completely tightened, and the front wall bolts have no nuts on them at all, but all of it works to correctly position the tray so that I can correctly position the fender covers and start working on riveting them in place.

But first, you have to make sure they fit. I trimmed a thin wedge off the back of the driver's side - it was 1/8" on the inside tapering to nothing at the outside. The right one will need a generous 1/8 all the way across, as well as a little trimming in the corner.



And when you are trimming aluminum, sometimes a power tool may not be the right choice as it is too easy to go too far. I took 20 minutes to trim this back, but I'd rather do that than have some wierd waves in the corner.



So here it is, ready to trim a little more off the left fender cover, then start drilling and riveting some more. Oh, and tightening some bolts as well. And sealing the foam. And...

Another view of the same thing...



I actually feel like I got some good work done today. I could have done more, but I took 2 hours out to mount and balance some tires to replace the (3/4) set on my daily driver, because I hate driving with the spare. Looks screwy. And it is an all season spare, while the other 3 are snows. It probably wouldn't be a good thing if it snows right now*, so now I just gotta change the wheel set.

Cheers!

PH

P.S. TDIClub says I have 10 photos in the first post. I counted only 9, so I guess a smiley counts as a photo. Interesting...

PPS - Oh, one other thing. Technically, you can unbolt and remove the front tray at a later time if you really needed to. I can't think of a reason why that would be necessary, and after having to carefully hammer it into place (rubber hammer, but you still have to work it) and work very hard to set those bolts, and then not being able to do enough with the 5 bolts along the front wall all by yourself, I don't think I will ever be removing that pan unless there is a complete disaster. Seriously, it is going in, and it ain't coming out. Period.

Cheers again!

PH

*-we got rain, slush, freezing rain, and snow on top of it all within 10 hours of writing the above. Pretty much the entire spectrum of precipitation, in the worst combination possible. If I make it out and back home safe, well, it pays to live righteously!

 

[Powder Hound]

Day 27(c)

Today some other stuff came up, so not much building.

But I did get asked about a detail on the tailgate, so I ran over to the shop and snapped a couple of photos to show details.

Specifically, this:



This shows how the long hook piece fits into the side catches on the tailgate, and this:



shows how those pieces can be bolted to the center handle using the supplied bolts, washers, and nut that you can't see.

And if it isn't obvious, you have to twist those long hooks yourself so that there's a 90 degree twist. See how it twists:



And that's how it works.

Also, I was able to confirm that Murphy is still working at my house, and he's found the shop. Ugh.

Case in point, at my house: my wife has a winter beater. It is a 2003 1.8T Jetta. Auto of course, as she is determined never to use her left foot when driving except possibly to tap her foot when she's keeping time with music. So after work today, I installed the winter shoes, and I was going to warm it up by driving to the shop. Not so. No reverse. Oh, <bleep>. I hate automatics.

My daily driver (the 4-dr Golf I've had for 20 years, bought new) is leaking diesel from the pump. It definitely isn't from the quantity adjuster, not from any of the distribution valves or fuel lines, not from the return line, so it looks like either the back side from the pump head gasket or one of the ports for the advance solenoid or the cold start solenoid, underneath where it is impossible to see. Ugh. I will probably be fixing that on Turkey day.

He (Murphy) found the shop. How so? Last Saturday I was looking for the 120* countersink I'll be needing next when it comes time to mount the fiberglass parts (rear bumper cover, quarter panels, and rear window surround) and a few other things. Couldn't find it at home, and not at the shop. So today I ordered a new one. Murphy's Law of Lost Things (actually a corollary of the basic Law) is this: if you lose something, you will not be able to find it until the need is gone or you replace it. Borrowing someone else's won't work because you have to give it back, and in this case if you borrow something you might lose that one as well. Anyway, at the shop to take the above photos, I was going to leave, and then I decided to prove the law. Since I ordered a new one, I found the original in 3 minutes.

That <bleep> <bleep> <bleep>ing Murphy needs to give me a break!

Cheers,

PH

 

[Powder Hound]

Day 28

I went over tonight to install the fender covers. I ended up being half right.

I used the suggested method of lining up the covers, drawing a line on the side wall, removing the cover, then drilling holes in the side wall. That way you have holes in one side properly located, and you can then install the cover, drill through the cover using the holes you already have, and rivet it down. The flanges on the cover are about 1 1/2 inches wide, so you drill the holes about 3/4" from your line. This method works quite well.

I decided to use an adhesive along with the rivets. This is because a big chunk of the top of the fender cover can't be riveted because of the structure over the wheel wells left behind. The downside is that working with the adhesive isn't a lot of fun. I bought a Dupont product used for windshields. Since it is cold, that adhesive is really viscous, and really hard to squirt using a calking gun. The nozzle provided is lots larger than the usual calking tube, too, so you either buy a specific gun for this product or grind out your existing gun. I chose the latter.

But it is so hard to squeeze out of the product tube I ended up unscrewing the huge nozzle and using a kraft stick (looks like a popsicle stick that has been notched) to scoop it off the tube and spreading it on the side wall. The only problem is that it is hard to gauge how much to spread on, and if your cover doesn't fit perfectly, then you'll smear it around trying to get that cover back into correct position.

Expect to work on those covers a bunch before you commit to rivet them in place. Mine (driver's side, didn't get to the right side) kept lifting the rear. And both of them don't like to cozy up to the side walls perfectly. You'll probably have to just force it as parts of the covers are welded, and it isn't easy to weld them perfectly if you don't have a super duper jig. And even if you do, it might change shape after you pull the finished piece out of the jig. I'm just saying this because doing a large metal piece out of bent and welded sheet is a veritable art form, so don't be surprised if you see some strange lines.

Anyway, I got the driver's side down, so I should be able to get the passenger side down tomorrow.

No photos - forgot the camera. Sigh...

Cheers!

PH

 

[Powder Hound]

Day 29

Tonight I installed the right fender cover.



Having the clamps available in the metal shop was quite beneficial, because when you riveted the front corner, the rear corner decided to move out and up about 1 inch in each direction. The large vise-grips clamped them down nicely. I do know it would have been much less fun without them.



I used the same adhesive as last night on the driver's side, but this time I applied a lot less, and was able to complete the install without squishing it out the external seam. Looks lots better that way.



So I had everything trimmed up at the tail, just right, and now after install they are off a bit. Trimming in place is about 10 times harder than if you can just pull the piece out and work on it. In place, it isn't in a good location leverage and tool manipulation wise, and there's other aluminum surfaces right there that you don't want to grind on. Ugh.



Next is tying those tail ends down to the last bar with the doubler pieces and flush rivets. Should be fun.

Enjoy Turkey Day everyone!

Cheers!

