My friendly owner to owner advise from a red seal, journeymen auto body technician 👨🔧. A man who loves his job and does bodywork and painting every day.. and is always wanting to learn to do better. Your welds are awesome! You were even stitch welding to keep from warping too much. Few Golden tips!! After welding, make sure you cover or seal the back of that weld. Lots of burnt, boiled, exposed metal and paint. Use an epoxy, etch, DTM sealer, or cavity wax on the inside and outside (depending where) Of panel. •Epoxy primer surfacer. Epoxy primer surfacer is crazy good for water repellent and little more durable than etch. You can actually do 2 coats (depending on your TDS-technical data sheet). And usually can apply body filler without having to sand down the epoxy first. It also creates a water barrier between the metal and body filler. Body filler, (Bondo) mainly consists of talc, What you find in baby powder. It soaks up moisture. So when you get a rock chip and it goes through all the layers- the paint, sealer, primer surfacer, epoxy or etch and then finally hits or body filler, it soaks all that water and transfers it to bare metal which causes your rust!! Bad! So it’s awesome to have something that repels the water from the metal. You can also apply after doing your body filler areas again to make a sandwich of protection. •Etch. (also knows as a wash primer) is what you want to apply in high rust chip zone areas cause it caries a high zinc rating. It’s other component is acid. The acid bites into the metal causing an interlocking bond. When a chip hits and breaks the paint and drives through the layers, the zinc chromate sacrifices itself and creates an invisible barrier to the metal keeping it water resistant. Remember adding a lot isn’t always a good thing. Follow the TDS! •DTM sealer. DTM stands for Direct To Metal. So it adheres to metal. Can be used as a sealer for seams that has heavy water traffic. And keeps water tight. has elasticity and flex. So when driving, vibrations happen and it can cause little cracks thus letting water in. The high flex keeps it stretchy! Some are more brittle so watch out! Always!! ALWAYS! Squeeze a bead down on some scrap paper first before applying on substrate. This shows you your flow, consistency, viscosity, and in 2k products-(two component, 1 part sealer: 1 part hardener). And you can gob it on. It’s almost like a silicone. And some carry anti corrosion property’s that keeps rust away. 3M is really good. LORD Fusor is a close second. And both have a ton of auto body conditioning products for that big job. •Cavity wax. Here in Alberta, canada we also call it bees wax. I spray this in behind every panel I do metal work on. Works great in a hard or awkward place to put a spray gun. Has a long hose usually for small Accesses and shoots far. Lasts for years to come. It’s wax. It’s repels water. Stays waxy and it’s ugly. But for those jobs nobody will see in behind I use this. Especially doing multiple cars a day cause it’s fast and easy. Your westy or vans or beetles or anything metal will love you. Paint is just the lipstick to the beauty that lays underneath. It’s usually ugly!! But it’s the base the holds the foundation. best of luck everybody!
Very nice work on the repairs smart saving the old body part for repairs i think the term California Car gets abused these days on used cars its sort of like “Barn” find On the internet especially. Every one likes to say every car or truck is a Barn Find so they can raise the price on a junker. That didnt run so they parked it in the garage for 25 years untill the wife told them to get rid of the piece of crap in the garage that makes her have to park in the driveway LOL now it turns into a Barnfind to give it a more appealing sales technique ? I call it the realtors terminology when they say things like a Step Saver kitchen instead of a small one ! Barn find is more like i didnt have the money to fix it so i pushed it into the garage hoping i could find a way to drive it again ? I’m not saying I haven’t done a car or motorcycle like that but i never lost it ? I liked the trick on making the old body part flat too i did some repairs on a Chevy Van around windows and i used. Tape. To form patterns. For the new metal overall size before bending all the complex bends to the new part it was for a area that was specific to Some custom. Areas that were. Done none factory and none of my junkyards had Any of the same vans in the yards for parts so I needed to custom shape those parts this all was in effort to repair a old vehicle that I was giving away
Cool man, I'm doing similar repairs on my '83 panel bus. I'm in the UK though where the weather isn't very kind to old vw's so I'll be welding for quite a while haha 🙈
Nice fixes, we are trying to fix our first bus, yesterday I 've welded my first piece ever, difficult. Do you know what the thickness of sheet metal used in a vanagon? 2mm for structural stuff and 1,5 for the outside? Thank you.
Good video man. It makes me want to tackle some of the rust on my vanagon. Too bad I want to use it more than I want to take it out of service for more major work :D
My friendly owner to owner advise from a red seal, journeymen auto body technician 👨🔧. A man who loves his job and does bodywork and painting every day.. and is always wanting to learn to do better. Your welds are awesome! You were even stitch welding to keep from warping too much. Few Golden tips!! After welding, make sure you cover or seal the back of that weld. Lots of burnt, boiled, exposed metal and paint. Use an epoxy, etch, DTM sealer, or cavity wax on the inside and outside (depending where) Of panel.
•Epoxy primer surfacer.
Epoxy primer surfacer is crazy good for water repellent and little more durable than etch. You can actually do 2 coats (depending on your TDS-technical data sheet). And usually can apply body filler without having to sand down the epoxy first. It also creates a water barrier between the metal and body filler. Body filler, (Bondo) mainly consists of talc, What you find in baby powder. It soaks up moisture. So when you get a rock chip and it goes through all the layers- the paint, sealer, primer surfacer, epoxy or etch and then finally hits or body filler, it soaks all that water and transfers it to bare metal which causes your rust!! Bad!
