my white 83 gti

Well done for sticking at it!

I think you can buy floor repair sections. Otherwise, find someone with a shell being cut up. That's what I did for a section of mine.

Have a nose through my resto thread if you need any reference pics for similar areas.

There's a lot of pages of rubbish to get through but hopefully something useful!! lol

http://vwgolfmk1.org.uk/forum/index.php?page=topicview&type=misc&id=projects%2Fyour-mk1-golfs_2%2Fat-last-hairys-resto&start=380

your thread was a big help for sure.   i just need a couple of days of half decent weather so i can uncover the car and get some welding done.

i have received my rear panel today from vw heritage just had a quick look  is this ok? i have not removed my lock mechanism from the old panel yet so haven't seen what this part is like on the old one but it doesn't look right to me at all. the holes underneath are only half on show. if they are threaded holes to fix the lock into then its no good at all. its welded into place inside the rear panel its not accessible at all.

Not 100% sure but that does not look right to me?

It should be a separate piece that moves around for adjustment of the catch. It might just have to stuck in place try moving it with a small screw driver.

yep gave the inner bit a bash and it came free ^^  it moves around now.  i panicked when i first opened it up i thought it was going to be sent back.

i have the drivers side rear beam mount section all prepped ready for the panel to go on but the repair panel is oversized it sits as if it is supposed to be placed over the top of the original section it going to take a lot of cutting and bashing to make it small enough to be placed into the bit i have cut out as a but welded piece rather than overlap.
the rear panel is off so i can get to the rear of the boot floor that needs attention and the bottom corners of the rear arches.   everything is ready to go other than i have no rear inner arch repair panels and nobody has them in stock!
the outer arches look a very good fit when offering up against the car. as does the rear panel.

today i cut out the old previous dodgy repair of the boot floor corner where the earth point was.  a previous owner had patched over a rusty hole. and then patched over it again..

so i cut back until i had solid metal and replaced it with new.

and then a similar piece on the opposite side and the lip that sits ontop of the chassis leg also needed replacing.  i will have to replace the lip thats sits along the back of the boot floor completely as it has rusted through in several places and the areas that doesn't have holes in it is heavily pitted and brittle.

well i have been quite busy over the last couple of weeks. i started by replacing the rear of the boot floor the lip part that folds up to meet the rear panel. it was rusted through in a couple of places and the parts that hadnt rotted where heavily pitted and very thin!  i cut the entire lip off and welded and peice in its place which didnt go to plan at all i was fighting a losing battle.  it kept blowing through on lowest setting and the shortest of bursts on the trigger then where i had holes i was trying to build it back up and piece in with clusters of spots.. what i ended up with was basically a whole day trying to build a rear end of a boot floor with dots. its hideous! and looks more like a sieve than a boot floor.  THIS WILL BE CUT OUT AND REPLACED TOMORROW WITH ANOTHER NEW LIP BUT I WILL CUT BACK FURTHER INTO THE BOOT UNTIL I GET A GOOD SOLID EXISTING PICE TO WELD TO.       

i then put my rear beam mount box section repair panels in.  when you remove these you find the piece that comes down and sits against the back of it is totally rotten so these also got cut out and replaced whilst i was at it. the welding underneath the car went quite well compared to the boot floor attempt.
offering up the repair panel, holes drilled to plug weld
 
plug welded and then i welded all the way around the outside and protected it all.
little bit better than how it was!

so i moved onto the passenger side rear beam section and done exactly the same. the rot here was nowhere near as bad but the cutting out and replacement was just as much hassle as the drivers side. access is the problem.  you have to remove a section of the inner and outer sill to get to the flat back place the mount sits against.    

underneath done i set about removing my inner and outer arches for replacement,  the drivers side had fibreglass covering a rotten hole and the passenger side had no inner arch lip at all they had been cut off previously and just the outer replaced ( they had just tacked it into place every few inches and left the gap to eat some filler.. ok lots of filler) this is what i found when i took back the paint and filler
.  the inners edge had been left raw and water just sat between the 2.    baffles me why anyone would go through that effort and then not seal it with something.  but hey ho.
 only picture i have of my inner arch work.   welded and then ground down.
 both sides done and then  the part i was most worried about outer arches.  with this all being very new to me and my first ever attempt at ANY car work at all i had read lots about warping and all sorts of potential issues and the fact the car had cost me a lot of money to buy and i had already chopped it up i was determined to get this right. tbh it was nowhere near as bad as i thought it would be. i mean it might be total dog sh … and fall off in 6 months but it looks ok to me? compared to everything else i found online while doing research it doesn't look any different.  i was getting good penetration and no blow outs,  everything lined up as i wanted it to after cutting the old ones out.
i tacked the outer arch on in a couple of places and then slowly added tacks at various places around the arch pushing and pulling slightly so everything was flush and uniform.
 and then started to grind down the welds
this is when it all went wrong for me i got something in my eye whilst wearing goggles. plus i already where glasses as well.  basically spent a day and night with irritating eye it went for a day then came back and then went again until the third day i woke up and had  cloudy eye with non responsive pupil i knew i had to go to hospital as it was unbearable at this point. basically got sent to a second hospital where an eye specialist numbed it and removed a metal splinter from the centre of my eye that had rusted and left some damage which he says will go with time. until then it still feels like i have shrapnel in there.   so i am sitting hear with a gammy eye not being able to do much at all. i have just bought (put a deposit on) a full bam engine from an S3  with turbo,loom,ecu and so on and also bought the mounts and downpipe for it. i was going to use a full donor mk4 i bought with an AUQ but i am going to sell that as a complete car its too good to scrap the car just for the sake of getting the auq engine. i prefer the bam style inlet and pipework anyway.  