PH

 

[Powder Hound]

Day 30

I was back at work at my day job today. I spent yesterday trying to replace the pump head seal on my 4-dr Golf, but I messed up and will have to give it a try again in the morning. As it is, I decided the wind is blowing too cold to do anything tonight, so I went over to the shop to see what I could get done. It would be without most all my tools since I left those at home while working on the pump.



The first thing I did was apply a bunch of white RTV silicone to the top of the foam I had in this space.

Then I took a look at the tailgate to see what needs adjusting because one side latches and the other does not. I see where to fix things, but again, my tools are at home.

So I decided to lay out the bed floor panels and start measuring to see what all is needed to fasten it down.



The blue tape on the bed sides is so that when the panels are laid down, I will still be able to see where to drill for the bolts that fasten the floor panels in place.

I had a photo of the tailgate end, but the camera did not focus properly. This is the front wall end. You can see that there is a little trimming that must happen as the panels aren't perfectly square.



All in all, I don't expect it to be a terrible job, just time consuming. If all goes well with the pump in the morning, I'll get to it by noon, or maybe early afternoon.

Cheers!

PH

 

[Powder Hound]

Day 31

Today was scheduled to be longer than it was, mostly due to weather. But I got some good stuff done in the time I had.

First, today was time to fasten the bed floor panels to the cross bars. They were laid out, but needed a little trimming. Of the 6 ends, 4 needed work.

But when I walked in, the shop owner asked if I needed a saw. He showed me what he rigged up and demonstrated it.



It cuts impressively fast, but with no guide, he was quick to emphasize that it was dangerous. After seeing it in action I decided it was nearly exactly what I needed to do the trimming. I wasn't keen on the idea of using a hack saw or file to make the adjustments, so I was ready to go.

After measuring and checking with everything laid out, I got my safety glasses and started in.

Besides being extremely loud, cutting the bed floor panels went quickly. Mark Smith says it is hardened material, and so when you cut it you don't get long slivers, you get small bits of aluminum spitting out everywhere. Safety glasses are required, otherwise you'll lose your eyes. Seriously, lots of particles were hitting me everywhere.

After the cutting, I sanded the ends just a bit to smooth it out, and they look great now.

So it is on to drilling and tapping.

First you lay out the panels then you see where you want them to go. Enough hold down bolts are provided to put 12 into each panel. This means 2 in each cross bar, with 2 up at the top of the tray to hold down the front end.



When you drill through the panel, you get little chunks. When the bit hits the C-channel, you start getting long curlicues. In the photo above you can see a long one to the left of the bit. Lots of those, as you'll see in other photos.

I drilled with the 3/16" bit. The threads on the hold down bolts are 1/4-20, and the recommended pilot hole is a #7 bit if I recall correctly. It is a little larger than 3/16, but I wasn't interested in buying yet another drill bit and so I went with 3/16 since I already had them.

Then it is cutting the threads. Oh, fun. The biggest trick in this is clearing the chips, which isn't easy when the aluminum is soft and tends to bend instead of chip off. It took a while. And if you let the tap bog down, you risk breaking it (ask me how I know...) as the chips clog the cutting teeth and the tap binds in the hole. It is also nearly impossible to use a drill to cut the threads, so just get that wrench designed for square ends like this one.



It might seem like it will take longer, but no, it is actually faster. I would use a pipe tap (after the taper tap broke) and do a half turn, back it up half, then a full turn, back it up half, full turn, and keep going. If the tap seemed to bind too much, backing it all the way out and cleaning up the tap helped.

After doing one panel that way and four holes on the second, I went and asked for some lubricant. The shop owner said there's a specific paste for aluminum, but he didn't have any. But he did let me use this:



Yeah, he's had this tube for a while. It is a heavy waxy substance, probably with a lot of either beeswax or microcrystalline wax. But by dabbing some on the threads of the tap, it really speeds up the tapping process. As in, with the lube it takes half the time as without the lube.

After the first tap, then I finished the hole by running a bottom tap through it. There's a lot more thread than the bolts need since they're pretty short, but it will work out.

So after tonight, the two sides are in place, and I can do the middle tomorrow. Probably we'll be able to get the top rivnuts in place on the tray as well, and finish this thing.

The panels will overlap just a bit. I don't really want to trim them lengthwise, and the overlapping edges will work just fine with the middle one on top. Since there are 9 bolts extra, I think I'll put 3 down each seam. The holes will identify where each panel goes if they are removed for any reason, and with the bolts in place, they will have very little chance to rattle. Actually, I don't think there would be a chance anyway, but "belt and suspenders".



So here it is, two down (mostly) and one to go.

Cheers,

PH

 

[Powder Hound]

Day 32(a)

Yes, that means more than 10 photos.

Today I started out finishing drilling and tapping the middle floor panel. Then I drilled the holes for the riv-nuts at the front wall. The riv-nuts are required, as you remember, because I don't think threading 1/8" of 5052 aluminum will hold well. I drilled a 3/16" hole then followed up with 5/16" which is what the riv-nuts (1/4-20) will need. Or so I thought. Actually it needs a little larger hole, but I was not able to read the size on the bit that was in the kit. It's been abused a little.

Then I removed the 3 floor panels. That included the left panel that still had a broken tap in one of the holes. It turned out not horribly difficult to extract. Once the panel was removed, a pair of vice-grips was used to spin the tap out. There was still a little chunk of the tap in the panel itself, but that didn't take too much either. Needle nose pliers took care of that one.

So I ended up with this.



And after placing the 6 riv-nuts, they look like this.



Next, a bunch of detail items. It is time to install the jumpers. On the right side, I dug out the bundle of wires going to the back. The set of 3 wires for the side curtain air bad that I'm jumping stays twisted together all the way to the destination. The good news is that within the big bundle, it is still independently twisted, so it is easy to separate out.



Up front where the LED flashlight is stuck in to hold the carpet up is where I'm putting the jumper for the right side.

The kraft stick stuck in the bundle is separating the 3 wires of interest.


I ended up cutting all 3 wires. On this side they are blue, green, brown. You only need to jump the green and blue wires. So the brown, which is usually a ground wire in these VWs (is that a german standard?) just got covered with liquid tape.



Here's the plug I cut, and one of the jumpers.



Jumper soldered into place. Yeah, not a very good shot. The business end of the jumper is pointed straight down, and you're looking at the ends of the soldered wires.



Applying some liquid tape. I'm a little messy. So sue me. This stuff is not well behaved. Maybe it was old stock or something like that, but it was all somewhat gelled so it didn't behave well. I'm going to end up putting several coats to make sure the end of some sharp point doesn't poke through and end up shorting something else out at a future date. That would drive me nutty.



And now, on to the other side!