So it’s awesome to have something that repels the water from the metal. You can also apply after doing your body filler areas again to make a sandwich of protection.
•Etch.
(also knows as a wash primer) is what you want to apply in high rust chip zone areas cause it caries a high zinc rating.
It’s other component is acid. The acid bites into the metal causing an interlocking bond. When a chip hits and breaks the paint and drives through the layers, the zinc chromate sacrifices itself and creates an invisible barrier to the metal keeping it water resistant. Remember adding a lot isn’t always a good thing. Follow the TDS!
•DTM sealer.
DTM stands for Direct To Metal.
So it adheres to metal.
Can be used as a sealer for seams that has heavy water traffic. And keeps water tight. has elasticity and flex. So when driving, vibrations happen and it can cause little cracks thus letting water in. The high flex keeps it stretchy! Some are more brittle so watch out! Always!! ALWAYS! Squeeze a bead down on some scrap paper first before applying on substrate. This shows you your flow, consistency, viscosity, and in 2k products-(two component, 1 part sealer: 1 part hardener). And you can gob it on. It’s almost like a silicone. And some carry anti corrosion property’s that keeps rust away. 3M is really good. LORD Fusor is a close second. And both have a ton of auto body conditioning products for that big job.
•Cavity wax.
Here in Alberta, canada we also call it bees wax.
I spray this in behind every panel I do metal work on. Works great in a hard or awkward place to put a spray gun. Has a long hose usually for small Accesses and shoots far. Lasts for years to come. It’s wax. It’s repels water. Stays waxy and it’s ugly. But for those jobs nobody will see in behind I use this. Especially doing multiple cars a day cause it’s fast and easy. Your westy or vans or beetles or anything metal will love you. Paint is just the lipstick to the beauty that lays underneath. It’s usually ugly!! But it’s the base the holds the foundation.
best of luck everybody!
Awesome man. Just awesome.
About to do the same repair on about 5 spots around my windows video is so helpful.
Flossy, many weeks ago I saw this and later, had to do this to my 85... thanks :-)
Good job, watched a few amateur (don't know if you are!) Rolling resto/welding videos & you have done a great job
I'm really digging this channel and your work. Thanks for sharing.
That’s dope dude! Makes me want to tackle some of the rust on my 70 camper. I need a welder though.
Good stuff man! Keep up the good work.
Thanks I appreciate you watching
Do you remember what your welder was set to? Also what gas are you using and psi. I’m new to mig welding but have some TIG experience.
Thanks for showing and explaining what you did. Really helpful!
Very nice work on the repairs smart saving the old body part for repairs i think the term California Car gets abused these days on used cars its sort of like “Barn” find On the internet especially. Every one likes to say every car or truck is a Barn Find so they can raise the price on a junker. That didnt run so they parked it in the garage for 25 years untill the wife told them to get rid of the piece of crap in the garage that makes her have to park in the driveway LOL now it turns into a Barnfind to give it a more appealing sales technique ? I call it the realtors terminology when they say things like a Step Saver kitchen instead of a small one ! Barn find is more like i didnt have the money to fix it so i pushed it into the garage hoping i could find a way to drive it again ? I’m not saying I haven’t done a car or motorcycle like that but i never lost it ? I liked the trick on making the old body part flat too i did some repairs on a Chevy Van around windows and i used. Tape. To form patterns. For the new metal overall size before bending all the complex bends to the new part it was for a area that was specific to Some custom. Areas that were. Done none factory and none of my junkyards had Any of the same vans in the yards for parts so I needed to custom shape those parts this all was in effort to repair a old vehicle that I was giving away
Cool man, I'm doing similar repairs on my '83 panel bus. I'm in the UK though where the weather isn't very kind to old vw's so I'll be welding for quite a while haha 🙈
Nice fixes, we are trying to fix our first bus, yesterday I 've welded my first piece ever, difficult. Do you know what the thickness of sheet metal used in a vanagon? 2mm for structural stuff and 1,5 for the outside? Thank you.
Have you replaced any of the seams? It would be interesting to see how you do that.
Thanks for this video. Very easy to follow even for a beginner. Do you rent the welder? I def don't have space to own such a thing.
Good video man. It makes me want to tackle some of the rust on my vanagon. Too bad I want to use it more than I want to take it out of service for more major work :D
Did you just spray that on your windscreen?
Superb repairs !! Keep going
Nice work as always!
Good Job!!!
How long did this take you?
Nice job. What welder settings do you use?
I don't really have a number, but its on its coldest setting (a) and a wire speed of 3
Great tutorial!
Do you work on other peoples cars? i have a vanagon in monrovia that needs some rust repair
awsome work bro!!
what cam do you use? im thinking about starting and doing some vids on the bug
Thanks Matt, I use a canon g7x. The only problem is dust seems to get behind the lense
Where are you located ? looks like California ?
Great work! You can buy OEM VW paint from paintscratch.com in a rattle can too ✌🏽
rusted in strange places...