Pass the angle grinder - lots of pics

Thought I'd post some pics of the work on the rear O/S arch of my GTI. Had taken car of the road to patch rear chassis leg for MOT and the whole things got out of control. As I had the fuel tank/axle off decided to do some repairs to rear O/S arch, but rot was worse than first appeared.

Inner rear arch was shot, and outer rear had had some botched repair in the past - someone had welded a new arch to the inside of the old one and stuffed it wiith filler :? . Also found rot in the the top of the inner wing - seat belt mount had been repaired in the past. So decided to tackle it head on and cut out all the rot and do decent long term job. Replacing inner arch, outer arch, fuel filler panel and top of rear inner wing.

After a lot of cutting, grinding and fitting up the innner arch I am ready to start welding this weekend. Hoping to get it back on the road in the next month  :lmao:  


Looking up into arch - found two nice holes 8O

Looking up at top of rear inner wing - bit to brown

Same area, but cut out and viewed from the boot

Rear inner wing with inner arch cut away

Same area cleaned up ready for welding

Looking forward at where innner arch used to be

Same area cleaned up ready for welding

New inner arch panel.

Looking good (the resto I mean)!  8)

I've gotta do the same to mine I think - dead handy to have some pics to go from :y:

Best of luck with it

Rich

Good work reminds me of last september!

Hoping to get it back on the road in the next month

  I said that 14months ago when i did the same to mine for that fuel leak . Good luck with it , nice to see plenty of weldable primer going on it'll not rust again


Cheers…………

Starting to get there. Got the inner arch fitted up and welded into place last weekend. Also found the top of the turret plate was a bit of mess, which I have cut out and patched, have made a panel up to fit on the inside above the inner wing and need to repair top of inner wing. Hope to get the rest of the patching done and the filler panel in this weekend :pray:


Inner arch welded in - I left the outer filler panel in place while welding to ensure all lined up correctly

Originally inner arch was spot welded into place - but I have no spot welder and the outer rear quarter panel is in the way so welded all the way round the seam from inside the arch.

Top of inner arch tacked from inside boot.

Top of turret plate had a hole in it and inner wing had rotted away around this area 8O

Repair let in. Will grind back and repair wing over the top of it.

Great to see two white ones being kept alive guys,rarest colour of all GTi tin tops. you'd have thought VW would have had undersealing down to a tee after 40 years of beetle manufacturing. i used to restore beetle's for a living but now im into mk1 golfs there a nightmare in comparison. where you get the filler panel and inner wings from?

All panels came from Hadrian Panels www.perfectpanels.co.uk via my local Paint Factor. Filler panel about ?7, outer arch about ?12 and inner arch about ?16. Got the filler neck panel in at the weekend, fiddly but not as hard as I thought it might be.

Looks good  :y:  Keep up the excellent work and nice pics.

Are you going to have to repaint the whole car when you are done?

I dont suppose you know a part number for the filler panel do you please?  I need to get one myself and couldnt find it on their website?

Many thanks

Ant

Dubboy - have a compressor and gun and some spare alpine white layiong around so will paint protect/paint area and give it blow over to protect over the winter. Car is a bit of rolling resto and have nowhere indoors to work long term. Need to do more welding to sills and spare tyre well (all MOT'able) next summer. I'm holding back on full paint job till this is all done.

Anton - think filler panel is 91-22-538 - receipt not totaly clear. The Hadrian panel website doesn't list all the panels they can supply. If you find a dealer they should have a catalogue which shows many other mk1 panels available.

Cheers

Been busy the last two weekends with non-stop cutting, grinding and welding. Tried Machine Mart Plasma cutting discs with my angle grinder which are very ogood. Don't last long, but less than half thickness of normal cutting disc and give very fine/sharp cuts with minimal loss of metal also only about 90p.

Strating to see the end in sight. Got to fit the fthe outer rach and a bit of patching, then can start refittig car up to get back on teh troad - been a long time.


Panel cut for filler panel

Panel being tacked into place

Welding completed and ground back

Panel with a bit of filler and paint for protection.

Inner wing repairs.

Upper iner wing repairs - ended up cutting out a lot of metal here 8O

A lot of welding later - lots of grinding to go.

Busy, busy, busy - nice one mark!

Now that's the way to do it.

Did you get much distortion around the filler neck panel?

looking good! can't beat that feeling once you've welded new metal in  :wink:

Thats fantastic work, I would'nt have the skill or the bravery to take that on myself but it must be very satisfying to know that you've done the work yourself

Good work mate! you'll have a storng turret there alright!

hi
i have similar problem  



and i know what you are feeling.
good work  :y:

Thanks for the comments .

Crazyquiff - not really any probelms with distrortion. Just a case of slowly tacking around the panel and gradually filling in with weld ensuring there is not to much heat build up. Had more problems shaping the replacement panel to follow the body line.

vw-man, that look all very familiar The area around the turret in particular seems to be a build in rust trap. When you start taking it apart you can see why certain areas are particularly prone to corrosion. Have you managed to get any panels for that area?

Cheers

hi
ha yess right and as you surely know it`s no easy too use grinder there.Unfortunely i didn`t found any repair panels for this section so i used old one from other body i had before but it isn`t imposible to do it yourself only you need to be patient in forming   openly i must say that this place driveing me crazy like other nice places as you have seen.The biggest problem is that in one place are conected for example 3,4 or 5 pieces of steel and if you want make realy good restoration you need do it as it was from factory.I`m doing this way so it takeing me much time that`s why body will not finished this year,i realy hope it will next year in late spring.Are you going to Wolfsburg meeting next year?? I think i`ll `be there…maybe we can meet??     
greetings and all the best in restoration!!  :y:

Wicked job man, reminds me of the months of welding, on me mk1, theres a few spots i gotta look at soon, and that will be one, ive noticed a bit of underseal hanging off with rust underneath in the same spot, top of inner arch. Also ive got a hole in the floor, at the back above the chassis leg around the inner arch, the bit of chassis leg is where the filler neck gear goes through, gonna have to cut through the chassis leg to fix the hole in the top, then weld the chassis leg back up. :roll:

heres the hole. (found it 1 day before it went into paint, and put it off until nowish)