 

[Powder Hound]

Day 32(b)

I tried to do the same thing to the other side, but the wire bundle just didn't want to play nice. So I said I don't have time for this, and just went directly to the plug.



You can see that I just cut the 2 wires of interest and soldered the jumper right there. The above is after some liquid tape. More coats will be applied over the next day as well for this side.

Now I need to finalize the bolts along the front wall that attach the front side of the tray shown previously. I was waiting for help, but I decided that maybe I can do it myself. I rigged this up to hold the bolt head.



And this get-up to turn the nut. That's every 3/8" drive extension I had in my tool box, one of the shorter ones is a wobble, and the deep socket has a u-joint on it. You need that u-joint for the 2 end nuts, not so much the middle 3.



The outer small bucket beside the trunk (and now outside the bed) needed a drain hole in the aluminum cover I siliconed in place of the larger hole. As I said before, I'm just not comfortable with the entire plug pulled out and leaving the large hole. With my luck chipmunks would try to move in. Anyway, I just used a trusty 3/16" bit to punch a quick hole.



The above is the right side, and the left side:



This side still has the original plug still there, now with a hole in the center. There's a lot of aluminum debris from drilling the rivet holes for the side walls, and it vacuumed up quickly.

The fender cover on the left side didn't get the top sealed in with adhesive, so I decided that it would be a good idea to glue that top. I had talked with the shop owner about welding it, but in the end I decided that adhesive would work as well, and welding might not having the end look that I wanted. So here it is.



I did my best to use gloved fingers to press the adhesive into the seam, and I think it turned out OK. Masking on both sides of the seam with blue tape really helped.

The ports in the door jamb for the wire bundle(s) that go to the rear door are no longer needed, so a cover is provided. I siliconed it in place, and used the blue tape just in case the thixotropic property of the silicone make it less than great at holding the plug until it cures. I also filled some other spots, such as the holes for the bolts that aren't needed to mount the rear door hinges anymore.



Likewise, fill in the bolt holes for the rear door striker which isn't there anymore.



And that's about it. Lots of little things; they all take time, and I think today was a good day. Still, things just don't go as quickly as the you tube videos.

Cheers,

PH

 

[Powder Hound]

Day 33

I was busy today, but a lot of what I did didn't technically apply to the trucklet.

I ended up treating the spare tire. this is required because the spare is going to be hanging out getting wet occasionally (depends on where you live of course) and so rust prevention is important. sometimes you get a lot of rust on the steely spare even in a protected trunk, so it is more important in this application. Probably an alloy spare is in my future. I think I've got a spare set of Avus wheels around somewhere, so that will probably be the best choice.

But for now, I painted POR on the inside of the wheel as that is going to be "up" in storage, and the waterproofing stuff on the bottom of the wheel so that water won't accumulate and will instead drip off. In this case, evaporation and condensation would result in that outside surface (on the bottom) being wet and rusting quickly without something to stop that. Case in point, the spare wheel has rust on it, even though the tire was relatively new (i.e. not driven very many miles) and has been living in the protected wheel well.

So.

I also decided that I'll keep the jack and other tools behind the seats since I couldn't think of a good way to protect them. Even the hold down bolt needs some help, so I filled it with urethane foam. Tomorrow I'll sand the foam down to a slight dome and seal it off with silicone RTV.

So now it is time to start working on the body parts: there's the quarter panels, the rear window surround, and the bumper cover. There's also the rocker panel covers, but I'm saving those for last.

I'll have to start on the tail lights as well.

On the right side, the wires going to the back include the power port and the fuel cap popper. I couldn't really think of a good thing to do with those right now, so I folded them into the bed since there's a nice hole to do that. This way they'll be easy to find when I figure something out. I'll have to do something with the sockets though, otherwise they'll corrode quickly.

On the left side, there's everything else. The wires for the rear window defroster, the license plate lights, and the rear lights are all on the left side. The 3rd brake light wires are there as well. I think I'll have to run an extension on that one. I might be able to figure out how to wire the light I already have so I don't have to find anything else.

No photos. You noticed? Yeah, sorry about that. I was going to show you piles of plastic dust I'm making (more on that later) but I had to knock off a little early and had no time for photos before having to make a mad dash for home.

So the first body part I'm working on is the rear window surround.

I don't know how many of you out there have had a lot of experience with "fiberglass". Officially it is FRP for fiber reinforced polymers. In this case the fibers used are fiberglass. And when you lay up the parts, you first spray on the gelcoat which will be the outer surface, then you lay in the fiberglass mat and wet it with resin, and use various tools to push the fibers next to the mold, pack them in, and make sure they are fully wetted and air bubbles are pressed out.

When I originally saw the parts I thought they were done with a chopper gun. A chopper gun sprays resin, mixes the catalyst at the nozzle, and has a chopper that cuts up fiberglass roving and sprays that all at the same time. It is a way of laying up a large volume of parts very quickly. The downside is that it is very resin rich (lower percentage of fiber and lots of resin) and can be spotty if the person running the gun isn't good at uniform coverage.

I thought a gun was used because there were varying thicknesses here and there almost randomly, and the layup appeared to be very resin rich.

I was told by Mark that they are hand layups. OK, if you say so, but that isn't what it looks like.

Also, the molds have changed. That is, the surround used to have small windows in the sail panels, but not anymore. I don't think they changed the mold. It looks to me like they made inserts to cover the windows. And to limit the amount of flashing from the new seams, the manufacturing shop used fiberglass tape. Yeah.

It is just weird. You see tape on the part and try to scrape it off, thinking that the adhesive from the tape is going to be a pain to get off. But no, after getting it off, you find that the normally outer surface of the tape is what is stuck to the part.

Unfortunately, some of the surfaces of the parts are not of pleasing quality either. It looks like the molds have been mistreated or something, because there's surface blemishes that will need to be sanded off.

They need a lot of trimming as well, and this is before you start fitting them onto the truck.

Overall, this means there's a butt-load of work to do on the FRP parts. And I don't have any fast grinding or cutting equipment.

I do have one suggestion for anyone doing one of these: for all your sanding, and there's going to be a lot of it, be sure you do wet sanding. It'll help alot to keep dust down.

Now, I will admit that one good point is that FRPs, particularly fiberglass fibers, tend to break down to generally rough tetrahedral shapes from sanding and grinding that your lungs can reject without horrid consequences. That means you probably don't have silicosis in your future unless you have some genetic malady that would develop that, or become COPD, or some other drastic problem anyway. But if you do have something like asthma or any other breathing problem, use a respirator to finely filter the air while you sand and grind, just as if you were painting.

OK? You've been warned!

