cheers chap thank for the heads up

Are they all new line holders?.... where did you purchase those from?

My exact question Jake!

Are they all new line holders?.... where did you purchase those from?

My exact question Jake!

Hi guys, the fuel and brake line clips you see above are all the original ones that were fitted at the factory. Although these can all be purchased new from VW at a really good price I wanted to keep the car as original as I possibly could. The ones you see above have been vapour blasted and then put through a dishwasher this gives an almost new finish.

If your up for it there mentioned on page 10, I just reposted that image as a bit of a test as I was struggling to get my Mac to work on Photobucket

Edited 25 February, 201610 yr by dirtydubs

Right here we go my first update on my new computer so let's hope I've cracked it .

Now that the sealer had gone off properly it was time to get the frame fully repaired so first things first some good clean rust free metal to weld to.

My plan here is replace the missing metal with three small repairs that I will be welding in slightly sub flush to aid filling later. Please note that I have used a towel to protect the plastic dashboard from any weld splatter, this towel is WET and gets topped up with a spray bottle along the way. It goes without saying that you should never weld next to anything that is dry or flammable as it will only end in tears. The first part is the back edge.

With that tacked in I could trim out the oval drainage hole on the left, for this I used the pencil grinder with a 3mm diamond coated burr.

Its worth pointing out here that I try to only do little spot welds and join them together with a bit of over lapping, I also do a spot at each end of the panel till I meet in the middle this way I can keep heat to a minimum and hopefully try and avoid warping the factory metal.

Now the next piece of the jigsaw. A quick tip, if it is hard to get to the back of the panel your working on to mark out a template (or you can't find your pen lol) then simply place your card on top of the area you wish to replace then run your finger gently round the edge of you hole so that it leaves an impression on the card like so.

With that done you can make your new panel and spot it in.

Now for the final piece.

Finally some acid etch to seal it for the time being.

Now for the drivers side.

Another brilliant write up, the post worked on your new computer well too lol

I might need to hire you sometime with those welding skills you have :)

The drivers side was basically the same deal so I'll shut up and just lay the pics down

first stage with the help of a magnet.

Trimming the drainage hole again.

Next section.

Final piece.

Sorry for the picture quality I was unaware they were out of focus

That then had primer added like the other side and I went back to work for a few days

Another brilliant write up, the post worked on your new computer well too lol

I might need to hire you sometime with those welding skills you have :)

Well thank you kind sir, there might be a chance of me reopening Dirtydubs (my old restoration shop) in the not so distant future so keep your eyes peeled

Right guys I really do need to get some updates posted as I'm ever closer to getting this poor Polo finished 

 

As per usual I will fill you in on some tips and pointers to help with your own rest projects but I will try to keep my jibba jabba to a minimum as not to bore the pants of you and to try and get you all up to speed with the project as it stands now.

 

Right lets put to bed the front screen frame, the next step after the welding work and primer base was to make sure that water didn't get in there again in the future so first stage was the filler. To aid me with the filler work I have a small selection of rubbing blocks that I have made over the years these allow me to get a great deal of different shapes with little effort, really helpful when trying to work with slight angles and slopes like the bottom of a Polo screen. I made these using scrap pattern block and machined them on a lathe and "XYZ" mill so that there perfectly flat but any tool you make will help and 30 minuets spent shaping a small piece of timber to suit is time well spent because it will save you double that when being used.

 

Here are mine and some diamond files, these make small detail shaping very easy.

 

 

So some filler on first.

 

 

So first skim of filler.

 

 

 

After a couple of layers I was happy enough, I'm no body expert but as I've said all alone this is no trailer queen its being built to be used so I'm not aiming for perfect.

 

 

 

To finish off a quick reshape of the drainage holes and a good clean back with green Scotch Brite.

 

 

 

Before the primer goes on I want to make sure I really have sealed this area up so I'm going to add one last layer of protection, yep you've guessed it MS polymer lol.

 

 

 

I also keyed up the underside of the frame and applied the sealer there with the help of a cotton bud.

 

 

 

 

The great thing about MS polymer is there is virtually no shrinkage while drying unlike PU sealer. This means when your strapped for time you can get your primer on while its still wet 

 

 

 

With that done I had to wait over night before I could carry on.

 

 

Edited 20 July, 201610 yr by dirtydubs

Before I could continue and get the final paint on I had to think of the areas I couldn't see, although I had sealed during the repair of these areas the only way to totally make sure I had crossed every T was to pump the cavity under the windscreen panel full of stone chip.

