wheel spatts

mitch

Drill them or atleast drill the head off then use water pump pliers or mole grips to remove the 'stump' when the arch is off. Be prepared to find lots of muck and rust under there……

Use a good, sharp drill bit. I've skimped in the past and the heat generated by useless drill on tapper or rivet can easily melt the spat.   

early 1800 what are mole grips or water pump pliers? it sounds like the best idea because most of them dont even have a groove for a drill bit…yeah ive been around them all and the only one with bad rust is the N/S rear…cheers for the advice guys i hear heating the screws with grooves left on them can be heated with a soldering iron and then they come loose (hopefully) any one heard of this one? its such an annoying little job that should really take 20mins  

Beware of heating those screws as was said youll melt the plastic making the hole bigger than you need or worse. I use an angle grinder and take the head of the screws off if there are washers present, if not a Dremmel with a metal cutting disc works in a more careful manner. The pliers or Mole Grips are for turning out the threaded stub of the screw.

Don't they teach metalwork at skool these days? :dontknow:

Water pump pliers are great big f-off pliers that you can get lots of leverage with and Mole Grips are those adjustable vice grip things.

Hope this helps :roll:  

haha the most metal work (resitant materials nowadays) i ever did was

Ah well use the Dremmel, its a sure fire way of removing those stubborn screws, they are a good drill too... Just wear Goggles!!

Early-1800 said

Don't they teach metalwork at skool these days? :dontknow:

Mitch said

resitant materials nowadays

I though school was there to help learn not confuse  8O

Mitch good luck with the screws, I know it should take only 20mins, but welcome to old cars, I bet most of this forum including myself have nipped out the garage to do a quick fix only to be delayed by rusty nuts and bolts and the conundrum of getting them undone. :wink:

if you try a pair a pliars on the head sometimes they breakfree, also a small TAP on the screw head can break the rusted together thread allowing them to come out. Just don't swing at them with a claw hammer

butcher

in all honesty I'd weld in new inner and outer arches

I agree with Phil you should weld in new arches but if money and skill is a problem you could "temporary" repair them using rust treatment , glass fibre and then filler . Not ideal but it will give you good temporary reasults .

There are plenty of people doing the kind of repair you are doing on site so its worth doing a search and have a look .

At the end of the day it's another MK1 saved so even a temp repair is worth it and if you keep the car at least you can do it properly in the future . Cheers and good luck with it .

Had a local welder do mine he only charged me ?30 a side and did a really good job , got him to show me some work he had done first before having him do it . Besides i'm useless with a welder i could do stronger neater joins with silicone. I wouldent use fiberglass as this will only make things worse , by the time you get round to welding it there will be nothing left to weld to as it can block important drain holes which allows more water to collect over a larger area leading to even worse rusting ,but thats just my opinion . Had good results from krust (from Halfords) for treating rust scabs on my mk2 . Also try this link they do all sorts of anti rust stuff- make sure whatever you use can be painted over as some stuff can react with the paint and make your nice repair into a really nasty gooey mess .

 Homepage - Frost Auto Restoration Techniques

?30 a side  8O  8O

that's a damn good price! did I mention  8O

did he do all the cutting of the old stuff to?

getting someone else to do it doesn't sound very expensive

thanks for all the advice guys, ive had a word with my dad hes told me that if i ask the man whos spraying the car do the arches whilst hes on the car, seems like id be killing 2 birds with on stone that way. I need to purchase the arches though, any ideas? eurocarparts? or cheaper alternative?

PhillTMK1GTI said

?30 a side  8O  8O

that's a damn good price! did I mention  8O

did he do all the cutting of the old stuff to?

getting someone else to do it doesn't sound very expensive

I cut out all the dead bits , ok with a grinder .He was doing my car around other better paying jobs , dident use any panels either all the repairs were fabricated by hand - he likes to keep as much of the original metal as he can ,  i was well chuffed with the results.