I will say that on starting to sand, I did smell the styrene from the plastic dust. Sigh... A lot of memories are dredged up by that smell, and they are not good ones for the most part. But if I push through this, I'll get it done.

Fair warning: the next several sessions are going to be pretty boring because I'll be moving pretty slow.

Well, that's it for now.

Cheers!

PH

 

[Powder Hound]

Day 34

I am starting off by retracting a statement I made yesterday. While I strongly suggested that the panels were laid up with a chopper gun, on looking at the parts (the 2 quarter panels and the rear surround) I saw clear evidence (to me it is now clear) that the parts are indeed hand laid. It is the only way to explain details of the shapes of some of the thicker lumps, and how squared off some of those lumps appear. It would be easily explained by overlapping portions of mat that were themselves squared off. Anyway, I repent. There are still 'features' that do not inspire quality opinions about the fabricator shop, but it is what it is. At least the parts aren't going to fall apart, and probably there's enough material to make needed adjustments without running out of material and making holes. And there are clearly no entrained bubbles in the resin. That is a very good thing.

I think the resin rich appearance is mostly due to having to use mat in this type of layup. I'll explain more in another post.

Today I had some help via a labor trade. A friend volunteered to help me in the shop in exchange for helping him at a later date (probably in a couple of weeks) do his timing belt.

So we jumped in on stuff that really needs a helping hand. In addition, he brought a couple of tools.

This is the best one. The main activity was doing the close trim on the rear surround and the 2 quarter panels.


I've tried a cutting disk on a drill, grinding wheels on the same, and even a hand-held hacksaw. By far, the jigsaw is the fastest and most versatile. If you use one, you'll want the finest toothed blades you can get and at least 2 of them. FRPs, particularly those using fiberglass as the reinforcement fibers, are very abrasive on cutting tools. You'll use up at least 2 blades and maybe more depending on your cutting abilities.

The parts come with some marking on them to help you find the right cut lines on the parts. You kinda have to look at the 'suggestion' and then use that to find the actual cut line. For the most part, the drawn lines are on the waste side of the cut line, and sometimes right down the middle. Pay close attention and don't rush the cutting.

For cutting an enclosed hole, it is interesting. I used one of my trusty 5/16" drill bits to provide a starting hole. There's the hole that is cut for the fuel filler door, and 2 small square holes in the tail light location. I used the bit to cut holes at the corners of these holes, and that helps get the cutting blade close to the cut line most quickly.



This is the left side rear. You can see the 2 square holes in the right side of the tail light space, and there's also a rectangular space on the inside. Drill bit holes are needed for the small square holes, and very helpful for the larger cutout on the inside surface.



The trial fit of the quarter panel shows it is pretty close. Small adjustments will need to be made with a sanding block.



The rear window getting prepped to glue in place.



To get to this point requires a lot of trial fitting and sanding the surround opening to make sure the fit is good. The surround itself has a slight curve, and the right (passenger side) doesn't seem to match the vertical curve (the curve from top to bottom on the window side which is easily seen if you view the window on edge) as well as the left side does. The surround itself has the cutout for the window nicely done. While it fits the driver's side pretty well, the other side is lacking. It looks overall like the cutout has a constant offset. It works out well for the left side, but the right side needs a lot of help in sanding down that inner lip so the window will fit without having high corners and only the middle of that vertical span touching the opening.

It took a while to get it working correctly. And that was after a basic problem getting the window to insert into the opening at all. It seems that the bottom aluminum extrusion was a little long, and all of the excess was put into one bottom left side corner with a pair of angled edge pieces that did not fit well. I had to grind the corner of the window molding down to get rid of the sharp spike as well as grind the corner of the fiberglass to get room.

So after a bunch of sanding and grinding, and even resorting to a belt sander because hand sanding was taking so long, it finally fit well enough to glue.

The prep here is to tape off the drain holes so they won't get filled with adhesive. If you block the drain holes, you end up with water leaking into the interior.



After carefully spreading adhesive on the interior side of the fiberglass, and only on the outside edge of the rim of the opening (the interior edge being the one where the window assembly will insert toward the outside) and packing the interior corner of the window assembly that will rest on the fiberglass, I set the window in place, then added more adhesive and pressed it into that same corner to ensure I had a good load there. I do not think that window will come out. Ever. And if it leaks, then I will be quite upset.



The above shows the flange that sits on the fiberglass with the underside of that junction packed with adhesive. The Dow product I used (U-428) is a primerless urethane adhesive for bonding windscreens. It is very viscous, black as printer's ink, sticky and a real mess if you don't use gloves. I used probably 4 pairs, and my calking gun needs to wait a day to be handled. This stuff cleans with methanol of you get it quickly, but you have to work fast. It is best just not to miss.

After everything was in place, I removed the blue tape tabs. 4 of them tore instead of coming off clean, so I'm thinking I'll be OK since there are 24 holes. I'll check them again before final installation on the car.

For now, it is sitting on the trucklet. I'm not thinking there will be a problem with changing the shape due to suspending the middle. If there is, maybe my hot air gun will be useful. Unfortunately, I just don't have any other place to set it.




Cheers,

PH

PS: So I was nagged by my a/r conscience, and went back to the shop to check and be sure that nothing is sagging. No problem. The plastic is strong enough, and it was cold enough - there is no sag at all and everything is copacetic, even without laying it down. Because of the multiple curves on the back and where the c.g. is, the lower edge of the surround doesn't even touch in the above position.

And you can also see that I've been making a lot of plastic dust. That is what is all over the parts, and all over me, which you'd have seen if I took photos of myself. That's another plus of the jigsaw. The dust isn't but about one percent of what I was getting out of a cutting disk that spins a lot and makes finer plastic particulates. My lungs are already grateful.

 

[Powder Hound]

Fiberglass mat in a layup

So everyone is familiar with fiberglass mat used in a layup. That is commonly used in applications like this, where the outer surface of the part is desired to be smooth. If you used 'glass cloth as the fiber reinforcement, you'd have the cloth texture showing through, and you'd never be able to get a decently smooth surface for that show car quality paint you've been lusting after. A strong part yes, but not what you'd be showing off to your friends.

Mat is manufactured by having a bunch of chopper guns chopping up roving into short (3-5 inches) pieces and blowing it into some rollers. Some binder is also ground up and blown in as well. The rollers press the fibers together to match the weight of mat that is being manufactured, and the mat is heated to activate the binder. The end result is that the mat is short randomly placed fibers that are glued together. That binder will dissolve in polyester resin (and about any other resins in common use) so you never see it. Also, it makes the mat soften so you can shape it into the mold. And if you don't handle it carefully, you can turn it into useless mush.