for anyone who has done inner and outer arch work before what did you cover the surface of your inner arch with (over the welds) before fitting your outer arch?  my rear panel is near enough ready to go on i am ust drilling the holes into the edges so it can be plug and spot welded in place. i plan to replace the rear of the boot floor once the rear panel is in situ.  then i just have to finish grinding everything down protect it all from the elements as much as possible, seam seal and under-seal what i can until i can get it into a paint shop for a respray.

Well done for sticking at it, looking good so far.

I will have to do the same to mine at some point, I just don't know if I've got the balls to take it on myself! I'm certainly not confident enough to tackle a wheel-arch but it looks like you've got the hang of it.

Keep up the good work, I look forward to seeing some more updates soon!

today i managed to grind down the welds on both rear arches.  and remove the previous dodgy boot floor repair.. i dont think they came out bad at all for my first attempt at bodywork. this is my arches after grinding down the welds. i will be applying filler tomorrow hopefully.  

can anyone give some advice on sanding down the filler on the curve of the arch? i have but welded my new panels on in the dip of the arch.  im worried about how i will get it presentable is there a special curve sanding block for this kind of area. many thanks

Dan -j Lucky escape with the eye! I've had stuff fly in my eye before wearing glasses and a visor, you wouldn't think it was possible!!

When I did my first arch repair I was luck I didn't have to cut too much off and welded in the middle of the arch, as thought sanding the radius or grinding down the welds may be a problem.

If there's not too much shaping to be done, then I would have thought your finger would be enough to sand to the right profile.

Otherwise you could try lead loading it, and make up a wooden paddle of the right shape.

had a little go today with a bit of filler its actually not bad at all. i thought i was going to have to get an air compressor and some special sanding tools to get a decent finish but i think with some patience a nice curve could be achieved.

today i had a couple of hours to work on the car so i decided to replace my first attempt at the boot floor repair, i had already cut out the previous attempt this time i was going to make sure it fitted well my first attempt had the wrong shape and when i tried to correct it with a hammer i done more damage than good!   i went real careful on the welds.  and it went better than expected.i have lost the existing pattern in the boot floor at the very rear but i just bashed up the very end of the dip/channel from underneath and seem welded to close it off. nothing that cant be smoothed out from above to get a presentable finish. overall i am very happy with the result so far.   not far away from getting the rear panel on now!

i am going to underseal the rear end everywhere i can before re fitting my petrol tank rear beam..

underneath showing penetration and the Chanel/pattern before i bashed it up and welded it shut.


and my new lip overview

Unfortunately I'm sure it's happened to most of us on here where the car needs a lot more work than originally thought!

Very very good effort so far, impressive stuff. Especially doing the work outside in this country, in November

If I was wearing a hat I'd take it off

thanks very much, obviously its not ideal working like this. its been on axle stands outside my back gate for a couple of months now and in that time i have had it knocked of the axle stands once and then the following week 2 axles stands where stolen and some sheet metal was taken from inside the car. its covered by 2 tarps and lots of rope so someone went through great lengths to get inside the car.    the only reason its in this situation is i couldnt afford to hand it over to a bodyshop and pay a couple of thousand pound for all this work and then 3-4 thousand for a respray and then cost of the eng conv on top of that.   the good news i move house in a couple of weeks from  essex to dorset and the new place has a garage! so i really cant wait to get it out of the elements and be able to work on it without looking over my shoulder constantly

Good work on the filler. Perhaps blow over a coat of primer - with a uniform colour it may be easier to see if you've got it just right

i will do, i just put that little bit on a couple of days ago to see how i could shape it. i will try and do one of the arches properly today and then get a coat of primer on it.

had a little bit of time to get the rear panel tacked in place today its pretty much lined up just needs fixing all the way along the new boot lip from inside another day when i get more time.

dan-j-w said

  the good news i move house in a couple of weeks from  essex to dorset and the new place has a garage! so i really cant wait to get it out of the elements and be able to work on it without looking over my shoulder constantly

looking good so far, must be a pain doing it outside, a garage can only help things !!
where in dorset are you moving to???? i am down that way, very nice down here !