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see there isn't really any rust in there but its a bit messy never the less and if left unprotected would rust out in a matter of weeks. This the kinda area that is impossible to get to by hand so I needed to make some mods to my cavity gun so that I could really get in there. This next bit aint pretty but it gets the job done, first remove the stock nozzle.

 

 

 

Then replace it with a standard brake pipe end, these are 1/4 inch if I remember correctly.

 

 

Then fit a section of rubber piping over the brake pipe fitting, its crude but its never let me down and has got into some really hard to access areas.

 

 

After a good clean out with some thinners and Scotch Brite and a good blast from my modified cavity gun this is what we are left with.

 

 

 

Its not perfect but it will do for now, I will be revisiting this area in the future anyway so no need to go mad it this point. The most important thing here to get sealer right up into the cavity in the corner where the inner wing meets the windscreen panel. You can tell when you have filled it up when you see sealer coming out of this gap.

 

 

 

After all that sealing I could finally flat it all back and get a top coat on 

 

 

 

 

 

Then some of the red stuff.

 

 

 

 

 

With that all done I could order a brand new screen and move to my next area of rot the rear window, this car is slowly driving me mad 

 

Till next time thanks as always for reading.

Hi guys back again, 

 

Right in a attempt to get everyone still interested up to steam with this build I'm going to power through the pics a bit in the next few updates so bare with me, If you have any questions on anything that might help with your own projects at home please don't hesitate to ask.

 

The next stage to make this little car water tight again was the rear window, now I'll be honest I didn't expect the amount of work I ended up with, this part of the restoration really took some time to complete and I got way to involved as per usual. As always the longevity of the car is the most important thing on my mind, the repairs needed were undertaken in the same manner as the belly and front screen.

Each area of rust was worked using the 90deg & straight grinders with a variety 3M "twist lock" pads and if absolutely necessary new metal was added. Also I'm keen to point out that as much of the factory seam sealer was left UNTOUCHED as to preserve the car long in to the future and also aid in a factory finished look.

 

Enough of my chit chat I will proceed with some pictures. Here is what I was faced with.

 

 

The usual frame rot under the window seal.

 

 

 

Nothing out of the ordinary there, the rubber seal around the boot had seen better days and was hiding a few treats 

 

 

 

 

From inside you can see how the rot from the window frame had spread.

 

 

The rust literally fell out as I was taking pictures, que action shot . 

 

 

Time to pull the rear window, now I don't expect everyone to have BOJO tools at home as there quite expensive but the next time you find a large piece of plastic laying around why not make yourself something similar. First of all wedge your tool between the rubber and the frame at the top of the window.

 

 

Now poor some soapy water in as you run your tool around the edge of the frame this will leave you something like this.

 

 

 

Now its time to work the window out from the inside.

 

 

Again I used my BOJO tools but anything plastic or wooden will do just DONT us a screwdriver it will only end in tears . The edge of the glass is were it is most fragile and it will only take a small amount of pressure from something metallic to crack it, you can use your fingers if your patient enough.

With the glass out things got a bit worse, with rot appearing around the frame and further up the body of the car.

 

 

 

 

 

After I removed the tailgate.

 

 

 

 

 

First I had to remove the metal strengthener at the hinge point, it was so rotten that a simple chisel took care of this.

 

 

 

 

Now the boot lid hinges.

 

 

 

It's always worth taping the fittings to what ever you've removed to prevent it from getting lost plus this will keep it in order too i.e. bolt, washer, part then nut etc etc.

 

 

I ended up working my way round the back of the vehicle from right to left, I started by using a 1mm cutting disc and a 6mm Carbide burr in my 90deg grinder.

 

 

This gave me a nice hole.

 

 

Which I dropped a little plate in to (with the help of a magnet).

 

 

First of many holes gone 

 

Edited 17 August, 20169 yr by dirtydubs

Next area of rot was around the boot latch this had been caused by the split boot seal allowing water to seep past in to the boot.

 

 

Before I cut anything it was important to make a note of the original shape of the latch aperture so that I could reproduce its shape after the original bad metal had gone.

 

 

Now to get rid of the rot.

 

 

 

It would be a lot easier to sling a plate in from underneath the aperture then let filler do the work but to me thats not keeping it original plus any plate you put into a vehicle is a future rot trap so i'm going to butt weld fresh metal in but in two different pieces, one for the inside and one for the outer body. Here's the first inner piece.

 

 

 

With the use of the cardboard template I took earlier I could now trim it back to the original shape.

 

 

 

 

Now for some weld through zinc primer.

 

 

The outer plate next.