The downside of mat is that since the fibers are randomly placed, they do not lay down in a well packed manner. Lots of space in the mat. And trying to compact it is really difficult unless you can vacuum bag the layup to physically press it together. You end up with a layup that is maybe 35% fiber, 40% is you are really good and work the layup well. The resin fills all the spaces, so you end up with a nice smooth surface on your part. Or at least, as nice a surface as the mold provided.

The ultimate in strength will be had with fiberglass cloth. With cloth you can get a part that is more than 50% fiber without really trying. And getting a higher fiber density than that requires compression, sometimes vacuum bagging the part and doing it inside a chamber that is pressurized to provide even more compressive force.

These parts aren't done that way, because then the time and material cost would skyrocket, and just one of those quarter panels would probably run several thousand dollars. Yeah. Easy to see why mat is used, and many of those labor intensive details get skipped - all in the name of providing quality sufficient for the job, and keeping prices reasonable.

Thanks for reading.

Cheers,

PH

 

[Powder Hound]

Day 35

Today was a relatively simple one.

I installed the other B pillar brace to the wheel well. This one goes on the outside of the flange, like this.



The rivet holes needed to be drilled, and I had previously drilled the holes in the one layer of aluminum that were not already put there by the plasma cutter.

Here's the driver side, two views.





As per previous iterations, the rivet holes through the steel flange were POR'd to help with corrosion resistance. Or maybe the chassis bleeds black?

You will also notice 4 rivets along the top. I put those there even though I don't recall any mention of doing that in any instruction set or video. The reason is that there are 2 sheets of aluminum, and with my luck, I am sure they would find some way at some obscure (but really common) engine or drive line frequency to cause a really annoying rattle or buzz. So I used the rivets to clamp them together. Will that cause a problem all by itself? We'll have to see. After all, Murphy found the shop, so...

About the only other thing I can think of that might have done better is if I used the windscreen cement, but I didn't want to get that stuff out again. I've had enough fun with it for a few more days. Or rather, until I get to the point of attaching the body panels.

I'm not sure, but I wish I would have thought to peel the wires for the rear window defrost and 3rd brake light out of the bundle of wires and feed it back into the cabin before I siliconed it all up. Rats. Probably I'll eventually have to dig into the bundle anyway. I'll have to record all the wires, their colors, and what they're doing. I labeled the wires when I unplugged them, and even though there's some fun stuff, like the trunk light and the switch that turns it on, I just am not ready to spend the time right now to work it up.

Maybe if I can get enough of it done to drive it, I'll take it to Pete's HO5G GTG on 1 Jan 2020. The only bad thing in this is that it is too freakin' cold to paint, even in the shop I'm borrowing. Sigh...

Cheers!

PH

 

[Powder Hound]

Day 36

Today I decided to install the coupler and trim pieces that go on the end of the fender cover. The coupler provides a piece of aluminum to tie the end of the fender cover to the 5th bar. The trim piece makes it a smooth surface to the end of the bed. The rivets used are flush rivets. It all makes for a nice installation.

Unfortunately, I found that I was locked out of most of the shop, so some of the tools that may have made it all work out weren't available. There were other things not available as well, but that's another tale.

Anyway, one of the main things that I didn't think about previously was the fact that the bar ends, while nicely TIG welded on, weren't ground down smooth. So I spent the time working on it.



Trying to grind down something in that tight a confine is just about impossible. Sanding probably isn't that great an idea either, but doable. I finally hit on using a hacksaw blade, and clamping it in a pair of vice-grips. The tailgate hinge is in the way as well, so I removed that after I removed the tailgate. Here it is, before I removed the hinge, and demonstrating the technique, such as it is.



You need to stop before you cut into the side panel there. It is tedious, but I was able to get the one side done. It doesn't look the best, but it will be covered over in any case. And for the very corner, the coupler got a small bevel on that corner.

Then I measured it out and the coupler isn't really big enough to cover the last bar and provide the same amount under the fender cover. My a/r need for symmetry had dictated that the scrap piece of aluminum I picked up a couple of weeks ago out of the shop scrap bin will be perfect, after I cut it in half.

The coupler provided is 2" long, and about 5 " wide. The scrap is 6" wide, and 5" long. The last bar is 1 1/4" wide, so the provided coupler would only have 3/4" to attach the fender cover tail. I decided I'd rather have the same 1 1/4" for under the fender cover. So the scrap piece will be perfect.

I still need to trim the welded end on the other side, and finish all the rivets. Since flush rivets are used for this, I will be breaking in my aviation countersink as well. Oh, fun!

Cheers,

PH

 

[Powder Hound]

Day 37(a)

Today it is time to position the quarter panels.

But first, if you back up to Day 32, you will see that I put silicone in the bolt holes for the hinges on the rear door, which of course is no longer there. I kinda forgot about one of the items that I'm installing today.

It is called a "filler" in the instructions, and there's an official name for it on the parts list, but since I don't have that in front of me right now, I won't be able to give that name.

So using a couple of bolts from the hinges, you use the forward of each upper and lower pair. That is, a pair is one hinge location.

You will recall (if you've ever removed them) that for each hinge, there is a bolt that comes in from the outside, and one that comes in from the inside. We'll use the hole for the bolt that comes from the outside, since the threads are still there. For the one on the inside, since it is just a hole anyway, and the threads for that one are in the hinge, we're going to refill with silicone. Yeah, I carved it off until I figured out how to work this.

So you need to dig out the silicone from the threads. Then you mount the filler panel. Then you find that the cut holes aren't lining up with the bolt holes in the door jamb. Nuts. Then you expand the hole cut by cnc. How did they get this so messed up?

Answer: they didn't.









This last one clearly shows that the filler plate is not flat, like it comes from Smyth. You have to bend it. It helps if you have a nice form to bend it against. I played with an english wheel as well, because there was one in the shop and I had never done that before. I measured about 7/8" needed in the middle of the span, and played with it until it pretty much matched up with the curve in the front door edge. I also had to relieve a slot for the cover over the wiring port.

All in all, by the time I finally figured this out, an hour was gone. But after it was formed to shape, all the weird 'this can't possibly work like this' problems had vanished.

Too bad they neglected to mention a single word about this in the instructions. It gets conveniently neglected in any video I've seen as well.

Another view:



Now, at this point you'll have to skip ahead, unless you want me to bore you with 37 iterations of fit quarter panel, mark where it needs material removed, remove quarter panel, adjust the panel, then start again. Seriously, I did this so many times I didn't try to count. At this point it seems like nothing was accomplished.

That isn't quite true. The quarter panel fits lots better than it did this morning, and the filler panel is mounted. I have some fitment problems though, and I'm kinda stuck.

