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The pan on my 68 squareback is in trouble. The right side seems fine, including the battery area. But I now have daylight on the left-front where my feet go. Since the 68 is my daily driver, I took some temporary measures but I would like to repair the left pan before the summer is over.

I do have the remains of a title-less 69 (automatic) pan that has a good section I can use. I have a place to work and cutting and welding tools. I also have a car to drive while the squareback is out of service.

Can someone point me to some process help? As can be seen, the donor pan is toast on the right side.







Max

If you're after restoration quality, the repair section should not be overlapped since that inevitably allows moisture to get in and rust to start again.
If you aren't concerned about concours d'elegance points, a lap joint made with panel-bonding adhesive (rather than welding) should suffice.
http://weldingweb.com/showthread.php?44 ... r-Lap-Weld

I would pull the body off and do a full pan replacement. Half replacements are always cobbled together. Full replacements are sooooo much easier to do and do right.

If all you have is pin holes (or holes up to a quarter in size) and thin areas, you can get really good results by using POR-15 and layering in 2 layers of fiberglass mat soaked in the POR-15. This method completely seals the floors and renews the strength in an afternoon. Then you can buy time to acquire a full floor and pull the body off.

Just another method you may not have thought of. . .

Marc wrote:If you're after restoration quality, the repair section should not be overlapped since that inevitably allows moisture to get in and rust to start again.
If you aren't concerned about concours d'elegance points, a lap joint made with panel-bonding adhesive (rather than welding) should suffice.
http://weldingweb.com/showthread.php?44 ... r-Lap-Weld

Very interesting. Thanks!

Max

aircooledtechguy wrote:Just another method you may not have thought of. . .

I had not thought of that. Good stuff.

Max

Excellent quality T3/Ghia pan halves are at least are available, if a bit painfully priced.
If she's a keeper, it should be strongly considered, body off it's a bit of work but very doable.

I beat a T1 repair section into T3 shape when I replaced my battery area.: The front part doesn't match up nearly as well, you would have to add metal.

Check very carefully the surrounding areas to the pan. When I did full floor replacement, turned out both the firewall and the heater channels were very bad. I ended up doing everything, since the body was already off.

Above you see several viable methods for either short or long term results. If you find rust in the surrounding parts, you'll have to take the body off (not that tough) which commits you to a pretty major piece of work. The heater channels and firewall are much tougher than the floor because they have to be positioned precisely. If you take the heater channels out, you will have to weld in cross bracing to hold the body in exact position. Hope all this stuff is not your problem. I bought full floor pans from Wolfsburg West (excellent, but pricey), heater channels by Dansk? (the common ones for sale) and I think the firewall came from CIP1 (less cool, but cheap)

Cutting out a floor pan half, cleaning everything up, fitting, welding, seam sealing and paint topcoat is a weekend job.

doc

Max, if you are going to do a whole pan half(s) replacement in my opinion, I would make a steel pattern for it; I didn't and what a mess. Some of the pan halves need to be trimmed but just how much... that is what the pattern is for. The (type I) Wolfsburg pan halves I got came in three parts, the pan, the rear cross piece was separate as was the jacking point; for what it is worth, they are thick and very nicely done. I was able to get my set of halves w/o the seat mounts, heaters, etc., the only thing installed by them was the battery mount and stud.

In one of the Hot VW magazines editions (several years ago) that showed this; they took some flat strap and formed (key word here as the Napoleon's hat and rear formed area was included in the pattern) it around the whole perimeter of the pan included in the body mount and put in the body mount holes and other holes around the perimeter. I didn't and mine I think is off a bit but since I am working on a glass buggy it is less of a problem. Some people may not need to do this but as a comment from me, I would at least look at doing it. It is going to be cheaper than replacing a pan half if it isn't located correct.

Lee

AFAIK the t3 pan halves are only available from one source, but are ~factory quality.
http://klassicfab.com/klassicfab/index. ... &id_lang=3
They have east and west coast US distributors.
http://www.klassicfab.com/klassicfab/distributors/

Note: May want to use Google Chrome browser, website uses scroll-over popups that seem to freeze up the v24 ESR FF I'm using.

Awesome guys! Nice to know type-3 pans are still available and are of good quality.

Max

Have you fix your pan yet ?
Also Gerson parts are top notch !

Jim

No I have not fixed it yet. It is at least in the barn out of the weather.

I need to diagnose a #3 problem with the Megasquirt type-3 (mule) engine. These heads have a ton of time on them and #3 leakdown has reached 50% (the other three are still under 10%). So it's out of service so I don't suck a valve.

But I've been slammed with paying work lately. Plus a 97 Subaru became available for daily transport and took the pressure off the type-3. I just knew that would happen if a modern car joined the stable.

Max