Beetle 1303, front wheelhousing/strutmount rust, advice needed

[Patrick_S]

(Edit: now I know the support thingy is called a strut mount )
Hello people. A month ago I got myself my first Beetle, also being my first car, and being the first car I have ever worked on I have learned alot and still enjoying it. But I'm really stuck right now. It's the following. The front right wheelcase has quite a bit of rust. A lot of patching has been done by previous owners. But in short. I have done a lot of sanding with power tools, remove alot of fillers and other stuff, and right now I am left with holes everywhere, and most importantly in some very hard to reach spots. So I have lots of thoughts right now, and I really hope someone can put me on the right track.

I hope these pictures are clear and people reading this can understand them.
These pictures are an overview of the state of the wheel case with that suspension support thingy(I don't know how you call it ). There is alot of rust and holes around this support thingy.

And not to forget. I have a contact that is willing to help me get things patched up with welding and such. He just isn't familiar at all with VW Beetles.

So here on the top of this support thingy, holes that were filled with some kind of hard putty. And the second photo shows the behind of this support

And here the front side of the support thingy, more rust and holes. And the second picture is the front side looked at from the front of the car.

And the topside inside the trunk.

I really don't know what to ask now. One of the thoughts I had was to completely replace the wheelcase, here: https://www.paruzzi.com/nl/kever/carrosserie-interieur-bumpers/reparatiedelen-zijkant/3880/
But my contact told me it would be a LOT of work getting that properly welded in.
My other thought/question is, is this repairable/patchable? And one other thought I was pondering, is this repair best done body off? Because it are such hard to reach places, and the behind is completely unaccesible right now.

I hope my text is abit clear, I could really use some advice from Beetle experts. thanks..

[Dodgy]

Having just done loads of welding around the front of a Super that isn't as rusty as yours, I have to warn you that if your strut towers are that bad, you'd better brace yourself for more adventures when you go exploring elsewhere around the front end structure.

I'd expect you to find further rust at the front bulkhead, and lower longitudinal sections coming forward from the bulkhead, where there are big heavy brackets at each corner by the bulkhead. Let alond the normal Beetle rust spots in heater channels etc.

I think the area shown is beyond further patching. Your best bet would be to get hold of a complete front quarter and replace wholesale.

Your only other option would be to (1) remove previous patches and drill out all the spot welds holding the strut tower to the inner wing to remove it as cleanly as possible, (2) patch the holes in the inner wing, (3) get a replacement front quarter or front quarter section including the strut tower, (4) drill out the spot welds on the replacement panel strut tower so you can (5) fit this new strut tower to your inner wing.

You'll find loads of threads here where people have repaired these photos before, and photos to show you how to tackle them (or not). My 1303 rebuild thread shows the front bulkhead repair. Luckily for me, my strut towers were solid apart from one patch at the lower edge and rust on the inner wing where the tower attached.

This thread has some great photos of what is involved, I take my hat off to this guy! This car is accident damaged so has some extra challenges that hopefully you won't have to deal with.

Obviously, measuring everything carefully to make sure it all goes back square is critical for these components, as a misaligned strut will affect front end suspension / steering geometry.

I'm not saying the car is scrap, but you have some work ahead of you! Good luck!
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[Patrick_S]

I really appreciate your extensive reply
I think I'm going to start with removing all the old patches, see what hidden horrors might be there. Hopefully I will also get better acces to the behind of the wheelhousing this way. And a lot of rust work has been done by the previous owner, overall the Beetle is in pretty good shape. At first glance there only seems to be alot of surface rust in other places at the front. Its only this right wheel housing that is really bad. Oh well. At least I have a place to start right now, removing all the old dodgy looking patches. Seems like my new mig welder won't be seeing any action any time soon

[Patrick_S]

I am considering replacing the entire front quarter. Could anyone tell me whether this needs to be done body off? Or would it be possible only removing the entire right wheel assembly, take off the brake lines, and then start drilling out spot welds?? The thing is, I don't have huge amounts of space. It is possible to do a body off repair, but is it needed??

And also. I am looking at the pictures of the replacement panel. And can someone tell me if I'm right or wrong on this?? I see there are only three bolts that have to be screwed in. And aside from these three bolts, it's spot welds all around the behind, bottom and front of the quarter panel??? And one other thing, spot welds you do with a special spot welder, right?? Plug welds would be the solution if you are using a mig welder?

[beetlenut]

IMO, if you can get up under the front of the car well enough to get to all the inner panels, you should be able do it with body on. Would of course be better with body off, and you'll probably have to remove most of the steering components to get to the areas to be welded. Those three bolts go all the way through and attach the Pitman arm on that side. It looks like you'll have to unfold the seam on the "A" pillar to detach/attach the rear part of that piece, and drill out a bunch of inner spot welds, and drill out the spot welds that attach that piece to the front apron.

