T25 Campervan - Weldathon

The underside.

VW T3/T25's can hide some dangerous rot. The rear suspension consists of 2 big swing arms and coil springs. The swing arms rot from the Inside out where they bolt to the van. In turn the van rots out inside the inner sill where the brackets that hold the rear swing arms on are. This often results in these vans getting scrapped when this is found at the MOT station as it's an awkward and expensive repair, or it doesn't get found and fails on the road with similar results.

From the outside, my van looked really good in this area. However...




The same both sides. And the wheel arch panel. And the panels behind. The swing arms were also paper thin at the point it attaches to the van and non existent under the spring pad. They're £300 each just for them. There was also rot inside the engine bay and to the rear of the floor inside...
But I was far to far into this by this point to give up
So a large pile of scrap was formed















It was at this point I decided everything needed to come off, completely strip it all out and bare metal the underside and the outside. Then I would have a decent idea of what was what

Similar metalwork required to the rear of the wheel arch




In addition to the rust there were holes cut into the panels that served as the vent for the gas bottle. They needed repairs inside and out












Now that access for these repairs was no longer needed the new panels could go on. The rear arch panel is quite complicated. It welds to the panels above and behind as well as the inner quarter panel work and floor. You can buy cheap panels that just tack over the top of the old stuff which is what was there before. On both sides it had cheap repair panels tacked over the top of the original arches. I bought the full panels for the arches and the lower panel behind but got good quality repair panels for the panel in front of the arch. These needed slight alterations.

Bits and bobs.

At this point most of the major welding was done. Left to do were some repairs to the left rear window frame, load bay floor and near the handbrake in the walkway between the seats



























This marks the point at which all the welding to the body was complete

during welding I'd put some warp into the rear quarter panels as can be seen with it in epoxy. I had actually done some hot shrinking to it before epoxy to stop it oil barreling but this had left some ripples that due to the structure behind I couldn't really get out.

With everything being coated in epoxy I now had time to dress out as much of it as I could before applying a skim of filler. Then sanding 99% of it off.
And then applying a skim of filler. Then sanding 99% of it off.
And then applying a skim of filler. Then sanding 99% of it off.
And then applying a skim of filler. Then sanding 99% of it off.

Etc
Etc
Etc














It was at this point I, while trial fitting the front cab doors I realised my driver's door gaps couldn't be rectified because my door was bent.
The cab door hinges can be moved up, down, in and out. They can be shimmed forward but not back. I needed to go back and up.

After looking more carefully I noticed cracks around some of the spot welds near the hinges on the door. And then I realised I'd welded the front drivers arch in to fit this door.
This was a problem. Eventually I found a pair of good, rust free doors. These lined up perfectly with the door aperture but left a slightly larger than perfect gap between door and wheel arch.

Eventually I decided to add a skim of filler to the wheel arch and a skim of filler to the bottom of the door and move on with life. It wasn't worth at this point cutting out the wheel arch panel and welding in a new one for a couple of mm.

This door problem dragged on for months while I sourced the new doors and decided what to do.




In the meantime I had bought new trailing arms, 40mm lowering springs and dampers, exhaust, heat exchanger manifolds. None of the paint was up to scratch on these items despite being new, well apart from the springs and dampers. And besides,the suspension arms on these are supposed to be grey so me being me I tracked down the colour code, and painted the new trailing arms. I also put some vht paint on the manifolds




















As an aside, this is the epoxy I've been using throughout this. It's expensive but it's good stuff

Filler work and high build.








Filler work done, high build on and flatted back to 400 grit. Time for paint

L20B Leuchtorange for the body
L9D Pastellweiss for the roof
Both 2k direct gloss.

Roof first




Then interior











Then exterior











And de-masked




The engine bay was done around this time as well but I have no pictures

The next things to be painted were the sliding door track covers and engine lid






The engine lid has insulation inside which was hanging out and looking scruffy. So I bought a fire blanket off of eBay and used it to cover the old insulation. 



I'm tempted to a fire suppression tube to this as well as pictured here on a bay window bus.


The idea is that if your engine catches fire, the tube bursts and releases fire suppressant over the engine. Link below.

www.ebay.co.uk/itm/275554158213?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=DDRns-FdTSK&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=pN_piYBBRRG&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

Fitted for now



Side windows fitted next. I applied tiny film to the glass for extra privacy in the rear of the van and to keep things cooler back there.

Cheers buddy. It can be very disruptive to a hobby like this but it is an interesting job

Wheels next. 2 new tyres came with the van and the spare was good enough to stay as a spare. I have a manual tyre machine so removed all the tyres and bought 2 new ones to make a set of 5 useable ones.
Then all 5 wheels went through the sand blaster, epoxy primed, sanded and then received a coat of VW chromefabre-met basecoat and 2k clear