The stuck part is that the upper part of the quarter panel is flat on the bed sides, and I can adjust the gap between the front door rear edge and the quarter panel to be really good, but the top part that extends to the door is about 1/8" too high so that crease doesn't line up perfectly with the front door. I can hold the part on the bed side, and press down on that part at the door, and it is perfect. But how do I hold it there? And even if I figured out a way to fasten it down, it would be under stress. So maybe I just need to lift the panel at the tailgate end to tip it just a tiny bit at the door. But that would put the rear part of the quarter panel too high to match up with the tailgate.

I'll have to think about this for a while. I still have the other side to work on, so there's time. Worst case is to hold the panel in position, use clamps or weights to hold that front part down, and then use my heat gun to heat up the part past its Tg to permanently warp it. That's kinda dangerous though, because you will permanently warp the part, and you might get some really undesirable wrinkles or something like that you didn't plan on. I don't need to create lots of body work to do on this. There's already enough. That's why this is the worst case.

So I decided to do at least something to get that feeling of accomplishment, so I revisited the fender cover. Well, half of one.

First, you measure out where you want to drill. Since they will be in (nearly) full view at all times, you need to make them symmetrical so they don't look like the local 2nd grader who always hangs around did it. They're flush rivets, so you'll have to countersink the holes before you set the rivets. Now I will finally get to use that obscure countersink I had to send away for. (I can guarantee that the local home improvement store doesn't have these, unless it is the one local to a huge community full of experimental airplane builders. Can you say Van's RVs?)

So mark and drill them. I did the outside, or tail end of this first. Once the first one is done, then a rivet gets inserted without setting it just to hold it for the rest.

Actually, I drilled the short spacer first, then clamped it with the coupler plate and drilled that, then lined it up here on the 5th bar and drilled that. And of course, I did 4 rivets because I'm difficult. (Smyth always does 3. And probably that is one too many.)

So then I just took the spacer to countersink it separately. I used a flush rivet and a sharpie to make a ring around the rivet flange. Then I countersunk them. You really have to go a little larger than the actual rivet flange diameter because that flange does not have an angle at the edge. Think about it. If it did, the little buggers would slice you up every time you tried to set one. So the edge does have a little round off, and if you don't make the countersink hole larger, then the 'flush' rivet won't be. So go slowly and check the hole with a rivet.



Countersink holes ready to go:



In place and rivets are all set:

 

[Powder Hound]

Day 37(b)

And a swipe of methanol to get rid of the black donuts and voila! we're done:



With half, anyway.

So now there are the matching 4 holes in the actual fender cover tail to do. I have to admit at this point my lower back was not doing well, having lifted that quarter panel and twirled it in the air so many times. So I had to stop.

A few parting points.



No worries, the tailgate will go right back on when the fender cover tails are done.

Also, this is what happens when you finally think the quarter can be tacked down temporarily with a hole through the top and the bedside top, and then you adjust it to find that it needs a lot more movement. So after about 3 or 4 more iterations, you figure you can risk drilling another hole. I don't play the lottery, nor do I play in commodities futures. You can see why.



This is what it looks like when the front part of the quarter looks OK, but the rear hasn't been touched:



And this is what happens when you're trying to get that crease to line up with the door edge, but the <bleep>ing bolts are holding it up, so you grind the bolt heads down as well as relieve the fiberglass. This is one of the reasons I bought Metal Glaze.



I still have some hair left.

I'll start up again on Tuesday. I still have my 4-dr to get going. Maybe I will work on the trucklet on Monday. It depends on the weather and whether I can get that 4th nozzle unstuck. (My own fault - the set of injectors arrived from a great vendor, then I let them sit for the last 9 years or so. Ugh.) And the weather prediction is for more rain, I think. So we'll have to see.

Cheers!

PH

P.S. Yes, it really is voila and not walla. If you hear walla, then you listened to too much loud music in high school.

 

[Powder Hound]

Day 38

Just above I mentioned getting a nozzle unstuck, the last of the 4, and it came loose today. I then spent some time in the garage assembling the injectors and making sure they're nice and clean and have some lubro-moly diesel purge injector cleaner in there so they won't gum up in the next couple of days. I would have installed them in my white 4-dr, but the wind is blowing and even if I could stand the wind chill, I would be grating my teeth wondering how much dirt was being blown into the uncovered parts.

So the injectors are ready to go. Tomorrow it will snow, so I'll do it on Wednesday, which coincidentally will be the warmest day this week. It is predicted to get all the way up to 33 on that day.

Then I went to the shop. Not doing a ton of stuff. I drilled and set the other 4 rivets on the end of the fender cover. I did half of them before, and tonight I did the other half.



The one closest to the side I had to do twice. The center pin, I think they call it the anvil, broke so that most of it was sticking up out of the rivet, but short enough that the rivet gun couldn't grab it. I ended up cutting it as short as possible, filing it down to the level of the rivet, drilling it, then working it to get all of the rivet out. Stubborn thing, it was.

Then it was time to start on the other side. The bead on the side of the 5th bar is there on this side as well, so I spent about 10 minutes looking around for my hacksaw blade, and started working on that.



After the effort, it looks like this. I've removed the hinge just like on the other side, and the hacksaw blade is there showing sort of where it goes, except when I'm cutting, I slide it under the fender cover tail.

My back is still a little sore from Saturday. You know how it is, the second day is always the worst. So I should be OK if I get some good sleep tonight and use plenty of vitamin I tomorrow.

I also took another look at the right quarter panel. After a couple of days, it ends up being a relatively fresh look. And it looks pretty good. I think the best thing is to wait until I'm ready to test fit the rear surround and see how it will all line up. To get there, I'll need to trim and fit the left quarter panel, and trim the interior headliner since I never did do the final trim on the hard backing. That shouldn't take but a few minutes though. And there will be a little trimming on the surround as well, but I'll have to wait until I'm ready to start lining that up.

Tomorrow should go more quickly than Saturday did, because I have a better idea on how to trim the quarter panel, and what to use to do it. I'll have to get it done quickly, because I'll have to knock off early to go home and start up the snow blower. It is supposed to snow all day long. I don't know what the accumulation is predicted to be. Oh, you just have to love New Hampshire in December!

Cheers!

PH

 

[Powder Hound]

Day 39

First on the agenda is to finish the other side of the fender cover couplers.



Funny thing was the same upper rivet closest to the outside failed to set in exactly the same way as the other side did. It took a while to get that pin out so I could drill out the rivet and set a new one. I am sure Murphy was giggling his little pin head off. That and for some reason I couldn't find the trim piece, so I was truly grateful that there is a full-boogie metal shop next to me. I found a piece of scrap and used their brake to get a perfectly cut trim piece. And after setting the bottom 4 rivets and drilling out the top 4 holes, I did a quick check and found that the coupler is shorter than was required for the holes I drilled. So I went and found another piece of scrap and had a new improved coupler in about 3 minutes. Wow, a metal shop can be a great place to be next to.