They make a spot weld drill, but I found that with spot welds that small, half the time I ended up using a regular drill bit and a putty knife with hammer to detach the top sheet from the body metal under it. Since the old part doesn't matter, as long as you separate it from the rest of the car without damaging the body metal underneath, you'll be good to weld the new part on.

With a MIG, you'll want to drill holes in the new panel where you want to attach it, and start your weld in the middle of that hole, on the metal below, and let the puddle flow out to the new panel metal on top. There's some pics in my gallery of some of those areas up front so you can see what you're in for.

Looks like a big job, just take your time and take lots of measurements.

Good luck...
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[Patrick_S]

About taking measurements. I am very new to this "hobby" of maintaining/repairing/restoring my old Beetle. So I don't really understand what must be measured. Should I take spots on the rusted front quarter and measure distances and the locations of specific points(like screw holes) to parts on the body of the Beetle that won't get replaced?? Is it because I always have to make sure that things like screw holes line up properly when placing in the new part before welding??

[beetlenut]

[vwinnovator]

I've got a donor car avail. if your looking for original metal to work with.

shipping would be a lot though....

[Patrick_S]

[beetlenut]

I may be wrong because I have not had to open that seam, but I'm pretty sure there are no spot welds on it, based on what others have had to say when working on that area.
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[Patrick_S]

I am running into a problem. I am at the point where I am preparing everything to finally install the new front quarter. But I have one very big concern about the paint on the new panel. I am supposed to plug weld the panel, but what about the paint behind it? Won't the paint just bubble away from all the heat applied to those plug weld lines? Is there a special paint, or solution to this? So the paint will survive the plug welding in the inaccessible places?

I am especially worried about the plug weld line that goes across the front towards the front apron. I can't really acces the behind of this after the panel has been welded on, so any damage the paint will get from the heat I will have a very hard time fixing.

And what about painting in general? Should I prepare the behind of the panel with some sand paper, keeping the original grey paint, and apply some extra proper coats of paint before welding in the panel?

[Mike Fisher]

The best chassis coatings seem to be www.masterseriesct.com silver & black. Paint everything under there for future rust protection.
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[beetlenut]

Well they make weldable primers http://www.eastwood.com/ew-self-etching-weld-thru-primer-16-oz-aero.html , but the biggest concern is to seal those finished areas from the environment with seam sealers then top coats.
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[Patrick_S]

hmmmmm okay. What a difficult and time consuming thing this all is when you have to learn everything starting from scratch.
First this. This grey paint the new panel has, is this maybe an epoxy primer?? Is this paint a good surface for applying a chassis coating?

But one thing is really bugging at the moment. I want to prepare the car and the new panel, but I have no idea what will happen to the paint on the new panel with the heat from welding. How far will the heat spread where it will damage the paint? One idea I have is to sand away the original paint on the lines where you will put plug welds, and spraypaint on this weld thru primer. But will the paint around the weld thru primer stay nice and intact? And one other thing that comes with this same question is, can I prepare the behind of the new panel with chassis coating and still have a proper coating after filling the plug welds??

How did you do this?? I see some people that have installed this same front quarter panel, with the original grey paint still on. But do you repaint around those plug welds? I just have no idea what to expect, and since the body is still on the chassis it is difficult, not impossible, but difficult to reach the behind of the new panel after welding.

Seam sealers won't be an issue though, I did not think about those open seams until you just brought it up though , only shows how inexperienced I am in all this.

[beetlenut]

Honestly, you just have to do the best job you can with what you have. It's still going to last another 30 years with even a decent job of it. The only real areas you have to get down to bare steel is the bottom metal area that will receive the plug weld, and the top panel area with the hole.
What ever paint burns away, well it burns away and you have to prep and paint it. It will ultimately depend on how much heat you put into the metal while welding. Eastwood also makes an internal frame coating product http://www.eastwood.com/internal-frame-coating-w-spray-nozzle-qt.html that can get into hard to reach areas on your chassis. It comes with a 24"-long tube with conical nozzle that reaches in to spray coating in a radial pattern for complete coverage. I know I'm starting to sound like an Eastwood commercial, but I've used their products and they work well. So the welding is just the first part of the repair, then you have to be concerned with sealing the metal up from oxygen and moisture. You can probably paint over the Gray coating if you scuff up the surface good.
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[Patrick_S]

Many thanks for the help so far, it's really helpful getting me forward in this partly "restoration"
But I have one concern at the moment. So far I had great difficulty trying to get the sidepanel fitted properly, one side always sticks out too much, making it so that the panel doesn't sit flush with the body at all, but still working on it and have some more ideas to try out.

But the things I should get right is the panel sitting flush, bumper being level, hood gap being right, and the fenders sitting level with each other. But I'm concerned that in the end the strut support hole will not line up just as the original did. So the McPherson struts will be in a slightly different position than before. If this is so, can this misalignment be fixed by realigning the front wheels?? Or would it be a more serious issue that the left and right strut mounts are not in 100% the same place?