 

 

 

 

 

Its really important when welding thin metal like this that you get the fit just right. Ideally you want a very slight gap all the way round this will allow for expansion while welding and lower the chance of the panel warping, anything around half a mill will be great but try not to have a big gap or this will make bridging it with weld tricky.

 

 

 

 

Now to start sticking it in, slowly doing it and allowing to cool between welds.

 

 

 

 

Its at this point I decided to remove the rear light clusters as there was some evidence of past repairs that to be honest didn't look to good. This was also a major water leak area too when we used it as a shed the boot would fill up every winter and the rear lights would be soaked. As you can see in the following pictures there is plenty of sealer around them.

 

 

 

With a side order of rot 

 

 

 

 

 

Thankfully with the help of the Pencil grinder I managed to dodge any welding here.

 

 

 

 

Looking a little less scabby 

 

 

The seam I had to pry open at the top of the lamp surround was then injected with MS polymer and gently tapped back down again. Unfortunately I forgot to take a pic off this but Its the same process I applied to the other side so we will cover that there in more detail.

 

 

Now for the near side rear light surround. This was a lot worse because vehicle has had a slight knock which has bent the back panel away from the light cluster and created a large gap behind the light unit this was why the boot used to fill up so quick . On this side there was also a bit of the boot seal frame missing as the water had got up under the seal but tbh this was the easy bit.

 

So here it is after a quick clean up, you can see from the gap behind the ruler how much water was being let in tbh I'm surprised I've even got a boot floor left .

 

 

 

The rust had got in to the seems on this side to so the pencil grinder was going to earn its keep once again.

 

 

 

The damage was evident from the inside to.

 

 

 

looked a bit better after a tickle form the pencil grinder.

 

 

 

Still along way to go though.

 

After countless hours of gently pulling the back end out with a slide hammer then a small bit of welding the light frame and boot frame looked nice and straight and I could finally prime it.

 

 

 

This little area underneath the boot seal

 

 

Now looked a little healthier

 

 

and finally a little tidy up around the light aperture itself.

 

 

At this stage its important to note that I am just sealing everything up with a quick blast of Acid etch primer I will be coming back to each repair later for a proper prep of the body work before the final 2k topcoat gets put on.

Next on the hit list was this little sucker under the boot seal at the back of the boot aperture.

 

 

 

 

 

Awesome workmanship as always. Given what you're having to contend with, it makes me appreciate the condition I found mine in. I'm looking forward to the next updates :)

This is brilliant! Everytime I feel a little disheartened at the long road ahead with my project, seeing your thread gives me that extra motivation. Just out of interest, do you do this for a living? Whereabouts on the south coast are you?

 

On 10/7/2016 at 20:08, SimonP said:

Awesome workmanship as always. Given what you're having to contend with, it makes me appreciate the condition I found mine in. I'm looking forward to the next updates :)

 

19 hours ago, dabigginger said:

This is brilliant! Everytime I feel a little disheartened at the long road ahead with my project, seeing your thread gives me that extra motivation. Just out of interest, do you do this for a living? Whereabouts on the south coast are you?

 

 

Thats very very kind of both of you thanks, Long term restorations are always a long old road, and i find the best thing to do when you find yourself getting sick of it is to walk away. You will never achieve your best when you're getting hacked off with it and you inevitably end up doing it again later so just walk away have a cupper, a smoke or just take a few days out and when you return you will get way more done and you will be happy with the end result.

 

I used to do this as a full time business but I've moved over to motorsport and composite construction now so I just do this on my days off. That said we are in the middle of moving house at the moment with this bring a very strong possibility that I will reinvent my old business again. Keep your eyes peeled for the possible relaunch of "www.Dirtydubs.co.uk" in the future 

Sounds good! I'll keep my eyes peeled... 

After such nice comments I thought it was about time I pulled my finger out of my butt and posted an update lol. There has been some interesting challenges with this resto but more on this a bit later lets just get this boring old boot water tight, I'll carry on from where I left of but I will try to keep things brief.

 

To sort that little hole on the boot seal frame first we needed it gone.

 

 

 

As you can see its a double skin so two plates are needed.

 

 

 

 

Now a second.

 

 

 

And after a tidy up.

 

 

Things at this stage are starting to look a tad better.

 

 

 

The eagle eyed among you will have spotted some sealer appearing around the light cluster so I will touch on this now. I'm a bit anal about sealer and the application of it so I'm going to point out some of the things I like to do to make new sealer look old and as factory as possible.

The sealer of choice as always is MS Polymer, the first step is to inject it into any small nook and cranny in a aim to fill any gaps and pinholes from welding this will prolong the return of corrosion and stop any leaks in the future.

