Date:         Mon, 14 Jun 1999 10:10:03 +0200
Reply-To:     Duclos Darie <Darie.Duclos@UNIFR.CH>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Duclos Darie <Darie.Duclos@UNIFR.CH>
Subject:      Re: Body Seam Rust (long)
In-Reply-To:  Your message of "Sat, 12 Jun 1999 09:14:11 EDT."
              <37625D23.BA00F8DB@cyberus.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

> Does anyone have successful experience treating this type of rust at the
> seam?  This doesn't seem like a good candidate for cut'n'patch.

Hi,
        we just spent part of the weekend fixing exactly what you
describe. Obviously I can't tell you now what the long term success
will be.. The worst on my bus was along the horizontal seam on
the bottom of the driver side. It is extremely rusted from the
inside. The horizontal metal plate at the floor level, behind the
outter panel is completely rusted away. The panel around the seam
was curling outwards. We cut out 3-6 cm total of the 2 panels around
the seam, until we found healthy metal. This left a 1.20m long and
3-6 cm wide hole. We cleaned out as well as possible all the rust
debris inside and sprayed rust-protection of the type which you can
put directly *on* rust. We then covered up the hole with an epoxy/
fiberglass kit. Ideally we should have souldered in a piece of metal
but we're not that well equipped nor knowledgeable. Since the
fiberglass didn't come out perfectly smooth we filled in with epoxy
containing glass fibers and ground it down smooth. We primered it
because we had to stop working for the weekend and it might rain.

(From this point on we haven't done yet) We still have to fill more
of the holes with the epoxy mix and grind and sand until it's smooth.
Then we primer the whole thing a few times, sanding in between the
layers, then we paint.

Question: can someone tell me if it's ok to just reapply epoxy mix
now, over the primer? Or do we have to grind down the primer (which
is just about impossible in the depressions which the epoxy is meant
to fill)? Will the new epoxy layer stick to the primer?

As for the less serious damages, like under the doors and on the side
behind the wheels, we ground away as much of the rust as we could see,
then applied Noverox (a rust proofer). We're going to smooth out the
depression this left with some body filling compound, then primer, paint,
etc..

In my case the paint at the seams was bubbling, but not yet cracked
(except the big damage on the driver side). In one place water even
came out when we popped the paint bubbles. This means the water is
getting in from behind. This is bad news of course because there isn't
much you can do about this. We observed that the 2 metal panels are
folded at 90 degrees where they meet so it's not a flat surface behind,
where the water is coming in. You can't even seal it. I will try to
put the bus away in a barn next winter and hope that our repairs last
long enough so we don't just get sick of repairing the thing and give
it up. In Switzerland the bi-annual vehicle inspection won't let you
by with rust.. any rust.

Since there are a lot of little rust spots to fix on the bus, since
they touch almost every panel, and since I never did like the brown
colour of it, I'm planning to leave all the repairs with just primer
until I'm done, then repaint the bus a new colour. (I still have to
remove the 1970s-coloured damn stripes). Does someone (who has read
this far) have recomendations against leaving the primer uncovered
for a little while?

There's a pretty good manual for body repair at Canadian Tire. That's
where I got mine 5 years ago anyway. :-)

Ciao!

Darie
1986 Westy