While I was attending to some of the MOT issues on my Type 2 a month ago I spotted some more trouble. Big, bad trouble. At the bottom of the drivers side there was rot. A long line of rot. Water had obviously gathered in the bottom of the panel inside the van and worked its way out.
I was not happy. But knowing it had to be fixed, and in a rather more permanent way than fibreglass and filler would achieve, I arranged to get the vehicle into the repairers to fix this and some of the other issues. The time arranged for the fix dragged on - going along to drop him off and having to come back was the cause of my forklift incident.
To try and speed things up I said I'd cut out the old metal and obtain the repair panel. The last bit was easy, a call to Schofield did that, the cutting was more fun. The idea is to take out metal above any previous repair panel which meant we'd use the entire new one. So I started work with the angle grinder up there.
The rust wasn't as bad as I feared. I had crept no more than 1/2 inch up the metal. The flange at the bottom was a bit holey though. Think lace and you get the idea. With no sign of a trip to the ramp I decided to practise my welding. A couple of hours later the bottom flange had no holes, these had been filled with weld and in one case a new strip of metal. I was pleased. A little victory dance was tempting but resisted.
Filled with confidence I decided to look at the panel. One problem with the original plan was that with the camping interior in place you can't weld the new metal to the floor. I didn't want to take out the sink etc. if I could help it as this is a big job and not easy as the van stands (currently) with the sliding door against a wall so the room to maneuver is very limited.
So, plan B is to shorten the repair panel so the top comes at floor level. That means filling my previous cuts. Well I'd done this for the flange so how hard could it be ?
Initially, not very hard. I filled the slot in a series of blobby welds and ground these down to look OK. Toward the front though a fire broke out. I'd had a few little ones before and just blow them out. This one wouldn't go out the same way though. You see when building the interior we stuffed polystyrene in the walls and that was ablaze. Big time. Flames were visible through the unfilled cuts and smoke from everywhere else. This was not A Good Thing.
Grabbing a small fire extinguisher I covered the area in white powder, squirting it through the gaps to sort the main blaze. The van smelt of melted styrene and the paint had bubbled a bit but otherwise there was no damage.
The back of the sink has now been chopped out and the insulation removed. Welding can now start again. This is one job I'll be glad to see the back of !
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