Body pan gasket. Silicone instead of stock?

[heliarc]

I have yet to get the pan gasket on my beetle. I suppose it should have been the first thing I did when I set the body back on it, but hindsight and all...Anyhow I was thinking that instead of working that gasket into place and hoping all the holes line up, why not back all the bolts out about half an inch, raise the body just a hair, and pump in a bunch of silicone from a caulking gun? Any thoughts? A few tubes of RTV isn't going to kill me as long as it's going to work and be a much faster and easier process.

[Ol'fogasaurus]

Remember, there is going to be some movement in there as the pan and the body are bolted together not welded plus some of the holes are slotted. Act accordingly.

Lee

[SCOTTRODS]

I'd recommend something better than Silly cone.... try some Butyl rubber or a Urethane caulking..... I have a Favorite... This stuff. It comes in white and black....

http://www.ellsworth.com/bostik-fast-se ... nAoddxYAPw

[heliarc]

I'd recommend something better than Silly cone.... try some Butyl rubber or a Urethane caulking..... I have a Favorite... This stuff. It comes in white and black....

http://www.ellsworth.com/bostik-fast-se ... nAoddxYAPw

Looks good. I think I'm going to give this a try. Have you actually done it this way, or this is your favorite stuff for other applications? I'm also wondering if I should give it time enough to sort of half way set up, then drop the body down, let it set fully, then tighten the bolts. That way the body doesn't just smush the sealant right out from between it and it has some cushion.

Thanks for the replies.

[crazy tarzan]

Won't putting a sealant (even semi-flexible) make it a major PITA to take apart in the future?

Most silicone etc grabs and holds really well, much, much more than a squishable but non adhesive seal.

[mac2881994]

Won't putting a sealant (even semi-flexible) make it a major PITA to take apart in the future?

Yes it does. When I pulled the body off of my pan the PO had put aprox. three tubes of white silicone in the back pass side and it held enough that the cherry picker picked up the entire car with no pan bolts in.

[SCOTTRODS]

Done some sealing with it, on MANY things, including cars. Assembled a few things using it as well. When this stuff is cured.... you will HAVE to separate the parts mechanically. It won't let go. It's VERY water tight as well. Used it on Waste tanks for carpet cleaning machines (Big truck mounted ones)..... Yes. It will make it very difficult to take apart. Do you plan on doing so later? use silicone.

[heliarc]

Of course if all goes well, this shell will be on this chassis for the rest of my life. The main goal of this project was to take a complete basket case and make a solid driver out of it, nothing more, nothing less. Once it's complete there will be no further modifications to it that require the body to come back off. But you never know. Something could happen that requires it. I've had great luck adapting a putty knife to a reciprocating saw to remove stubborn floor tiling so if I had to I could get it apart.

The fact that it's very water tight is appealing to me. I wouldn't have to worry about water getting in between the pan and the heater channels. I'll use any left overs for seam sealer. Thanks all very much for the replies. My mind is set now, I'm going to do this.

[heliarc]

First of all, sorry for digging up such an old post. Since the time I was going to do this and now it seems that everything possible has been springing up. When it rains, it pours I guess. Anyhow I've got some free time now. I'm already going to change the windshield and I surely wouldn't glue that in, though I have on other cars that weren't going much further but had to last for a little while longer and needed a windshield just to get one more sticker. So, yes if all goes to plan this shell won't ever be coming off. But how often does everything go to plan? I have a nice set of hole punches and I've since changed my feelings about doing this properly. If anything happens, and it probably will, I'd have one hell of a time removing that body or even pulling it loose from the pan for any type of repair. I'll do the right thing and install a proper gasket. Already ordered from Airhead parts.

[Ol'fogasaurus]

On the body gasket seal, I used a leather punch (not leather neck punch as he would punch back), you know the plier's type with a wheel that contains several different hole sizes. On the rubber seal I tied it in place (tied it is a liberal use of the word as I think I used masking tape) and at each hole I cut an undersized hole, this allows the gasket to fit tight against the bolt giving additional sealing.

Lee

[Marc]

Of course if all goes well, this shell will be on this chassis for the rest of my life. The main goal of this project was to take a complete basket case and make a solid driver out of it, nothing more, nothing less. Once it's complete there will be no further modifications to it that require the body to come back off. But you never know. Something could happen that requires it. I've had great luck adapting a putty knife to a reciprocating saw to remove stubborn floor tiling so if I had to I could get it apart.
The fact that it's very water tight is appealing to me. I wouldn't have to worry about water getting in between the pan and the heater channels. I'll use any left overs for seam sealer. Thanks all very much for the replies. My mind is set now, I'm going to do this.

A pragmatic answer. Personally, if it's not a concours-quality restoration project I'd have no qualms about using sealant/caulking along with the OEM seal versus hassling with a new (probably Brazilian, i.e. not particularly well-fitting) seal. Besides, I hate dealing with those little hardened nails - I've never managed to install a new seal without at least one blood-blister on a fingertip. Hell, silicon bathtub caulk should do the job for many years, and you even get a choice of color
Caulking/RTV ONLY with no old seal at all? Never tried it, but if the pan-to-body bolts are short-shanked and won't run out of threads before they pull up, why the hell not? Back in my circletrack-racing days, we ALWAYS omitted the seal to save a pound or so and stiffen up the body/pan junction. Practically as good as welding them together while still allowing for easy replacement if it ever became necessary (of course we weren't concerned with watertightness). SCOTTRODS' urethane sealer would certainly hold things together until the steel rusted away (even if the bolts fell out), I've used stuff like that to glue entire aluminum mail-truck bodies together - it's tenacious.

[heliarc]

Ok, I changed my mind again. The seal was a good price and I gave it some thought and decided it wouldn't be all that hard to get the regular gasket in place even with the body on, but loose and jacked up about an inch. Really, it only took me just over an hour, it went pretty easily, and I don't have a bunch of schmutz dripping all over the place. I think the sealer would have cost more than the gasket anyhow.

I forget if I posted this on my build thread but here's a video of what I did. It doesn't show a lot but you ought to get the idea.

[Ol'fogasaurus]

I'm into mu glass buggy roughly about 20 years now and the body has been off twice. It may come off again for some work next year as I want to fix some mistakes and close up a lot of holes that don't need to be there anymore. I run a stock body seal between the pan and the lift and one between the lift and the body. The sealant does sound tempting but... I don't know; too many reasons to lift the body off again even after the next body removal for me to change to the permanent bonding to chance it. For a Baja, that may be a different story I would think. After all these years the double bulb seal design that VW came up with so long ago still holds up well.