I was preparing a beat-up old 1970 VW station wagon to take to school.
The car had previously been hit in the passenger door pretty hard, and
the repairs had not been properly rustproofed. Since I was most inter-
ested in watertightness rather than looks, here's what I did.
Since if you stuck a trouble-lite under the car you got a planetarium
effect showing on the headliner, I used the tar-paper like sound deadening
material under the seats as a pattern to cut 1/4" plywood floor stiffeners
wich I glued down with old bondo. I removed what was left of the heater
duct that ran under the door sills with a metal blade in a sabre saw. I
used a chainsaw to sculpt a 2x4 to fit there, and ran wood screws down
thru the door treshold and lag bolts up thru the floor pan into it.
I removed the right front fender and poured thin concrete between the inner
and outer fender liners (after patching the biggest leaks with roofing
flash and a pop riviter). I then disguised the 2x4 with roofing flash pop-
rivited in place. The car stiffened up a lot, and my passenger (and more
importantly, the voltage regulator) no longer got wet constantly). That
poor old VW made it to 250,000 +, before the engine gave up completely,
due to improper storage. (It was stored nose up, and most of the gas
drained into the crankcase. My father checked only that the dipstick
showed fluid, and did'nt notice that it was VERY THIN before he started
it. Bearings don't like running in gasoline very long)
John F. Kolb (aka) | Spelling checker by LUCAS.
kolbj@ymv5.ymp.gov | If Lucas built weapons, wars wouldn't start either.
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