 

 

 

 

Its at this point if your not sure you have got all holes filled then use a gloved finger dipped in panel wipe to smear the sealer in to the the hard to reach areas. If you dip you finger in Panel wipe first it will just slide over the top of the sealer instead of dragging it out and making a mess everywhere. 

 

Now for the final touch, there a million ways to skin a cat but this is my take on it. To get a factory looking bead I need to find the right size so for this I used a 7mm drill bit like so.

 

 

Now I used the drill to make a semi circle approximately the size as the factory bead on the edge of a plastic spreader card like so.

 

 

 

I then cut the edges back the suit the angles of the job at hand.

 

 

I think you can see were this is going lol, now I can use it to run down the bead of the sealer after its been applied to the panel, again I dip the spreader card in a pot of panel wipe so it runs smoothly over the top.

 

 

 

 

It will make a bit of a mess and it takes a bit of practice but once the final tidy up is done and the paint is on it will make all the difference trust me.

 

 

right on to the final repair for the boot surround/rear window frame and it was a doozy . 

 

 

 

First step get rid of the stop plate for the boot hinge and have a bit of a clean up to see what we are dealing with.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Plan of action, make templates as before and stitch this old bird back together again 

 

 

 

Chop chop, this is a fine example of rust you couldn't see.

 

 

 

so out that comes.

 

 

 

 

So lets get this sorted

 

 

 

 

 

now to cap it all off.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not the prettiest but solid with plenty of meat to be able to shape it without weakening the welds in anyway. next up is the small piece needed to mount the boot seal to and the bottom of the window seal frame. The rear window frame was a easy break from it all tbh as it only had light surface rust so no need to weld.

 

 

 

 

Edited 21 December, 20169 yr by dirtydubs

Right on with that rear window frame 

 

 

 

 

 

Quick fill and prime.

 

 

 

 

This next bit cannot be blamed on myself or the previous owner as he sent the car to a reputable car audio fitter to have a install done and was given this back for his troubles. 

 

 

 

As a car professional car audio fitted of nearly 13 years I would never entertain the thought of cutting metal away for speakers let alone in this horrid manner, the edges were razor sharp and very rusty the screws used were no plated so they had rotted so bad that most of them snapped. The holes themselves are way to big for whats needed which has lead to perhaps the most disturbing aspect all, the welds that have been removed. The upper part of each hole that had been cut had removed at least 6 of the structural spot welds that pinned the inner rear window frame to the rear shelf support this had made the hole rear shelf very very floppy and had to be addressed.

I spent almost a month trying to source a new rear shelf panel but to no avail, as you would expect this was never really a part that was replaced after production so no one really catered for it not even Vw Classic parts. After a while it got me thinking, it was about time I built a audio based car again so I decided to make the best of a bad situation and tidy it up so I could make use of it later.

The first step was to remove all bad metal, redress all sharp edges and sort out any of the cuts that had gone to far.

 

 

 

Now to replace those missing spot welds, I've just done a handful of stitch welds along the top like so.

 

 

 

 

This really stiffened things up immensely and will stop any rattling or reverberation from the speakers themselves, plus its just a lot tidier.

 

 

Right then, next it was some finishing work like so.

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you can start to see the seam sealer I used is now starting to look a bit like the remaining factory stuff and will hopefully look as "untouched" as the original seam line.

 

It's at this point I started to look at the state of the boot internally, my initial plan was to just touch up the worst and carpet over the rest but the more I looked at it the more it looked like someone had done 10 laps of the Nurburg with a 2ton jack in the boot . 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There was also evidence of a poor repair to the back panel, nothing major as the original stamped panel was still in place but still something that had to be addressed.

 

 

 

After some grinding with the Scotch Brite wheels this is what I was left with.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now for some proper seam sealer, it's also time to tidy up those bumper support points.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next some stone chip.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Because I'm only spotting in the primer I chose to use a rattle can but I still used a good quality Acid etch variety, Upol in this case.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'll be honest here I got a bit carried away and spent a good couple of days DA'ing, rubbing back and priming till I was happy enough to mask up for paint.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited 22 December, 20169 yr by dirtydubs

I spent a lot of time lying down in that boot Scotch Brite in hand, I even feel asleep a couple of times 

Well after all that she was ready to mask up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then this turned up from the suppliers.

 

 

So i could do this.