It also took about 2 hours to get rid of the bead bump on the outside of bar 5. If I had done it before it was fastened in place it would have taken much less time. Maybe next time I'll just remove the blinkin' bar. I should have thought about that before. Some days...

Then it was on to the left quarter panel.

As before, there is the filler panel to install. And of course, the hole needed is full of silicone, and the other hole next to it has enough silicone RTV sticking out that I need to trim it off to be able to fit the filler panel in place.



Trimmed:



Now you just find a way to get rid of the silicone in the threads. I kinda sorta got it, but the real proof is to just turn in the bolt.



And sometimes you do better than others. The bottom bolt felt like I cross-threaded it, but it turned out OK.

Then it was time to bend the filler panel. About 5 minutes on an english wheel accomplished this.



Did I mention that I love being next to a metal shop? I suppose I could have just bent it by hand, but then I'd probably end up with a bend with too small a radius in there, knowing how patient I am with such things.

Tightened in place:



After a few minor adjustments to the quarter panel, it lays on the bed side and looks like this:



Which position took hours and hours of work when I tried to do this on the other side. I don't know what to say. Well, there are 2 places where a small notch needs to be cut and another small trim is needed to get it to snug into place to get the gap I need, but this is good enough for today.

It is snowing sufficiently that I'll need to knock off early to go back home and run the snow blower. So I decided to start knocking rust off the bumper because I need to get it back into place.

This thing has all kinds of places. Most of the paint is adhering rather well. Those inserts into the unibody are sealed with a plastic plug, so I'm not worried about the inside of them. They're probably just a piece of aluminum made to crush on impact anyway. There's also hard rust - raised areas that are difficult to knock off, small circles where the paint is starting to bubble off the primer, places where the rust is soft and powdery, and flakes that need to be peeled. I used a wire wheel on the drill, a screwdriver to pry flakes up, and the most effective tool was a standard mill bastard file. I need to take some longer wrenches to remove the parts that bolt to the car from the actual bumper. When I do that I'll be able to clean around the mounts and paint all the parts with POR. Maybe it'll have a chance that way.



This pile of rust I knocked off looks a lot more impressive in person. Anyway, I did a couple of hours on this and a general buffing with the wire wheel, quick cleanup to remove any PB blaster I use tomorrow to get the bolts off should leave it ready to paint.



It looks rustier than when I started, simply because I knocked off black that was hiding rust.

So that's today.

Tomorrow I'll be starting late, because there's a couple of things that need doing such as moving more snow and installing injectors that are finally ready to go. My 4-dr Golf has been sitting to long and its brake rotors are getting really rusty. HORRORS!!!!

Cheers,

PH

 

[Powder Hound]

Day 40

I started out this morning by running my snow blower. Yeah, just what we all want to do, right? But it has to be done, so it is what it is.

After that, I spent a few hours installing my injectors into my 4-dr and hoping that it wasn't going to spend the winter not running at all.

And after doing everything I needed to do, priming the pump and injectors was the hardest part of today.

Got all that done, finally, and it started. Yay! The replacement pump I got off my spare engine leaks. Boo! I'm right back to where I was a month ago when my headache with that car started. Except it also runs really funny. Like, the compensation factors are way off, so I think this pump was mistreated by its former owner. Or a former former owner. Or a bad mechanic. Or just bad luck. I don't know, and I can't fix it, so I'll put my old pump back on and see if it is going to do better.

But you aren't reading this for that saga, and I'll get back to business.

Since I used a lot of time on that other car, I decided that this would be a good time to put the spare back in its home. I vacummed out the plastic dust I made when I trimmed and adjusted the right quarter panel, and set up everything to get started. I also figure this will be a good dry run in case the odds catch up to me and I have to use this spare.

Starting out:



I'm skipping ahead here. If there's a flat, then you'd have to unload the bed if you're packing anything, since you basically have to completely remove the bed panels. The skip ahead part is that there's 36 bolts that need to be removed to get the panels loose. If you used the provided bolts, you need a 4mm allen wrench to do it. It should take about 10 minutes or so. More if you're slow like me.



Now we're here. We need to remove the middle bar, #3. For this you need a 5mm allen, and a 13mm deep socket. A box end wrench is OK, but a deep socket on a rachet is better. Even better than that would be the rachet you would have to get those bed bolts out. So 2 rachets, and a 13mm deep socket, and a 5mm and a 4mm allen bits. About 10 more minutes to get the nuts off. Why? Those bolts are kinda long, and since the nuts are nylocks, you have to keep going until that nylon ring is out past the bolt threads. And there is not a lot of room, so each stroke is pretty short. That's why 2 rachets would be better than 1.

The C channels (the bars) have a filler piece. In the videos, you see a nice long chunk that is at least as long as the supports. Not anymore. Back to this in a minute.

Just drilling and nice 5/16" hole for putting this stuff together is OK. Drilling the hole and working the bit around to enlarge it a little like you had to do with every rivet hole is better. Much better. I had to work pretty hard to convince the bolts to depart the bar.



And this works up to the surface of the bar, (that is, you beat the bolt back as far as the support surface) so I used a punch to get the bolt the rest of the way out. Not something I'm interested in doing in the middle of the night along side the road. In the rain. Or worse, in a snow storm. So seriously, work that hole. (More on this issue later.)

So now you've got those stubborn bolts out, finally, and it's time to remove the bar. First you knock it down to the deck (formerly the trunk floor).



Then you slide those 2 fillers out from in between the supports (i.e. toward the middle, since that's the only place they can go anyway). Then you can roll it like this:



Until it is flat on the deck, and you can slide it out.



Which gives you room to get the spare out. Or in. Or out and then in.



And you are left, my case, with the spare in place. Installing the 3rd bar is the reverse of removal.



Now, many times, instructions in manuals of every source and derivation say what I just said - reverse the steps. Yeah. Except for me, since Murphy is continually hanging around - I'd like to fire him but it doesn't work - and the bolts just did. NOT. want. to. go. back. in. I ended up redrilling the right side in situ. Yikes, and I just cleaned up that space!!!

So, drill those <bleep>ing holes out before this situation comes up, or you'll be going home with either a large collection of parts in the back or something broken. Or multiple things broken.

At this point, I can also see wisdom in carrying some kind of fix a flat can of stuff just in case. A can won't help if you mangle a tire/wheel on the mother of all potholes (it's that season up here in NE), so it may be better to buy some help from AAA than hurt yourself. If you decide to build one of these kits, think about this issue. Mark's solution is cheap to provide, but I think the utility is somewhat lacking.

My friend, the owner of the metal shop, came in and saw the frustration on my face and after I explained the problem; he thinks we can come up with something better and much faster. We'll see. Thing is, our solution won't be free, or even cheap (like less than $10) to implement, but I've got to do something.

Also tonight I cataloged the wire colors going to the plugs on the buses (the wire bundles) going to the back. There's lots of stuff on the left side, and only 2 items on the right: the plug to the lighter power plug in the trunk, and the fuel door popper. That side I already folded back up front and under the tray in case I decide there's something fun to do with them. Everything else is on the left (driver's) side, including both tail light plugs. The bus just extends a little to cross that short span between the two taillights for the second light. I guess they figured it would be cheaper that way. Or maybe just simpler to build. Whatever.

Anyway, I'll compare the wire colors with the manual to see if there's deviations in my copy of the 2002 A4 chassis. I doubt there is, but now at least I have a nice chart that tells me what wire colors to look for when it is time to dig into the main wire bundle that heads aft on the driver's side.

Cheers!

PH

 

[Powder Hound]

Day 41 Making Plastic Dust again

Today was a nice sunny day outside. Except with wind chill, the effective temperature was well below zero. Yikes! Good thing I had a place to hang out out of the wind. Kinda cold anyway: I have a 2 liter bottle of Mt. Dew in there and when I uncapped it to pour some out, it immediately turned to slush. On a hot summer's day that would be perfect. Not so much in NH in December. Sure Happy It's Thursday!!!

Here is most of the results of my day. I have the quarter panels fit to the rear edge of the doors. The seams are nice, and it looks like the panels are about ready. I just need to get the tail lights done and prep the wiring.


Don't mind the dusty appearance - that wipes right off and will come off quick when I start on the paint prep sanding.

Here you can see, more or less (sorry about the focus) the seam is good and the surround is OK at the bottom, but it needs some work as it is not seated yet.

And the left side:


As you can see, I have reinstalled the bed floor. That was a PIA. For some reason, 2 of the panels had some trouble lining up, so I ended up redrilling several of the holes in the deck. By drilling those holes to 5/16, it eliminates the threading in the top panel and leaves just a little room for adjustments. But I still needed to re-thread a few of the threaded holes into the C channel supports (aka the bars). Why things changed up, I don't know. I could claim that it was so cold that the size of the panels changed, but I'd expect them to shrink since aluminum would move more than steel (i.e. the car chassis to which the bars are installed, vs the aluminum long panels), but the appearance was that the panels grew. Just weird.

Anyway, I started adjusting the quarter panels, but they're about ready. I did put a single rivet hole into the left side quarter panel, so that one is now located like the right one is.

And on to the tail lights.



Most of what I did was to the left side. There are 2 holes you need to cut out, and there are 2 clips on the light that locate the light into its cavity in the tail of the quarter panel. The one side of the hole needs to be sanded down to about 1/8" thick because of the way the clip works. So I worked on that. Then I started trying to install the light assembly. Of course since I was sanding, the plastic dust stuck to me, and all over the light as well. As long as I'm careful, I don't think the lights will get scratched up.

Here, the left side of the small rectangular holes is where you need to thin it.

So they look like they're lining up relatively well, except for the upper inside corner.



I finally was able to track it down to this panel,

where I am pointing. Also, that is where you drill one of the 2 screw mounting holes. I'm thinking that if I shape the hole correctly, I'll not have to do anything else to that panel. If that doesn't work out, there's always warping it with my hot air gun.

So anyway, I'm about there on the tail lights. I have to finish the other side, figure out the mounting screw hole placement, then wire the sockets and get it all together. Well, maybe I'm not about there just yet. Still some work to do.



I also started on the rear surround. That just took a little smoothing around the edges - removing mold "flashing" from the rest of the part. I trimmed the headliner base that I had not done before, and checked it all. When you set it up against the roof cut, it appears that the part that inserts into the roof is too high on either side. I think it really is, so rather than horse it around like they do on the videos and risk breaking the fiberglass in my cold work space, I'm going to thin the insert tab so it will be a little more flexible. But it is a 2 person job the way it is shown, so luckily I have some help coming tomorrow.

Along with the tail light details and the wiring work for the lights, not to mention the resolution of the wires I'm not using in the back, there will be at least one body work item before I can install the left quarter panel. There is a small dent on the leading edge of the left wheel well. Like what you'd get if you bumped something while cutting a corner too short. Since it is part of the surface around the wheel well where you glue and rivet the quarter panel, I'm going to get a large hammer and whack it out. I'll probably have to remove the wheel to do it, but that's what it needs.

Let's see - there was one other thing I did... oh yeah, I painted the rear bumper. I was going to remove the mounts so I could really clean the rust well, but in spite of having a couple of different breaker bars, those bolts were not interested in coming loose. I am not interested sufficiently to soak it in PB blaster and work on it for a while, so I just skipped the really good paint job and went straight to paint the POR now and hope for the best. It can't get any worse than the original anyway.


As soon as the POR cures, I can bolt that back on the rear of the chassis.

Cheers!

PH

 

[Powder Hound]

Day 42

Yum yum ... polyester-styrene-silicon dioxide goodness in a convenient powder form. Please write for free samples...

Jokes aside, I did make a lot more plastic dust today.

But first, there's this to do something about, in the front of the left rear wheel well.



I brought my jack and removed the wheel to get room. For this job, you need a BFH.



It pretty much worked, at least well enough that I won't have to worry about a weird gap there after bonding the quarter panel.



Then it was onto general prep for installing permanently, the quarter panels. Here, I'm sanding the margin around the wheel well of the left quarter panel.



More dust from the rear of the left quarter panel.



This is a continuation of the headache that the right quarter panel has been. What you see is the tail light cavity on the right quarter panel. A LOT of work is being done trying to prep for installing the tail light. And it just won't go.

So what I decided to do is warp that surface that is shown at the bottom, next to the top of the side wall. The gap should be much less than shown. I'm using my heat gun to soften that surface and make it easier to position the tail light into the quarter panel.



And after this and lots (read: hours) more adjusting, the result is still this:



I had a chat with Mark Smith at this point. Funny thing is that he says when people have problems with a Jetta quarter panel, it is the left side. For me, the left side was ready for initial fitting in about 20 minutes. I had to do some more work on the tail light on that side today, but that took about 20 minutes. I spent a little more time doing some general sanding on seams and that kind of thing for adhesion prep, but the right quarter panel is literally taking 10 times longer than the left side.

Anyway, after deciding to give up and take the last resort, that of getting some reinforcement fiberglass and using a filler (Metal Glaze - I don't like Bondo), I'm moving on. I'll be doing the filler trick later, when the installation of the quarter panels is done, and the job will be easier to manage in place.