 

 

 

And then this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I confess this was my first time painting a boot like this and it was hard work it felt like my back was going to snap, although I am getting on a bit now so I've got that as my excuse  

I have to admit I'm not totally happy with the paint finish but I am happy that its good were it counts and thats on the boot aperture itself after all thats the bit that will be seen. So here it is some Before and Afters so save you having to scroll up again lol.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh and I sealed and stone chipped underneath these areas something that should of been done in the factory if you ask me.

 

 

 

The boot latch hole looked as good as new. You can't see it and unfortunately I can't get a camera in there to take a pic but I even seam sealed under here as well just in case the seal ever leaked again.

 

 

 

 

The rear deck looked great now I'm well chuffed with it.

 

 

Like I say not perfect but a dam site better than what I had at the start plus at least its rot free and sealed again.

 

 

 

 

 

I'm chuffed as punch with it really, and under the circumstances it's as good as I could of hoped for there is some orange peal in places but that's a lot to do with the factory paint underneath. I've put half a litre of paint on so I can flat and polish it back if I really want to, we'll just have to see how much it bugs me .

 

Like I said earlier I'm in the middle of moving house so the updates may have to wait for a bit but till next time Thanks as always for your time.

 

 

Edited 22 December, 20169 yr by dirtydubs

While the paint in the boot was settling down I turned my attention to the boot lid itself after all I couldn't go to all that hassle and refit a scabby old lid.

This is what I started with.

 

 

A bit scabby around the edges with a fair few drinks and scrapes inside.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Plan of action was the same as the boot itself remove any rot, reseal and repaint.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now for sealer, again trying to make it look factory with the same method as before.

 

 

 

 

Now for all the fiddley little bits, I decided not to remove any of the small dents on the underside of the lid as I felt they are part of the history of the car, there part of its story so to speak plus I'm not building no show queen here that's not my style.

So after a few hours with some Scotch Brite and some 400 pads it looked like this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

now lets get this painted.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now thats done I have to wait till its safe to handle so I decided to give my local screen fitter a ring and order a "best quality" green tint replacement windscreen.

There was nothing wrong with the rubber seal off the old one so it got refitted to the new glass and with the addition of plenty of wax oil around the frame it slipped right in.

 

Sorry about the poor focus on these pics my Samsung has a useless camera fitted.

 

 

The wax oil will help fit the screen but will also get trapped under the seal and help protect against rot in the future.

My favourite cord to use when fitting these types of screens is household electrical cable this seems to be the easiest to use and will bend around and stay lodged in the window rubber, very helpfull if like me you were doing this on your own.

 

 

 

All in and fitted . Nothing like a new screen.

 

 

I word of wisdom if you will, this screen was £80 supplied and £110 fitted. I could of had a cheaper one but I've tried these in the past and they are always made slightly thinner than a standard screen and as such can have problems sitting in the rubber seal properly which in turn makes them leak so my advise always ask for "best quality" its money well spent.

 

 

Right, a couple weeks have pasted since I painted the boot and I'm hungry to get the rear screen back in before it gets damaged. I wanted to have a break from all this resto stuff and have a bit of fun so I decided to have a play with the rear speaker install, as the glass was still out it was a great time to do this.

As we had such big holes in the back 6x9's are a natural choice and to be honest give best bang for buck. The old speaker board that was fitted was made from 18mm MDF and was way to big and bulky so I down sized it a bit and went for 12mm.

 

This is what I started with.

 

 

 

Then I started to contour the board to fit all the strengthening ribs in the cars boot panel along with angling the front edge to make the sound board fit as snug as possible.

 

 

 

 

 

Now I routed out the edges to allow space for the carpet once trimmed later.

 

 

Now for one of a subtle Vw logo, these used to be my trademark years ago so as I still had various templates lying around I thought what the hell.

 

 

 

Its only 2mm think coated MDF board so should be quite subtle when done, I hope lol. Right on with the trimming so here are my weapons of choice.

 

 

Its really important to start from logo out as this will help you work the cloth into all the details. If you try the other way round you will have to stretch the material in the detailed parts of the logo and this will cause you problems later when the car gets hot inside as the material will try to shrink back to its original shape. Also use plenty of glue on the wood but less on the cloth as you don't want it to soak through and soak the fibres on the visual side of the cloth, and leave it to go dry properly before you mount the cloth this will insure you a good bond first time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

All finished and fitted in place using stainless screws and washers as it should be. Now that mr rouge car audio fitter is how it should be done! 

 

 

 

 

With that done I could start to rebuild the back end and for the first time in ages start to rebuild this car instead of just take stuff off 

 

Till next time thanks for reading.

Fresh red paint looks soooooo good! Really loving this project still. You're taking your time but my god you're doing it right! Keep up the great work.